The future of photography

Photography is one of my main passions. You can find many entries here about my workflows, my camera, lenses, etc…

I have a nikon d300 with a couple of lenses covering from 10-200 mm. Before this one I had a Panasonic DMZ (I forgot the model, but not a compact) and some other digital cameras.

Previously I had a canon A1 (not a digital camera) with lenses.

I have a website a bit forgotten with photos http://norai.net a NAS with 60.000 photos and flicker with nearly 50.000.

I can say that 90% of the photos I take now are with my iPhone 4s. Why?

I always carry my phone. The quality of the photos is decent, and a good photo does not require an outstanding camera.

Why?

I mentioned I always carry my Phone, but also it is connected. It has 3g and wifi, so photos are shared/uploaded easily. It has a GPS so they are geotagged. It has apps (software) to manipulate the photos if you wish.

With my nikon, I shoot raw and I carry a GPS logger. I have to extract the photos with a card reader to a laptop, I have to extract the GPS log files. I have to merge the raw files with the GPS coordinates, I have to run DxO to correct aberrations, vignetting and optic distortion and only then I have JPG ready, but as you can see is quite a process, that I am ready to follow if I go on holidays or if there is a special occasion, but this is less than 10% of the time.

Why I do not upgrade my DSLR?

Because the next DSLR should make my life easier. It should have GPS and connectivity. It should be full frame and have a reasonable price. Now only few are giving you all this (the new canon 6d).

Now everybody is a photographer with apps such as Instagram and cameras such as the iPhone’s.

How do I see the future?

The new iPhone surely will have a better camera. Probably better than any other smartphone. It will shoot with low light and will have a decent pixel count, which is around 12Mpx. (we don’t need more than that, even in DSLRs).

I don’t think they can fit optical zoom into a phone and that is why if you want field depth and zoom you will still need other digital cameras, otherwise I expect smartphones to continue being the most used cameras.

Compact cameras will become more like telephones (connected) and DSLR also. You will be able to do digital manipulations in the camera, and they will be connected.

I will continue shooting with DSLR because I like it, but the ration 90/10 will remain the same.

Look at the latest iPhone commercial. The iPhone 5 is the most popular digital camera…


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An Android device in my iLife

I have had a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, 10.1″ for two weeks now. The bank sent it to us when we placed some money in a long term deposit.

I am an Apple guy, with my Macbook retina, my iPhone 4s and a second generation iPad.

I have always been curious about Android and in previous posts you can see that I foresee that there will come the day where I will switch, but it is not going to be anytime soon.

After heavy configuring the Android tablet to make it look like my main tablet, with email, and tons of apps, I have been using it exclusively during these couple of weeks, and here are my first thoughts:

Hardware aside (I believe is comparable to my iPad second generation), Android is nice. There are some thinks I like more over iOS and some I like more.

What I like is the fact that you can arrange your desktops with the icons as you wish, and that you can create folders (like in iOS) and leave spaces, and also the fact that you can add widgets. At first that was a wow, now I recognise they are of a little value on a day to day, except the clock and weather.

The notification centre is far superior than the iOS. You can mute individual alerts and that is awesome. Also you have there the ability to have quick access to key setting such as wifi, rotation, etc… which is perfect.

You can also have direct access to apps from the lock screen. That is also cool. In iOS is just the camera.

I also like the fact that you can tell an individual app to upgrade when there is an available upgrade. No questions, just it upgrades when it can, and they you get a notification in the notification centre.

To switch and kill apps is just different. No better. There is button and you just swipe to kill or close. The buttons though are not place in a useful place. I find it easier to reach the home button on my iPad to go to home or to switch apps (even with the four finger gesture).

What I dislike is that the Play Store is a mess. Basically either you know what you are looking for or it is impossible to find anything. There is no categorisation, no nothing. I was trying to explore kids apps (as I believe I will give this tablet to my son) but you have to do this in a browser. I also don’t like about the Play Store the fact that you don’t actually see in a straight forward way if an app is for a tablet or for a mobile device.

What I dislike the most is that every time I open the browser it has to reload all the tabs!! Android basically does not remember the state of any app!! That for me is a must. If I am reading email and I want to go to a website I left open, I want to switch and see it and with Android it is not like that! It does open the browser, but then it opens the tabs with your pages, but you can see it is not the same.

