Shostack + Friends Blog Archive

 

Replacing Flickr?

So Flickr has launched a new redesign, and it’s crowded, jumbled and slow. Now on Flickr with its overlays, its fade-ins and loads, it’s unmoving side and top bars, Flickr’s design takes center stage, elbowing aside the photos that I’m there to see. So I’m looking for a new community site where the photo I […]

 

Weekend Photography

An amazing shot by Philipp Schmidli of a cyclist in front of the moon. PetaPixel explains the work involved in getting that shot in “Silhouettes in a Giant Moonrise, Captured Using a 1200mm Lens.” (Thanks to Bob Blakely). Also in the realm of impressive tool use is this: Orangutan from Borneo photographed using a spear […]

 

Bleg: Canon & Apple RAW processing

I’m having a camera issue that’s become more and more noticeable with recent software changes. The raw previews coming out of the camera appear substantially more exposed than when Aperture is finished processing them. The difference is hard to measure (there’s no easy undo for raw processing), but appears to be about a full stop […]

 

Fascinating Storyline around Instagram & Facebook

First, congratulations to the folks at Instagram, who built something that was so valuable to Facebook and managed to get a great exit. Me, I suspect that Facebook did it so they can gradually sepia-tone all your photos, but that’s not important right now. I was struck by the nature of this article by the […]

 

Cool Optics Flash Applets

Photographers should check out Flash applets on some technical aspects of photography at Stanford. The apps help you understand things like “Variables that Affect Exposure” (the aperture/time/ISO tradeoffs) as well as how lenses work, create depth of field, or how a telephoto lens bends the light. Very cool.

 

Kind of Copyrighted

This Week in Law is a fascinating podcast on technology law issues, although I’m way behind on listening. Recently, I was listening to Episode #124, and they had a discussion of Kind of Bloop, “An 8-Bit Tribute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.” There was a lawsuit against artist Andy Baio, which he discusses in […]

 

CIA Reveals Identity of Bin Laden Hunter

In the Atlantic Wire, Uri Friedman writes “Did the CIA Do Enough to Protect Bin Laden’s Hunter?” The angle Friedman chose quickly turns to outrage that John Young of Cryptome, paying close attention, was able to figure out from public statements made by the CIA, what the fellow looks like. After you’re done being outraged, […]

 

Tap Tap Snarky

From the app store: I hope this doesn’t cause Apple to ban snarky update messages.

 

Map of Where Tourists Take Pictures

Eric Fischer is doing work on comparing locals and tourists and where they photograph based on big Flickr data. It’s fascinating to try to identify cities from the thumbnails in his “Locals and Tourists” set. (I admit, I got very few right, either from “one at a time” or by looking for cities I know.) […]

 

I'd like some of that advertising action

Several weeks back, I was listening to the Technometria podcast on “Personal Data Ecosystems,” and they talked a lot about putting the consumer in the center of various markets. I wrote this post then, and held off posting it in light of the tragic events in Japan. One element of this is the “VRM” or […]

 

So cute!

There’s just something about skinny girls in pouffy skirts…and stormtrooper helmets. More at http://redandjonny.tumblr.com/

 

Facebook and "your" photos

Facebook Changes Photo Memories to No Longer Show Your Ex-Boyfriends or Ex-Girlfriends: In response to numerous complaints, Facebook has changed its Photo Memories sidebar module to no longer display friends who a user was formally listed as in a relationship with. [Sic] But it’s not just about selective remembering because “Your Memories Will Be Rewritten.” […]

 

Saturn's Moon Enceladus

NASA claims that: At least four distinct plumes of water ice spew out from the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus in this dramatically illuminated image. Light reflected off Saturn is illuminating the surface of the moon while the sun, almost directly behind Enceladus, is backlighting the plumes. See Bursting at the Seams to […]

 
 

The Presentation of Self and Everyday Photographs

With the kind help of our awesome readership, Amazon and Glazer’s, I’ve acquired a camera, some books, a tripod, a prime 50mm, a flash diffuser, a polarizing filter, a graduated neutral filter, and some other random photography toys tools. You might question this, but I can quit anytime. Really! I even offered to loan my […]

 

Secret Photo Apps for the iPhone

If you try searching the App store for photo apps, you find all sorts of things to make your photos sepia. Or blurry. Or to draw on them. Which is great, but if you want apps to help you take photographs, they’re sorta hard to find. So here are some links: First up, a reference […]

 

Camera thanks!

An enourmous thank you to everyone who offered advice on what camera to get. I ended up with a Canon Rebel after heading to a local camera store and having a chance to play with the stabilization features. It may end up on ebay, but I’m confident I’ll get high quality pictures. If they’re great, […]

 

Camera advice bleg

I’m thinking about maybe getting a new camera. Before I say anything else let me say that I understand that sensor size and lens rule all else, and that size does matter, except when it’s megapixel count, which is a glamour for the foolish. That said, I’m off to South Africa in a few weeks, […]

 

Canon Says Over 50% of Cameras Repaired in First Three Years

In the Times Online article, “Digital DNA could finger Harry Potter leaker,” we learn that the person who leaked photos of the last Harry Potter novel has yielded up the serial number of their camera, which was in the metadata of the pictures they took. From this, we lean that it was a Canon, likely […]