• Price: $2,995
• Resolutions: 2.5K RAW at 2432 x 1366.ProRes and DNxHD at 1920 x 1080
• Frame Rates: 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p, 30p
• Dynamic Range: 13 stops
• Lens Compatibility: EF (Canon) and ZE (Carl Zeiss) mounts
• Software: DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic UltraScope, Media Express

They are packaging this camera with a $1,600 software package so that you can actually do something with that beautiful 2.5K RAW video. Davinci Resolve’s color grading is pretty impressive, and I imagine working with files shoot by their own camera will only enhance the experience across all of the included software platforms. Speaking of software, the ability to pop out a SSD hard drive from the camera and bring it straight into your edit suite is pretty awesome. The camera even offers 2 compressed recording options at 1080p including Apple ProRes and Avid DNxHD so that you don’t need to transcode footage when bringing it into your nonlinear editor (NLE). Another big advantage to using SSD hard drives as recording media is that they are relatively cheap and will only go down in price over the next couple years as more consumer laptops and eventually desktops adopt them as standard equipment.

An interesting feature that the Blackmagic Digital Cinema Camera offers is the ability to add meta tags to video files in camera. This is used as an organizational tool so that when you bring the footage into your post-production software you can easily find clips. This sounds like a smart idea, especially for more organized shooters, but it is probably something that I could personally live without.

The Blackmagic Digital Cinema Camera won’t be available until July 30th, but you can pre-order it from Adorama here. Here is a link to some sample footage for those of you who can’t wait to get your hands on it.

The reality is that most well built camera lenses are actually quite tough, especially on the front element. Don’t believe me? Watch the video below.

It’s hard not to cringe when you see that hammer come out, but surprisingly the Canon 50mm takes a beating without showing any signs of damage until the end of the video when the hammer is reversed. It’s not that a Canon lens will never show signs of damage from a fall, but it would probably have to be caused by extraordinary circumstances. It’s probably more likely that the non-glass portion of the lens will break before the front element is noticeably damaged.

What’s the harm in using a UV filter? Well to use an analogy it’s like putting a suit of armor on an olympic runner. Yes you are protecting him from scraping his knee, but you will be hurting his performance. In most cases you are adding an inferior layer of glass in front of your lens. Cheaper filters may reduce contrast, create additional lens flare, or just have a bad build quality. That extra couple centimeters added to your lens barrel may also create a slight vignette in the corners of your image.

If you are still shooting with a film camera, you may actually want to continue using a UV filter to improve contrast on hazy days. Digital sensors aren’t nearly as sensitive to UV light as film, so if you are shooting digital there’s really no discernible reason to use these filters for that purpose alone.

UV filters are still useful if you are for example shooting in a heavy mist or dust. Other than that, I see no reason to recommend a UV filter. For the purposes of protecting your lens, you should make sure to use your lens hood at all times and lens cap when the camera is not immediately being used.

The other day I had my first chance to cross the Golden Gate bridge and take a photo of it while facing San Francisco. I was headed out to wine country with a friend and my wife, so we stopped once on the way out and again on the way back. During the first stop I wasn’t very inspired by the angles provided by the tourist spots along the roadside, but by night time the bridge and city came alive with lights.

This image was captured at the edge of Battery Spencer, a walkable area that is accessible even by wheel chair (my friend was in one). It provides a close up view of the bridge from an elevated spot. I had my camera placed on a tripod and set my camera settings to the following: 14mm, ISO 1000, F/7.1, 13 second exposure. I captured 4 shots and combined them with Photoshop after applying some color and tone adjustments in Lightroom.

Directions to the location: From the south, you will head north across the bridge. After crossing the bridge, take the second exit to the right for Alexander Ave (exit 442). Merge to the left side of the fork in the road to make a left turn, then you will need to make a right to follow the scenic route up the side of the hill. Battery Spencer will be the first major spot to take a photo, but if you want a view from higher up there are several other spots as you drive up the mountain side. From the north you will take the first exit (number 442) after the Redwood Highway tunnel and keep to the right.

Interested in finding other angles to photograph the Golden Gate bridge? Check out this article, which covers different locations with example photographs and helpful suggestions.

First let’s start with some of the good points about Lightroom 4′s video editing capabilities. Lightroom now lets you scrub a video thumbnail to preview its contents. That comes in handy when you want to quickly check the contents of a video file. The video trim feature is another handy tool if you just want to do a quick in and out point edit before publishing your video. Last, but not least, is the ability to apply effects to images in a way that is somewhat similar to editing still images.

The previous positive point about editing images is also one of the biggest problems with Lightroom 4′s video editing capabilities. In order to apply effects to a video you have to either: A) apply a previously created preset to the video, or B) capture a still frame from the video, edit that frame to your liking, then apply those settings to the video. There is no simple way to enter the develop mode for a video. This makes the process unnecessarily complicated for people who just want to apply a quick color or exposure correction to their video. What should be a 2 step process has become a 5 step process.

The second big issue that I have with Lightroom is that it limits the effects that you can apply to a video. Wite balance and tone are allowed, as well as color treatment effects (see above image for the full list). Noise Reduction, Lens Corrections, Effects, and other items aren’t allowed though. Adobe didn’t include these features because they are CPU intensive and wouldn’t provide a buffer-free experience when previewing videos. This is something that I wish they would have built an on/off switch for because I would really appreciate having a Noise Reduction filter for my videos, at least when I’m exporting.

