OpenRAW Launches Survey

1/31/2006 For Immediate Release — RAW Survey launched: An International Study of the Experiences, Requirements, Preferences, and Concerns of Photographers regarding RAW Imaging Technology.

On January 31, 2006, the OpenRAW initiative launched an international survey on its Web Site to collect information about the experiences, requirements, preferences, and concerns of digital photographers and other interested parties regarding RAW imaging technology — a concept that many writers are comparing to a "digital negative".

RAW Technology Issues
As the digital properties of RAW image files have become better understood, many digital photographers have embraced RAW technology as the best means to obtain maximum image quality for themselves and their clients. However, during the past year many photographers, photo archivists, and others involved in digital imaging have become concerned about the absence of a robust, common standard for RAW image file formats. Faced with a proliferation of proprietary RAW format— often different for each successive camera model from each camera manufacturer— imaging professionals and devoted amateurs have experienced significant disruptions in their digital image workflow and limitations in their choice of software tools.
This expansion of the sheer number of proprietary RAW formats and the adoption by camera manufacturers of the practice of encryption to conceal information stored in RAW image files have increased fears about the viability of RAW formats for the long term archiving of photographic material. Some manufacturers whose cameras produced proprietary RAW files have already gone out of business, with unknown consequences for future access to those images. Many photographers are concerned that RAW files from current camera models may not be accessible in the future when those models are discontinued.

Why a Survey?
Although these topics are being discussed in many photography forums, we have very little systematic information about the experiences, requirements, preferences, and concerns of photographers regarding RAW imaging technology. One thing is clear— many photographers and archivists believe that camera manufacturers are making important decisions about RAW image technology with little or no input from the people who buy and use their equipment or who are involved in the preservation of photographic works. The OpenRAW survey will give photographers and other interested parties an opportunity to have a voice in the further development of RAW imaging technology.

The online survey questionnaire will be available for eight weeks beginning on January 31, 2006. The date was chosen to coincide closely with the 168th anniversary of an address by William Henry Fox Talbot to the Royal Society of London in 1839 describing a process of "photogenic drawing" (the collotype) based on a paper "negative" that would permit unlimited copies of an image to be made.

We encourage everybody with an interest in RAW image formats to visit the OpenRAW website at http://openraw.org/survey/ and to complete the survey questionnaire, which will take approximately 10-15 minutes. All responses will be kept completely anonymous and confidential. The OpenRAW organization and survey have no connection with any business or commercial interest. The purpose of the survey is to give professional and amateur photographers a means to express their requirements, preferences, and concerns which will be made available to camera manufacturers, software development firms, and other key participants in the digital imaging industry.

Results of the survey will be reported at the OpenRAW Web page. We believe good decisions by the digital photography industry should take account of the needs, requirements, and preferences of the photographers who make their living or pursue their artistic vision through this medium. We will share the survey results widely in the hope that the future of the craft will benefit.

For more information please visit the OpenRAW web site: http://www.openraw.org/
The OpenRAW survey sponsors:
Juergen Specht, photographer and founder of the OpenRAW initiative or@openraw.org
Calvin Jones, statistical research consultant ccj@stat-eval.com

Adobe Release Camera Raw Version 3.3

Adobe have officially released Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop CS2. It can be downloaded from Adobe's download servers Download Servers. Support for the processing of RAW files from 17 new cameras has been added since v3.2, including the Canon EOS 5D, EOS-1D Mark II N and EOS 20Da, as well as the Nikon D200. There have also been noticeable improvements in the rendering of fine detail. JPEG, TIFF and PSD files saved directly from the plug-in will now also contain caption metadata in both XMP and IPTC formats, instead of just XMP as before.

Milestone Week

This week has been a busy one for the world of Protography and Digital Imaging. Canon celebrated the production milestone of shipping their 30 millionth EF lens, no mean feat for a system less than 20 years old. Konica-Minolta annouced their withdrawal from the camera and photo business ... Sony being the beneficiary of a substantial portion of their digital photo technology assets and technologies. Zeiss officially announced the introduction of a range of "ZF" lenses, which are compatible with Nikons F mount. This was also the week that Samsung launched their first D-SLR, The 6 megapixel. GX-1S features a 2.5-inch screen, ISO 200 to 3200, an FOV Crop of 1.5x and a Pentax AF lens mount.

