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In this episode Canon 5D firmware goes open source, the evolution of Photoshop, and guest host Sara France.

Hosts: Fred Johnson, Ron Brinkmann, Sara France

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Producer: Aaron Mahler - Twitter: halfpress

Show notes by Tom Newman at fogviewphotos.com and on Twitter: fogview

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Intro Music by Scott Cannizzaro

HOUSEKEEPING
Sara France is a San Diego-based wedding photographer who travels all over the world shooting weddings. Sara also has a company selling high-end bags and she just released a Aperture training DVD. The DVD contains over 3 hours of Aperture training.

NEWS & DISCUSSION

* Evolution Of Photoshop: 1988 – 2009
Just an interesting site that shows various parts of every release of PS from 1988 through 2009.
Ron: I played with Photoshop early on and didn't use it for years. I only got back into Photoshop these past couple of years.

Frederick: When did you realize that Photoshop was a viable to your work?
Ron: For me it was motion picture film. We were shooting on film and scanning it in digitally and adding effects. Still photography was still evolving.

Frederick: Sara what point in time did you jump into Photoshop?
Sara: I started in film but never got involved in developing the film myself. We got into digital pretty quickly. Within a couple years we were using Photoshop and adjusting images.

Frederick: What other applications are you using in your every day life besides Photoshop and Aperture?
Sara: There really are not any others that are unique. After Photoshop and Aperture, everything else is a just a portal to get the images out to the world.

Frederick: Ron what else are you using?
Ron: Mostly Aperture and I don't need to go into Photoshop very often. I also was involved with Shake compositing software.

Frederick: We talk a lot about the convergence of video and digital (stills), but in terms of what Flickr was doing where instead of taking still pictures, you take a 90 second video of a wheat field showing the wheat blowing in the wind while the cameras is mounted on a tripod. Ron do you see a time when photographers will be doing other things using Shake or After Effects, or is that pushing it too far?
Ron: Yes, I absolutely do. That is not going to be a hard line between what is a still photo and what is video. There will be a blurred point half way in between. Everything is going to the web and people expect to see something moving all the time.

Fredrick: Sara, is print dead?
Sara: That's a good question. For a lot of my clients it's not. We just added Apple TV to our products. The digital image can still go away (i.e., with hard drive failures), so the print image is still important.

Fredrick: In your business do you see a point in time when your clients won't want a "dead tree version," but only share it online with friends and family?
Sara: I definitely see that they want to enjoy their photos online. Everyone wants their digital files. They want them on their computer so they can share them any way they want. Photographers have to be able to move and adjust with that, and we are seeing that in the past few years.

Frederick: Ron, what do you think about that? Do you think we will see a shift in the way we consume photography?
Ron: Yes, even with LCD displays that you can hang on the wall and enjoy your photos. At some point prints will be "retro." I could see at some point a LCD frame as big as your TV hung on the wall to show your images.

Fredrick: Sara, you are kinda doing that now. Aren't you presenting to your clients with an LCD on the wall?
Sara: Yes, we connect through an Apple TV, wirelessly. I can show any of the weddings or events I've shot to clients as they come in. But I do think about the print I have at my grandmother's or the prints and images that I have as memories and I don't see that totally going away.
Ron: Right now they (prints) sit in a drawer somewhere and there are tons that are not looked at on a regular basis. I have more fun with photography these days because the images that I capture are more accessible, even just to me because my screen saver pops them up. It tends to recuse these from obscurity. I boxed up a bunch of my negatives and send them off to be scanned and just now getting them back.

Frederick: How did that work (using ScanCafe)?
Ron: I finished my third batch through them. The process is you toss the negatives into a box and shipped them off. The price has gone up a little bit since I started using them -- about $0.25 USD per negative. They send it overseas to be scanned. They claim there hasn't been any problem with stuff being lost or stolen. They put it online and you pick which ones you want to pay for -- up to half of what you sent off. That is where the hiccup came with me last time. The website isn't great for doing (reviewing) a lot of stuff -- just very time consuming to go through it. The first batch they sent back to me, they actually sent me stuff other than what I had specified I wanted scanned. They just messed up when they burned the DVD to send to me. I called customer service and told them there was an issue and they send out the correct stuff. I would say when you get your scans back to double check that you received what you selected to be scanned. Other than that, it's been great.

Frederick: What is the time frame to getting your disc after dropping the negatives in the mail?
Ron: Slow. Three months maybe.

