Photography

When describing Phase One's IQ180-based camera system, there are plenty of superlatives you could pick.

High resolution is one choice: the sensor captures 80-megapixel photos measuring 10,328 by 7,760 pixels.

Expensive is another obvious candidate: the IQ180 image sensor costs $43,990. Adding in the 645DF camera body and Schneider-Kreuznach's 80mm LS lens bumps the price to $47,990.

But the one that intrigued me the most was outstanding color.

Over two weeks shooting with the IQ180 and 645DF medium-format camera body, I was consistently impressed with the depth and subtlety of its images' color. As often as not it was the color, not the high resolution, that made me want to dive into the photos (having a high-gamut display helps a lot) and print posters. Skin tones look more alive and natural, and I found myself shooting to capture color much more than I usually do. … Read more

Here's one of those tips that's so obvious, you'll be surprised you missed it.

With iOS 5 utilizing the volume-up button for the camera shutter, iPhotography seriously improved, as previously tapping the screen to activate the shutter would often render blurry photos.

Then yesterday, one of my favorite food photographers tweeted her brilliant discovery: you can also use your headset volume-up button to capture a photo.

Just launch your iPhone's camera, ready your shot, and click the volume up button to snap the photo. If you have a Bluetooth headset with volume control, it'll likely … Read more

Sure, you could buy an expensive new camera to improve your photos.

But here's what I like about a small new company called Modahaus: its accessories let you take better photos with the camera you already have.

The company popped up in June with a compact, relatively affordable set of tabletop studio products. And this week, it launched a another accessory, the Steady Stand 200 for taking photos looking straight down, in particular for those taking shots with an iPhone.

The products aren't going to make it any easier to capture your daughter's quinceanera or the company's holiday party. But for those who want to take photos of stationary objects for reasons of art, archiving, or e-commerce, the Steady Stand looks solid. … Read more

Google launched WebP to outdo JPEG. Now a new version is designed to take on another dominant graphics format on the Web, PNG.

WebP is based on the open-source compression technology used in Google's WebM video encoding technology, and with it, Google hopes to reduce Web page file sizes and thereby speed up the Net. There are plenty of challenges for the technology, but Google just made WebP a bit more competitive through the addition of two major features.

First is a "lossless" compression option that can image data without loss of fidelity. Second is support for … Read more

It's time for Photoshop customers to think carefully about how to pay for the software, because Adobe Systems is curtailing upgrade deals to steer people toward a new $600-per-year subscription for a wide range of its products.

Subscription pricing, in which a person gets rights to use software for period payments, has been a mixed success in recent years. Red Hat has made it work with Linux and related server software, but Microsoft's enthusiasm for subscription pricing seems to be emerging mostly through online services such as Office 365.

Adobe--a software powerhouse going through a rough patch with layoffs … Read more

Time-lapse photos are a fun way to document a series of moments happening around you with a camera.

And now there's an awesome app available for Android that lets you bring this same method to your smartphone or tablet. All you need is a quick download and a bit of setup to get started.

Step 1: Download Lapse It from the Android Market. There is a free version that will only allow lower-resolution photos and a Pro version, which allows images up to 720p.

Step 2: Open the app and press the Start new capture button.… Read more

Adobe Systems and Apple may not see eye to eye over the Flash Player plug-in, but they've come to an understanding with the new app store era of software distribution.

Adobe announced today that both its consumer-oriented photo and video software, Photoshop Elements 10 and Premiere Elements 10, are now available on the Mac App Store. The move parallels what Adobe already has done with iOS apps and expands on its earlier sales only of Photoshop Elements 9 on the Mac App Store.

The Mac App Store, a standard feature of recent versions of Mac OS X, lets Apple … Read more

Do you wish your iPhone could sometimes act as an SLR camera, with its ability to capture shallow depth-of-field shots, where an object in the foreground is in focus and the background is artistically out of focus? If you'd like to create this bokeh effect with your iPhone, then check out SynthCam, a free app that takes short a video and then synthesizes that video into a photograph. … Read more

The iPhone 4 already offered standout image quality for a mobile phone, helping to further the general trend of using a phone camera rather than a dedicated camera. And with ever-better video, phone cameras will increasingly will be able to supplant videocameras, too.

Apple clearly hopes to stay ahead of the curve with the iPhone 4S: one of its selling points is a new 8-megapixel camera sensor that can record high-definition video at full 1080p resolution. It seems likely that it will outshoot most of its direct competition in the mobile phone market, but it's natural to wonder how well it stacks up against a high-end camera, too. … Read more