SnapperTalk

Magic Lantern firmware introduction from Trammell Hudson on Vimeo.

Firmware guru Tramm Hudson has publicly released the first version of his alternative firmware for the Canon 5D Mark II camera (Note this is the same firmware as the “5D Mark Free” one I wrote about previously, it’s just been renamed). Additional features added to the base Canon firmware include:

- Onscreen stereo audio meters
- Full-time cropmarks
- Zebra stripes for overexposed regions
- Fixed audio gain (+10 dB analog, +12 dB digital) with -NO AGC-
- Live headphone monitoring on A/V jack (without disabling LCD)
- printf() to the bitmap display
- GUI event viewer (press Picture Style button)

Note that the firmware doesn’t operate quite as you might expect. You store the firmware on a compact-flash card, and to run it you have to do a “firmware upgrade” on the camera each time you want to use it, but the alternative firmware does not persist between camera reboots – therefore the base Canon firmware remains untouched.

More info at the links below, the video introduction gives a good idea of the capabilities….

Magic Lantern video introduction on Vimeo
Magic Lantern firmware wiki
Magic Lantern firmware FAQ

One day someone’s hacking the firmware to give manual audio control… the next Canon itself is announcing full manual exposure control in an official firmware update due out on June 2nd.
Coincidence? Well, who knows… but if they could just combine manual exposure control with manual audio control, and add in a 24P shooting mode, they’ll have some pretty happy video-shooting customers.
For more info check out Canon 5D Tips, who are writing a series of posts about what all this means, and already have an interesting post up about the effects of different shutter speeds when shooting video.

Canon 5D MkII firmware updates [The firmware update mentioned above will be downloadable here from June 2nd they say]

[Via Canon Rumors]

5D Mark Free audio meters from Trammell Hudson on Vimeo.

The ever-enterprising crowd over at the Cinema5D forums have managed to overcome the most sought-after complaint by those who use the Canon 5D MarkII camera for shooting video – the lack of any manual control over audio levels.
In particular, the user “Hudson” has developed an alternative firmware named 5D Mark Free which not only disables the automatic audio gain control (AGC) leaving it set to the default +36 dB, but now also adds onscreen audio meters (see video above).
Bear in mind this firmware remains heavily in “alpha” territory… it’s a proof-of-concept so far, not a working version for everyone to flash today, in fact it’s not available for download yet.
But what is very significant indeed is that it proves once and for all that it is actually possible. There is not an unknown hardware limitation, it’s merely a question of developing the right firmware.
Canon? The ball would appear to be in your court….

5D Mark Free alternative firmware

[Via Photo This & That - thanks Edmond]

If you like the Tilt-Shift lens effect but don’t have any Tilt-Shift lenses, you can now recreate the effect via a new application called, appropriately, TiltShift Generator.

Written by Takayuki Fukatsu, it can be used as an online application direct from the webpage or downloaded to your computer to run as a standalone program and since it’s built from Adobe Air it will run on Windows, Mac or Linux.

Designed for use with low-resolution cameraphone pictures such as those from the iPhone it does choke a little when you throw it a high-end DSLR image but eventually it does produce a result. Quite a fun application to play with, just bear in mind that using this would be considered image-manipulation, so it’s not at all suitable for journalistic photos.

If you do happen to have an iPhone, check out some of Takayuki’s other photography-related applications for the iPhone.

Bizarre yet strangely impressive stop-motion video from Japan. Watch in full-screen with HQ (High Quality) option clicked for best effect:

“Stop motion with wolf and pig” (YouTube)

[via Wooster Collective, via The Click]

Photographer Doug Plummer’s blog posts a news release from XLR audio adapter company BeachTek announcing their new model specifically designed for the Canon 5D Mark II. Back in January of this year photographer Edmond Terakopian posted a preview of the device.

This isn’t just a simple XLR adapter like the rest of the company’s product line, but includes one special feature to overcome a specific problem that photographers and videographers using the camera have been complaining about since the camera was launched – namely that it applies audio Auto-Gain Control (AGC) all the time, with no way for the user to switch it off and exercise manual audio gain control.

The new device is said to get around the problem by “sending a high frequency inaudible tone to the left channel of the camera” – in effect tricking the AGC circuit into thinking volume is at a high, fixed level all the time and so applying a fixed level of gain, which in turn allows the user to control overrall gain via a dial on the device (if my reading of the technology is correct). The device also allows the photographer to monitor the audio in real-time with headphones, another feature missing from the camera itself.

According to the press release posted the device will be shipping at the end of May for $379. Of course it would all be a lot simpler if Canon just allowed the user to switch AGC off completely, which presumably could be done via a firmware update… although there’s no clear sign of that coming.

