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23 May 13

Jessops Staff are to all be given Peter Jones Sock Collection to wear, Nikon give away a remote trigger app, Ilford are taking block orders of Film and Mikki, the Chimpanzee is having his work sold for $100k and the muppets who buy it are off their heads. Lots more news is on offer and also the answers to your questions if you send them to BritishTechNetwork@gmail.com

Ewen Rankin - ewenrankin on twitter and on app.net  

Sponsors UK2.net

Review

An Excellent Photography podcast. This has become my favourite photography podcast. Very good for the latest news, in particular, new products releases, and also answers listeners' photography questions. John.

Stories

JESSOPS Peter Jones' Socks to save the retailer  "Staff only Facebook page for Jessops got 100 likes. The Key to Success then obviously"

NIKON Camera Lens and Body Sales soar 28%  "Nikon says performance was boosted by its Nikon 1 compact camera system and overall growth in sales of interchangeable-lens models over the 12 months.

Nikon sold 24.1m cameras in the year to 31 March – a 9% rise on a year earlier.

Demand for changeable-lens cameras shot up 47%, while lens sales rose 36% in volume terms.

Nikon's net sales rose to 751.2 billion yen (around £4.9 billion) for the year to 31 March, compared to around 587.1 billion yen in the previous 12 months.

Operating income rose by 12.5%, according to figures released by Nikon's head office in Tokyo today.

Overall group net profit, however, fell 28%

Free Tethering Software offered for all Nikon DSLRs Using the program, you can pull a live view, focus and expose manually or automatically, trigger your shutter remotely, and even use sequences, bracketing, time-lapse and focus stacking in addition to shooting single frames
Once a picture is taken, you also have control over the image transfer, naming, and storing of the shot right from inside the program. And after setting up your camera within digiCamControl, it can also be worked wirelessly from any tablet or smartphone with a web browser.
Currently for Windows Only though and required USB Connectivity "

ILFORD FILM Offering custom orders for Ultra Large FOrmat Film and bulk purchases. Harman technologies Inc. — the folks behind the manufacture of Ilford film — are opening their annual window during which photographers can order as much custom-manufactured specialty film as their hearts desire.
Between Monday May 13th and Friday June 28th, Ilford will take orders for sheet film in formats up to 20 x 24 inches, 70mm film, 122 and 127 format film, and even 120 format backing paper in 100ft lengths for those of you that make your own film rolls at home
You can keep ordering as well as they dont start to produce until 28th June when the Window Closes
Tom Pearce show in Large Bellows image"

Magic Lantern 14 FPS RAW Live output view on Canon 5D The Magic Lantern team announced that they had discovered a RAW DNG Live View output on the 5D Mark II and Mark III. At the time, they could only get 14 frames per second for only 28 frames before the camera needed to buffer, but the team was confident that they could eventually increase the speed to 24p and pull a true RAW video feed out of the camera

BUT...

Each frame weighs in at about 3MB, which translates into 72MB per second of footage
Resolution is 1920x850 at 24FPS but they have managed to get a raw live outfeed if youve got something to record it!

Chimpanzee Photography set to make $100,000 dollars at Auction  Mikki received his basic photography education from well-known Russian conceptual artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, who work as Komar and Melamid. The duo spotted the ape some time ago while at the Moscow Circus
A batch of 18 images are to go on sale at Sothebys later in the year
Sotheby’s contemporary art curator, Suad Garayeva, says the collection is “a very important piece of work".

Apple Patent shows iPhone pairing up with other Smartphone flashes for triggering flash.

