(Click here to watch a larger version on Youtube. It’s worth watching full-screen.)

I’m never quite sure what to think of these whiz-bang features in new versions of Photoshop. They’re great tools for artists, to be sure, but our culture already has a real problem with photography and how it reflects reality, and I’m not sure this kind of thing really helps. What do you think?

The executive summary is that camera manufacturer marketing departments are dirty, dirty liars, and that these high-ISO modes either have so much image noise that you wouldn’t want to use them or (more likely) use such aggressive noise reduction that it will destroy any fine detail in your pictures. (Fuji seems to be something of an exception to this, and their cameras seem to be the ones to buy if you want to take pictures without a flash in low light.)

It’s frustrating because there’s a very simple, direct technical solution to the problem, and it’s to stop forcing more and more megapixels into cameras than the sensor technology will support, and focus on providing better pixels rather than just more. But as long as camera buyers keep focusing on that single number when comparing competing models the situation is unlikely to change. Given that the next two posts on DPReview are announcements of 12(!) megapixel compacts from Casio and Panasonic, I’m not optimistic.

Sticks and Stones

I dug this one up because I needed something to hang in the hallway with my black and white shot of Mt. Rainier, and this one didn’t have much color in it to begin with. Of course, shocking as it is, the Walmart photo printers don’t quite give you what you want, so I’m going to have to play with it some more and try again.

On that topic, here’re a couple (rather large) pictures of the camera gear aboard the ISS. Pretty cool stuff. Although I’m sure that for as much as that stuff certainly cost, it was far more expensive to launch it all into space…

(Linkage shamelessly pilfered from the excellent Strobist blog. If you’re at all interested in photography, that site should be in your bookmarks.)

I’m hardly a Photoshop guru, but I’ve never let that stop me from commenting on this stuff before… The new palette docks are a nice improvement in the interface, or at least they would be if I could figure out how to move them over to my second monitor. The real killer feature for photographers (at least that I’ve seen) is the smart objects/smart filters stuff though. Coupled with adjustment layers this means that most photographic manipulations can be done non-destructively, i.e. you can go back and make changes to the filters even after you’ve applied them, which is pretty cool. Bridge has seen some nice improvements too; it’s actually a program I can see using to manage my photos now.

Any rate, go download it and check it out. Even if you’re not a CS2 user it’s probably worth playing around with for the couple of days before it expires.

On the other hand, it’s possible that this means that Nikon is planning on updating their entire lens lineup with AF-S motors. Which would be good news indeed; AF-S lenses are a lot quicker and quieter than the old screw-drive AF lenses, and it’s obvious from the D40 that taking the motor out of the camera allows them to make it quite a bit smaller…

Broadmoor

Rather than belaboring the details of how and why I ended up at the Broadmoor, suffice it to say that a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend a weekend at one of the most beautiful/pretentious hotels in the world. The Broadmoor is in Colorado Springs, tucked right at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain, so while I spent the weekend worrying about not tipping the wrong person, I did not have to worry about finding a good place to hide in the event of nuclear war.

Lily Pads Blue

Of course there are photo opportunities all over in Colorado Springs, but some of my favorite pictures from the weekend were taken just outside the carport of the Broadmoor, where they have a very nice fountain filled with lily pads and fish. The red lily pads are admittedly a little garish, like the sort of flower that might spew something potent enough to make Spock climb a tree, but I think they make a nice contrast with the blue ones.

Lily Pads Red

• Leica has finally announced the long-awaited M8 digital rangefinder. I really like the idea of a (relatively) small, quiet digital camera with interchangeable lenses, but unfortunately since it’s Leica the costs are sky-high. It looks like you could run up $10K pretty quickly for an M8 and a couple of lenses. No thanks.
• In more down-to-earth news, Pentax has announced their new K10D, a 10MPix DSLR that looks to be roughly a match for my D200 except for the plastic body, but priced significantly lower. If I was buying into a camera system for the first time right now I’d be taking a long hard look at Pentax; the anti-shake built into their camera bodies coupled with their new digital oriented “pancake” prime lenses makes them look pretty appealing.
• When people start asking me what lens they should buy, I’m going to start recommending this one.