Mother Jones reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is cracking down on glymes — chemicals linked to health problems that can be found in many products we regularly come in contact with, including digital cameras:
Did you print a piece of paper today? Or use a digital camera? If so, it could have exposed you to glymes, a clear liquid class of chemicals used as solvents in printer ink, carpet cleaners and other household products. For a decade, the EPA has known about studies that link glymes to health problems including miscarriages, developmental damage, and gene mutation. And yet only now is the agency beginning to regulate them. This July, the EPA announced that it plans to clamp down on glymes, which may join the ranks of the 360 chemicals subject to the EPA’s “significant new use rule.” This means that any time a company wants to use glymes, it would have to ask the EPA first.
Here’s yet another painful-to-watch example of what the powerful lasers used at concerts can do to your camera’s sensor. This poor soul brought their Canon 5D Mark II to capture some footage, and left with the camera having a new feature: white “framing lines”! Too bad they can’t be turned off…
Photographer Nasim Mansurov’s friend recently ordered Canon 5D Mark II from online camera store AjRichard for just $2,350, but was then called by a sales rep and told that the battery and charger weren’t included. The final order came out to $2,629, which included some unneeded accessories and 3-day shipping. When the order finally arrived in 2 weeks, he found that it was a 5D Mark II + 24-120mm kit box with the lens removed. Read the rest of this entry »
Deal of the day website Groupon is the fastest growing companies in web history and a popular way for local businesses to generate some buzz in their areas, but some independent photographers are finding out the hard way that offering special deals through Groupon might be the worst marketing decision they ever made. Read the rest of this entry »
creepy is a desktop application written by Yiannis Kakavas that demonstrates how the geotagging features found in newer cameras and phones can violate your privacy. Simply provide it with a Flickr username and it will map the places and times photos were taken conveniently on a map.
If you don’t want to allow people to track you in this way, you can turn off your geotagging features — which saves power too — or look into “scrubbing” the location data from your photos.
Think your camera gear is safe in your zippered bag just because you have have sliders locked up? Think again. This video shows how easy it is to break into a zippered bag without leaving a trace.
Yet another reason you should try and keep your gear in sight at all times.
Olympus Japan released a notice to customers yesterday warning that 1,709 of their Stylus Tough 6010 point-and-shoot cameras were accidentally shipped preloaded with a worm. While the camera is not at risk, Windows users may be infected when the camera is connected to their computer via USB. Read the rest of this entry »
Just days after releasing a firmware update that brought 24 fps video to the 5D Mark II, Canon has pulled the update due to a malfunction that occurred.
Photographers who used the new firmware discovered that in a certain situation, the firmware would cause the camera to be unable to record audio. After receiving reports of this issue over the past couple days, Canon has pulled the update from the firmware page and has put up a notice, saying:
Recently we have discovered a malfunction that occurs with Firmware Version 2.0.3, in which the manual recording levels for C1/C2/C3 are changed and the camera becomes unable to record audio if the power is turned off (or if Auto power off takes effect) after registering “Sound Recording: Manual” in the camera user settings.
If you’re already using the new firmware, you can avoid this issue by having your sound recording settings set to “Auto” when using C1/C2/C3.
Canon is currently working on a new update that fixes the problem, but has not announced when it may be available.
Looks like they should have tested the firmware more before setting it loose.
40% of households with digital cameras no longer make prints
65% of people sharing photos online do it through Facebook
Less then 33% of people realize that Facebook stores photos at a decreased resolution
The last statistic is quite startling. It means that we may have a whole generation of people who are essentially “throwing away their negatives” after “making very small prints”.
Facebook doesn’t have the capacity to store all the world’s photos without shrinking them first. Facebook just announced that it will increase its maximum photo size by 20 percent. But even with the upgrade, the photo quality on Facebook isn’t useful for more than basic onscreen viewing.
[...] It’s also troubling that most users aren’t aware that uploading a picture to Facebook — and then deleting it from your camera — means you’ve lost the original image for good. [...] This is probably because Facebook photos look just fine on a computer screen.
Remind your friends and family to keep all their original image files. Otherwise, they might need higher resolution versions in the future but find themselves stuck with 720px.
Just days after releasing a firmware update that brought 24 fps video to the 5D Mark II, Canon has pulled the update due to a malfunction that occurred.