Frederick: Three months is a long time. What am I getting? High quality scan?
Ron: Yes, it's a high quality scan. They use a very good Nikon scanner. They will remove dirt and do hand-touchups where needed. In some case they do color balancing. You can get the same thing done locally, but not at that price point. I'm talking about a few thousands negatives.

Frederick: Sara, you mentioned that you use to shoot film. Have you digitalized it and brought it into your Aperture library?
Sara: We were digitalizing as we were shooting it. We have been using Pictage for years any they always scanned our film. A couple of years ago we downloaded the images and placed them on our server.

* Opensource Firmware for the Canon 5D Mark II
Open source firmware that exposes a bunch of new controls in the software. Magic Lantern Firmware wiki.

Frederick: Ron and Sara, would you install open source firmware on your Canon 5D mark II?
Ron: Yes, but I would want to read what the fallback plan was. To be able to back it out. Manufacturers need to open up these applications. I wouldn't do it before a long trip or an important photo shoot.
Sara: It kinda scares me right now. As long as my 5D Mark II is my backup camera, I wouldn't mind installing it but I would really need it (the new features).

Frederick: Maybe you can blame it on Apple, but I would never upgrade the firmware with somebody's unauthorized firmware on my expensive hardware (referring to the iPhone and jailbreaking).
Ron: This Canon 5D Mark II firmware update is for video control: on-screen audio meters, gain control, crop marks (for framing), zebra stripes. There probably is a reason to install this firmware upgrade for the video improvements since you can't find another video solution like this, in this price range.

Frederick: Sara, are you shooting with the 5D Mark II?
Sara: No, we are playing around with it. Integrating video is a hugh thing and we are trying to figure out the right approach.

PHOTO ASSIGNMENT & POLL

Photo assignment: Taking a break this week as we rework the system.

New Poll (from listener, David Kile)" Other than vacations, how far will you travel for your photo endeavors?

LISTENER QUESTIONS

Q: Listener Phil Scordis writes: A colleague of mine is traveling to China soon to see the eclipse, he's looking for software to control his Canon DSLRs - (5DMkII and 1D). Now there appear to be a number of options, however we've not been able to find any that allow scripting fine control in order to set a specific flow of commands at time based intervals. What we are interested in is setting up one camera to take a pre-programmed set of exposures (with control of shutter speed, aperture etc.) over the time of the eclipse and then this would allow him to be a bit more creative with the other camera. Any ideas? I know Alex has talked about tethered shooting before.

A: Ron answers: I don't know of a solution that has full scripting. You could do tethered shooting with normal time lapsed stuff, or use a remote trigger (Canon TC80n) with a timer. I haven't had 100% reliability with this. I will say that the branded triggers (from Canon and Nikon) are way more expensive than the 3rd party options.

Q: Listener Lawrence Payne writes: I am going to Alaska for a week in mid July, and it will rain. What is the best way to protect my camera & lens?

A: Sara answers: Stay out of the rain :) There are a couple of ways. Some of the (higher-end) cameras are water sealed and lenses too. Another way is to get the right bags, umbrella, and an assistance helps too. Ron adds the higher up the range of camera bodies, the better they are sealed against water. There are different housing and rain covers you can get. Fredrick adds that he keeps a plastic storage bag in his camera bag and you can make a hole for your lens to shoot through.

Q: Listener Kevin Hackworth writes: I am running the current version of Lightroom, 2.4 I believe. It, as well as the previous versions, seems to be sluggish at times. Will upgrading my RAM increase the performance? (I currently have 1GB and I tend to multitask whenever I am on the computer)

A: Frederick answers: Short answer: Yes. 1 GB is not enough.

PICKS OF THE WEEK

* Ron - http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Fong-Puffer-Flash-Diffuser/dp/B0011000R6/nothingreal
* Sara - shootdotedit.com -- a company that will process your RAW images into JPEGs.
* Frederick - Animoto -- Service that lets you upload a bunch of photos and do an animation of your images with music. The Pro account will give you HD video file that you can edit yourself. They just released an iPhone version that allows you to play your video on the iPhone.

WRAP UP

Ron can be found at http://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com and via Twitter: RonBrinkmann

Sara can be found at http://sarafrance.com and via Twitter: sarafrance

Fred can be found at http://www.frederickvan.com and via Twitter: Frederickvan

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Show notes provide by Tom Newman of Fogview Photos and via Twitter: Fogview