Here’s an interesting piece of photographic and optical trivia: did you know that the word “lens” came from the Latin name of the lentil plant? The scientific name of the lentil we most commonly eat is Lens culinaris. It was named after the legume because double-convex lenses look just like lentils!
Image credit: Photograph by Justinc
Photography business analyst Dan Heller has written a helpful post in which he busts common misconceptions photographers in the US have about model releases. A big one is that you need to first obtain a model release before selling photos of people. Heller writes,
[...] newspapers buy photos, and their use of the photo is unlikely to need a release. So, selling a photo (and making a profit doing so) to a newspaper also does not require a release. And because the law does not require you to have any knowledge of the buyer or their intended use of a photo, you are always allowed to sell photos without a release.
His point is that model releases have to do with photographs being published, not sold. A photographer cannot publish the photos however they’d like, but they can sell them however they’d like since liability rests solely with the eventual publisher. That said, it’s still a good idea to always use one, since they’re often required by the buyers.
Busting Myths about Model Releases [Dan Heller]
While looking into the new compression service JPEGmini yesterday, the following statement caught my eye in an interview they did with Megapixel:
[...] sometimes you increase the quality setting in Photoshop and the actual quality of the image is reduced…
I had never heard of that before, so I decided to dig a little deeper.
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Did you know that Photoshop has built-in mechanisms that prevent you from editing photos of banknotes? After getting a payday, Reddit user tarballdotgz tried to Photoshop some of his hundred dollar bills, but ran into the above error in Photoshop. Even if you find a way to edit the images in Photoshop, there’s a good chance your printer will give you a similar error if you try to print the image out!
TIL that Photoshop doesn’t let you edit photos of currency [Reddit]
Update: Another interesting fact: apparently one mechanism used to do this is something called the “EURion constellation“, a specific pattern built into banknotes worldwide. (Thx David!)
Instead of labeling their memory cards in MB/s, some manufacturers choose to use “Times” ratings (e.g. 8x, 12x, 20x, etc…). While it’s pretty clear that a higher number indicates faster speed, what exactly is the number a multiple of?
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Did you know that a third of the SanDisk memory cards being used on Earth are actually fake? A SanDisk engineer recently shared this startling fact with a reader over at The Online Photographer:
[...] at any given time, approximately a third of the SanDisk memory cards (made by Toshiba) being used out there in the world are counterfeit. As in, not SanDisk memory cards at all—some other kind of cards dressed up as lookalikes.
Thirty percent, was the number quoted. A third, more or less.
To make sure you’re getting the real thing, always purchase your memory cards from reputable dealers.
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When the iPad 2 was announced a couple months ago, it was called “the first ‘camera’ to have a sensor resolution lower than the display resolution.” Commenters were quick to point out that Apple never intended for the device to be used as a camera like the iPhone is, and therefore was probably able to keep costs down by limiting it to a 0.7 megapixel sensor. Now, with millions of the devices in consumers’ hands, Flickr’s camera statistics confirm what we suspected all along: no one uses the iPad 2 as a camera.
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CNBC just their list of America’s 10 most stressful jobs for 2011, and “photojournalist” comes in at #4.
Much like newscasters, photojournalists are expected to be on the front lines, with a job description that requires them to enter some of the most dangerous, remote or volatile places on earth. Many are on call 24 hours a day. And when news breaks, the photojournalists may have to mobilize with extremely short notice and stay on assignment for extended periods of time.
They also report that the average salary of a photojournalist in the US is $43,270.
America’s Most Stressful Jobs 2011 (via Discarted)
Image credit: Kwon Chol by Jim O’Connell
If we were still living in the age of floppy disks, what would installing something like Adobe Photoshop CS4 be like? antrepo did the math, and figured out that it would take a whopping 358 disks. They’re also making a poster set that includes other programs as well (e.g. 1760 disks for The Sims 3).
(via Photojojo)
Did you know that the first digital camera invented in 1975 didn’t actually produce the first digital photograph? The first digital photo actually came almost two decades earlier in 1957 when Russell Kirsch made a 176×176 pixel digital image by scanning a photograph of his three-month-old son. The low resolution was due to the fact that the computer they used wasn’t capable of storing more information.
(via Discovery News)