For lots of discussion on the subject of the camera’s audio and other features as regards shooting video, take a look at these sites:

Cinema5D forum
DV Info’s 5DmkII forum
Planet5D wiki, blog & forums

[via Doug Plummer's Dispatches, via The Click]

Back in early February I wrote about Skype releasing a new version of its application for Windows containing the new wideband SILK codec. Codecs are the part of the software that encodes/decodes the audio for transmission, and are absolutely central to the whole thing because the quality of the compression the codec is capable of achieving is key in determining the resulting call quality.
This is particularly important for users in places with limited internet bandwidth e.g. many parts of Africa and other developing countries. The new SILK codec Skype engineered promised to provide much better use of bandwidth and so better call quality overrall, particularly for those in countries with poor internet but also for users with high bandwidth, and from most reports it seems to have done so successfully.

Unfortunately the update that contained the new codec was only for Windows, and Mac users were left out… until now. A couple of days ago Skype fairly quietly released a new beta version 2.8.0.438 for Mac OS X and the changelog posted here made no mention at all of SILK codec support.

However I can now confirm (thanks to the heads-up here) that the new beta does indeed use the new codec. To test this I placed a call from a Mac running OS X and the new beta version 2.8.0.438 to a Windows computer running Skype version 4.0 – and as you can see from the technical call info the call was indeed using the new codec.

A few things to bear in mind regarding use of the new codec:

1. It will only be used if both computers are using a SILK-capable version of Skype. If either one is using an older version that is not SILK-capable then the call will use the older and inferior SVOPC codec.

2. As far as I know, SILK does not get used in any case when placing calls to real telephones i.e. when using Skype Out.

I’ve yet to fully test the new version for improved call quality, but am glad Mac users are no longer left out. There are still some questions lingering though – Does the new Skype for iPhone & iPod touch use SILK? When will SILK be available for standalone devices such as wifi phones? Will existing devices be able to add SILK via a firmware update or will users have to buy completely new hardware?

Bearing in mind that both parties have to have the SILK codec for it to be used, these are important questions for all Skype users….

Skype Beta for Mac OS X page
Skype Beta for Mac OS X direct download [DMG file, 41.4mb]
Skype for Mac OS X user forum
Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X user forum

Interesting blog posts by the filmmakers behind Searching for Sonny – a feature film shot entirely on the Canon 5D Mark II camera, discussing the technical details and methods they are using.

As someone who photographed the climax of the Second Liberian Civil War, siege of the capital Monrovia, and downfall into exile of then-president Charles Taylor who is now on trial for war crimes by the Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting at the Hague, I have always been utterly fascinated by Liberia and have watched its progress from bloody civil war to relative peace and economic progress.

I was therefore excited to learn that last year’s World Press Photo winner Tim Hetherington (see interview about his winning photo) has a new photo book coming out shortly which focuses on Tim’s extensive work covering recent Liberian history, entitled Long Story, Bit By Bit

Tim had a unique perspective on that conflict being one of the few journalists, along with James Brabazon (see interview), to cover it primarily from the (geographical) side of the LURD rebels, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing this new publication, which Tim tells me is already printed and will be launched in early June.

His website says the book launch will take place on June 3rd at the Umbrage Gallery in Dumbo, New York, an exhibtion of the work will be on show there from May through to June, and Tim will give a talk about the project in the gallery space on May 16th. The exhibition will then move to the Lincoln Reade Centre in New York to accompany the Human Rights Watch Film festival that runs from June 10th to 29th

If you want to learn more about the fascinating history of Liberia I also highly recommend you watch these two films:

Liberia – America’s Stepchild (PBS documentary on Liberia’s long history, produced before the fall of Charles Taylor)
Liberia – An Uncivil War (documentary by Jonathan Stack, James Brabazon, and Tim Hetherington on the Second Liberian Civil War and fall of Charles Taylor)

Also see this previous post I wrote about an exhibition of Tim’s work in Liberia and a selection of his photos from that exhibition here

…and if you want to see a selection of the photos I took during that conflict go to my photo galleries page and select one of the two galleries entitled “Liberian War”. There’s a brief one of 15 images, and a longer one of 70 images.

UPDATE: Glenna Gordon has an interesting new interview with Tim about the book, conducted while he was recently in Monrovia.

Long Story Bit by Bit – some links
Publishers page
Press Release [PDF, 216kb]
Amazon US pre-order
Amazon UK pre-order

Professional photographers have their needs taken care of by Photoshop, Photo Mechanic, etc when they have to resize/recompress photos. However when you are dealing with amateurs or other people who have no training in image-editing, there is often a need to explain in very simple terms how to resize an image appropriately for emailing or sending via FTP, often over a slow internet connection.

This happens frequently when dealing with members of the public who have photos of newsworthy events, or indeed inexperienced stringers, and in such cases I have frequently advised them to download and use JpegCompress – which used to be free, but is now commercial software.

As an alternative, I recently came across PhotoRazor. It is a free and very easy-to-use piece of software that’s only 934kb to download, and can both resize and recompress single images, or indeed a whole folder of images. It’s Windows-only I’m afraid – if you know of similar software for Mac, or indeed other such software for Windows, please leave a comment. I also understand there are a number of online image editors available now, but I wonder whether to resize you have to upload the full-size image first, which defeats the point for those on slow connections.