Panasonic DRMs Camera Batteries

June 23, 2009 in Hardware, Musings, Photography | Permalink

Panasonic have warned customers of certain (unspecified) non-Panasonic batteries because

“Some of these aftermarket batteries are not equipped with internal protective devices to guard against overcharging, internal heating and short circuit. If these aftermarket battery packs were used, it could lead to an accident causing damage to your camera or personal injury.”

So they issued a firmware update to “detect these aftermarket 3rd party batteries so such serious safety issues can be avoided.” Panasonic then warn the user

“After this firmware update your Panasonic Digital Camera cannot be operated by 3rd party batteries (non genuine Panasonic batteries).”

This smells like Panasonic are locking their customers into (expensive) original Panasonic batteries using DRM techniques. Or is it really a safety issue?

I have yet to hear about burning cameras, but there were and continue to be a number of spectacular battery failures involving cell phones and laptop computers. In all of the cases involving laptop computers, the batteries involved are the batteries sold by the laptop manufacturer.

With cell phones, the manufacturers seem to allege that the battery was either 3rd party or that there had been supply chain fraud, i.e. the battery was forged. I do not recall ever seeing these allegations substantiated. And even Nokia have had to recall millions of genuine batteries because they were failing.

I have been unable to find  any proof – or at least substantiating facts – that 3rd party batteries are more likely to fail than OEM batteries. [If you know otherwise, please share your knowledge.] So, on balance of probabilities, is it likely that there really is a substantial risk to Panasonic customers?

I do not know the answer to that question, but I do know that by putting DRM into their cameras, Panasonic can sell more batteries if customers have no choice to buy cheaper batteries.

If, that is, customers continue to buy Panasonic cameras. A long time ago I decided to stop buying product where the manufacturer is trying to lock me into an expensive closed system. So: no devices that require proprietary MemoryStick or xD cards. No proprietary branded batteries with DRM.

On a lighter note: I guess Apple nail this one squarely – no more replaceable batteries at all. 🙂

Using a PrimeFilm Scanner with VueScan on Mac OS X

June 1, 2009 in Hardware, Helpful Hints, Mac OS X, Software | Permalink

We recently received some photos from a family event that were – gasp – made using analog film. You should have seen the look on the face of the dozen or so children when they crowded around the SLR expecting to see a preview on the LCD only to discover that there was no LCD on the back of this camera. Talk about culture shock. 😉

Anyways, the quality of the prints was appaling, as where the scanned images on the CD that came from the processing lab. The negative, however, looked fine to my no-longer-used-to-look-at-negatives eyes. I decided to revitalize an old film scanner I still have in a box. It is a rebadged Pacific Imaging PrimeFilm 1800u scanner, which will turn a negative into a 4 Mpxl file with 16 bits per color channel.

I like using VueScan with flatbed scanners. It is a low-cost, high-power solution and Ed Hamrick does a fantastic job of supporting almost every scanner under the sun. My experience so far has been that you plug in the scanner, start VueScan, and start scanning.

With the PF1800u it turns out to be a little bit more complicated than that:

  1. Download the latest driver from Pacific Imaging, an application called CyberViewX_SF. Localized non-english variants are available.
  2. Install the driver at the default location (/Applications).
  3. Find VueScan on your hard drive and Get Info in the Finder. You can do this by using the context menu (right-click or control-click), hitting CMD-I, or File > Get Info in the menu.
  4. Make sure “Open using Rosetta” is ticked (see below).
  5. Connect the scanner to your computer and power it on.
  6. Start VueScan.
"Open using Rosetta" in the Finder "Get Info" panel.

“Open using Rosetta” in the Finder “Get Info” panel.

You can skip steps 3 & 4 if you are using a PowerPC Mac. CyberViewX_SF is a PowerPC application, so Intel Macs need to be told to run PowerPC code because though VueScan is a native Intel application. I wish Pacific Imaging would update their driver!

I had some difficulties because CyberViewX_SF is not in the default install location on my system. In this case, VueScan can not find the driver it needs and complains.

