Camera Gear
Canon has released a new firmware update for the Canon 5DMKII. Most interesting to astrophotographers is that there is a noise reduction update for successive bulb exposures. I haven't had a chance to check this out, but it is definitely an update astrophotographers should get.
Canon 5DMKII firmware update link.
Adobe has updated Light Room to version 2.6 and Camera Raw 5.6 here. The Light Room is a free update to current 2.x customers. Enjoy.
It is nice to always have a camera on you nowadays. The images from the camera phones are great ways to share images with friends and family via Facebook and Blogs. What has been interesting are the iPhone apps and what they can do to enhance the usability of the in-phone camera. I have the iPhone 3G and the camera is 2 megapixel with a slightly larger than pinhole camera lens. The camera works pretty well in brightly lit scenes. I have been experimenting with the a couple of the panoramic construction apps.
The first was PanoLab Pro ($2.99). This app attempts to make a pano out of already captured images. It does a nice job, but I found the interface wanting and slow and the construction of the panos to fall short most of the time.
I then found Pano ($2.99) by Debacle Software. What I like about this software is that it works live with your camera capture. What this means is that you load the app and it presents to you the live camera view on screen. You take the first frame of the pano and then the next view of the live screen has the first frame at a slightly reduced opacity so that you can align in real-time the second frame of the pano. This really makes for well aligned panos and maximizes your frame capture. You can work either in landscape or portrait mode, but not both at the same time. So you can construct a pano, but not a mosaic.
Here is one of my first experiments with the program from my living room. This is straight out of the camera. 
It is hard to believe this was captured and constructed within a cell phone! Just a few short years ago Photoshop had a hard time with this or couldn't even do it automatically. We were using complicated manual alignment programs like PanoTools with very clunky interfaces to achieve good landscape panoramas.
The next example is further complicated by the very dark scene, but the pano came together pretty nicely. I would never have thought of attempting a panoramic image at a rock concert, but it worked pretty well. I had to take 3 stabs at it to capture the lighting just right as the scene would change rather quickly from capture to capture. I believe this is a 3 frame capture and it was all accomplished while in the concert, a total of about 3 minutes. Again, straight out of the camera. 
Now here is a panoramic that proved to be too challenging for PanoLab Pro. 
I subsequently brought all of the images into Photoshop and the automated merge function pieced the pano together nicely.
Pano Lab Pro will only work with already captured images. Pano will work with the images while you capture them. I find Pano to be the better alternative for in-camera processing. They both can do some very nice things for images that are destined for Facebook or blogs.
I was hoping for at least one day of rain for atmospheric enhancement on our Smoky Mountain photography trip and boy did we get one. I have more portfolio images from the rainy day than from all others, but I didn't need 1-2 inches of rain, just a mist or a sprinkle would have been just fine. I love the saturation that the rain provides. My gear selection for rain prevention included garbage bags and umbrellas. Many other photographers recommend the garbage bag option as a way to demonstrate frugality. I have now yielded to the more elegant option for rain protection which includes a Kata E-702 camera rain cover from Amazon. I received the unit a few days ago and while I haven't had it out in the elements, it appears to be just what I need. It can cover my 5DMKII with the 24-105 zoom and even the 70-200 f2.8 IS zoom. You can find more information at Amazon or by Googling Kata. This will now be a permanent part of my supplemental bag for those rainy/snowy days. Can't wait to use it on our return Smoky's trip in April!
While all iPhone uses were upgrading to 3.0, and it is a nice upgrade, Apple also made some very nice enhancements to their Safari web browser. I hadn't really seen anything about this upgrade and was pleasantly surprised to see some new features. Two new features that I love are tied to the "new tab" request. Upon forming a new tab the surfer is presented with a screen of previously visited top websites by you in a portfolio presentation of images. I love this and it makes browsing my favorite sites even easier than pulling down a bookmark. In addition, the user can browse or search for previously searched webpages. This webpage looks just like the iTunes page of album art search for movies or music. These two features have not only made Safari my preferred browser on the MAC, but I have now upgraded to the Safari 4.0 on my Windows machines and I love it. Check it out if you haven't already, especially if you are a tab browser.
A bit of an update: There is a "Top Sites" icon at the top left of the browser that pops up the top 12 sites you visit. This actually may replace tabbed browsing. Finally, Apple has applied their creativity and genius in user interface to the web browser!!!
I purchased the Canon 5D MarkII about one month ago. My primary purpose was to use it in my landscape photography, but I was really drawn to the HD video capability. The one downside to the camera was the lack of manual control in video mode. The user was limited to simply letting the camera do everything automatically in video mode. Today Canon announced the availability in early June of a new firmware upgrade that will now make available to the user manual controls in video mode. The user will have control over aperture, ISO, and shutter speed. This is a tremendous announcement and I am very excited about this new opportunity with the camera. Please stay tuned for further developments and reports on the camera and video opportunities it presents.
