I know I know, I'm pretty late to the game, but hey, I'm in Germany and Apple decided to let us wait. I have spent two days with the iPad now, and I think that is enough time to form an opinion, so here it is.

You can't form an opinion from blog posts or from spending 30 minutes with the device! I spent about 30 minutes over the weekend to play with various people's iPads. It was fun. I liked it. Then on Tuesday my own iPad arrived and I have now had two days with it. Spending two days with one is definitely different from spending 30 minutes with it. I am looking at it with different eyes now. There are many little things that you can't grasp in a short time. Especially not if you stay at a level where you only compare features and leave out all the interaction details that make or break a device. Let's face it: the most complete feature set can be useless if the interaction with it is broken.

Flash? Didn't miss it in the past two days. Yes, I ran into the odd website that was 100% flash, but it was never something that couldn't be easily worked around. A lot of embedded videos (especially those from YouTube) are now HTML5 anyway, and those play just fine embedded into web sites.

Battery? The advertised 10 hours of battery life are pretty accurate. As with most Lithium Polymer batteries I expect things to become even better after a few charge/discharge cycles.

Weight? It is a bit heavier than I thought it would be, but after handling it for two days the weight is basically a non-issue. Reading in bed works, but not with holding it up above my head. Same as with a big book. Lying on my side with the screen locked is great.

How to hold it? The iPad is a new class of device. Yes, there were tablet computers in the past, but they were the size of laptops, none of them was ever this thin and had such a large screen. Which means we will have to come up new ways of holding it. When sitting down I tend to prefer the landscape orientation holding it with both hands, using my thumbs to interact. A lot of apps and games seem to follow this model quite well, so most of the time it's very convenient.

I can totally see the upcoming iPhone 4 with its super high-res display to take the "reading in bed" spot.

Which case? I don't have a case yet, but played with the Apple case on the weekend. I like the fact that it can easily be used to put the iPad on a flat surface at an angle in horizontal mode. I've been propping the iPad up exactly the same way here on my table and it felt very natural. I also like the flip-over cover, easy access is king.

Consumation or production device? The iPad is awesome to consume content. I like reading on it. I like watching videos on it. I don't really use it a lot to listen to music a lot. I downloaded some magazines (Spiegel, Popular Science, brand eins) and Zinio (a magazine store) to test the interaction model. Everyone is doing their own thing right now, and I guess it'll be a while until some sort of a standard emerges. Or maybe they don't want that to be different.

Production-wise I got Pages, Keynote and Numbers and I played with all three of them. Easy enough to manage, and I can totally see myself using them. Let's see what the next 6-hour train ride will bring. From a photography point of view I can see myself importing selected pictures on the road (I'm still waiting for the camera connection kit) and putting some touches on them right where I am to show a customer an idea or a concept. Or to do a quick upload to flickr. But then this is early days and I didn't really have the opportunity to put that side of the iPad to the test yet.

On-Screen Keyboard Usable. I touch type and as long as I can get the iPad into a comfortable position (see Apple case above) I can type quite well. Maybe at 50-70% of the speed I would get on a hardware keyboard. Good enough to answer emails or even write longer texts. Painting brush strokes into a picture during editing (for example with Filterstorm) is fun and easy.

Apps! The iPad would be nothing without its apps. Here's a small of mine: AirVideo (plays my video collection over the air), 1Password (stores and protects all your passwords and more), Outliner (does what it says, syncs with iPhone version, has a web interface too), Evernote (I love the iPad version), Osfoora (great Twitter client), Pinball HD (bye bye productivity..), GoodReader (get and read your docs from virtually anywhere), Photogene (image editor), Filterstorm (more control over local picture changes), Delivery Status (very useful and beautiful, Junecloud's design rocks), WolframAlpha (yey, big screen geekiness), Pulse News (a beautiful great approach to news reading).

There are probably more to come, but hey, I've only had it for two days...

Two apps I hope will be out as iPad versions very soon are Pocket Informant (calendaring, gtd-style todo management, etc.) and Reeder (Newsreader that syncs with Google Reader. I've briefly played with a beta on the weekend, it rocks!)

iPhone apps They work. Some of them scale up nicely, some of them are better used in their native resolution. Switching between the iPad keyboard and the iPhone keyboard on the same device is awkward. Many iPhone apps will upscale much nicer soon, as Apple has come up with some easier ways to make higher-resolution artwork available for developers even in standard iPhone apps. This is a side effect of the higher-res iPhone 4, but the apps will look much nicer on the iPad then too.

