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Photographer Finds Owner of Camera That Fell 1,500ft in Zion 3 Years Ago https://ift.tt/2UcCwJ3
New Zealand photographer Luke Riding was hiking around the base of Angels Landing in Zion National Park when he stumbled upon a smashed-up Fujifilm camera that had clearly fallen from atop the 1,488-foot-tall rock formation. The memory card was intact and Riding found a number of photos on it. After trying and failing to find the owner through posts on Instagram and Twitter, his friend (and fellow photographer) Ben Horne got involved with the search. On February 20th, Horne shared this 3-minute video in an effort to track down the owner to return the photos. Here’s the camera that Riding found:
And here are some of the photos that were discovered on the memory card:
Amazingly, the owner was identified less than 24 hours after Horne published his YouTube video. “I posted the video at 6am Pacific time, and it was in turn posted on Reddit by a third party,” Horne tells PetaPixel. “On the Reddit page, a guy named Patrick recognized one of the girls in the photo as a high school acquaintance from nearly 10 years ago. “He remembered her name, saw he was still Facebook friends with her, then reached out to her. The girl confirmed that it was indeed her sister’s camera, and by 7:30pm that same day, I got a message from Sarah on Instagram. The whole thing took place in just over 12 hours.” It turns out the camera’s owner is a gal named Sarah Salik who had been hiking Angels Landing with her sister in mid-2016. Upon reaching the top, the pair stopped to have lunch, at which time Salik accidentally knocked her camera over the edge. Luke is now working to send the camera and memory card back to Sarah (seen on the left in the photo of the two sisters) so that she can be reunited with the gear and photos she lost nearly three years ago. “It’s a pretty simple story really, but it shows how interconnected we all are and the power of social media,” Horne says. Photography News via PetaPixel https://petapixel.com February 28, 2019 at 12:44PM
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The post How to Use Photoshop to Resize and Sharpen Images for the Web appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter Dam.
Do you struggle with getting your images to look super sharp when you use them online? Do they even look blurry? No matter if you share your images on social media platforms or photo sharing sites like Flicker and 500px, you want your images to look as sharp as possible. Most photographers come across web sharpening issues at some point. But did you know that most of the web sharpening issues you experience come from the resizing process? Resizing your image can make your image look blurry and a lot less sharp than the full sized image. You might have spent a long time processing your image so it would be a shame that it should end up as a less sharp online version. In this article, you will learn the common pitfalls to sharpening your images for web use, and more importantly, how to sharpen in a way that gives you both full control and the best results. However, let’s take a look at how not to resize images for online use before we dig into the best way to resize and sharpen in Photoshop. 
Milford Sound Mitre Peak © Peter Dam How NOT to resize and sharpen your images for online useTo get sharp and great looking images online, avoid uploading a full-sized image and relying on the website to handle resizing for you. You don’t have any control over the amount of sharpening (if any) that a website’s upload function add to your image. You should also avoid just using the export dialogue in Photoshop. Even though it is good, it is not great. You can still end up with blurry images, especially if there is a dramatic size change. Like if you want to resize a 6000px wide image to being only 1200px. Also, avoid just resizing in Photoshop and then let the export tool do the rest if you want the best results. Even though you resize the image, you have little control of the sharpening process when you only use the export tool. How to sharpen your images in Photoshop for the best resultsTo follow along, open a copy of an image that you have already processed in Photoshop, as we go through the best method for resizing and sharpening your photos for online use. Note: Make sure you use a copy of the image and not the original because you are going to resize your image to a much smaller version. If you accidentally save the image without renaming and close Photoshop, you can’t recover the image back to its full size. 
The Chute © Peter Dam It would be logical to go straight ahead and resize your image to the output size you want. However, this won’t lead to the best results as it may be difficult for Photoshop to properly sharpen an image that suffers from a quality loss when you resize a lot. Instead, resize in two steps and sharpen in between the steps. Let’s go through the process step-by-step using the dimensions from above as an example, resizing from a 6000px wide image down to 1200px wide. The first step is to resize your image down to approx. 1.6 of the final output size that you want to use online. In this case, this would be 1.6 X 1200px = 1920px. To resize your image in Photoshop, you should go to Image->Image Size and enter the width.
