4 April 2008
Twip Podcast Episode #18 HD Photo
Posted by
Scott under:
Audio Podcast
Scott invites Bill Crow to discuss what some may call the new JPEG - the HD Photo. The show is available in the iTunes feed and at Pixelcorps.tv/twip.
Hosts: Scott Bourne
Guest: Bill Crow of Microsoft
Contributors: Fred Johnson, Ron Brinkmann
Locations: San Francisco, San Jose, Hermosa Beach
Intro Music by Scott Cannizzaro
Producer & Show Notes Author: Aaron Mahler
Bandwidth for This Week in Photography is provided by Cachefly.
TWIP is sponsored by Audible. For a free downloadable book visit www.audiblepodcast.com/twip
- This week, we talk with Microsoft’s Bill Crow about HD Photography.
- Alex is in Pittsburgh this week and Steve is in Louisiana by way of Africa, so they’re sitting this one out. Should be back next week, though. 
NEWS & DISCUSSION
- MapJack gives Google Streeview a run for its money (while using Google’s own map API). Insanely high resolution, nice UI and even the ability to adjust the projection on the fly. Here’s a nice comparison with Street View.
- Aperture Plug-Ins have arrived. This will allow for third parties app designers to add functionality to Aperture as time goes on.
- Canon is losing market share to Nikon. While Canon still commands a significant lead, the gap is shrinking. The Nikon D3 & D300 and no significant major new products from Canon likely account for much of this. Competition is a good thing.
- iStockPhoto.com discloses revenue for the first time. They paid out a healthy $20.9 million to photographers on revenues of $71.9 million and are selling images at the rate of one every 1.4 seconds.
- The uber-high-framerate Casio EX-F1 is going to ship in the next two weeks. The New York Times has a nice piece on the significance of this unique little camera. (editorial note: Listeners, go yell at Casio and get them to send us a review unit!)
- Lightroom 2.0 Beta is OUT! Current Lightroom owners get full use of it through August 31st and non-owners are welcome to the usual 30-day trial free of charge.
- LR 2.0 shows a combination of both “revolutionary” and “evolutionary” new features. One of the most exciting developments is the localized correction capability which is very similar to dodging and burning in Photoshop but can be applied to many different parameters (exposure, clarity, vibrancy, etc). Significant changes have been made in the interface for filtering of meta-data, dual-monitor support, tighter Photoshop CS3 integration and quite a bit more.
- The significant thing to note about LR vs. Aperture is the degree to which each is non-destructive. LR applies virtually -every- operation in a non-destructive manner including the localized adjustments and, as of 2.0, the Smart Object round-tripping of an image through Photoshop. This means that every modification you make is applied in real-time for visibility but never alters your original image or leads to repetitive TIFF copies of pixel-modified images eating up drive space. A DNG export, for instance, will show your adjustments but internally carries the original image and the modifications as separate pieces of information within the file.
- Scott puts his Journalist hat on and presses Fred for a statement on whether LR 2.0 Beta is a reaction to the recent Aperture 2.1 release. Fred clarifies that release dates are coincidental… moving a project of this size to track a competitor just isn’t all that feasible. Listen to the episode for the “sealed envelope challenge”.
- Fred stresses that LR still is not, nor likely ever will be, a -replacement- for Photoshop. For many photographers, LR will cover all of their needs. For the professional photographer, the combination of the apps are a one-two punch and this new release enhances the bindings between them in many situations.
- Fred has thrown down the gauntlet: Joe Schorr of Apple, you’re challenged to a round of bowling against Fred. (editorial note: none of us know why… maybe we’ll get the backstory some day).
SITE OF THE WEEK
- This week’s site of the week was from listener Gilles Maillet.
- http://pbase.com - a site not unlike Flickr in purpose, but far more “grass roots”. Established in 1999 (compared to Flickr’s more recent birth in 2004), the community tends toward more high art photography and is a superb place to discover a wide range of styles.
- A neat aspect of pbase.com is how easily you can see images from various model cameras and NOT just digital. You can just as easily find scanned film images from pre-1900’s cameras as from the latest Nikon D3.
CURRENT TWiP FLICKR CHALLENGE
- We’re in the second and final week of the current challenge: People
- Tag your -single- submission with “TWIP PEOPLE”. Sorry, folks, but no nudes… gotta keep it PG for the younger members.
- The Flickr group is growing like a weed and, as of these notes, stands at 3,167 members.
GUEST DISCUSSION - BILL CROW ON HD PHOTOGRAPHY
- Bill works in Microsoft’s Live Labs - primarily web-centric technologies, but encompassing photographic and imaging technologies as well. One of his major projects has been working with Microsoft’s specification of HD Photo.