Briots View - Luminous Articles

Alain Briot lives and works in the heart of Southwestern Arizona. He has spent much of his time there producing wonderful images of what is one of my favourite parts of the world. Although born and educated in France, Alain moved the U.S. in 1986. He moved to Peoria, Arizona, in January 2003 from the Navajo Reservation, at Chinle, Arizona, having spent 7 years there. As said at Luminous Landscape "These locations allow him access to the Sonoran Desert and to new photographic opportunities. Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly and the Grand Canyon are his backyard, and he explores them in depth with an artist's eye."

I can identify and be only a little envious, as I hope one day to go on a photographic tour of the region. He began his studies in photography in France, and then received his Masters degree from Northern Arizona University, where he is currently working on his PhD. The Tutorials at Luminous Landscape are excellent and provide some wonderful insights into aesthetics and photography. Do yourself a big favour and check out Briots View and Alains personal website Beautiful Landscape.

Adobe release public beta of Lightroom

Adobe have announced the public beta of Lightroom, which is a new application that has the digital photographer in mind. Lightroom is aimed at the same market space which Apple have targeted with Aperture. It's a workflow and editing application which takes many of the useful features from Photoshop and combines this with some very powerful and useful capabilities for importing, browsing and organizing your digital photos. Lightroom is no quick response to Apples Aperture however, as it has been in development for a while. As explained in this great article by Jeff Schewe (which is well worth a read if you are interested in a historical context), Shadowland (a name I like) has been created with the input and help of some of the leading luminaries in the world of digital photography. The Lightroom Beta is available only as a Mac OS X version only, but I'm looking forward to trying the Windows Version when it is available. Download the Lightroom Mac OS X Beta here. For excellent coverage of the Beta and its capabilities, please visit Michael Reichmanns Luminous Landscape for the Lightroom Preview. Whilst working with Adobe I had a chance to see this great app long before Aperture came on to the scene and whilst Aperture is certainly innovative ... it is by no means original in concept.

ACDSee announce ACDSee Pro Photo Manager

ACDSee have released their foray into the world of Professional Digital Photography Image Management and Workflow tools. I'm looking forward to trying ACDSee Pro and comparing it to other tools in this market space. In their words ACDSee Pro is designed to help you "View, process, edit, organize, catalog, publish, and archive your photo collections..." It includes full RAW support and processing, powerful organizational tools, quick editing capabilites, visual tagging and full color management support for ICC and ICM profiles. For more information visit the ACDSee Pro website.

CCD Inventors to Receive $500,000 Prize

In 1969, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, who will share the annual Charles Stark Draper Prize presented by the National Academy of Engineering, were trying to figure out a way for semiconductors to store data when they sketched out the design of the CCD. Developed at Bell Laboratories, this design would become the first practical solid-state imaging device. Little did they know that this sketch would revolutionize how people view themselves, the world and the universe. The prize will be presented Feb. 21 in Washington, D.C.

Digital Imaging & CES News for January 5th 2006

CES New product Announcements
CES has always been the site of many new product releases and this year is no different ...

Sony Announce several new models.
Sony have announced the release of the Cyber-shot S600 and M2 Digicams at CES. The S600 is another in their line of budget digicams (US$200) which features a 3x Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens covering a 31-93 mm equiv. range. Features also include a large 2.0-inch LCD screen, a sensitivity of up to ISO 1000 and a 460 shot battery life. The Cyber-shot M2 Sony US is the successor to the M1, which was originally revealed in Europe back in September. The M2 combines the functionality of a digital stills camera and a digital video camera. This unusual twist and flip design reminds me of the kind of form factor normally seen in mobile phones. For more info visit Sony.

