Beet.TV caught up with Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield in Manhattan last week. Stewart was in town for the revealing of the five winners in Flickr’s photo contest ’The Blink of an Eye’. Stewart’s wife and co-founder Caterina Fake sold the company to Yahoo! last year. He is deeply involved with the success of the photo sharing site and he’s working really hard at Yahoo! these days – and putting in some sleepless nights too.

He confides with Beet.TV’s Kate Lyon that he is so consumed with Flickr it that he sometime he has trouble sleeping and keeps a notepad by his bedside to jot down all sorts of issues like scalability, spam and copyright abuse. He told Kate that the key to success in participatory media (a term he prefers over consumer generated content) is the people, not the photos. The photos are just the “locus” for people bringing people together and letting people to get to know each other via the photography. You can’t have one without the other, and when you put it that way, calling it participatory media does make a lot of sense.

Popular Photography has a recent article that compares shooting in RAW versus JPEG. Here’s the summary of the article :

“JPEG files lock in the camera’s image-quality settings—white balance, exposure, sharpening, and contrast—and compress the image data so that more images can be stored on the memory card. A Fine JPEG takes up about one-third to one-fifth as much space as an uncompressed image, with little discernible loss in resolution or detail. JPEGs can store only up to 8 bits per color, so some potentially useful shadow and highlight information is tossed when the camera saves a photo in the JPEG format. However, JPEGs can be opened in any imaging program or free utility, and are preferred by many online photo processors.

The RAW format, however, usually stores all of the info the image sensor generates, including the extra bit depth (note extra shadow and highlight details in the RAW image below). As a result, RAW files usually require more storage space than Fine quality JPEG files. And since each camera manufacturer decides what form that RAW data takes, you’ll need a special filter or conversion utility to view the image. RAW files must also be converted into JPEG or TIFF files before they can be used for printing or e-mailing. But converted RAW images will look better—especially if you’ve tried to capture a high-contrast scene, accidentally missed the correct exposure, or had your camera’s white balance fooled. There are a number of tools for converting RAW files to JPEG or TIFF images. Adobe Photoshop CS2 users can download Adobe’s free Camera RAW plug-in filter (version 3.4).”

Website :  Which format should you shoot? RAW vs. JPEG

Website :  Advanced Editing In Camera Raw with PDF sample chapter

Wow, the DSLR camera sales in Japan is really picking up. There are now 9 DSLRs cameras got into the top 20 list of most popular digital camera ranking for Japan. Nikon D200 is really doing well occupying the top spot, replacing Sony A100. The new Nikon D80 is also doing well at number 5 for its first week of sales, should be interesting to see how it perform next couple of weeks. Both Canon 5D and 350D dropped in ranking, Canon really should come up with something more exciting in the DSLR space to catch up.

2006/08/07 ～ 2006/08/13 Japan Most Popular Digital Camera Ranking

Google announced they acquired Neven Vision to help on image object recognition technology for products like Picasa photo management. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a web album application which automatically labels images by recognizing persons, objects and places? Or imagine Google Images searching not just for keywords contained in the HTML page… but also for keywords extracted from images themselves.

Neven Vision has patents on technology ranging from photo analysis to face recognition in video files to several patents for facial capture for avatar animation. Sounds like a fascinating partnership. Neven Vision appears to be the trade name of Nevenenginering, Inc., which has been assigned a number of patents by the United States Patent Office. According to the Neven Vision web site, they have a number of offerings based upon the use of mobile technology:

• Image-driven mobile marketing services
• Visual mobile search
• Comparison shopping and m-commerce
• Enhanced photo messaging
• Secure data access
• Field identity verification.

From the Google blog, the technology from Neven Vision will be useful in helping the Picassa team in extracting information from a photo, which could make it easier to organize and search through photographs.

Website : A better way to organize photos?

Sigma Corporation announces the addition of the new 8mm F3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye lens to their line-up. This new circular fisheye lens produces circular images with an angle of view of 180° when attached to a full-frame digital or 35mm film SLR camera. It has a maximum aperture of F3.5, a minimum focusing distance of 13.5cm (5.3 inches) and a maximum magnification of 1:4.6.

A unique special fisheye design helps allow for maximum creative expression. Sigma’s super multi-layer lens coating reduces flare and ghosting, a common problem with digital cameras. It is constructed of 11 elements in 6 groups and Special Low Dispersion glass is said to offer effective compensation of color aberration.

