Alberto Lima

Neutral Density (ND) filters aren’t new to the world of photography but that doesn’t make them any less valuable Photography is all about manipulating light, even daylight, to produce the image in your mind’s eye. The Tiffen Variable ND Filter promises to offer an adjustable control for manipulating light for both photo and video without [...]

The post Hands-on with the Tiffen Variable ND Filter appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

The weather is getting nicer, vacations need planning, and if you’re a photographer looking to expand their craft WPPI’s On The Road 2013 might be making a stop near you. On The Road is a two-day Photography seminar in conjunction with WPPI, PDN PhotoPlus Expo, ASMP,and Kelby Training with classes, talks, and most importantly an [...]

The post Announcement: WPPI On The Road 2013 appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

After 17 years of service, the Hasselblad V System line of medium format cameras has seen it’s last days. The V System is as iconic a camera as you can get and has been the work horse for studio photographers the world over. It’s interchangeable lens and back system revolutionized what could be done in [...]

The post End of an era: Hasselblad discontinues V System appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

#Blackmagic new cameras announced in Vegas #NAB2013. twitter.com/danielogarcia1… — Danielo Garcia (@danielogarcia1) April 8, 2013 Here’s an exciting tidbit coming out of this year’s NAB conference, a promotional poster featuring Blackmagic’s Pocket Cinema Camera was spotted  on the exhibition floor by Twitter user Danielo Garcia. Garcia was kind enough to share his find with the [...]

The post Blackmagic’s Pocket Cinema Camera gets spotted at NAB appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

What do most pros and semi-pros want from a piece of glass? How about a fast, bright lens that can take care of most applications. I’ve been using the Sigma EX DN 30mm f/2.8 since October 2012 and it promises to be a no compromises prime lens that can open up wide enough to create [...]

The post The Enthusiast’s Review: Sigma 30mm f/2.8 appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

Do you remember your favorite toys from your childhood? Do you remember the feelings they inspire inside your very soul? What could we learn from seeing children’s most prized possessions – kids from all over the world? That’s just the question that Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti asked himself and all across the world the similarities [...]

The post Inspiration: Prized Possessions appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

Yeah, you read that right; National Geographic now has there very own official Tumblr page. In honor of the organization’s 125th anniversary celebration, NatGeo is digging through their archives and sharing what they’re finding on their Tumblr page: FOUND. FOUND offers viewers everywhere a chance to see images that tell the story of cultures or moments past; many for the first time. [...]

The post National Geographic goes digging through the catalog; shares on Tumblr appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

According to HyperAllergic.com, Americans snapped 80 billion digital photos in 2011. Putting that number into perspective, that’s roughly more photos in two minutes than in all of the 1800′s. After we take these photos however, they go from meaningful memories to vast amounts of data to be stored, cataloged, and shared. Unfortunately, most people only do two [...]

The post A whole new way to store and share your pictures appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

If you plan on being in San Diego April 27th-28th make it a point to stop by Photo Video West at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Photo Video West (formerly Photo Expo West) is the largest photo expo on the West Coast where photographers of all levels can meet, network, develop their craft and take in [...]

The post Alert: Last day for Early-Bird registration for World Cup of Photography at Photo Video West appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

We’ve been talking a lot about hybrid photography on SCBP lately and for good reason – as people’s consumption technology changes, photographers, journalist, and everyone else must adapt to remain relevant and keep food on the table. Giulio recently posted a video giving you a behind the scenes look at one of his hybrid products, [...]

The post FotoMagico 4 Review appeared first on Small Camera BIG Picture.

She survived a serial killer’s three year terror campaign through England.

She was the only one out of innumerable victims.

Left with no memories and mechanical limbs, the woman dubbed ‘Lady Mechanika’ by the press uses her talents to pursue a career as a private detective, solving crimes others cannot in a turn of the century world where magic and science exist side-by-side while searching the world for her identity.
Written and illustrated by Joe Benitz, colored by Peter Steigerwald, Lady Mechanika is one of the best independently produced books today.

It is Steampunk done right. The artwork you see on these covers is the same quality as the artwork inside., which is probably one of the reasons why this title began in 2010 and is only on issue #3.

And it is worth the wait.