Games Yes, games. The iPad is a great gaming platform. Pinball HD is fast and fun, play Flight Control HD together with someone else on one iPad, and Mirror's Edge is exciting and really well done. Can't wait for all the great titles that will be released on the iPad!

My conclusion is this: The iPad is an awesome media consumption device, and it has a huge potential to become a production device as well. Not on the level of your Mac Pro, it doesn't have the horsepower for that, but that's not what it was made for anyway. It's all in the apps, we see that with Apple's own apps Pages, Keynote and Numbers. All three of them are capable and follow a new interaction model. We are already seeing a lot of promising apps that take advantage of the zippy hardware and bring with them a much more natural interaction model than it was ever possible with the mouse-screen disconnect. I'm happy with the iPad, and being able to say that after just two days, I know I will enjoy it even more as the platform evolves and new and well thought out apps come along. And looking at the simplicity of the just-point-your-finger-at-it interface, I know that the iPad will open up computing to a whole new range of people who up to now had all the reason to be afraid of computers, even of Macs.

The Kodak zi8 is a small HD video camera that I bought for the 2010 Everest Trek. It won't be my only video camera on the trek (there will also be the 5DMkII and the Sony HC7 that I used to shoot the 2009 Everest Trek videos), but thanks to the size of the zi8, it has the best chances to always be within reach, just a pocket away.

But it's not wide enough. And it doesn't come with any accessories, no wide angle lens, nothing. The closest focus distance of the zi8 is too long to shoot video of myself talking while holding it at my outstretched arm. And I was planning to do that. My arm is too short, or the camera is just not designed to allow that.

Anyway, instead of whining I thought I'd better do something about it. I remembered a camera mod I saw a while ago where someone attached a wide angle extender to a camera like this and after some searching I found a magnetic one designed for point-and-shoot still cameras on eBay for EUR 9.99 - and decided to give it a go.

I was a bit surprised when it worked quite well. Okay, it's not actually movie quality and there's a bit of blur toward the corners now, but it effectively extends the field of view to almost twice the original amount for a relatively small visual price to pay. At least if the material isn't used at 1080 later on. And it reduces the focus distance too! Now my arm works just fine and I can record myself talking without having to carry any special accessories.

Attaching the metal ring to the camera that would then allow the magnetic lens to easily attach turned out to be a bit of a challenge. My initial attempt using hot glue wasn't very durable and it came off within a few days. I finally tried epoxy and now the magnet mount is rock solid, almost as if it was an original part of the camera. Maybe I'll color it black for it to better blend in. Maybe not.

My other two zi8 modifications were to put some black duct tape over the red recording light (it draws way too much attention) and to attach some audio foam in front of the microphone to make it less susceptible to wind noise. Works like a charm and now the camera is finally really ready to go on the trek.

Here's an early test:

And here is a link to a short video that I shot with the camera the next day (sorry, it's in German only)

For months and months all your gadgets work like a charm, then all of a sudden everything breaks at once. Ever happened to you?

It's pretty clearly my turn right now.

It all started with my trusty HP B9180 photo printer. It behaved nicely for about two years, then all of a sudden gave me a blank stare and a nasty SERVICE STALL message on its display. I tried Google and everything to find out if there was an easy way to reset something or clean a specific part that was causing this, but to no avail. No warranty of course. So I was really pleased to find out that HP has an out-of-warranty replacement program in place, where you get a refurbished or new machine for some €130,-, which is not too bad given the price of a new unit. The replacement printer arrived without any accessories, only a set of ink cartridges and a pack of paper for the print head alignment and color calibration. First I had to move the print heads from the old printer into the new one though.

Slightly unnerving fact: from the time I filled out the replacement form to the time the replacement arrived, the process took more than two weeks, which means some of the printhead nozzles were actually clogged now, because the printer wasn't able to do it's daily quick maintenance cycle. Bad process design HP, someone should've put a bit more thinking into this. Took me almost the entire set of inks, some manual nozzle cleaning and an additional 10 sheets of paper until the print results looked good again.

What I also found out in the process is that the B9180 seems to be discontinued now. Looks like HP is pulling out of the prosumer photo printing segment, and that's a pity because I really liked this printer and what that means is once this unit breaks, I'm out to find something else from a different manufacturer.

Next up: Mac Pro. My workhorse. My Precioussssss.. after almost three years of tugging along like a real worker bee, it died. Just like that. Click. Off. Turns out the power supply was gone. Which is a good thing compared to the bill a motherboard replacement would've come up to. Only €240,- in total. Plus 1.5 hours of driving time of course, because that's how far away the next official Apple partner repair shop is from here. A bargain!

