iPhone Photo Video » DSLR

The right SD card for your camera or DSLR

Veit — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:19:30 +0000

If you take your photos with a point&shoot or a DSLR that takes SD cards, you might want to check out Ken Rockwell’s post about up- and download speeds of SD cards.

His conclusions:

If you buy SD cards, stick with Lexar or SanDisk.
Save money by buying the slow cards – they perform not that much slower than the fast cards, but cost much less.

Fortunately for me, my DSLR takes Compact Flash which can be much faster than SD cards. Personally, I use Lexar and SanDisk CF cards.

DSLR Remote updated for iPhone, Mac and PC

Veit — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:58:11 +0000

onOne Software released version 1.2 of DSLR Remote for Mac and PC, adding support for the Nikon D300s and the obligatory bug fixes. They also submitted updates of their iPhone apps (both a Lite version and a Professional edition) to Apple. The good news is that you do not have to wait for the iPhone app to be approved to have access to the server features of version 1.2 – the iPhone app works with all server versions on both PC and Mac.

What is missing, though, is support for the new Canon 7D. It is unknown at this time, when the 7D will be supported.

For more details on DSLR Remote on the iPhone, please see our initial review.

Price:
DSLR Remote Lite: $1.99 in iTunes
DSLR Remote Professional: $19.99 in iTunes.

Weekend Musings: Canon gets it, Nikon only half-way

Veit — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:10:02 +0000

Both Joe and I have written (and will continue to write) about the Good Enough Revolution. In Joe’s case, it was about the future of imaging, in mine about Steve Jobs being its (intentional?) master.

But the good enough revolution does not stop with consumer products – in fact, you can see it right when examining professional camera gear. Case in point: Canon.

With the advent of the Canon 7D, Canon now has two complete lines of professional gear: Top-of-the-line professional gear (1D for Action Shooters, 1Ds for Landscape/Full-Frame/Wedding shooters, f2.8 zoom lenses covering the entire range from 16 to 200 mm) and the good-enough line (7D for Action, 5D for Landscape/FF/weddings, f4.0 zooms covering 17 to 200mm). In fact, the good enough pro gear provides them with extra revenue, since not only pro’s and discerning amateurs use that gear, but also pro’s often use good-enough gear as backups to their top-of-the-line equipment. Canon clearly gets it that they need to offer two complete sets of cameras and lenses to the customers that are most profitable to them.

Contrast this with Nikon – they are sitting pretty in the camera department, mainly with the D700 and the D300s as good-enough cameras. But their glaring hole is in their lens line-up (see also bythom’s lens overview). No dedicated f4 pro glass, only variable aperture lenses. As much as I applaud Nikon for their strong camera line-up, they seem to have neglected upgrading their lens line-up and fail to offer two lines of pro zooms.

And that’s the reason why I would not buy Nikon today, if I had a chance to start all over again.

3 lessons from Nikon’s and Sony’s market share gains

Veit — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:34:43 +0000

Photoscala released an analysis on the world-wide DSLR market share gains and losses between the years 2006 and 2008.

Analyzing many sources, Photoscala's DSLR market share analysis shows Sony and Nikon as winners, Canon as the main loser.

I think there are three lessons to be learned from this analysis:

1. Brand matters

People shun smaller brands when they are under attack. A big part of Sony’s market share gain is attributable to their take-over of Minolta, thus giving DSLR buyers the confidence that their investment would be protected. As a result, people started to buy Sony again. But there might be another reason why Sony gained share:

2. In-Body Image Stabilization (IS)

Minolta was the first to release in-body IS – all the smaller guys followed. As pointed out in my analysis on the Panasonic GF1, it’s the trend of the future for entry-level DSLR, since it allows consumers, esp. the ones who trade up to their first DSLR and are used to in-body IS in compacts, to buy a wide range of non-IS lenses from multiple manufacturers. Both Canon and Nikon probably lost share to Sony in the entry level market over their lack of in-body IS. Expect at least one of the big guys to adopt in-body IS.

3. Great cameras in the mid- to pro-range

Nikon’s D3, D700 and D300 really improved low-light performance and became very well known for it, which explains why Nikon ended up in the plus and Canon lost even more market share. Canon had no such break-through in that sub-segment of the market at that time.

Who should be scared over these numbers? Mainly Canon, but also Panasonic. For someone who wants to break into the top 4 of the DSLR market, Panasonic needs to improve their market share very quickly. So far, they have not.

Take DSLR photos remotely on your iPhone

Veit — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:44:53 +0000

Update: onOne released version 1.1., which added support for 9 Nikon cameras in addition to the 16 Canon cameras that were already supported.

OnOne Software, which is well known for its high-end photo editing software, recently released its first iPhone app, DSLR Remote. It comes in two version, a Lite version and a Professional edition.

DSLR Remote allows you to take images remotely with your Canon DSLR (Nikon to be supported soon) from your iPhone screen. This is especially useful for sports or event photography where you can set up a camera in a place that you cannot access during a game or event, but it can also be useful for wedding photography or self-portraits.

Setup

To make DSLR Remote work, position your DSLR where you want it, then tether it to a notebook or netbook which runs onOne’s server software. The server software communicates wirelessly with your iPhone, thus allowing you to view images, remotely release the shutter and make adjustments to your settings.

Differences between Pro and Lite editions

Both editions allow you to remotely trigger the shutter and take the image. Also, you can look at images once they were taken.

In the professional edition, you can also adjust any of the camera settings (ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance). LiveView is enabled (assuming your camera supports it) and you can zoom in on an image that you just took. It also supports timer functions.