- HD Photo is being recommended to the JPEG Standards Group as the basis for a future JPEG format standard. Such a future acceptance, were it to happen, would be to allow JPEG to evolve into a format with less constraints - the very constraints that have led to today’s RAW vs. JPEG “debate”.
- HD Photo can support a wide range of pixel formats and color models. HDR imagery, for instance, can be handled within the scope of HD Photo. More modern compression schemes allow for greater compression with no or very little quality loss (depending on your goals). Progressive decompression is also possible allowing smaller versions of an image to be used from within the larger file without needing to process all of the data and create an on-the-fly reduction.
- In essence, most of the benefits of JPEG, RAW, PNG, TIFF and DNG as individual formats are encompassed within the scope of HD Photo.
- A format such as HD Photo has benefits for camera manufacturers as well. Efficiencies in the design ultimately translate to a reduction in camera cost, increase in battery life and less effort needed to retain the best quality image off the sensor.
- Two additional projects Bill works with are Microsoft’s Seadragon and Photosynth.
- Photosynth can pool a collection of photos taken in a given location, analyze them and begin to formulate how those photos relate to one another within a 3D space. (editorial note: this usually requires a hands-on preview rather than reading about it - Windows-only, I’m afraid)
- Once processed, the viewer is able to look around in 3D space to see the various views most likely visible from that location in the real world. One amazing aspect to this is that the images don’t need to come from the same source. A pool of photos taken in the same general area by unrelated photographers could be pooled to achieve such results.
- Seadragon is a related technology that takes the pool of image data from within the Photosynth pool and moves around in it seamlessly. A huge pool could consist of gigapixels of data. Seadragon’s role is to make sense of that information and dole it out to the user in a navigable and digestible form. Zooming to pixel level or out for a complete overview is possible through Seadragon.
- Deep Zoom (which operates using Silverlight) is a Seadragon-related project that is viewable on Macs and PCs.
- A real-world example of these technologies can be seen at the Hard Rock Cafe Memorabilia site.
- A great overview of Microsoft’s many projects benefiting photography can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto.
- An exciting look at the Seadragon technology can be seen in a recent TED Talk.
- HD View - another piece of Microsoft research can be seen here (currently, only for Windows IE and Firefox): http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/hdview.htm
- You can follow Bill’s work at his blog.
- Extra Credit Link: Listen to Alex interview Bill on HD Photo in more raw technical terms on This Week in Media #51 from 2007.
CURRENT POLL
- The ongoing poll at the TWiP Blog asks how much money you plan to spend on camera gear in the next six months. Go participate and we’ll report back next week.
AUDIBLE PICK OF THE WEEK
- This week’s Audible.com pick is: The Impressionist Camera. This is an audio book originally created to accompany an exhibition at the St. Louis Museum of Art.
- Accompanying this audiobook is a PDF: The Stop List
- Support the show by going to http://www.audiblepodast.com/twip to sign up for a free audio book!
LISTENER QUESTIONS
- Listener David T. Wilson asks:
Q: I am trying to decide between Aperture and Lightroom - can you guys offer any advice?
A: Un-biased Fred: Both are superb applications and the final choice is generally one of personal preference. The simple answer? Both applications have a 30-day, free trial test drive. Give them both a whirl (if you’re a Mac user, anyway… no Aperture for Windows). Ron: The conventional wisdom has been that Aperture tended to have the edge on organization of images and LR on the image manipulation. Those lines are blurring more now in their 2.x incarnations so, in agreement with Fred, download them both (if that’s an option) and explore. Scott: Use what your buddies use. If the folks around you use a specific application, you might find benefits to pooling knowledge and the ability to help one another.
- From listener Genuine240, regarding Alex’s new Histogram video (episode 17):
Q: Can you please cover when in the histogram graph on my Canon 40D peaks pass the top of the scale? Isn’t this also clipping?
A: Ron suggests that the histogram is likely showing you the JPEG incarnation of the file, even if it’s a RAW image. In that context, it’s entirely possible that you have some headroom in the image beyond what the histogram suggests. The far right of the histogram, of course, represents 255 or the end of the road. Rule of thumb is, when possible, to keep the image on the histogram with some room on either end.
- Listener Amy Underson asks
Q: I am going to photograph in the cold wintery part of Canada. What precautions should I take with my camera battery?
A: Carry more than one! You can find third party batteries on eBay, for instance, that aren’t overpriced like most manufacturer batteries. Most good batteries will be do fairly well in cold weather, the main effect being reduced life rather than outright failing to work. The trick here is have several and keep one or two of them in a shirt pocket or other location in your clothing (use your imagination!) where it can remain warm. Every little while, swap the batteries to use the warm one and to warm up the cold one. This cycle can help keep them running longer.
NEXT WEEK ON TWIP
- Our guest next week is legendary photographer, Joe McNally. We’ll be discussing a number of topics with him including his superb new book: The Moment It Clicks.
