Copyrighted Photos

It's very frustrating if people 'steal' your images when you're a photographer. It's annoying if they 'borrow' them (hotlinking, use them in other websited), and it's downright evil if they are using them for generating money [1, 2, 3].

Anyway, on a 'local' forum, some of the members found out that Hyves.net members (you need to be a Hyves member to view this) were using copyrighted photos. Other 'Hivers' can use these images to create collages, or use them to 'pimp' their personal pages (yuk!!).
Some of the original images still showed the copyright info, while other photos were modified to remove the copyright text (deliberate copyright infringement if you ask me).

The 'fun' part is that people who use these images get mad if you ask them to remove the image due to copyright infringement. The general consensus seems that everything you put up on the Internet is up for grabs.

So, if you don't want others to (mis)use your photos don't put them online. If you have to put them online, make sure other people can't remove the copyright info without 'destroying' the photo (e.g. humongous watermark across the photo). Or just put very small versions of the photos online.

Professional Photographer or Not?

When are you a professional photographer? This was a question I ran into on a forum about photography.

Many people think you are a professional photographer when you're able to create magnificent photographs. But according to the average dictionary you're a pro when photography is your job (your profession).

So, shooting awesome photographs over and over again doesn't make you a pro. It just makes you an awesome photographer. Selling them and living of them makes you a pro.

Panasonic Lumix LX3

Panasonic Lumix LX3After a long and extensive search for an additional point and shoot camera (P&S) I bought the Panasonic Lumix LX3.

The reason for buying the camera were:

• Image quality
• RAW capabilities
  (RAW format not yet supported by the normal Adobe product)
• Relative large sensor with only 10 MPixels
• Size (not too small)
• Extensive control over the settings in the camera
• Hotshoe (for an external flash or a 200 euro ViewFinder.....)
  The LX3 with a Nikon SB-600 flash... not that well balanced :)
• 24mm (35mm equivalent) wide angle lens.
• Macro setting
• Good quality movies (in 720p HD format)
• And not to forget; the design of the camera.

Panasonic Lumix LX3 test imageWhen you're used to a semi-pro dSLR it takes a while getting used to. Most of the camera functions are hidden in menu's.

One question for Panasonic-crew; Why the absurd prices on the optional accessories? The optional ViewFinder is HALF the price of the camera.
Guess I'll be waiting for the cheap Asian knock-offs.

Nikon D300 Firmware 1.10 Available

Nikon released firmware version 1.10 for the D300 this week.

Finally a decent way of addig the copyright and photographer info into the EXIF data....

Back From 'The Canaries'

We went to the Canary Islands (Spain) last week. One whole week of sleep, sun, eat, and drink (all-inclusive). Today.... back to work. Damn, that's hard.

I didn't take that many pictures. Mostly some experimenting with slow shutterspeeds, and HDR (and the occasional sunset).

More photos on my flickr page.

Copying EXIF Information

Lots of data is recorded in photos every time you take a picture with a modern digital camera (EXIF data). Stuff like; make, model, aperture, shutter speed, ISO etc. Nowadays, it's possible to add GPS information as well. This information is available in programs like Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture.

Unfortunately, the recorded information might get lost if you use graphics software to manipulate the photos. For example, I take 5 photos and blend them into one for a panoramic photo or an HDR photo. The result can be stunning, but mostly, the original EXIF information is gone. In these situations I copy the information using jhead (exiftool is an alternative) from one of the original images and place this in the final (manipulated) image. Downside is that this is kinda disrupting for my 'workflow', because is done by the command line.

It would be nice if e.g. Lightroom had a context menu of copying the EXIF information (this is possible for other metadata in the photos), and pasting it in the new photo.
Some might say that this might not be very ethical because the data is from another image, but then again, there are tools already available for doing this. Even though these aren't very user friendly. Perhaps a small suggestion for the developers.....

Experimenting with HDR

The HDR consists of a 5 image series (-2EV -> +2EV) taken last Saturday in Goedereede.

More photos from the Goedereede shoot are available on my flickr page.

New Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 AF-S VRII

Rumors are that a new and improved Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 AF-S lens will be announced/revealed on Photokina 2008. Which would be nice since I'm still saving money to 'replace' my Sigma 80-400.

It would be nice to come back from holiday, and to find out that Nikon shipping lots of new goodies :).

Another Possible P&S Candidate

Recently I blogged about wanting a (new) Point&Shoot camera. Back then, I optioned the Canon G9 and the Panasonic Lumix LX3. But in the mean time another candidate roared its head; The Leica D-LUX 3 (in black).

Choices, choices, choises... When will it end?

FireFox 3 Color Management

In the 'old' days, Safari was probably the only Internet browser with some decent color management. The problem was that images displayed in Firefox and Internet Explorer looked a bit desaturated and lighter.

Now, in FireFox 3 you have the opportunity of enabling color management. Just set the following configuration option to 'true' (by double clicking) in the FireFox configuration settings (to access the config-part of FireFox, just type about:config in the address bar).

gfx.color_management.enabled

This feature is turned off by default. Restart firefox and be amazed by the colors in your photos on the Internet