This gives you an image that hasn’t degraded too much from being resized but is still relatively close to the final image size. Before resizing to the final output size, you should add sharpening. You do this by going to Filter->Sharpen->Sharpen. If you like to keep track of what each layer does, I suggest renaming the layer to “Sharpened.”
After applying this first layer of sharpening, duplicate the layer. You can do this by pressing CMD+J (on Mac) or CTRL+J (on Windows). Then apply another round of sharpening by using the menu Filter->Sharpen->Sharpen. Rename this layer to “Extra sharpening.”
Now you are ready to resize to the final image size. You do this by going to Image->Image Size and enter 1200px as the width.
Now that you have resized the image to the final output size, you should see that the image looks very sharp when you view it at its actual size. If you think that it looks somewhat over-sharpened, you can easily adjust it by just changing the opacity of the of the topmost layer (the one called “Extra sharpening”). Pull down the opacity to around 60-70%.
Now you are done with the sharpening process. However, you should know that there are additional issues that occur when resizing images. Sharpening an image also tends to make it a tiny bit brighter. If you want to address this, you should add a Levels adjustment layer and pull the midtone point slightly to the right. Usually changing the midtone point to 0.97 brings back the original brightness level. You can also use an Exposure adjustment layer if you prefer to use that instead of a Levels adjustment layer.
The colors in your image also suffer a bit when resizing and sharpening; however, it is not always visible. If you find that your image looks a bit less colorful now that it is resized, you should add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and add a bit of saturation back into the image. About +5 to +9 usually brings your image back to the level it was before resizing and sharpening.
That is the end of the web resizing and sharpening method used by many professional photographers using Photoshop. If you are familiar with creating Photoshop actions, you can record the process of resizing and sharpening images to the dimensions you most often use online. This allows you to speed up the process significantly.
Exporting your imageThe final step is to export your image. You can do this by going to File -> Export -> Export As… The setting you choose when exporting your image depends on where you want to upload your image. For some sites, like image galleries or your portfolio website, image quality is more important than the file size. Whereas, blogs prefer to have smaller file sizes, but with a bit lower image quality.
One of the most important things, as discussed in this article, is that the result is a sharp looking image. You already took care of this by following the sharpening and resizing workflow above, where you resized the image to the output size you need. This means that you don’t have to worry about resizing the image or what resample method to use during export. The only thing to worry about when following this sharpening and resize workflow is choosing the file format you want and the quality to use. The file format is most likely going to be JPG for web use. The image quality settings depend on whether you prefer a really small file size (so the image loads lightning fast online), or whether you prefer to maintain the best image quality possible. Usually, you can lower the image quality to 80% without a visible drop in image quality. This is my preferred personal setting for image quality. You can optimize the file size even more by using a lower image quality. However, I would never recommend going lower than 50% to get smaller file sizes. There are also some image optimizing sites you can use, such as TinyJpeg, that lower your file size without compromising your image quality too much. ConclusionAdmittedly, it is a lot more complicated method for resizing your images than using the inbuilt Export feature in Photoshop. However, it also leads to much better results. What use is it to put much effort into capturing and processing an image, if it doesn’t look as great as it could when you show it online? What method do you use for sharpening your images before using them online? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. The post How to Use Photoshop to Resize and Sharpen Images for the Web appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter Dam. Photography via Digital Photography School https://ift.tt/29wB9CX February 28, 2019 at 12:23PM
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Leica Unveils the Summicron 35mm f/2 ASPH L-Mount Lens https://ift.tt/2EDwLic
Leica has announced the new APO-Summicron-SL 35mm f/2 ASPH prime lens for the L-Mount, which is found on Leica’s SL mirrorless camera as well as all cameras that are launched as part of the L-Mount Alliance between Leica, Panasonic, and Sigma.