Within the last week, Joe Benitez announced, on the Lady Mechanika Facebook page, that they are shooting for a San Diego Comic Con release of issue #4.

So, one way or the other, within the next few months, we will get the next chapter.

Issues #0 – 3, and the Collected (#0 and #1) are extremely hard to find, though it is possible, and, if you have the inclination, they are available electronically on at least the Kindle. For those who do not like long waiting periods between issues, there is talk of a trade edition collecting all the issues, 1 through 5, when #5 is published.

If there is a book that made me ‘giddy’, it is this one and I cannot recommend it more, especially to those who are fans of Steampunk.

For those lucky enough to be in the area, Joe will be attending the Big Wow Comicfest this weekend, May 18-19, in San Jose.  http://www.bigwowcomicfest.com/

Hit the source link below for Joe Benitez’s official homepage and be sure to check out the Lady Mechanika Facebook Page as well.

There have been plenty rumors of a new Lumia handset making its way to consumers in the coming months. The general consensus seems to be a change in design language, opting for an aluminum case instead of the now signature polycarbonate unibody design.

According to a report from The Verge, the rumored phone, (pictured at a left) code named “Catwalk”, may be officially announced at an event in London on May 14th. The timing may be more of Nokia’s guerrilla style PR – the event is scheduled for the day before Google’s I/O conference is set to open – hoping to steal the spotlight away from their competitors.

As far as the rumored device itself, the phone seems to be a decent enough upgrade from the Lumia 920 with a 4.5″ display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, and 8.7MP camera with LED flash all wrapped up in a cleaner (read less bulky) and lighter aluminum casing. In fact if we had to point at something we didn’t like in the rumored spec-sheet, it would have to be the paltry 16GB internal storage (for reference, the 920 comes with 32GB).

We’ll have our eyes on London come mid May. Nokia, don’t disappoint.

If you were so moved by Samsung’s shit-storm of an unveiling presentation at their Galaxy 4 event last month and were counting the days you’d be able to head to your local Sprint or T-Mobile store to pick one up, you may be in for a longer wait.

AllThingsD has confirmed that both Sprint and T-Mobile are delaying their retail dates for the Samsung flagship device citing inventory delays. It appears that neither Sprint or T-Mobile will be able to stock their retail operations in time for the official Saturday release of the next gen Galaxy S but AT&T has confirmed in-store availability. If you’re on the 3rd and 4th place carriers in the U.S., chances are that the delay is a little disappointing to say the least.

In an effort to get in front of some possible bad press, Samsung released a statement indicating that the inventory shortages are “due to overwhelming global demand of Galaxy S4,” though we’ll take that with a grain of salt after Samsung’s J.K. Shin admitted to CNET that a prior omission of the Exynos5 octa-core processor in Galaxy S4s to be sold in the U.K. and U.S. was in large part due to component sourcing issues.

Is a new Galaxy S 4 in your future; let us know in the comments.

Earlier today, a leak featuring the Nokia Lumia 928 made its rounds on the internet – the often reported on Lumia flagship has long been known to be headed to Verizon customers but what appears on the leaked image may well have made the wait worthwhile. According to the post in BGR.com, the images leaked on Twitter by user @evleaks show the same bulky Nokia we’ve come to know and love plus a Carl Zeiss optics and  PureView camera!

The PureView camera will be a welcomed addition if this leak ends up being true; considering the source of the leak and their current track record, we’re saying that this may very well be a possibility.

The ability to tell a story in film without words is almost a lost art, though, there are moments that carry-on the traditions of the original great directors like Charlie Chaplin, Paperman, which recently won an Oscar for Best Animated Short film in 2013, and Cargo, which is a finalist in this year’s Australian Tropfest short film festival, just to name two.

In Cargo, it is a post-apocalyptic world besieged by a zombie infestation, where a father struggles to survive long enough to see his most precious gift to safety, his infant daughter.
Directed by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke and clocking in at 7:05, Cargo is one of the most emotionally powerful films you will watch all year.

Or, if you need to watch it on vimeo it is available here.

It’s no secret that this world has a finite number of natural resources. Everything we consume that we don’t put back is gone for good. Somethings take longer than others to exhaust and that makes understanding conservancy a vague proposition for many.