Now they say that all good things come in threes.

What's next? Got a good guess? Leave a comment!

It's pixel peeping time again. And today's question is: How accurate do the colors in our pictures have to be?

Compare the following two images and then tell me which of the two is more accurate.





Hard to tell, right? Both images are based on the same RAW file from a Canon 5D Mark II, managed in Lightroon, neutrally white-balanced using Lightroom's WB eyedropper on the middle grey patch in the lower of the two rows of grey patches in the color chart on the top. Both files were then exported to JPG with sRGB profile embedded. The only difference is that the top image uses the camera profile that Lightroom assigns to camera images by default ("Adobe Standard"), and the second image is based on a custom-built camera profile based on the ColorChecker card present in the image.

(Note: Lightroom's "Camera Profiles" are not the same as ICC profiles)

The differences between the two images are subtle indeed, the camera and the Adobe Standard profile that gets applied in Lightroom do a remarkably good job, especially with a custom white balance. In fact I'd happily use this outcome for all sorts of professional projects (and have actually done so in the past) - as long as the spectrum under which those pictures have been shot is at least somewhat daylight-ish. With daylight-ish I mean an as full as possible spectrum, one that you'd get outside in the shade at 3pm on a summer's day. Not one that you'd get from a yellow sodium light at the side of the road.

So the question is: why would anyone want to use a camera profile if the output is as good as it is?

Let's first take a look at what profiling does. Consider the color chart in the image below.



In the lower half it shows four rows of color swatches, and all of these are very precisely manufactured to be of a very specific color. Whenever you take a picture, there is an analog process involved where photons hit light-sensitive cells that accumulate a charge based on the amount of photons, and are then read by circuits and converted to numbers. These numbers are then read by software, magically converted into other numbers and finally interpreted as colors and translated into brightness levels of individual red, green and blue pixels on a screen. Or converted into various amounts of cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink and squirted onto paper. It seems like a miracle that in the end we get to see our pictures at all.

But I guess you get the idea, it's a very complex process with quite a few areas of variability, and in order to make sure that we get consistent results, a profiling process can be of great value.

So back to the color swatches. The manufacturer knows pretty much exactly what color values the individual swatches have. If you shoot a picture, it's very likely that your camera and the attached software don't interpret the colors exactly the same way. Blue tones might be a bit more violet than you saw them, greens might be a bit less vivid and reds might be slightly over-pronounced. In an every-day snapshot type of situation this is no biggie, in the analog world, this is even the norm, because every film you choose will have different color and contrast characteristics, but we're in the digital world here and what if you want to get just that little bit more accurate?

Here's where the profiling software comes in. It looks at the picture, finds the swatches (that have been shot with your specific camera under specific light conditions and therefore look slightly different than expected) and it can easily tell that the blue in your picture is different from what it should be and the green is too bright and the red is too dark and so forth. Based on this information the software builds a profile, which in fact is just a lookup-table with mappings from wrong to right color.

All in all this used to be a tedious process that required a great deal of care, expensive software and hardware, and could only be afforded by the professionals who had to get color exactly right, for example in areas like product photography.

Enter ColorChecker Passport by x-rite. After reading up on it and receiving a few recommendations I've finally spent the 100 bucks for this little gadget, and I must say I pretty much instantly fell in love with it.

The chart comes in its little rugged plastic case, so the delicate color swatches are well protected, and it can be swiveled so you can set it down and it will stand by itself.

And if you are a Lightroom user, the process couldn't be easier. In fact this solution is built around Lightroom and RAW and it won't make much sense on its own.

All you have to do is install the software (make sure you download the latest version from their website) which adds an export plugin to Lightroom. Then during your photo session (which ideally takes place under consistent light conditions) you shoot a well-exposed reference picture of the ColorChecker chart and that's all you need to think of during shooting.

After importing your pictures into Lightroom find the one with the ColorChecker, and export it using the ColorChecker export preset. Within less than a minute the software will analyze the picture, find the ColorChecker automatically, create a new profile and prompt you to restart Lightroom to make it aware of the new profile.

Now all you do is switch to the develop mode, select the newly created profile from the Camera Calibration section and you're mostly set. For more accuracy you can also white-balance based on the grey swatches in the upper chart, the bottom middle one is neutral, the ones to the right create warmer tones, the ones to the left make the image slightly cooler.

Still sounds difficult, but after working with it for 5 minutes it was second nature.

This is the first camera profiling solution that I can envision using regularly because it's not only fast, it also almost seamlessly integrates into my existing Lightroom-based workflow.

