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The Olympus - Sony deal signed last year included a provision for Olympus to supply nebulous lens parts to Sony. The question is raised as to the extent of this arrangement. Will this be behind the scenes parts and designs or will we see fully designed and produced Olympus lenses on Sony cameras? And will they be Olympus-branded or Sony-branded? Will it be fixed lens cameras? NEX? Alpha SLR lenses? A combination? All of the above? Will we even know it happened?
A few weeks ago Olympus announced that it was exiting the entry-level P&S camera business. Would that tie in? For example, Olympus would make entry-level P&S lenses for Sony? But would that be profitable? Only time will tell...
As of a 1:38pm ET recheck, this has sold out... For future stock updates, check the Stock Status mini site...
The limited availability premium game is on for the Fuji X100S. There are currently two of them available by 17th Street Photo at Amazon for $1500 instead of its starting price of $1300.
And now a mini-rant: if the camera manufacturers are effectively restricting how low a retailer can sell a camera, it is only fair to the CONSUMER to restrict retailers on how HIGH they can sell a camera. We either have a free market for ALL or we don't. If the manufacturers want to be protectionists, they should be protectionists on both ends of the spectrum. Rant ends :)
A good old fashioned Western duel at dpeview, the Canon G15 is going head to head with the Nikon Coolpix P7700 at dpreview in a 20-page report. The review was just posted but discussion is building up in the dpreview comments. Both cameras use 1/1.x" sensors. This is a two-birds-with-one-stone type of a report, it serves as both reviews for each camera and as a comparison.
A winner is picked and medals are awarded. We won't leak the light here, but if you are running out of battery or time, you can jump to the conclusions before jumping to conclusions.
Adobe is stock piling talents and ideas for its Creative Cloud. They have now purchased, with perhaps the main purpose of acqui-hire creative consultancy firm Ideacodes. The two co-founders of the company are now creative directors of Adobe's Creative Cloud. Details at Tech Crunch and Techmeme.
Leica published a new teaser for their June 11 announcement, the new teaser "cracks the box" open, revealing that the mystery camera will come with a lens as seen at the L-Camera Forum blog. One of the L-Camera Forum members did some investigative analysis on the picture, ruling out some of the options, while not ruling out what a new internet leakage suggests, the Leica M Mystery Mini is an APS-C camera with a 28-70mm f3.5-6.4 fixed lens! Discussion in the L-Camera Mega Thread and Leica Place and dpreview Leica forum.
Keep in mind, while the teaser is official from Leica, the leakage is not official. Not official does not mean not true, but it also does not mean not false.
Those business gurus must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Olympus is not the only one finding itself in their "Doom and Gloom" reports. New research by Jeffries suggests that Sony, "In our view, it needs to exit most electronics markets.”. Sony may be a symbolic brand in the world of consumer electronics, but they are losing money on consumer electronics according to a featured report at The New York Times. (via dpreview News forum).
Granted, all these bankers and investment analysts are the ones who almost destroyed the world economy, so how much weight does one give their opinions? On the other hand, they are pretty good at financial disasters, so perhaps they are better suited at recognizing them in others ;-)
24/7 Wall Street is a financial market analysis firm and one of their data-mining data-driven outputs is a list of brands/companies that will disappear. Their top ten of companies that will disappear at/by 2014 is out and it includes Olympus at #6. At least Olympus is in "good company", also included is Volvo, WBNA, Mitsubishi, Nook, JC Penney etc. You can read their report and reasoning at Yahoo Finance.
Granted this is only a prediction based on financial analysis, so don't panic!
3D in movies and consumer electronics media consumption was not greeted as a liberator, but 3D in DIY and hack projects is slowly but steadily building geek-momentum. With more early adopters having access to 3D printers, crafty geeks are coming up with more exciting ways to take advantage of them.
Amanda Ghassaei published a crafty DIY hack at Instructables. You take your existing 2D pictures, run them through the free software (GNU license), then run them through your 3D printer, and you have your 2D pictures printed in 3D. Not the type of 3D that you need dizzying glasses to look at. But 3D as in the 2D picture is given a "thickness" dimension. For example, a hill would be higher in the print than a meadow. This may sound like a Herculean task, but as Amanda points out, the code does a pretty good job at this.
Here is a picture taken by Amanda of one of her prints on the 3D printer:
If you know anyone with a 3D printer or with access to a 3D printer, it may be a good time to buy them breakfast + lunch + dinner + dessert!
Instructables Pro members can download the instructions as single PDF files. Pro account prices are fairly reasonable, $2 per month, or $4 per quarter, or $40 for 2-years.
Samsung is planning a big product announcement event on June 20 in 2013 in London as you can see at CNet. Not a coincidence, it is one week after Apple's WWDC (World Wide Developer's Conference). It will include products in their Galaxy and Ativ (Windows) product lines. Their previously announced first two Android superzooms carry the Galaxy name. Samsung's interchangeable lens cameras have a hard time "breaking out" despite the success of Samsung in other consumer electronics segments. So if they are indeed planning to introduce Android-powered interchangeable lens cameras, under the Galaxy banner, this would be a great high profile event to do so.
Please note, the announcement event is a fact. As to whether or if they will announce Galaxy Android interchangeable lens cameras, that part is speculation and conjecture and such.
This Memorial Day promotion expired... For the latest specials available today, check the Camera Deals blog with the easy to remember url noisydeals.com... Expired items after the jump...