BREAST CANCER Pink Pocket Wizards on offer to support Breast Cancer Charities  on Ebay Auction.
A little over a year ago, we shared the story of photographer Bob Carey and his wife, a breast cancer survivor. Over the past year, Carey and his Project Tutu have done a great deal to raise awareness for breast cancer. By going around the world and photographing himself in a pink tutu (and nothing else), he’s done a lot to further the cause for breast cancer victims and their families.
Now, Carey is partnering up with PocketWizard and LPA Design to auction off 20 PocketWizard Plus III Transceivers manufactured in “tutu pink” and then signed and numbered by Carey himself.
Keep in mind, this isn’t just a regular PocketWizard Plus III that has been painted pink. In partnership with LPA Design, PocketWizard made sure these were pink to their core. Even the LED backlight of the LCD screen is pink.

Irridient Development Image correction software. More reason to walk away from Adobe  "Iridient Digital has released Iridient Developer 2.1 a major update to its critically acclaimed image processing software for Mac OS X. ""This update features a total overhaul of the noise reduction functionality including three all new, state of the art, noise reduction methods along with optional auto noise adjustment levels based on ISO and other image parameters,"" says programmer Brian Griffith.
The application now provides support for use of Apple's raw conversion libraries as an alternate raw conversion method and as a way to provide support for some unique camera models (such as Fuji's X-trans cameras) that Brian has not yet found the time to support with his own custom demosaic routines.
A new monochrome conversion option, ""Raw Colour Channel Mixer"" has also been introduced, which provides direct colour mixing of the sensor colour planes direct from the demosaic process without any prior color conversion.
Finally, the update adds support for 22 new camera models from a variety of manufacturers.
$75 to new customers and $45 to existing, but you need to apply for a voucher code"

LowePro Bags Photo Sport Pro 30L AW  Lowepro has released the Photo Sport Pro 30L AW backpack for photographers who need a fully featured pack designed to protect camera equipment, but also ticks the boxes for comfort and style. A removeable ‘Ultra Cinch’ camera chamber means photographers can access their gear from the side of the backpack, fitting up to a Pro DSLR with grip with a 70-200 f2.8 lens attached.
The top-loading compartment has plenty of room for jackets, hats, maps and other outdoor accessories, while a built-in all-weather cover provides a high degree of protection from the elements. Available now, the Lowepro Photo Sport Pro 30L AW carries a guide retail price of £163.

Olympus PEN E-P5 Reviews and Images The Olympus PEN E-P5 is a new compact system camera with a top shutter speed of 1/8000th second,
5-axis image stabiliser and built-in Wi-Fi;
encased in an all-metal body reminiscent of the 50-year-old PEN F half-frame film camera.
Other highlights include a Four Thirds sized, 16-megapixel ""Live MOS"" sensor
a tiltable 1.04-million-dot touchscreen,
fast contrast detect auto focus with Touch AF functionality and a new Super Spot AF feature,
Focus Peaking option for manual focus enthusiasts,
9fps continuous shooting mode,
1/320th second flash sync,
The body is available for £899.99/$999.99 from the end of June 2013, or with a choice of interchangeable lenses and accessories.
Kits start at £999.99 for the 14-42mm lens and £1349.99/$1449.99 for a bundle including a 17mm f/1.8 prime lens and new VF-4 high resolution, viewfinder, which comes with the option to fit a distinctive real-wood grip at the time of ordering."
Olympus E-P5 hands on photos.

Olypmus E-PL6 Replaces the 5 - More budget range. Olympus has announced a successor to the E-PL5 PEN Lite via the Olympus Global website. Logically named the Olympus E-PL6, the new model inherits the core functionality and feature set of its immediate predecessor but gains a so-called Short Release Time Lag mode with a shutter lag of just 44 milliseconds, an ISO 100/21° equivalent ""ISO LOW"" setting, a new interval shooting function, a dual-axis electronic level gauge, a ""small AF target"" mode and the ability to create time-lapse movie clips in-camera. Availability is slated for the end of June.
Do note that unlike the also-new PEN E-P5, the Olympus PEN Lite E-PL6 has not been announced by Olympus America, Olympus UK or Olympus Europe - which suggests that it might be intended for Asian markets only, at least for the time being.