Move your mouse over this picture to see the differences the profile can make:



Is the difference so big that I'll from now on use it everywhere I go? Absolutely not. It's great to get that extra bit of accuracy where it's needed, and it's definitely quick and simple enough for me to use, so it'll be more than just a paperweight (believe me, I have too many gadgets that I don't really use because they are either too complicated or because they don't add enough value to my photography). It'll clearly help me get better colors in some situations where the light spectrum is difficult, but on the other hand there are many light situations that I don't want to correct for, many of them for creative reasons, so that's where I will happily leave it in the camera bag or at home. And this is true for both my personal projects as well as customer projects.

Is it as accurate as the bigger and much more expensive systems? Probably not. I've never had the need to work with one of those, and with the type of photography I do, I doubt that I ever will. But under light sources with an uneven spectrum (fluorescents for example) it's clearly more accurate than just using the good old white balance and it renders very pleasing colors. It's a logical next step that is lightweight enough in its approach.

Is it for everyone? No. It only makes sense if your workflow is RAW + Lightroom. There it integrates nicely and takes a lot of pain out of the camera profiling process.

Will you be a better photographer if you use the ColorChecker Passport? Let me ask you this: Has buying that new lens made you a better photographer? How about that new camera body you got for yourself last Christmas?

In short: nope.

Photography is still about capturing wonderful moments, telling stories with your pictures and making an emotional impact.

And I would even go further and argue that getting more accurate and neutral colors in your pictures can do both, help the story and the emotion or be completely in the way of telling the story that you want to tell.

Try to imagine the following images perfectly color balanced - I bet you most of them would lose their impact right away.

On the weekend, Monika and I shot a wedding. We usually don't do that for clients, but this one was different, as friends of ours got married. But what does it take to shoot a wedding? I actually get that question a lot. Most of the time the question comes in an email and it is phrased more like "What equipment do you recommend for shooting a wedding?"

[insert sound of alarm bell here] Wrong question. Entirely wrong question. If someone cooks a great meal for you, you don't compliment them on their pots and pans, now, do you? You don't need to know what word processing software (or what notepad and pen) your favorite authors use to write their books. You don't ask a painter what brushes they create their art with.

You enjoy the meal, the book, the painting for what it is.

Why is that so different in photography? "Wow, that's a big camera. You must take great pictures with it" is actually an insult. It de-values our creative side.

But don't worry, you're not alone, and if you are new to photography, it's very easy to fall for what the industry tells us. Which basically is this: Buy new gear from us and your pictures will be so much better.

Wrong, industry. Dead wrong! Some of the best pictures I've seen have been taken with (by today's standards) inferior equipment. A picture is maybe (if at all) 10 percent about the technical quality, about the image sharpness, about the lack of chromatic aberrations, about resolution and about the number of megapixels. 90 percent of the image is YOU. It's your eye, your sense of composition, your sense of placing things in the frame so they play with each other in a way that helps you bring out that image you had in your head before you pressed the shutter button. It's about timing too, actually one could argue that it might even be mostly about timing. Even in landscape photography, where the clouds have that tendency to not wait in that beautiful spot until you're finished setting everything up for the picture.

So I'm not blaming you for asking the equipment question. I'm blaming the industry. Heck, even I have fallen for it, buying things that I didn't need and that didn't benefit my photography at all. I'm just glad I haven't spent $150 on a white balance device yet. And probably never will. The good old grey card ($5.95), a sheet of white paper ($0.01), or even the good old Pringles lid (unfortunately they stopped making the opaque ones, but some yoghurt lids will do the trick too) are all it takes. Everything else is Voodoo unless you get paid big $$$ for a job and need to impress your customer, or unless you really need 100% color accuracy in product photography, for print, or in high profile fashion stuff. I don't need that accuracy. Our eyes aren't scientific measurement devices. They are much more easily influenced by the light conditions surrounding us, which is why you should try to edit your images in consistent surrounding light conditions, but I digress.

How did I get here? Oh, I know, we talked about how the industry makes us buy more and more stuff, and how we forget that photography is actually about learning to see, about anticipating how the viewer will look at our picture, what will make them explore our photograph in which way and how we can guide their eye to what we deem important in a picture.

Photography is about telling stories. Stories that have arches, tensions, reliefs, and in the end it's about one of the most basic things: it's about evoking emotion! If I look a picture and it moves me in one way or the other, I couldn't care less about the technical side of things.

When was the last time you've bought something for your photography that didn't help you at all? Let us know in the comments what that was.