Supported Cameras

Pretty much all of Canon’s recent DSLRs are supported (see their website for a complete list). Nikon support to come soon.

Our take

This looks like a very interesting product, especially for me as a Canon shooter. However, the need for having a notebook/netbook on the scene is a turn-off for me. As outlined in multiple posts on this site (see here, here and here), I really hope that onOne considers creating an iPhone peripheral to eliminate the need to carry a netbook.

More information on DSLR Remote can be found on onOne’s DSLR Remote website.

Price:
DSLR Remote Lite: $1.99 in iTunes
DSLR Remote Professional: $19.99 in iTunes

Take DSLR photos remotely on your iPhone

Veit — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:54:30 +0000

OnOne Software, which is well known for its high-end photo editing software, recently released its first iPhone app, DSLR Remote. It comes in two version, a Lite version and a Professional edition.

Setup

Differences between Pro and Lite editions

Both editions allow you to remotely trigger the shutter and take the image. Also, you can look at images once they were taken.

Supported Cameras

Pretty much all of Canon’s recent DSLRs are supported (see their website for a complete list). Nikon support to come soon.

Our take

More information on DSLR Remote can be found on onOne’s DSLR Remote website.

Price:
DSLR Remote Lite: $1.99 in iTunes
DSLR Remote Professional: $19.99 in iTunes

What camera manufacturers will adopt from the iPhone

Veit — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:22:04 +0000

Recently, a number of photography luminaries such as Scott Bourne suggested that we will see DSLR camera manufacturers adopt Apple’s touch-to-expose/focus user interface that they rolled out in the new iPhone 3GS. Not only do I agree, I think this will not be limited to DSLRs nor to just the way Apple implemented touch on the iPhone. Despite a touch-screen LCD being more expensive than a regular LCD, we will see this technology initially not only in DSLRs (maybe not entry-level DSLRs), but also in high-end point&shoots (Canon’s G10 would be one example) as well as the new micro 3/4 cameras (DSLR-like systems without mirror, thus smaller form factors) such as the Olympus PEN P-E1 and the Panasonic DMC-G1. In fact, Panasonic with its history of aggressively pushing technical innovation would be the prime candidate for rapidly rolling out touch-screen LCDs.

If I was the product manager for Panasonic’s micro four third cameras, here’s what I would tell my engineers to work on:

Single-Tap to Focus and Expose
Simply copy Apple’s functionality. Tap to focus, set exposure and white balance. Watch out for patents and don’t worry too much about improvements – this needs to be (only) as good as Apple’s iPhone implementation.

Double-Tap to Spotmeter, then Focus
Traditionally, you point your camera’s center to where you want to spotmeter, half press the shutter, press the AE Lock (”*”) button on your camera, recompose, then half-press the shutter again to focus. This 1-2 operation could easily be implemented through a touch screen – simply tap first where you want to expose, then second to where you want to focus. Much easier without the need to recompose, which is cumbersome esp. when you shoot from a tripod.

Triple-Tap to HDR
HDR will go in-camera. While creating the actual HDR image might stay off-camera for a while longer (at least in professional cameras), making it easier to shoot multiple images for HDR will be advanced from where it is today. With a touch-screen LCD, simply tap on the three spots on the screen that you want to expose to for highlights, mid-tones and lowlights, then let the software compute the stops and how many shots to take.

Hover to Zoom
Similarly to the iPhone where hovering over text brings up the zoom loupe, tap and hover a spot on the screen and the camera zooms into that spot. This would be display only, not for composition, so the actual zoom on the lens would not be invoked. This would work for both live-view (before taking the shot, so you can check on details, sharpness…) and viewing an image after the shot.

And then there is the matter of using the iPhone as a remote to our cameras, but that will be covered in another post!

iPhone 3.0: Why the hardware SDK matters most to photographers

Veit — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:58:37 +0000

Recently, the photography community was abuzz about onOne’s DSLR remote application for the iPhone (in a Lite and Pro edition). But while that is a nifty application for photographers, it is a very good example of why the iPhone 3.0 hardware SDK, which allows you to communicate with accessories, is to photographers the most intriguing part of iPhone 3.0.

To understand why, let’s look at the onOne DSLR remote setup: In order to remotely snap a DSLR picture from your iPhone, connect your Canon DSLR through a USB cable to a netbook running onOne’s free DSLR remote companion software. The netbook then transmits over a Wi-Fi network to your iPhone where you can set all the camera controls (speed, ISO, aperture, aso.) and in case you set the camera to Bulb mode, you can also snap the picture.

Apart from the fact that you need WiFi to execute this (if you are not in a WiFi hotspot, you can create a WiFi Bubble with a Verizon MiFi device), you also need a netbook or a laptop, since the companion piece has to run on something. However, once the iPhone 3.0 upgrade is out, onOne or any DSLR maker could create an accessory that connects to your iPhone directly that takes over the functionality of the netbook. Similarly to the demo that Apple showed during the iPhone OS 3.0 preview where the iPhone worked as a blood pressure reader, there’s no reason why the iPhone could not remotely trigger a DSLR through an accessory. Even better, since the iPhone has GPS, it could capture the GPS coordinates of your location (OK, your iPhone’s location, but it won’t be more than 100 feet away from your DSLR) and send them back to the camera to be embedded into the metadata of the photo as you take it. Very compelling!

Am I dreaming? I hope not. I hope that Canon, Nikon, Sony and the other DSLR manufacturers are already working on iPhone accessories. As onOne proved, third parties are thinking about how to integrate the iPhone with DSLRs and if the camera makers will not step up, they will for sure!