The eagle-eyed readers at DSLR User have spotted a possible slip of the keys as Olympus may have outed the E-520 by accident!

“So that you don’t need to carry a heavy tripod or invest extra money into every single stabilised lens, Olympus integrated a built-in image stabiliser into the camera body of the E-3, E-510 and E-520. It stabilises up to 5 EV steps (up to 4 EV steps with the E-510 and E-520), making it the most effective solution on the market.”

The site has been changed but a cached version of the page can be seen by clicking here

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Now, what usually happens when you want to take a bunch of snaps in quick succession is you have to drop from RAW to JPEG.

JPEGs lose quite a bit of info and tends to be a bit like an audiophile listening to a Costco stereo!

Microsoft’s JPEG XR (it used to be called HD Photo) have Canon and Casio agreeing that this might be a middle-ground solution; praps more for the cheaper DSLRs.

It has a wider colour palette and can show finer gradations than regular JPEG and it’s also got a better compression algorithm. This means that even with the extra info it wont suck all the power out of the camera.

Granted - if you’re wanting professional high-def, RAW is always going to win. For the rest of us it might help out when we need it.

Here’s what Wikipedia says.

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A while ago I wrote some PHP code to download your Flickr photograph sets using the Flickr API and the PHPFlickr wrapper. Since the Microsoft Yahoo! takeover rumors there has been renewed interest in the code as people want to protect their picture libraries in case they need to bail on their Flickr accounts.

Unfortunately in the time since I wrote it there have been changes that broke my code. This morning I spent some time bringing it up to date. Mostly the problem was around Flickr not returning the original sized image in the same way they used to, and it refused to work even with the most recent PHPFlickr update. It looks like I managed to sort that but it is slower than it used to be. I have a folder full of pictures anyway!

Right now it will only download one set that you specify in the code. While this sounds like a poor limitation, remember you can create a set containing every photograph you ever uploaded if you wanted. Having it download one set allows you to download into neatly organized folders and not spend a month wondering if it is working or not. You can alter the code quite easily if this is not what you need

I updated the original post rather than submit the code as a new article in case anyone had the old version bookmarked. Let me know how it works out for you but I am sure you understand I can’t offer any support.

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If there was a stupid mistake to be made as an advertising photographer, I made it. Not by design. It’s just that no one told me that being a commercial photographer required more business acumen than the ability to sign a charge card slip. I was happily living the delusion that, one day, I would be fabulously successful and all that business stuff would be taken care of by my people.

Unfortunately I had no people representing me at the time I made one of the most costly errors of my career. Ridiculously, I didn’t know it was a costly error until I got people or more accurately, a person, my agent, to educate me about my blunder. From that day forward I became much more diligent about the business side of my career. One of the first things I learned is that having people to tell you how much your mistakes cost you - costs a lot of money.

A little over a year ago, I was asked to write a book based on the articles I’ve writen about the photography industry. The book came out at the end of October, and Chris Garrett was kind enough to let me write a post about it here on DSLR Blog. Below is an excerpt about the mistake I mention above.

When I started shooting, life was simple. I would shoot a model test or a magazine spread and get paid a fixed amount of money for it. The fees were rarely negotiable and usually dictated by the market. Simple! Then I landed my first advertising assignment. I was shooting a small regional ad for a big client at a worldwide agency. I was being treated like a big shot, with valet parking and cappuccinos at all the meetings. It was thrilling. I figured those business-minded photographers with their percentages, markups, usage rights, and agents didn’t know what they were doing. Why should I complicate things? I was getting good money for an easy shot and I didn’t have to pay an agent. I concluded that those other photographers were old school and I was new school, all about the art. I completely screwed myself.

Somewhere between the valet guy parking my car and my second cappuccino I signed away all my rights to the image. The image was shot so well that the client decided to upgrade the ad from regional to national. It ran for three years. A hindsight assessment revealed that my cocky little pen stroke had cost me thirty thousand dollars in additional usage fees.

If you get a chance, give the book a read. Many thanks to Chris and the readers of DSLR Blog for your time.

All the best
Lou Lesko

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If you are into urban photography then you must check out this 10 Top Sites for Alternative Urban Photography list from WebUrbanist. Some are obvious, such as Flickr and DMOZ, others are brand new finds and look really cool.

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If you recall it was only a couple of posts ago that I said I use Flickr for virtual tourism. Well it seems that the Flickrbots read this blog because they have tailor made a feature just for me!

Well, ok, lots of people use Flickr for scouting out places and this is more than I could have hoped for really. Combine Flickr Places with Microsofts software that allows you to navigate a location in 3d and I might never need to go on vacation again

Using their maps, geotagging and groups, they combine all the data to show you pictures from where you want to see. Featured in the screengrab is Banff, a favorite location of DSLRBlog.

Get browsing your favorite places now

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Another day, another photo stolen

Photo by fetching.

CNET is using photography without attribution according to a thread over at Flickr

Mitch Aidelbaum’s shot of yahoo’s Jerry Yang, used without permission or attribution on the front page of www.news.com

You can forgive mistakes once or twice but it seems from discussion around the intarwebs that CNET are repeat offenders.

Shame on you, CNET! Hopefully they will respond in a suitably contrite manner

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Moo Christmas cards could be just the thing for family and friends. Use your cutest most festive flickr image, pay your £10, and get in the post completely convenient and unique seasons greetings. Lovely

Get creating your flickr greetings cards over at the Moo site.

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Online photo editing is coming to Flickr. This is the one of the features I have often felt lacking at Flickr and will make the whole thing much more useful to a wider group of users. Michael Arrington has the news:

The deal has been signed and implementation will occur sometime in the next few months, Flickr told me yesterday. Users will be presented with an edit option on the photo page. Clicking it takes the user to a new Flickr photo edit page, with the Picnik tools integrated via an iframe. After editing, users can add the edited photo to their Flickr account or, if they are a Flickr pro user, overwrite the original.

So we are not getting it any time soon but I for one look forward to seeing it. Now when someone suggests a crop you will be able to actually try it out right in your Flickr account with no upload/download required!

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Recall I submitted some photographs to Crestock? Check out how I got on. Man I was surprised at the result, I did learn a lot so it is all good

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