“Innovative production methods and new technologies paired with impeccable imaging performance make the latest lens of the Summicron-SL series the new benchmark for the classic reportage focal length,” Leica says. The company says it paid particularly close attention to preventing stray light and reflections in the lens. Thanks to the optical and mechanical design as well as the coatings on each lens surface, the lens provides a high level of image quality from corner to corner, even at f/2.
The front lens element features a hydrophobic Aquadura coating that repels dust and moisture. “[T]he lens can be used without a second thought to perform in almost any weather conditions,” Leica says. “By design, the Leica SL-System and its lenses instill confidence in the user that they will always be able to get the shot regardless of extreme environmental elements.”
Inside the lens (and all Summicron-SL lenses) is a powerful Dual Syncro Drive (DSD) stepping motor that can travel the entire focus range in just 250 milliseconds, ensuring ultra-fast focusing that won’t cause you to miss moments.
The new Leica APO-Summicron-SL 35mm f/2 ASPH will be available starting in mid-April 2019 with a price tag of $4,595. Photography News via PetaPixel https://petapixel.com February 28, 2019 at 12:12PM
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This Robot Shoots Stunning Slow-Mo Portraits on Red Carpets https://ift.tt/2EjubfW
If you don’t watch entertainment industry awards shows, perhaps you’ve never heard of E!’s Glambot, which has been hitting the red carpets at major shows (e.g. Oscars, Grammys, Emmys) to shoot stunning 1000fps slow-motion portraits of celebrities. The man directing the Glambot at each of the shows is Canadian filmmaker and photographer Cole Walliser. The Glambot itself is well-known Bolt high-speed cinebot by Camera Control holding up a Phantom 4K Flex camera with a Leica Summilux lens mounted on it. Here’s an epic shot of singer and actress Sofia Carson that Walliser captured with the Glambot at the 2018 Academy Awards (you can find more shots from this show here): Whenever a celebrity shows up at the booth, Walliser only has about 30 seconds to explain the Glambot and 1-2 minutes total for the whole shoot. The robot itself has about 12 pre-programmed moves that Walliser chooses from based on the subject’s position, attire, and movement. “The pressure is on because you only ever have ONE take, and this is a dangerous rig that can knock you out,” Walliser writes. “I get good at explaining things, but sometimes the environment is so frenetic you can’t really hear me or focus.” Here’s a 5-minute behind-the-scenes video Walliser shared last year showing how he ran the Glambot at the Oscars: Here are a couple of behind-the-scenes looks at shots Walliser made during the Oscars this past weekend of J-Lo and Lady Gaga:
And here are some of the best Glambot shots from the night: “It’s quite a unique process that’s half live show, half beauty spot directing, have movement coaching, nothing else I work on a director comes close,” Walliser writes. “We shot about 140 takes at the Oscars this year and a lot make it into broadcast.” Photography News via PetaPixel https://petapixel.com February 28, 2019 at 11:56AM
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3 Reasons to Create Your Own Lightroom Presets https://ift.tt/2NAmDcC When I first began dabbling in the world of landscape photography, I was enticed by the instant gratification of purchasing Lightroom presets. I was originally drawn in by the fact that I could instantly download these presets and I could instantly import them into Lightroom and instantly “improve” my own photos. I spent the majority of my first year of photography fussing around trying to make other peoples presets look good on my photos and eventually threw in the proverbial towel. It wasn’t until last year that my mindset surrounding presets began to change. In this 13-minute video, I discuss three reasons why I think everyone should create their own Lightroom presets. 1. Better Workflow EfficienciesI found that when I began my editing process I would repeatedly start by applying the same “robotic” edits to my images – Enable Lens Profile Correction > Boost the Vibrance > Reduce the Saturation > bring down the Highlights > bring up the Shadows and so on. I thought to myself why not create a preset that would allow me to apply all of these initial edits without having to select each individual adjustment.
