It Takes Photos Too

The Canon 5D Mark II can shoot video, or rather capture video.  According to Canon it has the capability for "[F]ull HD Video capture at 1920x1080 resolution for up to 4GB per clip with HDMI output for HD viewing of stills and video." Emphasis mine.  On top of that it is a 21-megapixel pro-level camera.  And ISO speeds expandable to 25600.  Now that is some shooter.  It only has a suggested retail price of $2699.00-body only.  At that price, it is too bad they don't come in different colors; then I could buy one of each color.

Well I know where twenty-seven hundred dollars are going after I hit the lottery.

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GORILLAPOD SLR ZOOM

The writers over at earthboundlight.com came up with a list of gifts for photographers.  One of the gifts was the Gorillapod SLR Zoom.  This nifty little tri-pod is made by the good folks at Joby.  They are an outfit out of San Fran.  There are three sizes.  It's also light weight, and it contorts into positions that might make some of these folks jealous.

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Spy Lens for SLR Digital Cameras

Hat tip to Will Femia at Clicked for finding this handy little add-on.

While Will is bothered by this lens on a "sportsman level"-but not a moral or sneakiness level. He says, "[T]he challenge of street photography is part of the art." I am not bothered on any level. Having been thwarted taking street photos more times than I care to remember, while living in China, this lens evens the field. And if it works as advertised, it would remove the frustration which comes with being thwarted, at least for me.

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Computational Photography-Bringing Big Changes to Digital Cameras and Photography

I think my dream of being a photographer was laid to rest when I took Father Tom Brown's Photography class at Quincy University-God rest his soul-and he proceeded to bore everyone with long winded monologues on the history of cameras, film, and photography. I think I drooled on at least every other page of the text book as the lecture droned on. My love for photography seemed to seep away with every spittle droplet.

However with the advent of digital cameras my love for photography re-blossomed. Of course that love was soon straining under efforts to master Adobe, GIMP and other photo-editing software. One trick I used to get around this was to buy a 2 gigabyte SD card which allowed me to take ungodly amount of photos, or at least until I got close to the image I was after.

So the idea of installing imaging software into my camera and letting it fix, or alter my photos is a dream made achievable after so long denied.

Of course, it will be some years before a failed hobbyest like myself can afford such a camera and software. Never the less, it seems the dream that a schlub like me could produce decent photos is not far off.

Examples of the software technique called digital refocusing can be found here.

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