This lens can be used for the scientific applications such as the solid angle measurements of cloud distribution over the sky, the vegetation distribution of the rain forest canopy, etc., due to the quantifiable angle/area relationship it produces. It also has a gelatin filter holder at the rear, allowing the use of gelatin filters.

The new 8mm F3.5 EX DG Circular Fisheye lens, said to provide excellent image quality for both digital and film SLRs, will fit Sigma, Nikon, Canon, Sony and Pentax AF mounts. Pricing and availability are were set at this time.

Photoshop CS2 (9.0.2) is now available via Adobe Updater-accessed from within the application. Reports have surfaced that the Windows 9.0.2 update does fix the sticky menu issue. So far, the only info PSN has is that the Windows update addresses: Menus now respond correctly after a single click.

• Undo/Redo work properly when multiple documents are open.
• Photoshop no longer produces a program error when encountering unsupported file types through the Acrobat Touch-up workflow.
• Supported files that incorrectly produced an “unsupported color space” message now open as expected.
• TIFF files with layer data greater than 2GB in size now open correctly.

The Mac Update addresses:

• Photoshop no longer crashes when encountering unsupported file types through the Acrobat Touch-up workflow.
• Supported files that incorrectly produced an “unsupported color space” message now open as expected.
• TIFF files with layer data greater than 2GB in size now open correctly.
• A printing issue that could cause banding when using ink jet printers with Mac OS X 10.4 has been resolved.

EISA is the largest editorial multimedia organization in Europe, with a membership of 50 Audio, Mobile Electronics, Video and Photo magazines drawn from 20 European countries. At the end of June all EISA member magazines come together in an European city for the most important meeting in the year - the elections of the European Awards. Here is the EISA Awards 2006/2007 Winners in the photo panel:

In the digital camera field, Canon picked up the title of “European Professional Camera of the Year 2006-2007″ for its Canon EOS 5D digital SLR, with EISA judges praising the high 12.8 megapixel resolution, full-35mm frame sized imager, bright viewfinder, and potential for shallow depth of field. Sony wrapped up the “European Consumer Camera of the Year 2006-2007″ award with its Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 digital SLR. EISA praised the Bionz image engine, dynamic range optimize function, Super SteadShot image stabilization, and anti-dust system.

Here’s the full list of winners:

EUROPEAN HIGH-END PHOTO SYSTEM Hasselblad H2D-39Hasselblad have created a new standard for digital image quality for professional photographers with the introduction of the world’s first 39 million-pixel DSLR camera. The H2D-39 includes a wide range of revolutionary features, all designed to meet professional needs, including Digital APO Correction technology to compensate for any chromatic aberration. Additionally, this 39 million-pixel autofocus DSLR is supported by high-quality, specially-designed lenses.
EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL CAMERA Canon EOS 5DThe Canon EOS 5D is the first full-frame sensor digital SLR available for an affordable price. Its effective 12.8 million-pixels, in conjunction with the full-frame sensor, allows the user to make quite large digital prints without compromising image quality. Furthermore, users can take advantage of a bright viewfinder and shallow depth of field. It is an excellent camera for both professionals and semi professionals.

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By order of the Department of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration. Passengers may not bring liquids or gels of any size through screening checkpoints or into the cabin of any aircraft. Hand baggage should be no bigger than 45cm wide x 35cm long x 16cm deep (17.7″ wide × 13.7″ long × 6.2″ deep), including wheels, handles, side pockets - equivalent to a small laptop bag or rucksack. Beverages purchased in the sterile area must be consumed before boarding the aircraft. Prohibited items include:

• beverages, shampoo, suntan lotion, creams, toothpaste, hair gel, and any other items of similar consistency.

Passengers may carry:

• baby formula and/or breast milk if a baby or small child is traveling with an adult
• prescription medicine with a name that matches the passenger’s ticket
• insulin and essential non-prescription medicines

Here is a list of things that you can do to make your photo travel by air a bit less stressful in these challenging times:

• Get to the airport early to allow you enough time to have your camera gear inspected. Arrival two hours before departure is reasonable for most US airports. Invariably a pack full of cameras will attract more interest from the X-ray screeners. Your gear could be screened in various ways and several times before you get to the gate.
• If you carry a lot of gear, be prepared to ship some as checked baggage. Place long lenses in your hard-sided luggage, wrapped by clothing. Get insurance for it on your homeowners or renters policy. Consider using protective cases like those made by Pelican.
• If you are an elite frequent flyer with an airline, ask if they have established a special fast-moving screening location for their best customers at your airport.

Website : Latest Travel Advice from Guardian Unlimited Travel