How to Record Good Audio

If you are a photographer wanting to do multimedia slideshow you are probably going to need to know how to get good sound and here is a simple 3 step video on how to do just that

And further for those who dablle with journalism the International Journalists.net have a Youtube site with training videos

Photosynth is now Live

From the photosynth blog (the actual site is overwhelmed with hits at time of writing but you can read the blog here or view this video to see what it is all about and how photography is going 3D

There is two URL’s for photosynth http://photosynth.net and http://photosynth.com

There is a photography tutorial here as well as a how to video here

Photosynth Blog

We’re pleased to announce the first full release of Photosynth, available now at photosynth.com. Photosynth takes a collection of regular photographs and reconstructs the scene or object in a 3-D environment. For those of you who have seen the videos or tried our tech preview, you could experience synths that we made in the lab and get a feel for what Photosynth is and how it works. But now, for the first time ever you can create synths from your own pictures and share them with your friends. Explore great synths from others or create a few of your own.

good luck at getting through:)

Bruce Schneier: Are photographers really a threat?

Well have you been to the movies lately? this is one well worth keeping so when you get harassed for showing your camera in a public place

What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We’ve been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it’s nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn’t photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn’t photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn’t photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren’t being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn’t known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about — the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 — no photography.

Bruce Schneier: Are photographers really a threat? | Technology | The Guardian

Using the G9 as a discrete recorder

OK, sometimes it can be really useful to be able to record a conversation without other people knowing you are doing it, especially when you are being hassled by the police or jobs worth for taking pictures when you are in the right doing so and the situation looks like going from bad to worse. On the other hand you might have a set of photos and need to do a write up of all the details or interview a person in the pictures and you can use the audio feature on the Canon G9.

You could of course use the video feature, but when the lens extends out it might arouse suspicion, but there is a neat way to switch on the audio without opening up the lens and is a quicker way than going through the menu.

From the camera being switched off press the Play/review > button right of the optical viewfinder, press and hold the Microphone button * top right of the LCD (you should see the recorder display come up on the LCD) press Func/Set  in the middle of the command dial to record.

That’s it 3 buttons to press and you are recording… a short press of the Mic.* button brings up the audio recorder for tagging the image on display (normally the last photograph you took) when you press the Func/Set

Another little trick of the Mic.* button is if you have the camera sounds on (beep for focus, shutter sounds etc.) pressing this while turning the camera on mutes all the sounds from the Canon G9 and is ideal if you want to do some candid shooting, but remember when you play back video or audio you won’t hear it, as you have muted the sounds so you need go into the menu, go to the settings (hammer and spanner) tab and set the MUTE to off

Innocent photographer or terrorist?

Just found this on the BBC website if you are into photography you can go and sign the petition but asking for the PM to clarify the laws is not a good idea in my opinion. It is open invitation to put laws into place when they are not needed.

Its paranoia that if you have a camera you are a terrorist or up to no good and a culture of fear has been built up deliberately. There is no law saying you are allowed to take pictures in a public place, there is no law saying you can’t either; its considered a right

Photojournalist uses G9 for assignment

There is a great post on Strobist for the Canon G9 users on how to get the most out of your G9 using flash and  how they used a G9 shooting for an assignment.
It is no wonder that many PJ’s are now using the G9 as it is a pocket size  DSLR. Heck you can even use Nikon speedlights with this baby so why wouldn’t you buy a G9

Still not convinced?
Magnum Photographer Alex Majoli also used Olympus point and shoots in 2005  and shot many assignments using an Olympus C-8080 in remote and dangerous places and won awards

Now back in 2005 that is considered very old technology for a digital camera compared to today’s G9 era, so when you here some one complain of shutter lag tell them to read this article
It’s the photographer, not the camera that is the important piece of the kit in the equation.

Rob Galbraith: Alex Majoli points and shoots >>

Strobist: On Assignment, Par for the Course >>

 

Solo Photo Book Month

Over on Musings on Photography they have started  a SoFoBoMo due to start on 1st April-ish 2008 which lasts for a 31 day month. The idea is you make a book (of photo’s) in a month as an intense mini project, it can be a Scribus PDF book, a printed book from a print house like Blurb or other formats of ‘book’.