Canon Tele Lens with Built in Tele Extender  £12000

Lastolite 4 Flashgun 'flash head' and softbox Manfrotto says the Quad Bracket is compatible with various flashgun-triggering systems. The four-to-one sync cables included with the kit allow the user to connect four flashgun sync sockets to a single receiver, either on a PC or 3.5mm jack connection.
The Ezybox Octa Quad Kit is available at £240 medium-size and £265 large

Corbis Crave iPad App  Corbis Crave, a digital boutique, offers the most engaging photography and illustration from the most sought-after artists worldwide, specifically curated for art buyers and art directors in the world’s top ad agencies.
Dynamic designers and art buyers who are looking for unique, stunning imagery to use in advertising and commercial projects find the inspiring and selective Crave images a breath of fresh air. Crave provides a sophisticated complement to traditional stock photography sites by offering only premium imagery without the stock image feel.
And, our expert-curated galleries and artist portfolios tell the story of each hand-selected artist and his or her work.
The Crave collection contains thousands of images for fashion, celebrity, beauty, design, lifestyle, still life, architecture, and travel."

Polaroid Action Cams akimbo Polaroid is expanding its line of mountable hi-definition action video cameras with an affordable Full HD model called the Polaroid XS80. Capable of recording 1080p movies at 30fps, the Polaroid XS80 is waterproof to a depth of 30 feet and boasts a lens with an ultrawide 120-degree angle of view. Available now, the Polaroid XS80 carries an SRP of $129.99

Questions

Darren
Hi Ewen,
What I've always wanted to do was get into photography and just never found the time or made the effort to learn properly. The last year or so I've picked up a load and 'technically' I can take a decent shot (but I'm no pro!)
The main reason for writing is I'm thinking of starting a little business on the side to just see if i can generate some interest and hopefully build it up?
I was also thinking of specialising and a friend of mine trains racehorses and thought that equine portraits might be good. I've also heard that video seems to be the future rather than stills?
I wondered what your thoughts were about getting into this business as you've been doing this for a while. I assume its tough out there in this industry as all the others so it maybe frying pan to the fire!
Any advice would be great"

Martin
Hi Ewen,
Love the show and most of the others on the British Tech Network so thought I'd participate a little by sending you a question for the photo show.
I'm a bit of a biker, mostly commuting and when I can like to get out for a pleasure ride. Just recently I have bought the Drift Innovation Ghost HD action camera which I attach to my helmet. The camera records video and voice over for a vlog style movies which will one day may be uploaded to YouTube should I get the bottle.
Anyway so here's the problem. Firstly I just did not appreciate how big the file sizes are for video at 1080p. I have an iMac with a 1 TB drive with some 19,000 raw files from my Nikon D300 which leaves very little space to work with my new video files.So as most of the 19,000 raw files are undeleted throwaways and holiday type snaps that are there for memories but not necessarily for printing etc, I need to consolidate my library. The throwaways are slowly being got rid of, but I plan to save that the holiday/memory snaps in a smaller file format as they won't necessarily need the quality of raw.
As we may know JPEG files do lose a bit of quality everytime they are saved, so I thought that saving them as a DNG file might be better for the future, but I don't think I will actually be saving any hard drive space by using the DNG format.
Obviously buying more hard drive space is an option later on, but I would like to do this bit of housekeeping first.
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks,
Martin.

John
Hi Ewen
I've been listening to the photo show for over a year now and think it's great. I do miss you having co hosts to discuss the topics and offer other points of view, but I'm very happy with your solo shows. Especially as you manage to get through alot of news and new products in a quick fashion. I've left you a review on the Australian itunes.
I have 3 questions for the photo show-
Are there any plans to do anything with the BTN photo show flickr group?
Do you know anywhere I can get Kodak kodachrome 35m film developed? I live Australia, bit would be happy to send overseas if that is necessary?
Would you be willing to share the details of the set up you use to shoot video on your DSLR?
Many thanks
John

Author

MylesW

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