The iPad and photography? A very certain yes

If anything it would have been the incessant marketing and manipulative PR antics of Apple that might have diluted my interest in the iPad. But knowing this brand as I do and relying on the company’s equipment for years as I have, I was able to put aside my inclination towards cynicism long enough to have a proper look at the iPad. It’s also wise to pay attention when a company like Apple says it’s going to create an entirely new computer platform completely afresh.

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Canon – where’s the GPS, where’s the WiFi?

Now that the dust has settled I am happy to say the 1D Mark IV is Canon redeeming itself for its misdemeanours in the Mark III. They knew their professional business depended on getting it right, and I think they have.

There’s no doubt the Mark III autofocus was a catastrophe for many of Canon’s customers and its marketing department alike. Others complained about colour fidelity, and some unlucky souls experienced both ailments. While not everyone received these tainted units, enough did for it to seriously affect the company’s professional business. As misfortune would have it, arrival of the Mark III coincided with the release of an excellent camera by Nikon which brought that company back from the brink of professional irrelevance (if you cast your mind back five years you’ll remember Nikon weren’t even in the ballpark in professional terms and photographers were deserting them in droves). Now though, Nikon is without question back in the game in a big way, with thanks in part to Canon.

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iPad for photographers – a justifiable business tool or not?

The iPad sounds like it caters more for the photography audience than photographers themselves but I’ll speculate that it will be quite useful to us nonetheless. We know that it’s not going to be a primary computer any time soon, and it’s a consumer oriented device for sure, but priced at well under a grand I think it’s easy enough to justify, especially when you consider a few of these possibilities.

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Expect a lot from the 1Ds Mark IV

Compare these two cameras for a minute. The first one offers 21.1 megapixels at 5 frames per second, at up to 1600 ISO for $10,999. The other does 3.9 frames per second at the same file size, offers better low-light performance at up to 3200 ISO, and does full HD video too for only $3,999.

On the face of it, there’s little comparison, with one only slightly higher specced but at a much higher price point than the other. The cheaper is almost certainly a smarter buy for most. So from a commercial perspective it would seem perplexing then that they’re both Canon cameras and that Canon continues to allow the consumer 5D Mark II to undermine sales of the company’s flagship 1Ds Mark III.

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Cyber security is more than just your PINs and your passwords

I expect that not many of you are being kept awake at night by fears of a cyber attack, but we should at least all be aware of the scope of the threats that exist to photographers on the internet, and that there are some pretty straightforward countermeasures available to us.

The online bits of any small business are susceptible to risks which are compounded by the fact most of us are not IT experts and therefore don’t even know what they are, let alone how we might defend ourselves against them.

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Canon moves to claim new web real estate

Canon has applied to the people who control such things for the right to use its own company name as a custom top-level domain.

The company announced it is talking with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) about the right to use the “.canon” domain type.

They’re the first to apply to do so (certainly the first to say so publicly) so there’s no telling how they might plan to use it. I am assuming it won’t be canon.canon, so maybe eos.canon or 1d.canon to provide product specific links?

Or are they just getting ahead of the domain squatters?

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Aperture for the masses?

It took a long time to get here, but the new Aperture release looks like it’s been worth waiting for. A bunch of new features like selective (non-destructive) dodging and burning, 64-bit architecture with the additional memory capacity that it brings with it, together with the introduction of adjustment presets and something resembling Photoshop’s curves functionality are all things I’ll use daily.

But it’s not all rosy. You see, Aperture 3.0 seems to have brought with it a few teething problems that are a good reminder to us all that the early adoption of new technology and business critical systems don’t mix.

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