Latest Photo & Video Opinion

29 August 2013
Opinion: How to tweak settings on your webcam

Here's the setup: You've purchased an HD webcam, either because your Mac doesn't have a camera or you're not satisfied with the camera built into your computer. You jack the thing into your Mac and, sure enough, images from your camera appear in the appropriate applications.
19 August 2013
Opinion: Can you record a Netflix stream for offline viewing?

Reader Thom wrote in with this question:
02 August 2013
Opinion: How to manually lower Netflix's streaming bit rate

True story. Last night, while on an Amtrak train from Chicago to Detroit, I was trying to pass the time by watching Netflix on my laptop. Just one problem: The connectivity wasn't great between cities, so there were a lot of pauses while the stream buffered.
31 July 2013
Opinion: Make panoramas the easy way

Some scenes are just too epic to fit into an ordinary picture frame. Consider this: Your usual field of vision is about 200 degrees, but a typical digital camera can only see about a quarter of that--which is why a photo of a breathtaking vista is a lot less impressive than the view you might remember.
25 July 2013
Opinion: This lens will give your photos and DSLR that 19th century look

Here's something for those who ever wanted to give photos that old timey look but like for real--without any of that Instagram digital post-processing shader mess. The minds at Lomography have brought back the nearly two-century old Petzval portrait lens that you can stick onto your digital-age SLR camera to create stylish photos like it's the 19th century all over again.
12 July 2013
Opinion: 5 streaming TV shows full of badass, shady ladies

A couple of weeks ago, seemingly everyone on my Twitter feed was linking to Laurie Penny's thoughtful essay in the New Statesman, "I was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl." It's a great piece worth reading, a hopeful lamentation on the idea that "Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else's." I think that's true sometimes, but luckily this week's crop of streaming TV shows is crammed with strong female characters--badass main characters at that. These women can't be packed into neat, boxed-shaped archetypes like MPDG or any other, unless there's a box for "Criminally intelligent, and sometimes just criminal, shady ladies who are up to no good."
09 July 2013
Opinion: You too can make this 3D-printed film camera at home

Film cameras may be obsolete as far as mainstream use goes, but that didn't stop Instructables user Bozardeux from designing and building an SLR camera. Oh, did we mention that it's 3D-printed?
21 June 2013
Opinion: Strip away all of YouTube's clutter with Cleanr

I don't know about you, but whenever I visit YouTube these days, I want to scold it like a child: "Clean up your room!" Because, seriously, what a mess.
20 June 2013
Opinion: Tweak your browser to show YouTube song lyrics

YouTube makes a great jukebox, whether you use it to stream an entire playlist of songs from your favorite artist or just listen to the occasional modern hit.
13 June 2013
Opinion: Konstructor is a neat $35 film camera you can build yourself

The lo-fi film lovers at Lomography have really outdone themselves this time with a 35-millimeter SLR camera called the Konstruktor that you have to assemble yourself. No, this isn't some kind of half-baked camera product. The idea here is to have fun building your own personal shooter while learning how the mechanical bits in a camera actually work.
08 June 2013
Opinion: Total sharpness: Hyperfocal photography

Conventional wisdom has it that you should keep the background in your photos out of focus to draw attention to the subject in the foreground. Generally that's good advice, but sometimes you might want everything to be in sharp focus, from the foreground elements all the way to the distant background. If you have a camera that lets you adjust the focus manually (think DSLRs and advanced compacts), you can accomplish this effect using a technique called hyperfocal photography.
05 June 2013
Opinion: Getting the best bokeh in your background

Blurry photos are generally a bad thing. But although it's true that--with rare exception--no one likes camera shake in their photos, sometimes blur is intentional, such as when you shoot a photo with shallow depth of field so that the subject is sharp and the background is out of focus.
04 June 2013
Opinion: Graphene-based camera sensors could take pictures in virtual darkness

A team of researchers at Nanyang Technological University is developing a graphene-based camera sensor that's 1000 times more sensitive to light than most commercial CMOS or CCD sensors. The NTU researchers say the new graphene-derived sensor can detect a broad spectrum of light--from the visible to mid-infrared--which could allow it to take photos in nearly-complete darkness.
23 May 2013
Opinion: How to photograph the moon

It's hard to believe today--especially since you can just look up at the sky and see our crater-covered moon with your naked eyes--but there was a time when people weren't intimately familiar with what the surface of our nearby neighbor looked like. Before the Renaissance-era invention of the telescope, the moon was generally thought to be a perfect, unblemished sphere. These days, with even a moderate telephoto lens, you can photograph the moon and see the surface details for yourself.
08 May 2013
Opinion: Protect your camera with rain covers

Portable electronics have the same Achilles' heel as the invading aliens in M. Night Shyamalan's movie s--Signs: water. It's not a good idea to get your digital SLR wet. Taking photos in a rainstorm can end the life of your camera. So how do you protect your camera while taking pictures in a spring shower or a summer deluge? Dress your camera in a rain cover--usually, waterproof fabric that keeps water away from the lens and body, while leaving both the business and control ends open for business.
30 April 2013
Opinion: How to shoot macros of flowers and bugs

This time of year tends to slow down my progress whenever I'm outdoors; my wife, it seems, can't pass a flower without taking a picture of it on her phone. Indeed, no matter what kind of camera you own--SLR, compact, or smartphone--spring is a great time to take photos of flowers, insects, and other small details of the natural world.
05 April 2013
Opinion: Master the Camera app on iOS

Both the iPhone and the iPod touch make for stellar pocket cameras, and the iPad and iPad mini aren't too bad in a pinch either. An iOS device isn't perfect for every photographic need. But it can serve awfully well in many situations where you might once have needed a digital camera.
22 January 2013
Opinion: How to fix jerky YouTube video in Google Chrome

Lately I've noticed that whenever I play a YouTube video on my PC, it's jerky. Choppy. Call it what you will--it's really frustrating.
12 January 2013
Opinion: Television ancestors

If you've watched all the modern TV there is to see, maybe it's time to take a look at some of the shows that inspired your favorite television. This week we look back at some of the shows that inspired the modern TV landscape and some of the programs where your favorite stars and creators got their breaks.
30 October 2012
Opinion: Can Skype really take the place of a face-to-face meeting?

It's the ultimate business hack: Instead of traveling to meet with a client, a design team, or anyone else you need to see face-to-face, you stay put and set up a video call instead. The technology is there--Skype, WebEx, etc.--and it can save you considerable time and money.

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