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iPad For Photographers

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Apple’s iPad has a lot to offer photographers—it may be the ultimate photo accessory. First, you’ll be able to connect your digital camera to the iPad and download photos, giving you the peace of mind of an instant backup, plus the ability to review images on a much larger screen than the camera’s LCD. You’ll also be able to e-mail photos or upload them to online services right away. That’s going to be excellent, especially when traveling.

The most interesting part for photographers, though, isn't what the iPad can do right out of the box, but the huge library of applications that will be developed for this device. To get an idea, look at the iPhone App Store. Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone lets you make a variety of enhancements to photos taken with the phone, from basics like cropping and exposure to fun art effects like sketching and colorizing. Our own Rick Sammon has an iApp, Rick Sammon’s 24/7 Photo Buffet, a feast of how-to tips and techniques for quick reference. Apple’s MobileMe Gallery and iDisk apps make it easy to upload photos to your MobileMe services for sharing and backup.

These are just a few of the hundreds of apps already available for photographers with iPhones, and new apps are being developed every day. With a much larger screen and more powerful processor on the iPad compared to the iPhone, software developers will be able to design very sophisticated applications. We can foresee a time in the not-so-distant future when there will be very few typical photo tasks that will require sitting down at your home computer.

Explore all photo-related iPad apps.

For a quick overview of the iPad, see our iPad first look, then let us know what you think. Did you grab an iPad yet? Is there one in your future? If you use an iPad or iPhone now, what are your favorite apps for photography?

As cameras continue to evolve with technology, we need a new generic way to refer to interchangeable lens cameras.

Friday, January 22, 2010

The acronym “SLR” is increasingly less useful as a generic term for interchangeable lens cameras. For decades, the most popular camera design with the ability to swap lenses was indeed a single-lens reflex. And while that design remains dominant among interchangeable-lens models, a newer design, which eliminates the mirror box in favor of a completely electronic viewing system is gaining ground.

Panasonic and Olympus were the first to introduce models using this approach, and at CES this year, Samsung joined the pack. To be precise, the design isn’t entirely new. Like the fixed-lens digital cameras that we’ve known for more than a decade, these electronic viewfinder cameras (Wired recently dubbed them “EVIL” cameras—Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) are similar in many ways to classic rangefinders, but with all of the advantages that come from digital technology.

Will the mirror-less EVIL approach used by the E-P2 and others eventually overtake the venerable SLR? We won’t believe that until the remaining major camera makers go this route. And while we can easily imagine a Canon PowerShot G11 with interchangeable lenses, professionals and enthusiasts with big investments in SLR lenses aren’t going to abandon those cameras for smaller EVIL cameras overnight, even with the availability of high-quality lens adapters from companies like Novoflex.

For now, we need a new acronym to refer to all interchangeable lens cameras. SLR just isn’t accurate anymore. ILC is the obvious choice, but it lacks the smooth, roll-off-your tongue quality of SLR.

We want to know what you think. Is ILC the right choice, for it’s generic accuracy, or can you think of something better?

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