The Digital Photography Show #85: Welcome Wacom and Photography’s Future with FotoNation
The Digital Photography Show #85: Welcome Wacom and The Photography’s Future with FotoNation
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February 27, 2008 : Welcome to the eighty fifth episode of The Digital Photography Show!
First, some housekeeping: We’ve finally chosen the finalists and a winner of our 7th photo contest. Congrats to everyone! Check them out here. Thanks to everyone who entered.
More interviews today from PMA 08.
First up is someone we honestly consider a friend: Doug Little from Wacom tells us about some of their super-sexy products. For those of you who don’t know (first time listeners?) Wacom makes great pen tablets and interactive displays that let you do all your photoediting and other work using a pen instead of mouse. Working with a Wacom tablet or interactive display is feels totally organic, natural and precise.
First up is the powerful yet totally affordable the Bamboo Fun, which makes a great entry-level tablet. Our audience will probably be more interested in the more fully-featured Intuos line of tablets, or, if you’re really bringing your A game, you’ll want to want to spring for a Cintiq, the high-end LCD that allows you to actually work on screen.
The Cintiqs are truly incredible, and at every show Michael and I go to, people are lined up to play with the Cintiqs. Their newest model is the Cintiq 12WX, which has a 12 inch interactive display that is a joy to work with. It’s their smallest and lowest priced Cintiq ($999) but don’t let that low price fool you - this is one powerful beast that can transform the way you work. (On a Window’s Vista computer, you can even use it to mark up documents or to write them by using the handwriting recognition that’s built into Vista. You can even use “pen flicks” to do things like navigate the web - go one page back with a quick swipe of your pen. Very cool. I don’t know if Macs have similar features - if you do, add a comment below.)
Because they love our audience so much, Wacom is giving away a Bamboo Fun Small tablet to a lucky The Digital Photography Show listener. To enter the contest, go to this page and answer this question:
The Intuos works with Adobe Photoshop and over how many other programs?
Send your answer to us at TheDigitalPhotographyShow@gmail.com by March 15, 2008 to be entered into a random drawing of the correct responses. Please put “I Want a Wacom” in your subject line.
Then, we talk to Eric Zarakov, Vice President of Marketing of FotoNation. Fotonation creates the incredible technolgy they build that powers your camera. They’re the pioneers behind Face Detection, Smile Detection, Blink Detection, Face Tracker and a bunch of other technologies that make taking pictures easier and more accurate. Listen to Eric tell us what these technologies do and what is coming next from this company that’s truly on the cutting-edge of photography. It’s the future of photography, baby.
He also tells us how camera phones can have more functionality than digital cameras, and I share my crackpot theory on what would make a great paradigm for The Next Big Idea - the upgradable camera. (Camera companies: If you steal this idea, please send me money. Thank you.)
Best of all - Eric tells us we’re great and that ours was one the best interviews he did during PMA! Eric, you’re welcome back anytime!
If you want to improve your basic photography or become a Photoshop, Lightroom or HDR guru, check out xTrain, a great web-based learning resource. They have a ton of on-line videos that will teach you how to do pretty much everything with your camera - and your computer - that you might ever want to do. And exclusively for our listeners, they offer a 15% off discount on any xTrain course or membership plan by using the code DPS on the page you’ll find here.
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We’d love to hear what you thought of the show either here on the blog or at TheDigitalPhotographyShow@gmail.com.
We also appreciate the sponsorship of Wacom, maker of great tablets for interacting with you computer.
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Thanks for joining us. We have the greatest listeners in the world!
Scott
March 2nd, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I have to comment on the contest (in which, I must admit, I did not participate). It was communicated on the show that several (many?) pictures were disqualified because they did not meet the intent of the theme of giving; it seemed to me that the limited examples you discussed were judged to not fulfill the intent because they fell outside the traditional definition of giving that we think of around the holidays (giving something of value, something that enriches or enhances; in a nutshell, giving something “good”).
Here’s my thought: I have listened to every show (love them!), and I never heard the theme of giving expressed that specifically… The vignette technique was pretty much obvious, but the theme of giving was referred to in fairly general terms. In that light, if you give an assignment to a bunch of creative people, with fairly wide parameters on the theme, you’ve got to expect a wide range of interpretations. If I’m getting an *assignment* from someone to illustrate the act of giving, I’m either going to get more details from the client so I know I can meet their expectations, or failing that, I’m going with a pretty traditional take on the theme to increase my chances of producing a usable shot. On the other hand, if it’s a creative contest, I’m going to go out of my way to interpret the theme in a way that’s outside the norm of everyday thinking. I *don’t* want my image to look like the very first idea you come up with when you think of “giving.”
And, listening closely to the show, I got the impression that Michael was a little hesitant about disqualifying some of the photos that took the road less traveled…
Just my $0.02.
Tim
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:17 am
Tim,
As far as I was concerned it was up to the photographer to decide what giving meant to them. There was total freedom there, but it was paramount that the image communicate ‘the act of giving’ in some way. Many images did not. The first question I asked when I viewed the image was “What is the act of giving?” The images of gravestones were a great sentiment, but there was no act of giving demonstrated. Those images represented “having given.” In my book, past tense makes all the difference. The act is what I was looking for. Also, I first viewed the images without the titles to see if the image actually communicated the message without any help.
With regards to the technique. This was secondary, but still needed to be present. Someone mentioned that they applied a very subtle vignette. I honestly could not see it in every image. We were not requiring ultra bold or obvious vignettes, but we did want to be able to detect it.
Anyway, that was the approach I took.
–Michael
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am
A good response to a well-articulated thought on the theme from the last contest Michael - the past versus present tense does make a difference. WHile I had initially felt the same as Tim, but I had not thought of the “act of giving as a present versus past tense mindset. Having said that, the one shot of giving a headache still would fit the contest parameter in that regard (as described in the podcast.)
While I also admit that I did not participate in the contest, I will qualify that by saying that the unique parameters did limit the opportunity to catch something like that naturally, and not posed. For that reason, I did not participate, because to me posing the act of giving would make it fake, and even though perhaps only I would know - I would still know.
Just 2 more cents, so now we’re at 4. Anyone wanna take us past the nickel mark? :)