What better way to get to know your G9 and all its functions, and you may even bump into other G9 users as well. Its also quite interesting to see how some photographers are gearing up for the month project as well.  For more information read bellow

Accuracy in the G9′s Optical Viewfinder

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This is the sort of view you get when you look through the optical viewfinder on the G9, a simple cross hair type of pattern but all in black, which is not the easiest colour to see with dark subject tones. the G9′s optical viewfinder only shows about 80 per cent of the actual scene, which translates as if you can see it in the optical viewfinder it will be in the final image with space to spare.

Now the problem does not end there as pro news photographer and G9 user Phil Dunn illustrates on his blog. The reticules (cross hairs) are not accurate so you might find some important part of your composition inaccurate and I have found the centre of the frame to be at the bottom of the top reticule (shown in red) also check out Tricks with the AF Illuminator on the G9 for ways on using the optical viewfinder in low light conditions

How to Publish Video from Your G9

Last week I covered a student demo on ‘Free Speech’ and decided to try the G9′s video in a very noisy environment. During the demo I was shooting stills with my Nikon DSLR, shooting the odd stills with the G9 but used it more for the alternative medium of video, which I shot on the 1024 size, even though it was going to be published to web so was probably overkill as the quality is greatly reduced when converted by video upload sites. The 3 1/2 minute video kicked out at 115MB

As a Windows user I decided to use Windows Movie Maker (which comes free with Vista and XP) and saved it to PC format. I was in a hurry and wanted something quick and easy as it was going to be uploaded to Google video or You Tube for web viewing so I was not going to get the quality anyway

Now with video there are two components the visual and the audio, unfortunately I had not tweaked the audio settings for the conditions so the wind filter was off (when it was very windy) and the sound levels were on auto (which might have been better on manual due to the high noise levels) but I turned up a little late. Being a small. light camera I also found it quite hard to keep it steady as well, not normally a problem I have with a handy cam, but I dare say I will get better.

I also have on my PC Adobe’s Premier Pro, Flash CS3 pro, Flash Video Encoder and Device Central (the later, formats the flash video for mobile devices) so I have plenty to play with in the future

for the Apple Mac and Windows users (check system requirements) who want more quality and versatility there is  QuickTime Pro which allows you to do similar editing and saving the format for iPod and other 3G files in the H.264 format which gives high quality at a low data rate

There is a short piece on The Digital Story on exporting to web using QuickTime Pro which sells for £20 in the UK, $30 in the USA so its not expensive

 

Photographers Under Attack!

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE TAKE PHOTOS EVERY DAY.

WHAT IF ONE OF THEM SEEMS ODD? 

Terrorists use surveillance to help plan attacks, taking photos and making notes about security measures like the location of CCTV cameras. If you see someone doing that, we need to know. Let experienced officers decide what action to take.

The Metropolitan Police website

Well that was the strap line on the back cover of the London paper today and I predict a lot of stories coming out of it about photographers just trying to enjoy their hobbies, but now being constantly stopped by police, especially in a tourist hotspot like London.

Type in CCTV on Flickr (15,439 results) and see how many images you get or try the same on an image search Google (3,130,000 results) hmmm…

I doubt very much terrorists are going to be using Nikon D3 or Canon MkIII ds to do this kind of target research but more likely to use an average Joe tourist type of camera, the problem is the non-photographing public have no way of knowing one from the other and G9 users, best take care as it is such a discrete styled camera, even their add shows a compact camera as well as mobile phones, however with the mobile phone its how many they have that makes them suspicious, not the phone itself.

My personal feelings on this is that it makes me feel like a second rate citizen, like I have been accused of doing something wrong when I haven’t and my human rights have been infringed, heck I have even photographed CCTV cameras in the past, for aesthetics and as a statement about the times we live in and issues we face.

Check out the resources for the photographer in the sidebar and download and print the UK Photographers Rights PDF