More Photo & Video Opinion

  • 15 November 2011

  • Opinion: Turn Your Digital Pictures Into a Photo Strip

    A long time ago, there were these things called photo booths. Here's how it worked: You'd go to the mall and sit in a small booth obscured by a curtain, where you would get your picture taken a half dozen times by a built-in camera. Then results would emerge moments later as a series of snapshots on a long strip. Of course, I'm exaggerating--photo booths are alive and well in places like arcades, carnivals, and shopping malls. And even if (like me) you've never stepped foot inside one, you certainly know what I'm talking about--the concept is deeply embedded in our culture. Some time ago, I described how to make something called a Life Strip, which looked sort of like the photo strip that comes out of a photo booth, but this week, let's do the real deal. It is crazy simple to make an authentic-looking photo booth strip, and the effect is instantly recognizable.

  • 11 November 2011

  • Opinion: Swivl Is the Camera Stand That Will Keep You in the Shot

    Swivl is a nifty little camera stand that you can use to keep yourself in a shot without guiding it by hand. The device by Satarii has a stationary base with motors that allows it to tilt and spin to keep a remote marker in its sight.

  • 10 November 2011

  • Opinion: The Beginning of the End of Adobe Flash Player

    Adobe is trying to put a positive spin on the news that the company is stopping development on mobile Flash Player. From now on, Adobe will focus on HTML5 and AIR-based native apps for smartphones, while pushing forward with Flash Player on PCs.

  • 09 November 2011

  • Opinion: Polaroid Goes Retro With Z340 Instant Digital Camera

    If Polaroid's new Z340 Instant Digital Camera looks like something you've seen before, you're showing your age. The new 14-megapixel digital camera with a built-in digital photo printer (which can generate dry prints in 45 seconds) was crafted to resemble the popular Polaroid Spectra cameras of the 1980s.

  • 08 November 2011

  • Opinion: Five Tips for Great Thanksgiving Photos

    It's that time of year again--the local pancake house has put pumpkin pancakes back on the menu, and my family is gearing up for the day when we'll have a turkey feast, a panoply of pies, and, yes, give thanks for another year. If Thanksgiving is a special day to get together with friends and family and share those things as well, then you probably want to capture moments throughout the day with your digital camera. In the past, I've given you some advice on how to get the best Thanksgiving photos--check out my past holiday photo shooting tips, for example. This year, I have a few additional suggestions to help you take some photos you can treasure for years to come.

  • 04 November 2011

  • Opinion: Is Google Your Next Cable TV Provider?

    Google is reportedly in early talks to offer cable television services to residents in Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS. The new offering would be part of Google's one gigabit-per-second experimental fiber-to-home network currently being built in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area and slated to go live by early 2012.

  • 01 November 2011

  • Opinion: Get smarter with iTunes U

    You've probably noticed it in the navigation bar at the top of the iTunes Store--sandwiched between Podcasts and the much-maligned Ping--but have you ever clicked on the iTunes U link? Millions of people have, and iTunes U has seen more than 600 million downloads since its inception in 2006.

  • 31 October 2011

  • Opinion: Make the Free GIMP Photo Editor Easier to Use

    Not everyone uses the same photo editing software. There are many programs to choose from, ranging from the industry standard Adobe Photoshop CS to more accessible and affordable programs like Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel Paint Shop Pro. Which program you use may be a matter of budget, need, and ability. Even if you could afford Photoshop CS, for example, you might not need all of its features. And the program is complicated and difficult to master. Likewise, there are a slew of free photo editors out there--you can read about some of the more popular ones in my free photo editor roundup.

  • Opinion: Microsoft Video Predicts Dazzling Technology Future

    Microsoft’s promotional video depicting a future in which interconnected touchscreen and gesture-controlled devices pervade every facet of daily life will make people crave the possibilities, but also wonder how they will afford them.

  • 24 October 2011

  • Opinion: Photo Cropping, Camera Resolution, Depth of Field, and More Q&A

    Have a question about digital photography? Send it to me. I reply to as many as I can--though given the quantity of e-mails that I get, I can’t promise a personal reply to each one. I round up the most interesting questions about once a month here in Digital Focus.

  • 23 October 2011

  • Opinion: Apple TV Set was Jobs' Last Tech Frontier

    When the authorized biography of Steve Jobs goes on sale tomorrow, it will throw more fuel on the rumor that Apple has a TV set in its product pipeline.

  • Opinion: Hacker Creates New Way to Communicate Road Rage

    A gadget has been created to help motorists communicate their angst toward other drivers without using the ubiquitous hand gesture. But you might want to watch what you say because you never know who is in the other car.

  • 18 October 2011

  • Opinion: More Image Editing Tricks for Brightening Shadows

    You already know that life is full of compromises--like the way you have to eat your broccoli before you get desert, or promise to walk the dog in order to get your spouse to agree to let you, you know, get a dog. So too with photography: A "good exposure" sometimes means that while most of the photo looks fine, there are some deep shadows lacking in detail, like in my photo of a Coast Guard sailor protecting the Staten Island Ferry enroute to Manhattan. Last week I talked about a few techniques for brightening shadows to reveal hidden details This week, let's wrap it up with a couple more ways to selectively improve the quality of your photographs.

  • 14 October 2011

  • Opinion: Netflix Makes Good on Promise to Amp Up Streaming Content

    Netflix and the CW Network have signed a four-year deal to stream past seasons of all CW's scripted shows, including those that just debuted, through the 2014-15 season, Reuters reports.

  • 12 October 2011

  • Opinion: Cool Features Your iPhone 4 Gets After Downloading Apple iOS 5

    Apple's major overhaul of its iOS operating system arrives today, but amidst the excitement comes a major concern: Will iOS 5 function properly on older model iPhones? Or will there be an added circle of bricked-iPhone hell comparable to what happened in 2010 when the iPhone 3G took on iOS 4?

  • 11 October 2011

  • Opinion: Brighten Unwanted Shadows in Your Photos

    Despite what your camera might have told you, there's no such thing as the "perfect exposure." Unless you're taking a picture of a completely uniform scene (like a wall that's been painted a single color), every combination of shutter speed and aperture is invariably going to favor one part of the photo over another. So even if you learn the basics of exposure using an online camera simulator and go on to master the hidden potential of your camera's Program mode, odds are good that everything won't be properly exposed.

  • Opinion: Researchers Turn iPhone Into 350x Microscope on the Cheap

    Take a close look at the images above. They look like fairly typical (and fairly awesome) photos taken with a microscope, except...they were taken with an iPhone. The highly detailed snaps are magnified an impressive 350 times thanks to a recently created microscopic lens, and it was all done for around $50.

  • 05 October 2011

  • Opinion: Comcast, Verizon to Start Streaming TV to Xbox 360

    Comcast and Verizon will begin streaming TV programming to Microsoft's Xbox 360 this holiday season, the companies announced today. This programming will go through Comcast's Xfinity service and Verizon's FiOS service.

  • 04 October 2011

  • Opinion: Adobe Eyes Creatives With Cloud Service, Photoshop App

    If you are a Web designer, graphic designer, or other creative professional, most likely you work with the Adobe suite of products. Up until now, you haven't been able to migrate your work to your tablet PC of choice. That's about to change. Adobe on Tuesday announced two products available in the coming months that will drastically shift how creative professionals will work: Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Touch Apps for tablets.

  • Opinion: Exec: Apple--Not Piracy--Is Movie Industry's Big Problem

    Piracy is less of an issue for the movie industry than is the dominance of the digital distribution channel by a single company, such as Apple.

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