Ep. 94: One Billion Reasons Not to Use Someone Else’s Photos + more!

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Here’s episode 94 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast. You can also download the MP3 directly and subscribe via iTunes or RSS!

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In This Episode

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Photographer and creator of Plotagraph Pro, Troy Plota, opens the show.  Thanks Troy!

A noted photographer sues Getty for $1 Billion. (#)

Plotagraph Pro is announced and seeks to breathe new life into your photos. (#)

More rumors about the Canon 5D Mark IV as its announcement nears. (#)

Rumors that Sony will be updating it’s a99, but is the A-mount system have any life in it. (#)

Yahoo! gets parted-out as Verizon acquires Flickr and other key assets as EyeEm offers a solution in Flickr’s uncertainty. (#)

A Kickstarter campaign for a mid-level monolight with some high-end features. (#)

Connect With Us

Thank you for listening to the PetaPixel Photography Podcast! Connect with me, Sharky James on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (all @LensShark) as we build this community.

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Instagram Will Soon Let Users Filter and Moderate Comments: Report

Instagram is preparing a big release. According to a report by The Washington Post, the photo sharing app will soon let users moderate the comments on their photos, or even turn off the ability to comment altogether.

The Post spoke to Instagram about upcoming comment moderation features following rumors that high-profile accounts (most prominently Taylor Swift) were already being given access to certain moderation tools. Without naming names, Instagram basically confirmed as much.

“We have slowly begun to offer accounts with high volume comment threads the option to moderate their comment experience,” a spokesperson told the Post. “As we learn, we look forward to improving the comment experience for our broader community.”

Moderation tools such as setting up certain word filters will apparently launch to high-profile accounts in “the coming weeks,” with the rest of us getting them in “the coming months.” The option to turn off comments on a post-by-post basis is also mentioned, although Instagram seems uncertain about releasing this feature to everybody.

When it comes to comment moderation and community policing, social networks often have to walk a fine line. Ban too much, and you’re an enemy of free speech; ban too little, and you’ll become a favorite platform for trolls that tolerates harassment. Putting moderation in users’ hands looks to be Instagram’s way of having their cake and eating it too.

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Photographer’s Business ‘Dies’ After He Take a Gig Photographing Trump

Virgina-based photographer Ray Reynolds is finding out that there are consequences to covering one of (if not the) most controversial public figures in the world. Ever since he began photographing Republican nominee Donald Trump professionally, the rest of his business has completely dried up.

Reynolds became the photographer for the “Veterans for Trump” coalition last August. Since then he’s photographed 20 different Trump events and followed the presidential nominee all over the country; however, his “front row seat to a historic presidential campaign” comes with a catch.

The rest of his photography business is, in his own words, dead. “That’s one reason I’ve been able to travel and follow him,” he says in his interview with NBC WSLS 10. “Nobody will use me for photography now.”

The question now is what happens once the campaign is over. Win or lose, come November Reynolds probably won’t be tapped as the next Pete Souza. Is covering a historic presidential campaign—and the chills Reynolds says go along with it—worth losing your future career prospects over? We suppose Reynolds will have to decide that for himself.

(via NBC WSLS 10 via Fstoppers)

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Cool New Tech Can Print Full Color Holograms on Regular Inkjet Printers

Printing a hologram usually involves some sort of special materials or lenses, but a company called Lumii has invented a way to do it with a regular old Epson inkjet printer! The resulting ‘lightfield prints’ look for all the world like 3D, full-color holograms.

Lumii is currently showing off the tech at Siggraph 2016, where the folks at ElectricTV spoke with Co-Founder and CEO Tom Baran and shared a preview of the tech in action. The results are pretty impressive:

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The final “holograms” are created from 3D scans of people’s faces, which Lumii converts into special patterns. Those patterns, when printed and layered one on top of the other, create a 3D lightfield print like the one you see above.

They’ve been showing off the tech at Siggraph and creating hundreds upon hundreds of these “selfie” souvenirs for people to take home using nothing more complex than a commercial Epson inkjet printer.

For Lumii, the name of the game is more immersive advertising, so this isn’t necessarily tech for the average consumer. That said, they are already inviting said consumer to give their Alpha a try. Just upload a 3D model and create some Lumii “lightfield” prints in the comfort of your own home.

To learn more or see the tech in action, check out the full video up top or visit the Lumii website.

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Old School: How to Meter and Expose for Any Lighting Situation

This Software Can Turn Any Single JPEG Into an Animated GIF

Plotagraph Pro is an incredible new photography tool that can take any still image and animate it into a beautiful looping GIF or video file. No need to shoot a video or capture multiple frames, a single JPEG is all this Web-app needs.

Plotagraph Pro was created by photographer and artist Troy Plota, and it’s basically being marketed as a simple alternative to time-intensive Cinemagraph creation.

“Cinemagraphs originate from video footage and requires specific video production which adds considerably to the costs. This also greatly limits the amount of available footage,” it says on the Plotagraph Pro website. “Plotagraphs are free from the constraints of video which makes Billions of images available to bring to life at a fraction of the price of any other process.”

Any single JPEG can be turned into a flowing animation and exported as a GIF, MP4, or MOV file through a patent-pending combination of specialized imaging algorithms.

Photographer Trey Ratcliff has been playing around with Platograph Pro for a while, and today he released a BTS video that shows you a few of his favorite examples and illustrates how easy the software actually is to use:

The interface itself seems pretty simple and the results speak for themselves. Of course, given the single JPEG source, there are limitations, but there are also a ton of possibilities. Here are a couple of examples that Trey has posted online:

We have to admit, the ability to take any existing still image and “breathe new life” into it is pretty enticing, and it seems we’re not the only ones that think that. According to Digital Trends, Plotagraph Pro has already been used by big guns like Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Airbnb. All that’s left is to release it to the rest of us mere mortals.

Speaking of which, Plotagraph Pro is now available as a pre-release beta to a limited number of users before it goes live for all. You can learn more about the service on the Plotagraph Pro website where you can also sign up for one year of access + 10GB of online storage for the special introductory price of $300.

Tempted? Curious? Meh? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.

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Image credits: Plotagraphs by Trey Ratcliff and used under CC license.

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Getty Responds to $1 Billion Lawsuit, Will Defend Itself ‘Vigorously’

Astrophotographer Surprised by Huge ‘Fireball’ While Shooting Milky Way

What’s the biggest surprise you’ve gotten while you were out shooting? For astrophotographer Ian Norman, Wednesday night’s massive ‘fireball’ that streaked across the sky while he was out taking Milky Way pictures tops the list. (Warning: Strong language.)

The ‘fireball’ was actually the re-entry and spectacular burn-up of the Chinese CZ-7 R/B rocket. Of course, at the time, Ian had no idea what it was. He simply flipped his Sony a7S into video mode and started recording the blazing light streaking above the Sierra Nevadas. The footage he captured is pretty incredible… but just imagine being there while this happened.

The ‘incident’ happened in the Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, California. Check out the video up top to see it for yourself and hear Ian tell the story.

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