To keep itself lean and focused, Google is planning to do some spring cleaning and shut down a number of non-critical projects and services that don’t attract enough attention to keep alive. One of the services marked for termination is Picnik, the online photo editor that Google acquired back in 2010. The service will remain online until April 19, after which the team will be folded into the Google+ team.
(via Engadget)
We’ve seen that Google Street View imagery is capable of winning photojournalism awards, but how would the camera-equipped cars do as fine art photographers? Photographer Aaron Hobson has a fascinating gallery of fine art-style photographs found in Street View — cinematic photos that would look great blown up and exhibited on museum walls.
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We now have an official page on Google+! Add us to your circles to receive our awesome photography-related content (and possibly some exclusive posts) in your stream!
Check out Google’s homepage: the doodle today celebrates the 224th birthday of Louis Daguerre, inventor of the daguerreotype and one of the fathers of photography (the others are Nicéphore Niépce, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Thomas Wedgwood). Daguerre was born on November 18, 1787, and unveiled his daguerreotype process at the French Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1839, when he was 51 years old.
In the first 100 days after Google+ was launched, 3.4 billion photographs were uploaded to the service. In light of this, Google is launching an international photo competition to “find the photography stars of the future.”
From far-away places to up-close faces, there are 10 different categories to spark your imagination. And there are some great prizes to be won: 10 finalists chosen by a jury of renowned photographers will show their work at Saatchi Gallery, London for two months in 2012 alongside Out of Focus, a major photography exhibition, and win a trip to London to attend the exhibition opening event with a friend. One winner will go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to an amazing destination with a professional photography coach.
The contest is open to college students, and can be entered by uploading entries to Google+ and then submitting it through an online form. The deadline to enter is January 31, 2012.
Google scientist Sam Hasinoff has come up with a technique called “light-efficient photography” that uses focus-stacking to reduce the amount of time exposures require. In traditional photography, increasing the depth of field in a scene requires reducing the size of the aperture, which reduces the amount of light hitting the sensor and increases the amount of time required to properly expose the photo. This can cause a problem in some situations, such as when a longer exposure would lead to motion blur in the scene.
Hasinoff’s technique allows a camera to capture a photo of equal exposure and equivalent depth of field in a much shorter amount of time. He proposes using a wide aperture to capture as much light as possible, and using software to compensate for the shallow depth of field by stacking multiple exposures. In the example shown above, the camera captures an identical photograph twice as fast by simply stacking two photos taken with larger apertures.
The success of Instagram has shown that photo filters are very much in demand with the general population. Facebook is rumored to be working on its own retro filters, but Google has beaten it to the punch: today the company introduced a wide range of creative filters to Google+’s Creative Kit. The filters (called “Effects”) include looks that mimic daguerreotypes, Reala 400 film, Polaroid pictures, Lomo, Holga, and even cross processed film.
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The latest version of Android, called “Ice Cream Sandwich”, was unveiled by Google and Samsung in Hong Kong this morning, and they’ve focused a great deal on improving the gallery and camera aspects of the mobile OS. There is indeed built-in photo editing now, allowing users to do everything from crop and rotate to adjust levels and remove red eyes. There are also a number of Instagram-style filters that can be applied to photos. Adjustments are non-destructive and stored in a file separate from the photo being edited.
The camera has also been upgraded with zero shutter lag, touch-to-focus with exposure lock, panorama stitching, 1080p recording, and time-lapse video mode. The UI has been improved with a digital zoom slider, and many of the editing options (including red eye removal) can be used in “live view”. The war between smartphones goes on, and photography continues to be one of the main battlegrounds.
Android 4.0 Platform Highlights [Android Developers]
Google+ is becoming pretty popular among photographers as a way to share work and connect with others. If you’ve been thinking about jumping in but don’t know where to begin, Scott Kelby and Co. made this helpful (and free) hour-long primer with tips on how to use the service effectively.
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Here’s a neat productivity tip for those of you who regularly buy stuff online (e.g. obsessive photo gear buyers): you can track most packages by simply searching for the tracking number with Google! The search engine automatically figures out which service the number belongs to, and provides you with a direct link to the droids page you’re looking for. Since some shipping companies don’t have bookmarkable tracking pages, this tip can help you avoid having to go through those companies’ websites.
(via Lifehacker)