Kodak and Lexar Introduce High-Performance Memory Cards

KODAK and Lexar High Performance memory cards are designed for digital camera owners who require high-speed processing for rapid-fire still shooting, high frame rate video capture, and fast computer transfer. The cards will initially be available only in SD (Secure Digital) format.
The memory cards will be available from Lexar in capacities of 512MB and 1GB this month with larger capacity cards available later on this year. Kodak also announced several new cameras, including the Kodak EASYSHARE C530, C663, V570 and the Z650. They have also updated their EASYSHARE Software to Version 5.2.

Samsung Introduce a Combined Camera and Media Device.

The Digimax i6 is a 6MP Digital camera which features enhanced multimedia capabilities supporting MP3 and video playback. This is done using the conversion software supplied with the camera. Music can be stored on an SD/MMC card and can be listened to even whilst you are taking pictures. The i6 is only 18.5mm thick, and features a unique curved design. The i6 also features ASR (Advanced Shake Reduction) which is based on an algorithm which reduces the effects of camera shake. Samsung have also introduced several new cameras in the S series ... the S500, S600 and S800.

HP, Sanyo, Pentax and Panasonic

HP announced the HP Photosmart E327, the HP Photosmart M527/M525/M425 and HP Photosmart R927/R727/R725. Sanyo announced their Xacti HD1 High Definition Video camera (1280 x 720-pixel) which also supports recording a 5 megapixel still photo capability. Pentax also announced two new Optios, the 6 megapixel E10 and the 8 megapixel A10 both of which feature a 3x optical zoom. Panasonic have announced the 6 megapixel DMC-LZ3 / DMC-LZ5 and the Panasonic DMC-LS2 all of which feature the MEGA Optical Image Stabilization system which they put into all of their cameras to compensate for slow shutter speeds and camera shake.

There were many other releases announced at CES, I won't go into too much depth, but if you care to read more try LetsGoDigital and Steves Digicams for excellent coverage.

2005 - The Year the Earth Moved.

,Last year was for many people a year of turmoil and strife ... sectarian violence and terrorism in Iraq, terrorism in London, earthquakes as well as other natural disasters all over the world. Who can forget the post tsunami images showing the ruination of a paradise. Villages washed away, towns and cities brought low by massive waves and the movement of the earth. A tsunami and earthquake, which wiped out entire families, villages, towns and communities. Over 250,000 people were wiped off this blue and green planet of ours. Look to Pakistan, India and the region of Kashmir where another earthquake later in the year caused the deaths of around 100,000 people and made over 3 million homeless.

For the world of photography this was a year that allowed us to tell stories, as the wealth of images it produced have left an impression with many. Who can forget the images of schools which collapsed taking an entire generation with it. The images produced by ordinary people of massive waves which took away everything in their path, the streets left empty of life. Images of bodies floating in rivers for days, because there was no one to take them away. I include the tsunami from boxing day 2004 because the most striking images took days to come to us ... and continue to make an impression.

To me, 2005 represented the year that technology really put the telling of the news, into the hands of the common man. The year when the cellphones, digital cameras and camcorders which were in the hands of the public, told the story as it happened, where before, the press would only have been able to tell it after the fact. Ready availability of this technology has changed the world of newstelling irrevocably, further enhanced by the advent of the first stock companies which specialize in the use of news media recorded by the public.

This was also the year when thugs used this same technology in "Happy slapping" episodes where hapless victims were beaten and assaulted for no reason other than to record and share it with their friends ... because it was "funny". This kind of behaviour is in my mind an example of what desensitization has brought about. Turn the news into entertainment and people (maladjusted or otherwise) will think its funny ... Monkey See, Monkey Do ... God help us.

2006 should be an interesting year as this technology has improved substantially ... Cellphones which now boast 2 - 6 megapixel cameras are now readily available and in circulation. Many of these phones and cameras also boasting large capacity memory storage and even video capabilities. Add to this broadband capable transmission speeds, and you can get this media to anywhere in the world at the touch of a few buttons. The democratization of media is here ... it'll definitely be something to watch out for.

Hopefully 2006 will about many changes and improvements, but I fear that knowing humankind we will see both extremes, and this technology will continue to be used to show humanity at its very best and also its very worst.