Archive for April, 2008

You may think that I am partial presenting you this portfolio today. Yes! Anne Roumazeilles is my nephew. But I really love what she does while she only began shooting photos a short time ago.

I let you judge these images taken in ﾃ四e de Rﾃｩ (on the Atlantic coast of France) and feel free to leave a comment (or constructive criticism).

Click on the thumbnail images to enlarge them

Copyright (C) 2007-08 Anne Roumazeilles – All rights reserved.
For Jacques.

Straight lines are actually really parallels.

It’s your brain trying to convince you they’re not.

Happy news here: I finally bought a lens I wanted for quite some time. I found and paid on eBay a Minolta APO G 400mm f/4.5 (Yes! The old white lens that is renowned so much for its optical and mechanical quality, while being nearly impossible to find in auctions).

It will go really well with the Giottos MT 8251 carbon tripod and the MH 1001-652 ball-head I bought a month ago in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China.

Soon to arrive from Osaka, Japan. I can’t wait.

Click on the thumbnails image to enlarge them

Brown-hooded Gull (Larus maculipennis, Mouette de Patagonie). Brazil, 2007.

Like all Internet reviewers, I hate this title because of the strain it puts on the writer just to put the name down on the keyboard. However, it has received a number of reviews. Let’s see some of them:

• JeuxVideoPC.com (screenshots)
• GameSpy (in English)
• CVG (in English)
• EuroGamer first impressions (in English)
• IGN (screenshots)
• Hooked Gamers (in English)
• All trailers
• Guru3D DX10 screenshots
• PCHG DirectX 10 video (Auf Deutsch)

I don’t know why (maybe because I’m looking for them) but I seem to find plenty of posts about optimizing your photography of food. Let’s share some of the best ones here:

• First, a real collection of them in one place: Big and Tasty Food Photography Tips Roundup.
• A smaller list of them: The Ten Tastiest Food Photography Tips, giving a list of things to manage correctly from the beginning.
• DIY: Light Beer describes a lighting problem for shooting clear bottles of beer.

This was a little event a few days ago: Adobe launched its first beta version of the online PhotoShop under the name of Photoshop Express. As it was easy to predict, it’s not as simple as marketing would like you to believe and you cannot replace one by the other as most of the reviews hereafter will show you:

• Les Numﾃｩriques (en franﾃｧais): would better use Picasa to share the images prepared with Photoshop Express, and would want to see Raw files management, curves and histograms, and masks.
• Ars Technica (in English): it is rahter a cross between iPhoto and Adobe Bridge, but they love the basic features and (including color correction).
• Baekdal.com (in English) : disappointed; This is not an image editor, by far – just a fun way to apply a few corrections/effects. Woudl rather recommend Splashup, he feels is superior.
• Photojojo (in English): This is certainly not Photoshop but it does very well what it offers (basic image edition/correction).
• LifeHacker: Not the Full PS Package, but Good Web-Based Editing
• Pixinfo.com (in Hungarian): Honest! I didn’t understand what they think about it…

To notice: Photoshop Express is free, limited to 2GB of online storage (easy to reach) and in English only for now.

The largest gull of South-American continent, easily recognized from its plummage and the red spot on the inferior mandible of its yellow beak.

Click on the thumbnails image to enlarge them

Kelp gull (Larus dominicanus, Goﾃｩland dominicain). Brazil, 2007.

Note: These kelp gull photos are the beginning of a series of images I brought back from Brazil in last January. You will see here one post every two days with a new animal (mostly birds), with one or more photos. Keep visiting us.

“You’ve got to love those coins!” Do you believe that I could tell you so? Surely not. Even better, you can be surprised to learn that I found that in a web site about design and arts (Baekdal.com). And it is defintely a great design for something as old as coins.

The new UK coins have been designed to be elegantly assembled in a single pattern:

Source: Can Coins Look Sexy?

I found this funny little piece of SciFi/security litterature. I’m sure you’ll like it.

The man blurred into existence behind the dense shrubs, and checked a small device he took from his pocket. Since time and date seemed correct, he straightened his sports coat and stepped from behind the bushes.

[...]

Source: Ironic Sans.

It took all the art of bbzippo, some Lego bricks and some Photoshop editing, too.

Titled “Wire Your Living Room Over Wi-Fi with a Bridge“, a post from LifeHacker.

With subjects like:

• Why a Wireless Bridge?
• How a Wireless Bridge Works
• Setting Up the Wireless Bridge (a Buffalo airstation)

After appearing on gaming consoles, Assassin’s Creed arrived on PC and it seems that the effort was made to ensure that contrary to the previous habit of bad ports from console to PC, it supported well the transfer from one platform to the next (test 1, test 2).

Notice 1: Point Of View offers the video game with most of its GeForce video cards.

Notice 2: Recently, a 3D test has shown that the DirectX 10 rendering was over-simplified by Assassin’s Creed (with undue performance gains at the cost of image quality). There is a patch planned in the short term to correct this.

There is no sign of the annoucement of a new successor to the Canon EOS 5D (under the name of Canon EOS 5D Mk II) for tomorrow, despite what had been forecasted by some. There was indeed a relatively safe information given on a DPReview forum indicating an August 2008 target (and a new EOS 3D series in 2009).

A few top-quality images taken by James Pan. Felines, lovely big cats and other animals shot in perfect portraits.

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Feline teeth are their most prominent exterior feature. Since the prehistoric Smilodon (the smiling feline) and its gigantic canines, big cats use their impressive dental characteristics to hunt.

On the Laelaps web site, you will find a detaileld article on feline teeth, from yesterday to nowadays: What big teeth you have. Please, also notice the hunting videos (lions hunting elephant, lions hunting a giraffe).