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Flash press camera

By Christine Berrie

An exhibition called ‘Sight Unseen‘ has opened at the California Museum of Photography which showcases the work of twelve blind photographers from around the world.

The curator of Sight Unseen, Douglas McCulloh, explains how visually impaired people are able to capture such beautiful images.

See the gallery, visit the virtual exhibition, or over at the BBC some (commentated) photos.

Here’s a visual representation of my blog:

You can make your own Wordle over at, well, wordle.net

So RED just had their first public showing of their REDRay magic box. Some compression wizzardry made it possible to compress 4k video by the factor of 750 – resulting in 4k footage at a datarate that is half of standard definition miniDV. Basically you get a picture way, way, way better than HD at a fraction of BluRay’s data rate. This might just turn the whole delivery upside down, as it will enable distribution of high quality films via standard broadband. Also, digital cinema will not need proprietary distribution technology, because a feature film will fit on a standard DVD-R.

At the REDuser party in Las Vegas RED showed both uncompressed footage side-to-side with the same footage compressed with their technology. Uncompressed size was roughly 320GBs, while the REDRay version shrank down to 450MBs. Many reported as to not being able to tell the difference.

Some video footage from the REDuser party has been put online by Justin.tv.

I hope that it will only be a matter of time before 4k projectors come at an affordable price. Community cinemas could spring to life again, and small filmmakers could organize regionally to open up their own cinemas. Distribution of independent film will no longer be limited by cost.

What an exciting times we live in, my friends.

Solargraph by Pekka Salminen

I’ve done some pinhole camera experiments in my younger days, but Justin Quinell is our age’s master in this technique. Have a look at his collection of multiple-month exposures, which he calls Solargraphs.

He also built a miniature camera, letting you expose from within the mouth. And he even sells those little cameras for next-to-nothing.

And do visit Junstins homepage, where you’ll find lots of other goodies, including instructions on how to build a 720-degree camera out of toilet rolls.

One of the things I love about the Internets is how they change media, and especially advertising. In TV the advertiser has to spend a lot of money to get fixed slots of say 10, 15 or 30 seconds. Excepts for a few notable exceptions, stories have to be very simple, quickly told.

Now, with Internet and broadband, stories are no longer restricted by length – they just have to be good, so that people do want to watch them. More money can be spend on the actual film, rather than its distribution. “Get out of the Doghouse” is an excellent example of one of those. Observe:

(via Doug Karr)

Found a great article by BSC and ASC member Roger Deakins, one of my favourite Directors of Photography.

With all our modern inventions and innovations, there are few films that manage to achieve the “quality” of Citizen Kane, though there are many that have far less grain and considerably higher resolution.

Every shot I have ever made has been a compromise in some way. That’s a sweeping statement, but true nonetheless. No image has ever been as good as the one I envisioned in my mind’s eye. Maybe that’s what keeps me going: just once, I want to see that image onscreen!

There has always been a disregard for preservation, whether it’s preservation of a historic site, the Dodo, the polar bear, or a film like Sid and Nancy.

The animators who “photographed” [Wall-E] worked in a three-dimensional world and covered the action in much the same way as a live-action film, but the directors of photography, Danielle Feinberg (lighting) and Jeremy Lasky (camera) – separate positions you might note – used no emulsion, no Fresnel lamps or diffusion, no Steadicam, no geared head, nor any other live-action tool. Nevertheless, theirs was a stunning cinematographic achievement. It’s true they had an advantage – they never had to battle fading daylight, conceal a light’s source or hide dolly tracks – but I would not hesitate to recommend them for ASC membership.

Read the full article here.

While our wax printer was away for repair, I bought a cheap Canon MP610 ink printer. Turns out, it also prints on DVDs, and better than our outrageously expensive Bravo II dedicated DVD printer.

A friend told me I could save buckets by getting a so-called CISS system, continuous ink supply system.

Looking on eBay, there are many different offerings, all from cheap Asian to custom-built solutions for each printer. I chose an offering from down-under rihac. Installation is just a bit complicated, but if you manage to install memory in your computer, you´ll be fine. Rihac provides an extensive installation manual, which is adapted to your specific printer model.

The result: cheap printing (did you know that drugs – the illegal type – are cheaper than printer ink?), never having to worry about which colour might run out just as an important printing job is up, and saving the environment.

Rihac uses very good ink, and I did some printouts just before installation, and afterwards, and could not see a difference. Some reviewers wrote that the Rihac ink is more light resistant than the original one.

Bottom line

If you rather spend money on film gear than ink, get yourself a quality CISS system. Search on eBay, there are many different providers. I for one can recommend the one I chose, but find out for yourself.

Happy printing.

A dutch blogger has an interesting project describing how he made a bluescreen himself. Or a greenscreen.

I always find it tedious to keep all my software updated. AppUpdate is a free widget that scans your harddisk for programes, and then checks the versions number against a list on Apple’s software directory, MacUpdate and Version Tracker. Once it is finished — and this goes surprizingly fast — you are presented with a simple list that shows all available updates, with links to the respective download pages. All for a very affordable 0 Euro/Dollar/Yuan.

Further soft

Georg Kaindl, the programmes, also makes a little widget for the iPhone/iPod Touch that quickly checks the TV schedule of Austrian TV channel ORF, for whom I have worked a couple of times. Another iPhone App makes for quick getting-around in Vienna (which is a phantastic town, with more than enough historic places).