One of these items is oil – that black stuff that helps power cars, homes, industry, and yes, even the economy – is one of these finite resources that we’ve long been dependent on and show no sign of weening off of. Part of the problem is the seemingly never ending supply that we have access to, but according to the number crunchers at Worldometers.info, it seems we’ll be all out of juice within the next 40-or-so years.

Worldometers is a collective of developers, researchers, and volunteers that are pulling various statistical information and turning those numbers into one of the scariest, yet simple to read bits of information. The data is broken down and categorized into everything from Energy (like the Oil question) to Social Media and just about anything in between. Worldometers is not affiliated with any government agency or think tank and is therefore party-neutral; a pretty important thing to be when presenting information on topics that are politically polarizing.

Check out some other facts and win a few bar bets by hitting the source link below.

For the last few weeks, Facebook had been rumored to be making a big April announcement. Now with just a few days before the big reveal, the good folks at AndroidPolice seem to have gotten their hands on the APK of the upcoming Facebook phone. The short version of this story goes something like this – Another subpar-to-mediocre Facebook phone (helloooo HTC Status) by HTC. It doesn’t look good for HTC as it’s struggling with both consumer and supplier identity issues.

Based on the teardown, we can assess the following: 1. Facebook Home is nothing more than a phone specific launcher that will ship with an as yet unofficial HTC phone. 2. It’s spec sheet read like a decidedly middle of the road handset running HTC’s Sense 4.5. In terms of hardware, the new Facebook phone appears under the code name “MYST UL;”  sporting a dual-core processor, 4.3-inch screen at 720p resolution, 5MP rear camera and 1.6MP front-facing camera, 1GB RAM, running on top of Android 4.1.2. For a phone that’s been in development since 2011, it reads like a phone that’s about a year and some change out of date.

As the embattled HTC looks to gain back some of their mobile mind-share with the HTC One, the “MYST UL” may be the death knell for the once premiere Android manufacturer.

Hit the source link below for the full teardown.

Early in 2012 Microsoft broke many hearts when they announced that current Windows Phone 7 users would not be able to upgrade to the new hotness, Windows Phone 8. As a consolation prize, the Windows Phone faithful would get an update, version 7.8, that would bring some of Windows Phone 8′s features like the new start screen, Bing wallpapers, and more color themes. Many, this author included, felt they were getting the short end of the stick.

To make matters worse, Microsoft left it up to manufacturers and carriers to decide whether they would push this update at all. As Android users are all too familiar, this meant that there are tons of people not getting this update. My phone, an HTC Radar 4G on T-Mobile USA, was left in limbo by both HTC and T-Mobile with the standard “we’re not looking into updates at this time” response.

Thankfully there are many in the Windows Phone community that aren’t taking this lying down and the necessary files for the update are obtainable and installable on just about any Windows Phone 7 device. As a full-time dad with no time to spare this is not really ideal, so in comes the Seven-Eighter tool by Windows Phone Hacker. This tool allows you to force the 7.8 update (and previous updates as necessary) on to your Windows Phone 7 phone. And it is thanks to this tool that I can personally share my experience with Windows Phone 7.8.

The most obvious new feature is the updated Windows Phone 8-like start screen. I was skeptical at first, and thought this was no big deal. I’m happy to say that I was totally wrong about this. The different sized tiles add function to the start screen and allow you to more easily access apps and info without having to dig through the app list. I now have all of my email accounts on my start screen in an area that takes up just 1 1/2 tiles, where before this would have taken up 6 whole tiles. Another nice touch was the fact that a tile’s location can be switched with the one/ones next to it rather than being forced to start a new row with the first app, moving the app you want to switch places with to the new row, place the first app where you want it and then put second app in the place of the first. This is all nothing new to Windows Phone 8 users but to us outdated folks this is simply amazing. Maybe I’m easily impressed but this has certainly made me feel more productive.

It’s also fortunate that many developers are still actively supporting the Windows Phone 7 community. Apps ranging from small developers like Rowi and Note+ to big-name developers like Twitter have updated their app tiles to look good at the smaller/larger tile sizes. So, in some way you’re not missing out too much  if you’re stuck on a contract with a Windows Phone 7 device. Thanks to the dedicated developer community, the 7.8 update should make waiting the extra year or so to upgrade much easier.