If you – like I – want to put your applications in a non-default place, you can create a soft (or hard) link to it to make VueScan happy:

$ sudo ln -s /Applications/Graphics/CyberViewX_SF /Applications/CyberViewX_SF

where “/Applications/Graphics/” is the location of the CyberViewX_SF folder. That’s it!

Thanks to Ed Hamrick for the great support!

 

Update: Since Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), Apple has dropped support for PowerPC code. You can no longer install Rosetta, so your scanner is just a paperweight if you switch to 10.7 or later.

HDR using Photoshop vs. Photomatix

May 4, 2009 in Photo, Photography, Software, Technique | Permalink

Processing multiple exposures into a single HDR (high dynamic range) image turns out to be more of a subjective process than I initially thought.

Have a look at the following image, which was processed using Photoshop CS4 and the “Merge to HDR” feature:

Image processed from 3 exposures by Photoshop CS4 "Merge to HDR".

Image processed from 3 exposures by Photoshop CS4 "Merge to HDR".

Not bad, really, at first glance. But notice at the right edge, about halfway down the image, how the arch coming in from the wall is completely blown out?

Now look at the same source exposures converted by Photomatix:

3 Exposures processed by Photomatix Pro.

Image processed from 3 Exposures by Photomatix Pro.

The highlights are not blown out, the tonality of the image is smoother, the reddish cast is reduced. All in all, the image is much closer to the intended look than what Photoshop allows.

Given that Photomatix allows me a lot more control to tweak the result than Photoshop, I think the money is well spent on Photomatix …

Book Review: Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait

April 30, 2009 in Book, Photography, Review | Permalink

Michael Grecco‘s Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait starts of by discussing various camera systems (35 mm, medium format, and large format) and their particular characteristics.

Then a number of pictures are presented with diagrams and text describing exactly how the lighting was set up to achieve the desired result. This is extremely useful to help understand how the picture was made. Why on earth the client contact for the picture (usually art director so-and-so) is important in this context is beyond me, however …

The remaining pictures are described without a diagram, but I had no trouble understanding the light after the previous chapter with diagrams.

I really like that Grecco not only explains the technical detail of the shot but also why he made it the way he did. Sometimes the reason is his creative vision, at other times it is a restraint that came up during the shoot (the subject objected, for  example) or the image evolved in the process of shooting, often in collaboration with the subject.

Grecco’s method seems to involve a truckload of equipment and a horde of assistants and specialist. This should not intimidate the reader. Most of what Grecco describes can be achieved on a much lower budget using inexpensive speedlights and some tinkering (and gaffer tape 😉 – the same principles apply as with super-expensive studio lights.

The book is strongly recommended to anyone looking to improve their lighting skills, especially when photographing people.

5 stars (out of 5)

5 stars (out of 5)

Church Ceiling

April 27, 2009 in Photo | Permalink

Church ceiling

The ceiling of the Freising cathedral.

The previous cathedral burned down almost exactly 850 years ago (April 5, 1159). Work on the current church started almost immediately but it took almost 100 years until the church was finally consecrated.

The interior was remodeled a number of times with the current rococo ceiling having been created by the Asam brothers around 1724. Everything looks shiny and new because major renovation and restoration works were completed recently.

The difficulty in capturing a scene like this is that the light coming in the windows is extremely bright while the shadow areas can be very dark. Most digital cameras can not handle the dynamic range in such a scene.

The solution is to use HDR (high dynamic range), which is a technique to squeeze more extreme light and darkness into an image than the camera sensor can capture. The trick is to create several exposures of the same scene (a tripod really helps :): one frame exposes the highlights correctly, the next the midtones, the final frame the shadows. Software magic then combines everything into one image. Because most monitors are 8-bit-per-color-channel devices (and JPEG supports only 8 bits per color channel) the resulting image is then rendered down into an 8 bit per channel representation.

The difficulty lies in the number of choices that must be made at every step. It takes a bit of experimenting to get good results.

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