Cool slow motion HD video
The end with the koosh ball and Jello are very cool. You may want to click on the video to bring it up in the larger size on the Vimeo website.
I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.
Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category
iPhoto 09’s amazing face recognition
I picked up my copy of iLife 09 the day it came out, eager to try out iPhoto’s face recognition feature. After launching iPhoto for the first time, it took under an hour for it to process all the photos in the library, searching for faces. Once it identified most of the faces you start tagging them with names. As you are tagging names, the process becomes simpler because iPhoto appears to learn from what was being tagged and makes recommendations which you can accept or reject. It’s not perfect and at times suggests the wrong person, especially when it comes to toddlers and infants, but does a fairly good job.
An example of an accurate suggestion:
An example of an inaccurate suggestion:
iPhoto is also Linux friendly, well at least in terms of recognizing Tux:
iPhoto also likes to play Where’s Waldo:
Overall it is an impressive feature. I can’t speak to how it compares to the face recognition feature of Google’s Picasa, other than iPhoto does all the work locally whereas Picasa only provides face recognition on Picasa Web. I’m not about to upload my entire photo library to the web (with the exception of my Amazon S3 backup) so the local face recognition with name tagging is perfect for me.
Posted by Al Degutis
Photosynth - Mickey Christmas Tree
I’ve wanted to experiment with Photosynth some more, so I decided to try a 360 degree synth of Judy’s Mickey Mouse Christmas Tree. I set up a backdrop behind the tree, put the camera on a tripod and snapped 26 pictures while slightly rotating the tree in between shots. About half way through I realized that as I rotated the tree, I was also inching it forward and to the left so I started inching it back during the remaining shots. I’m not sure how much the movement affected the results, but my goal of having a photo that you can “scroll around” didn’t work out. I also wonder if the problem was the backdrop which kept the background the same. My thought was to keep the background neutral so it only saw changes in the tree. At this point I’m uncertain if the problem was my technique or Photosynth’s limitations.
It claims to have used all 26 photos but I don’t see how they’ve been synth’d. Here’s the result, which unfortunately require Internet Explorer on a Windows PC:
Here are all of my attempt at Photosynth:
Photosynth progress
Note - you will need to install the Photosynth browser plug-in to see the images below. At this time you have to install the client and browser plug-in at the same time, which you can do by click on the below.
While I still can’t get Microsoft’s Photosynth to display the web images on my Windows XP or Vista running in VMWare Fusion v1 (Fusion v2 Beta is required), I was able to get some interesting results with a series of pictures I took of our house and property.
The steps to creating a synth are very simple:
- 1. Take pictures, preferably enough “connecting photos”
- 2. Feed the photos to the Photosynth program and it does the rest
My first attempt at creating the necessary photos for a good synth was a simple 360 degree view from a center-ish point in the backyard: camera on a tripod, snapping pictures and slightly rotating the camera for the next shot. Of the 42 photos I feed it, 76% of them were synthy and the following is the result.
Photosynth, the magic is getting it to run
Apparently, I am not synthy enough, to borrow a phrase from Microsoft’s Photosynth beta. Wanting to try Photosynth but using a Macbook Pro as my primary computer, which is not supported natively, I launched Vista Home Premium in a VMWare Fusion (v1) virtual machine to meet the requirements of running it in Windows. After downloading and installing the software then permitting the browser plug-in to install I took a shot at my first synth. I grabbed 40 photos of our house and surrounding property taken back in 2003 and feed it into Photosynth. After it processed and uploaded the finished result to the Photosynth web site, I was presented with the following when trying to view the results:
Stone Nudes - Art not sport?
Over the last couple of days I’ve seen stories online about the “Stone Nudes.“ The story in the link states:
It is a breathtaking - and death-defying feat - which redefines the term extreme sport.
Battling both gravity and the elements, the climber claws her way up a granite boulder by just her fingertips.
For most, the lack of ropes and safety equipment would be a perilous step too far.
But this woman has gone even further and abandoned her clothes to take part in the new sport of naked rock climbing
Looking at the pictures, my gut instinct is that these women (or it is just one woman?) are not doing this for sport but as a modeling job. These are the thoughts that come to mind to justify my gut feeling:
- The pictures are all black and white.
- The women appear to be posing more than climbing. It is possible that Mr. Fidelman is the pro photographer that sits quietly and waits for the right picture. More realistically he shoots hundreds of digital photos just to get the perfect shot (or pose).
- There is no sense of real height in any of these photos. The women could be a mere few feet off the ground.
- They don’t seem muscular enough to climb without gear.
- Why aren’t there any pictures of men climbing in the nude?
I searched for Dean Feldman via Google and l found he’s selling a book called “Stone Nudes.” Maybe he got the idea for the book after capturing these women doing what they love, rock climbing, or maybe it was the other way around.
I think the news outlets are taking advantage of the nudity and the sensationalism of the danger, while Mr. Fidelman reaps the rewards. By no means I am accusing Mr. Feldman of any wrongdoing. I’m just saying “I don’t buy it.”
What do you think? Post your comments below.
- Al Degutis