With that said, I created a series of “quick start” presets that have proven to be an incredible time saver for my Lightroom editing workflow – I just apply them at the start and then make the fine adjustments after that. If you have your own set of mundane steps you habitually apply to your photos, then a quick start preset might be beneficial to your overall editing workflow. 2. Find Your Own Creative StyleIn the past when I would purchase presets I felt that I was suffocating my own creativity as I was leaning on someone else’s creative style as a way to “improve” my own photos. I ultimately ended up constructing my own creative presets where each individual preset contained a singular edit like a split-tone combination or a specific tone curve that I liked as opposed to an entire edit contained within a single preset. I consistently struggled when applying purchased presets to my photos as they always contained an entire edit of an image and the odds that an entire edit is going to look good on any photo is slim to none.
Once I built my own creative presets, I would apply an edit to a specific image and then apply a split tone or tone curve preset or both on top of my original edit – this approach is when I began having success with presets. 3. Practice Practice Practice
I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true – practice makes perfect. When I was using purchased presets I never took the time to dig into the specific edits that were used to create said presets, I would just apply them, spend about 20 minutes trying to make them look good and then export them – that was my workflow. But, it wasn’t until I started making my own presets that I began to understand the specific edits that I liked and what worked well and what didn’t work well on my own images. Putting the block on purchased presets is one of the best choices I made not only from a creative aspect but also from a post-processing stance — plus saving a few bucks along the way is always a good thing as well. P.S. If you enjoyed this video and article, you can find more by subscribing to my YouTube channel. About the author: Mark Denney is a landscape photographer based in North Carolina. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of his work on his website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Photography News via PetaPixel https://petapixel.com February 28, 2019 at 11:04AM US transportation agencies ban passenger aircraft from transporting lithium-ion batteries in cargo2/28/2019
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US transportation agencies ban passenger aircraft from transporting lithium-ion batteries in cargo https://ift.tt/2tGhh6D
The U.S. Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration have announced a new Interim Final Rule banning the transportation of lithium-ion batteries in passenger aircraft cargo. As well, the new rule requires lithium-ion batteries transported on cargo planes to have no more than a 30% charge. The new rules were revealed by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao on Wednesday. The regulation is intended to help protect passenger and cargo aircraft from potentially catastrophic fires that may result from faulty lithium-ion batteries, which are prone to catching on fire and exploding when they overheat. Below is an older video shared by the FAA showcasing what can happen when a lithium-ion battery fault. Travelers flying in passenger aircraft retain the option of packing lithium-ion batteries in their carry-on luggage. This includes devices with non-removable batteries, such as phones and laptops, as well as standalone batteries, including power banks and spare cameras batteries. The Interim Final Rule follows the FAA's 2017 proposal for a global ban on lithium-ion batteries in checked airline luggage. The recommendation was made based on tests conducted by the FAA, which found that fires caused by lithium-ion batteries in a plane's cargo hold could potentially result in 'the loss of an aircraft.' The full Interim Final Rule can be read here [PDF]. Photography News via Dpreview https://ift.tt/i0r8o5 February 28, 2019 at 10:59AM
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Photographers, Quit Bellyachin’ and Build a Raft! https://ift.tt/2BX1c0K