The other major feature, at least for this user, is the additional color themes. I never felt the original colors looked “right”, but new colors like cobalt and indigo look absolutely gorgeous. There are even improvements to older colors like red and teal. For some reason they just look better than on 7.5. Perhaps the larger tiles emphasize the colors a bit more. Unfortunately if you’re like me and liked mango, you’re out of luck but amber is close enough, if not better. Also, on the topic of customization, is the new Bing wallpaper. This allows you to use the daily Bing photo as your wallpaper. If you love these photos as much as I do, this is pretty neat. These new color themes coupled with the Bing wallpaper should keep you from getting bored for a while.

There is some bad news though. The biggest is that Internet Explorer has not been updated, so if you use mobile versions of sites like Facebook or Google+, it still looks like you’re browsing on a Symbian device. Also, setting your camera roll to sync with SkyDrive still keeps photos at low resolution and there is no option to upload full resolution photos when syncing. There are apps that allow you to do this, but still, it sucks that SkyDrive is such an awesome service and its functionality is crippled by Microsoft on their own operating system. Speaking of photos, you still can’t “favorite” videos that you have on your Camera Roll. Also, there are no improvements to the lock screen, if you care about that sort of thing. And there is still no frickin’ way to take screenshots.

All in all the Windows Phone 7.8 update is actually pretty great. Over the week that I’ve had the update I’ve had no crashes or lag whatsoever. Battery life seems to be just as good as ever. The updates to the start screen in particular make you feel like you have a brand new phone. Coupled with continued developer support for Windows Phone 7, and hardware improvements aside (better cameras and screens, please), the need to get a Windows Phone 8 device seems a lot less imperative than before the update. So I can just sit around with my phone until Nokia releases a 4.3″ 720P Windows Phone 8 device.

Today T-Mobile got their fowl-mouthed CEO on stage and they hoped he would bring the heat. Though I’m not exactly sure if it constitutes bringing that aforementioned “heat,” but T-Mobile has officially announced when you might be able to officially get an iPhone on America’s 4th carrier.

T-Mobile is betting you’d be willing to pay full-price for a little slab of Apple or at least their $100 deposit and a fixed payment plan. The iPhone will be available on April 12th and if you head over to their site now, you can pre-register for a reminder of the launch date.

Hit the box below for the full press release if you don’t believer our tl;dr version above.

T-Mobile Un-leashes iPhone 5 With Incredible New Pricing and No Annual Contracts

To the Summary!

James Bond goes after some hot ice (that’s stolen diamonds).  Along the way he runs into an odd pair of assassins   Oh, and Blofeld makes a return.

To the Cast!

Sean Connery – James Bond
Jill St. John – Tiffany Case
Charles Grey – Blofeld
Putter Smith – Mr. Kidd
Bruce Glover – Mr. Wint
Norman Burton – Leiter
Bernard Lee – ‘M’
Desmond Llewelyn – ‘Q’
Lois Maxwell – Miss Moneypenny

To the Deeper Thoughts!
Here we have the triumphant (?) return of Sean Connery to the Bond franchise.  Turns out this will truly be his last outing, but I digress.

Ahh, hell.  Back to digressing.  After a much publicized departure, Sean Connery returns to the role that made him famous.  We also have the return of Bond’s nemesis Bloefeld.  Oddly, there was no reference to the previous film where Blofeld is involved in the murder of Bond’s wife, but that’s for another review.

I like this one.  Even though Connery was basically bribed back to the role, he still put out a pretty good turn.  A bit on the silly side (Bond girl named Pleanty O’toole for one), its still not as bad as some of the later Moore ones.

So, a fitting end for Connery’s run as Bond.  Unless you count Never Say Never Again… which I don’t.

Let’s clear the air here; we hate being tied down to our cellular blood contracts. It’s nothing more than a practice to keep us locked into a carrier with the temptation of a new piece of hardware every couple of years. Sure, on the surface it seems like you get this year’s top-of-the-line phone at steal (usually around $200-250) but then we’re tied to a contract where we’re paying upwards of $2400 over the 2-year contract; which hardly seems like a “deal.”