This limited time promotion expired, but these are recurring specials, so there are good chances they will return at some point in the future... Expired special after the jump for the deal historians...
During yesterday's epic catch-up-a-thon that produced a new jam-packed Opinion Soup, we also caught up with the latest completed reviews. I lost count on how many were posted since the previous update, but you can find them all waiting for you at the Camera Reviews stream and the Lens Reviews stream.
Another week is in the books, and another edition of the Opinion Soup is here! And it is a jam-packed edition, this was a very busy week... You can find the previous 70 editions and the future editions (if reading this in the future) at the Opinion Soup archives... Note: the Flickr upgrade kerfuffle will be covered separately next week...
Like the Opinion Soup round-ups? Want them to continue? It takes a lot of time to prepare them and they actually hurt the blog because every time Google sees a new episode with a hundred links, it barfs at this blog. If you would like to see more, you can help fund them by making some of your purchases through our affiliate links at Amazon.com and Adorama and B&H Photo and more at the NoisyMall.
Professional Photographer Existential Issues
+ death of the professional photographer at Visual Science Lab
+ thoughts on amateur and professional photography at PetaPixel
+ what's the line between amateur and professional at Imaging Resource
+ 13 traits that make a photographer professional at Peta Pixel
+ do you have enough gear to be a professional? at F/Stoppers
Gear
+ ten cameras that defined an era (pre-WWII) at Quesabesde (computer translated)
+ the future is mirrorless and optical viewfinders will go away at Visual Science Lab
+ on their camera gear reviewing process at F/Stoppers
+ will custom firmware void your warranty? at DIY Photography
+ why gear lust and pixel-peeping are good for you at Peta Pixel
+ white balance lens caps make no sense at Photocritic (via DIYP)
+ radio vs infrared flash trigger video at SLR Lounge
+ when film goes bad at Ming Thein
+ more like play, less like work at Visual Science Lab
+ if you could design your ultimate camera what would it look like? at Visual Science Lab
DIY and Re-enactments
+ guerrilla lighting techniques for location photography at Pop Photo
+ experiment with subtractive lighting at Pop Photo
+ on assignment: (picture of a human with a) back to the wall at Strobist
+ zero setup one-shot photographing wedding cakes at Peta Pixel
+ how I photographed my own proposal at Petapixel and F/Stoppers
+ two strobe food tutorial at F/Stoppers (don't eat the strobes!)
+ DIY wedding photo ideas for tech savvy couples at Pop Photo
+ shoe photo shoot at Photigy
+ how to get a black background everywhere via DIY Photography
+ why I started creating my own locations at DIY Photography
Tips, Tutorials, Learnings
+ things to consider when shooting street photography at Robin Wong Photography
+ 10 lessons about street photography at Erick Kim Photography
+ making people look like individuals in portraits at DiY Photography
+ 4 lessons I learned from the Magnum workshop at Erick Kim Photography
+ shooting HDR composite imagery with people at Tyson Robichaud
+ seven tips for photographing strangers at ThePhoblographer
+ posing tips at Peta Pixel and SLR Lounge
+ how to package your wedding photos at SLR Lounge
+ light painting in product photography at Photigy
+ star trail tutorial video via SLR Lounge
+ six lighting techniques at Photodoto
+ seven rules to take good blurred photos at SLR Lounge
+ ten tips for looking better at Peta Pixel
+ thirteen tips on how to write an "X Tips How To" articles at somewhere :)
+ when and where to style your food photography at F/Stoppers (caution: glutten overload!)
+ take sharper smartphone pictures tips at CNet Australia
+ Cats drive creativity at Chase Jarvis
Imaging Editing, Software, Apps, Sharing
+ clearing the BS about Adobe's Creative Cloud at Foto Biz
+ the end of the Photoshop era at The Online Photographer
+ editorial photographer edits without Photoshop at F/Stoppers
+ dark energy for after effects at Hurlbut Visuals
+ considerations on choosing RAW over JPEG at Photofocus
+ on VP9 open video codec at Cinescopophiliac
+ the Flickr upgrade kerfuffle will be covered separately next week
Business and Legal
+ beware of the upcoming war against personal photography and video at Peta Pixel
+ still no real clarity on "Transformative Use" Appropriation art at The IP Law Blog (via APE)
+ on the World Press Photo controversy at British Journal of Photography
+ pricing and negotiating: regional fashion magazine at A Photo Editor
+ how to launch your photo career tips and resources at PDN Online
+ Star Trek analogy and photography careers at Star Pixel
+ $1 billion worth of stolen content on the Tumblr-Yahoo deal from a photography perspective at Plagiarism Today and Melcher System (via APE and APE)
+ the future is social infographic at F/Stoppers
There are a million channels on TV, but not a whole lot about actual photography. Coming to the rescue is PBS airing repeats of Art Wolfe's Travels to the Edge series. A PDF file with all local stations can be found at the Art Wolfe blog. Check local listings and/or cable/satellite provider apps/DVRs/etc for specifics. Or if you are more of a bringe-watcher, and you have Amazon gift cards to spend, the DVDs are also available by Art Wolfe on Amazon.
If you are a fan of film cameras and you are not happy that there's not a lot of coverage about them, rejoice! Thom Hogan has launched a new website that focuses specifically on film cameras and film photography, Film Bodies. You can find the latest updates over there at their News and Views page and their reviews/tips/etc at their Articles page.
