Photography

Lightroom CC 2015.7 Adds iPhone 7 and 7 Plus Support →

September 21, 2016 · 11:17

Sharad Mangalick:

Lightroom CC (2015.7) and Lightroom 6.7 are now available. The goal of this release is to provide additional camera raw support and lens profile support, and to address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom.

Please note that this version of Lightroom contains compatibility fixes for macOS 10.12 (Sierra) and also requires macOS 10.10 and greater.

This update also adds full support for the new iPhones, including lens profiles.

Why the iPhone 7 Plus Telephoto Won’t Shoot in Low-Light Situations →

September 17, 2016 · 21:29

Serenity Caldwell:

And yes, let’s be straight: It’s designed to be a system, working in tandem with the Camera app to minimize shortcomings or aberrations that come from taking a photo with a smartphone camera one-fifth the size of a DSLR or pro mirrorless camera. Those two photos of Rene, above, were both taken using the Camera app’s “2x” setting — but only one of them actually used the telephoto lens. (The one on the right.)

That’s because the telephoto lens on the iPhone 7 Plus isn’t really designed to be a stand-alone shooter, no matter Apple’s “Shoot at 2x!” marketing: It shines, appropriately, when in bright light and adding detail. If you don’t find yourself taking lots of sunlit images with the Camera app, however, you may not actually be looking through that telephoto lens when framing pictures as often as you might think.

This is fascinating. Can’t wait to dive into my own tests. Please remember that you will be able to choose which camera you want to use via third-party apps, such as Obscura — the feature should be added soon. I’m pretty sure other apps will adopt this soon enough

How Zach Grether Captured an Image of the SpaceX Falcon 9 Landing →

May 19, 2016 · 13:32

Zach Grether:

At 1:21am on May 6, 2016, SpaceX continued its run of aerospace brilliance with a night launch of its Falcon 9 rocket, carrying its Japanese communication satellite payload to geostationary orbit. The most spectacular portion of this event was the first successful night landing of the Falcon 9’s first stage onboard their floating platform called “Of Course I Still Love You.” While this was not the first successful landing for SpaceX, it was the first one at sea at night and also one that they predicted to have a high probability of failure due to the dynamics involved with the much higher energy needed to send the satellite to a higher orbit than previous launches.

What does that have to do with me? Well, at the time, I was on Hunting Island in the southern portion of South Carolina doing what I love to do, shooting the Milky Way…. and I captured the moment!

I love a good story and this one is as good as they come – make sure to read it from beginning to end. And there’s a tutorial thrown in for those who want to learn a bit more about astrophotography.

Please check out Zach’s prints too — some wonderful images there.

My Photography (4) — Balloon Festival, Bielawa, Poland, 2016

May 2, 2016 · 22:09

We drove down to Bielawa today, which is more or less south of Wrocław in Poland, for the Balloon Festival. I did not expect to get the shots that I did, despite the weather not playing nice. The sunset, some two hours after the above photo was taken, was close to perfect.

Shot with DJI Phantom 4 @ f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 100.

My Photography (3) — Encore, Las Vegas, USA, 2009

March 29, 2016 · 13:40

I travelled to Las Vegas in 2009 for NAB. The trip there took close to 24 hours from Europe, and I went straight to bed when I got to my hotel room in the evening. I woke up around 5:00 in the morning, surprisingly fresh after the long journey, and looked out of the window — the sky was already showing a hint of blue, and things to come. The first rays hit the Encore hotel at 5:47, and I got the shot above four minutes later. I’m partial to it because of the missing three windows, creating an anomaly in the otherwise serene mirror of the Encore façade.

Shot with Canon 50D + Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS — f/2.8, 1/200, ISO 1250, ~168 mm.