Adobe added in the new video editing features as a way to appeal to photographers who dabble in cinematography, but they left out the functionality required to actually edit clips together into a single piece. Once you’ve trimmed down your shots, applied effects, and exported them you will have to combine the clips together in another program like Avid, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, or (…shudder…) Windows Movie Maker. This makes sense since Adobe Premiere (~$555) is better suited for real editing and Adobe doesn’t want to cut into their own product line.

The few video editing features that were added into Lightroom don’t feel like they were thought out entirely. The need to generate snapshots in order to develop a custom setting for a video is an annoying process that will keep many photographers from ever discovering how to apply effects to videos. The Lightroom 4 update is more of a small evolutionary update rather than a revolutionary one. I will provide further coverage on this product update, including the new Map and Book modules in a future blog post.

When you shoot in RAW, your camera doesn’t apply a lot of educated guesses to the image file concerning color and contrast like a JPG file would. When working with RAW you are expected to make those judgement calls yourself when you import the photos to your computer for editing. If you are a Lightroom user, you should use the Camera Calibration module to either choose a profile (Ex. Camera Faithful, Camera Landscape, Camera Portrait, etc.) or to sculpt your own if you are looking to produce the same look as those JPGs. Here is a video that demonstrates this feature pretty well.

By using the camera Calibration tool, you should be able to get a look similar to what your camera outputs in JPG form: a vivid and colorful image. If you don’t want to ever forget to apply the Camera Calibration setting to your images, create a Lightroom preset and apply the effect to your images during import.

The release date for the next version of Adobe’s Lightroom software is March 6th, 2012. This unverified information was published on Amazon.com, where Adobe is currently listing a pre-order for the Student & Teacher Edition of Lightroom 4 for $79.99. In order to be eligible for this price you may need to provide proof that you are currently attending or teaching at a school. From what I’ve learned, Amazon will ship you a DVD with a product code which you must then submit to Adobe who will verify your eligibility. Adobe takes this seriously and will request a copy of your student ID and tuition before they hand over a serial number.

If you read the product description on the Amazon page, it appears to reference the new photo book creation tool added to Lightroom 4. This signals to me that the page is indeed for the next version of Lightroom. For those of you unfamiliar with what’s new in Lightroom 4, check out this list of expected improvements:

• Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.
• Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.
• White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.
• Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.
• Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.
• Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr.
• Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
• Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.

For the most part, these are minor changes. The three big changes are the map module (if you use geotagging), photo book creation tools, and basic video editing. What I am most excited about is the ability to use Lightroom to retouch video coloring. From what I’ve seen from the Lightroom 4 beta version, the workflow for dealing with video color still needs some work to remove some extra steps from the process.

Presenting EGallery

EGallery (“E” for Eric) is a free PHP script that generates an image gallery automatically. Once you have a directory of image files, just upload the EGallery files to that same directory and “POW!” you have yourself a full-fledged image gallery. Thumbnails are automatically processed and cached and link to an original resolution copy of your images, which users are prompted to save to their computer. Want to see it in action? Follow this link for a demo.

Installation

Since EGallery does NOT use a database, the installation process is very easy. Follow these few basic steps to install EGallery on your PHP-enabled website in just seconds:

1. Upload images to a new directory on your web server. For example: YOUR-WEBSITE.COM/sample/
2. Upload the /egallery/ directory to the same subdirectory that you just created on step 1. Example: YOUR-WEBSITE.COM/sample/egallery/
3. CHMOD the /egallery/cache/ directory as well as the contained index.html file to 777.
4. Upload the index.php file included with the download package to the directory you created on step 1.

Once you have completed the step above, navigate to the image directory from step 1 using your web browser. The first time that you visit this page it may take a little while for the script to generate thumbnail files. After the initial load, those thumbnails will be cached resulting in a faster page load.

You can configure this script by editing the /egallery/setttings.php file. This allows you to alter the <title> tag, change thumbnail image size, edit language elements, enable the image upload functionality, and turn on and off features.

Troubleshooting

Q. Why don’t I see thumbnails?
A. First, make sure that you have the correct write permissions. Set the CHMOD value to 777 for the cache directory and the index.html file within it. Another possible cause may be that the images are so large that they are using up your server’s memory. You may have to temporarily change your php.ini file settings to increase the memory limit. If you can get it as high as 128MB then you should be good to go. You can also try changing the MEMORY_LIMIT value in the thumb.php file.

Q. The image upload page shows a success message, but why don’t I don’t see new files?
A. If your image gallery directory (where the images are stored) is not set to CHMOD 777, then the upload script won’t have permissions to write the uploaded images to that folder. Change the permissions to CHMOD 777 for the gallery folder and then try re-uploading the images.

Q. I set the permissions, so why can’t I still see thumbnail images?
A. View the page source code to get the the URL for the image thumbnail, then navigate to that URL. If you see an error like “Fatal error: Allowed memory size of X bytes exhausted (tried to allocate Y bytes)…”, then continue reading.

You will see an error like this when your server is not able to allocate enough memory to process the thumbnail images. If you are able to edit your server’s memory limit, you should try adjusting it from the php.ini file (Google for more info). From Cpanel’s WHM page you can edit the memory_limit from the PHP Configuration Editor page. My suggestion is to temporarily increase the limit to a high number, like 128M, then reset it to normal after you have generated thumbnails.

Q. I changed the password, but now I can’t login!
A. If you were previously logged with another password the script has trouble overwriting the previous password cookie. Clear your browser cookies, then try logging in again.

Updates

• Version 1.0
  – Initial release
• Version 1.1
  – Added Upload feature(visit /egallery/upload.php)
  - Added Download all files as .zip feature
  – Misc bug fixes and updates
• Version 1.2
  – Altered the style
  – Added option to display image EXIF details