Everywhere you turn in the photographic press you see the same kinds of articles over and over. Such-and-such a competition or service is just a rights-grab! You have to give up your rights to your images! Total party foul! Everyone steals everyone else’s pictures which is totally illegal! Lame! Losers with weak cameras are undercutting professionals left and right! I have a sad! Phone cameras are terrible but everyone keeps using them! #dslrs4lyfe, yo! Sure, fair enough. These things are all sad, and some of them are illegal. So what? You’re standing around in rising waters already hip-deep, whining that someone oughta fix the levees. Stop it. This is the situation on the ground, and another angry blog post about how unfair it all is is not going to change that. Stop complaining and start building a raft. How are you, as a photographer, going to accomplish whatever it is you have a yen to in this world? Do you want to make money taking pictures? Well, too bad. Photos are too easy to take, too commodified. Sell your clients something they can’t get from their phone or some rando from craigslist. Sell them an experience, with photos. Sell them a book, with photos. Sell them a “personal branding campaign,” with photos. If you have to, sell them a coupon to a local restaurant, with photos. Figure it out. Do you want to play the photo competition game? Well, competitions are going to take your rights. Put your grownup pants on, and make some photos for competition that you’re willing to kiss goodbye. Make other photos for your portfolio. They can be real similar, it turns out. You don’t want people stealing your pictures? Don’t put the ones you want to keep online. If you need an online presence, put some other ones up. Photos you’re willing to kiss goodbye. And so on, on and on. This is the world, people. Pull your socks up, quit bellyaching, and start figuring out how to live in this world. Stop complaining about the levees and start building a raft. Or, you can put your camera down and take up needlepoint. I hear that’s a thing too. About the author: Andrew Molitor writes software by day and takes pictures by night. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. Molitor is based in Norfolk, Virginia, and does his best to obsess over gear, specs, or sharpness. You can find more of his writing on his blog. This article was also published here. Image credits: Emoji by Vincent Le Moign and licensed under CC BY 4.0 Photography News via PetaPixel https://petapixel.com February 28, 2019 at 10:52AM
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The Disturbing True Story Behind the Iconic ‘Afghan Girl’ Photo https://ift.tt/2H6Ek2s Tony Northrup recently decided to create a video celebrating photographer Steve McCurry’s most famous photo, the iconic “Afghan Girl” portrait featured on the cover of National Geographic. But upon researching the shot, Northrup learned the other, more disturbing side of the story that’s more hidden from public view. In interviews that Sharbat Gula (the “Afghan Girl”) has given over the years, Northrup learned that she wasn’t a willing subject in the portrait McCurry shot when she was around 10 to 12 years old. As a Pashtun, she wasn’t supposed to be in the same room as a man outside her family, make eye contact, show her face, have her photo taken, or (especially) have her photos publicized. Through his translator at the refugee camp in Pakistan, McCurry asked Gula’s teacher to tell the girl to remove her burka and show her face. After the photo was shot, Gula, who says she was scared, ran away immediately. In publishing the photo on its cover, National Geographic stated in the issue that the girl’s eyes were “reflecting the fear of a war.” “Not true,” Northrup says. “Her eyes were reflecting the fear of an unfamiliar man. The fear of her personal boundaries being breached and her beliefs being trampled on. She had nothing else to be afraid of that day except for Steve McCurry. She had been living in that camp for a couple of years. She was in school.” And while McCurry would go on to become internationally celebrated as the photographer behind the portrait, Gula’s life has been marked with extreme hardship and suffering. In addition to losing her husband and one of her children, Gula was arrested in Pakistan in 2016 for using a fake ID card and living in the country illegally. She was then deported by Pakistan to Afghanistan, which celebrated her return. “Sharbat believes that if this picture had never been taken, she’d still be living in Pakistan, which she considered to be her home,” Northrup says. Photography News via PetaPixel https://petapixel.com February 28, 2019 at 10:35AM
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 Today only, you can grab the Sigma 14-24mm f/2.8 Art series lens from our exclusive affiliate partner Adorama. This is a stellar deal. Key FeaturesSigma 14-24mm f/2.8 Art $929 (Reg $1299) Photography via Canon Rumors https://ift.tt/2v4dYqS February 28, 2019 at 10:20AM
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Better Black And White Images In 3 Easy Steps https://ift.tt/2UbVrDD One of the reasons that black and white photos resonate so profoundly with viewers is that they are aesthetically easy to digest — there are just shades of gray present. No color relationships to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] Photography News via Light Stalking https://ift.tt/2kwTW5i February 28, 2019 at 10:01AM |
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