A Bright Orange Camera

 

If you read my previous post, you’ll know that I recently returned from attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Since the 1980’s Ive been attending CES which showcases many of the newest gadgets and products that are destined to be delivered to the marketplace.

At the Nikon booth a bright orange colored camera caught my attention. This was the Nikon Zf which was introduced last November (2023).

	The Nikon Zf is a 24mp full frame mirrorless camera that shares some of the looks of older classic SLRs – the familiar pyramid viewfinder, a circular shutter dial, an independent ISO dial. I was told that it’s able to capture 11fps stills and handle 4K video at 30fps. The autofocus tracking can recognize nine types of subjects. The image stabilization is linked to the AF point. The rear screen is fully articulated. The camera also features several dedicated black and white modes. For the fashionable photographer the Zf is available in six different colors. The price is about $2250 with 40mm f/2 lens.
	After speaking to the Nikon rep who explained the camera’s features, he walked me over to their in-booth photo studio for a demonstration. I registered my name and email address and found myself in line to have my picture taken. Here the photographer was using the Zf camera surrounded by a set of lightboxes. After sitting for a series of six photos I walked over to the nearby monitor where the artist assistant showed me the resulting pictures. Whatever the artist did, the portraits turned out better than my real life visage.

Later in the day, the images from the photoshoot arrived in my email box. Here are a couple of the portraits taken with the Nikon Zf.

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My thanks go to the people from Nikon for a new set of portraits and for showing me another one of their newest capable cameras.

 

 

Magically Making a 3D Image

 

I’ve attended the annual Consumer Electronics Show pretty regularly since the 1980s. Due to pandemic concerns, I skipped 2022 and 2023.

However this year I decided to go again and just returned from this year’s event.

Naturally my interest in photography sent me over to the Canon booth where one of their presenters prodded me to have my picture taken.

Eric showed me what appeared to be a normal digital camera. He told me that he was going to take my picture and turn it into a 3D image.		After taking my snapshot, Eric walked me over to Jay who asked me to locate my image on the large board beside him and click on my photo.
Seconds later I received an email on my cellphone. It contained the following short mp4 video.

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Eric told me that the photo is passed through software which renders the single image into a 3D mp4 file. I don’t know the exact details of how this happens but the result is pretty cool.

Thanks to the staff at Canon.

 

 

Not Quite Magic, But Amazing Nonetheless

 
Like many photography buffs, I subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud that provides me a set of applications for editing my images. For all of the years that I’ve been using the computer for photography, I’ve never been a regular user of Photoshop. While I’ve used it on occasion I’ve instead relied on the company’s younger offspring Lightroom for most of my image editing.

As a subscriber I receive regular electronically delivered newsletters about Creative Cloud. A few weeks ago one of the articles drew my interest – colorizing black and white images.

Those of us who grew up taking pictures in the 1950s and 1960s have a large stash of black and white photos – and I have my share. I clicked on the article to find out more about this magical process.

The process involved using one of Photoshop’s built-in filters. Being a Photoshop novice I was unfamiliar with these filters so I had to dig deeper.

Well it turns out that I didn’t have to dig very much. The newsletter explained that the only thing I needed to do was to choose “Neural Filter” from Photoshop’s top menu and then click the “Colorize” button. Instantly – yes instantly – the black and white photo was converted to a color version.

The images are colorized using a best guess model that Adobe employs. The processing is not perfect but most of the images that I tried turned out acceptable. The few inconsistencies that I noticed did not detract from the overall results. And a few of the colorized images exceeded my expectations.

Below are a few of the B&W’s – including some of my favorites – that I was anxious to try.
 

Click on any image to see more detail.
A photo of my Grandmother and two uncles taken in the 1950s.	The colorized version fails to maintain consistent color of the suits.
A high school photo of a student from the 1960s.	The colorized version is good except the student didn’t use lipstick.
Writer William F Buckley lecturing at the Univ of Michigan in 1969.	Above you will notice that the background does not maintain the same color.
Hockey star Tim Horton sitting in the penalty box at Madison Square Garden about 1964.	The color processing chose blue for Tim’s jersey which happens to be the color of the Toronto Maple Leaf uniform. Good guess.
Singer Ron Townsend of the Fifth Dimension performing in Ann Arbor in 1970	An amazing transformation. I don’t know if the colors are accurate to his 1970’s outfit but they appear authentic.
A snapshot of my wife while we were enjoying nature and the outdoors in 1969.	Photoshop’s choice of colors is less important to me than the warm feeling that I receive from the colorized photo.

 
 
I’m still excited when I find another older black & white photo that I can colorize.

 
 
Written by: Arnie Lee
 
 

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