In their latest effort at bolstering their subscription numbers, T-Mobile  has made their plans to be the “Un-carrier” official. What this means to you dear consumer, is that soon you’ll be able to get your latest and greatest discounted phone without the hassle of a contract. T-Mobile’s plan will allow you to pick up said phone and tack on a surcharge to your monthly, contract-free bill until the price of the phone is paid in full. If that doesn’t sound like something you want to do; pay for the phone outright and enjoy a cheaper, contract-less plan.

Though it remains to be seen if this is truly something that customers will flock to but combined with T-Mobile’s existing “Bring Your Own Device” discounts, the fourth-place carrier may have some life in it yet. All they’d need to do now is announce an official iPhone variant on Big Magenta.

So what have you done in your life dear reader? Maybe you graduated high school a year or two early. Impressive. Maybe you’re sitting on a doctorate or some other personal accomplishment; sorry to break it to you, you’re never going to be as cool as nine-year-old Daisy Morris who just had a confirmed new species named after her.

Vectidraco daisymorrisae, the official name of the newly discovered species of pterosaur. The fossil, originally found along the beach on the Isle of Wight, UK by Daisy at the age of five, had been donated and studied at the Natural History Museum. From early on, a dinosaur expert known to the family knew that daisy had stumbled onto a big find.

The fossil will remain with the Natural History Museum; as for Daisy, she tells The Daily Mail that she’ll continue to collect and study animals. Faith in humanity… Restored.

Source The Daily Mail

About a year ago, you may recall hearing that Twitter had acquired Posterous Spaces. Twitter has been on a tear buying up platforms like Posterous and Tweetdeck for quite some time now, to get rid of competition, to quell the growth of features they deem “not official”, to add features they need to stay competitive (Vine, for example, and its bid for Instagram), and, it has been widely suggested, to acquire the talents of the programmers in these companies.

So, it can be forgiven if you do not remember, there has been a lot of changes going on throughout the social media world. As long as it works, and works well, most of us do not care who owns what.

Posterous was a great place to blog. Simple, great support, and you could post from an email then autopost the entry to sites like Twitter, FaceBook and Tumblr. The speculation last year was that Twitter would shut down Posterous when the site’s former show-runners were appointed to various management positions at Twitter.

That prediction has come to pass. The date of Posterous’ execution has been set: April 30, 2013. If you have a Posterous page, you may contact them and they will archive it for you, no charge. You can find the information and links here on The Official Posterous Space.

I am sad to see it go, it is a great site, but, if we have learned nothing else from the demise of Myspace and countless other, something will fill the void.

Have you noticed that you haven’t received an email, status update, or been able to streaming music for the last 12 hours or so? Well if you’re on the Magenta network it’s because they’re suffering a major service disruption.

We called up T-Mobile and were able to determined that the epicenter of the outage is in the Midwest but has affected customers in New York and Los Angeles. From what we’ve been told the service disruption is limited to their 3G/4G data network; voice and text messaging should not be affected. A T-Mobile rep has said they’ve identified the cause of the disruption and are working to get everyone Facebooking, Instagraming, and various other tech nouns as verbs.

If you’re experiencing problems in other areas, sound off in the comments below (AT&T and Verizon customers, go easy on them).

This morning the internet was beside itself; as part of Google’s ongoing paring down of their “side” projects, Google announced that they will be pulling the plug on Google Reader effective July 1st. The announcement was immediately met with the ire and scorn of nerds everywhere.

For the uninitiated, RSS readers are an aggregate of the items and updates from around the internet packaged neatly into what has become (for myself anyway) an online checklist of news. It’s simple, it’s convenient, and it’s all but lost relevance thanks in big part to services like Twitter. Now, before the hoards come knocking down our doors this doesn’t mean that RSS is dead.

Digg, though once scoffed at for being overtaken by Reddit, may yet see next chapter as they announced plans to release an RSS reader of their. According to a report from The Atlantic Wire, Digg announced ramping up the development of their reader in direct response to Google killing the beloved reader. Digg’s GM, Jake Levin was quoted as saying that Digg had already planned the release of an RSS reader of their own, now they’re “bumping it to the top of [their] priorities list.”

Which for many bloggers is welcomed news.