COMING BETWEEN SHOWS
- Scott’s working on a screencast that teaches how to build actions in Photoshop. It includes step by step instructions on how to build his popular Photoshop Velvia action.
- Fred swears he’ll have a screencast for us by this coming Tuesday.
TIP OF THE WEEK
- Ron: Brace the camera! He’s not a fan of using the flash if it can be avoided. If you can’t use a tripod, look for other means. Lean on a hard surface and hold the camera against the surface. Mash your backpack around on the ground and nestle the camera in it. Whatever it takes… find a way to stabilize the camera short of trying to hold it still by hand in low light.
WRAP-UP
- Fred Johnson can be found at http://www.frederickvan.com/.
- Ron Brinkmann can be found at http://digitalcompositing.com.
- Scott’s photography can be found at http://avianstock.com.
- Steve Simon has a few things coming up and wanted to share them with TWiP Listeners. He is appearing:
Monday, April 8 - 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM — Art Institute of Chigago Art Institute of Chicago
Wednesday. April 10 - 2:00 to 4:00 pm — Ohio State University - Wexner Center for the Arts, Main Theatre
Send your thoughts, suggestions and questions to: twip at pixelcorps.com
Story ideas and other items of webly interest can be submitted via the TWiP Ideas Del.icio.us bookmarks
Share photos with your fellow TWiP listeners through the TWiP Flickr Feed
Submit your photos for “ruthless compassion” through our TWiP critiques forum.
7 Comments so far...
Stuart Forsyth Says:
7 April 2008 at 5:18 pm.
Another great episode guys, I found Bill Crow’s interview on HD Photo particularly interesting. Downloaded the beta of Lightroom 2 and gave it a whirl. Although I am an Aperture user by preference, I keep a copy of Lightroom around to play with and try the new features as a comparison to “other tools” ;-).
Some feedback on the new pin system in the Lightroom beta:
The localised effects work like magic; I was able to apply various exposure, saturation and brightness effects seamlessly to the pictures however I found the circular area of effect to be less than optimal. You have to choose a size for your pin and then you get an effect falloff the further from the pin you get. Although it is possibly easier to save the coordinates on the photo, the effect and effect size in a non-destructive manner, this tool makes it very hard to apply an even effect to a portion of your photo like you could do with a brush like tool. I understand that this is still beta and the product development team probably have a brush tool in the works but I can’t see myself having a lot of use of the pin system.
My two cents worth.
Thanks again guys, awesome podcast.
Stuart
Melbourne, Australia.
[Reply]
Steve Says:
7 April 2008 at 8:39 pm.
Nice to see http://www.pbase.com mentioned. I’ve been posting pictures there for quite a while. I jumped on flickr because that seemed to be the “official” photo hosting site of TWIP, but I must admit that there are some aspects of PBase.com that simply can’t be beat. The best thing I like about is how much control I have over how the galleries and photos look. Flickr’s interface just doesn’t really cut it for me. It’s OK for single photos, but sometimes a group of photos are need to be shown together to tell a story. Not giving a good way to show groups of photos in a manner the photographer wishes is by far Flickr’s biggest flaw. All of the slick javascript doesn’t mean much if, in the end, the photographer can’t present a group of photos in the manner they wish.
And yes, the “average” quality of the photos posted on PBase is very high.
One of the other things I like on PBase is not just can photos be searched by camera (which Flickr does too), they can be searched by LENS! For example, while I was in the market for a reasonably low cost mid-range prime, I was able to look at random samples from each lens I was interested in. I settled on this one: http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_50_14u (Canon 50mm f/1.4). That’s a really useful feature.
-Steve
Shrewsbury, MA
[Reply]
kay Says:
2 May 2008 at 11:11 am.
“call them and say Scott and Alex would like to test this camera. It worked when you did it with Pentax” - I don’t recall you ever mentioning Pentax except in episode #7 when you mentioned that you would like to check out their cameras but don’t have any samples. Did you get some in the end?
[Reply]
Scott Says:
2 May 2008 at 1:55 pm.
@Kay sadly, Pentax has promised a review unit but they never sent one. We noticed that they did provide review units to publications with much smaller audiences than ours. What can I say. Most of the camera companies are old-line, traditional, conservative Japanese-owned and run. They don’t appear to value social media, online media and podcasting as much as their customers do. We had the same reaction from Sony. Of course, looking at their respective market share, this could be a factor. We’ll continue to cover the companies that work with us.
[Reply]
kay Says:
13 May 2008 at 12:18 pm.
Scott, I’ll write to them. I don’t shoot Pentax (not digital anyway) but I had their entry level model for a short while and it really impressed me. And then I saw the price and it impressed me even more! They offer features that Canon omits from even their semi-pro cameras, so I think more exposure could only end up benefiting the consumer.
[Reply]
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