If you are a Google user (and I am) then it is very well integrated. Personally I dislike the Samsung apps. I prefer pure Google, so I downloaded the calendar, gmail and chrome, and forgot about the default ones, the only minus is that gmail app has no unified inbox… and I am used to the iOS mail client where all my emails are in on inbox.

One more think I discovered on Android and that I quite like, is the fact you can be browsing the Playstore on your laptop and you can push the install of an app directly to your android device. Bravo. Cool feature.

Why I am not going to adopt Android tablet as my main tablet?

Because I am absorbed by the iOS ecosystem and Google users are equally supported. With my Android tablet I don’t have iMessage (that converts to SMS if needed), FaceTime, Reminders, Find my Friends… and everybody around me does… my brother and his wife, my mum, my girlfriend, my parents in law, my brother in law… so I have a lot to loose if I switch.

Also the simplicity of backups. With iOS if I loose it, I wipe it remotely, I get a new device and I restore it identically. I am sure I can manage to do similarly with Android but it is not out of the box like this. I could also run Skype, but the point is that I don’t want to run anything. FaceTime works fine and it is optimised.

I use my iPhone to listen to podcasts (sure you can also use android) and about 40 audiobooks per year. Android is still no competition for iPod use.

So for me, Apple wins. I will continue to use it for a while, but the reasons I mention are very strong for me to keep on with iOS.

 Edit: I am using the Android tablet as the main tablet as I want to discover everything, and I must say the more I play the more I like it.

I rooted it and installed CyanogenMod with Android 4.2.2 and it rocks. It is much better than the Samsung stack. More on new posts (how to root it with a Mac for example)

 

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Day 12: New York and back home

Last day. Slept pretty well at the Equity Point Hostel. A bit cold but it was snowing so nothing to complain about.
I had a shower and packed. Went downstairs and had breakfast. Then took my backpack and walk walk walk. That is what I love to do in New York. I walked down to battery park, with the camera around my neck and passing by the main attractions. It was pretty early so most it the places where still closed but I saw the empire states, ground zero and the new building, Wall Street and when I reached the sea I took the A subway and up to Central Park. Then down again until the 41st where I took the shuttle to the airport. I had lunch in the airport. And here I am now flying. With 1.5 h delay and zero sleep. Two films: Argo and Alex Cross. Looking forward to see my family.

Day 11: to New York!

Long day. Woke up early at Seaside Cabanas in Cay Caulker to check out and take the water taxi to Belize. There a crappy old taxi to the airport for $25. My flight was leaving at 1:20pm and is going to Newark. Nuria’s was leaving at 3:30 and she is going to Miami and London.
I will seep today in Manhattan. I have a 24h stop over.
Lets see if I have wifi and I write something else before going to bed.
I’m on the bus on my way to manhattan. The bus has wifi. Wow.

I’m going to bed after having waked around Times Square. Had dinner, and bought some stuff at Gap for Kai Noa and Núria. Here one more photo.

Day 10: chilling out

Slow day in Caye Caulker. Just chilling out by the pool, having walks around the island and little more. We had luch at sunrise by the sea (fish and ceviche) and dinner at Habaneros. Nuria got crab and I had Mayan BBQ.

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Day 9: Caye Caulker perroflauta

Last day in Isla Bonita. In the morning we just chilled out at Ramon’s village and at 1pm we did our last dive, they took us pictures for the Advanced Open Water PADI and then we took the water taxi to Caye Caulker which is 30 mins away.
Caye Caulker is very special. Smaller and authentic. I’m sure there are not many places like this left in the world. It is the perroflauta paradise, and we are staying at Seaside Cabanas which is sort of the Hilton of the island.
We did not do much. Have ceviche, walk around and then chill out by the pool. Perfect way to finish our holidays here. I just hope Newark airport is open by the time I leave as it looks like many flights are being cancelled due to the weather.

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Day 8: blue hole

5:15 we were on the boat going to the diving shop for a full day out with 3 tanks.
We were around 15 and some dived yesterday with us so we knew.
It is quite a long way to reach lighthouse reef, but the dives were amazing. First we arrived to the blue hole site. It is quite impressive. The atoll has clear calm waters and even if from the boat is not easy to see the ring when you jump into the water is evident. There is an abysm and a wall that goes down. This was and will be the deepest dive we have done and we will ever do as it is even beyond the limits. We descended to 43 meters and we saw what was a sink hole with huge stalactites. The deeper you go the shorter the dive, so it lasted 30 mins or less with a mandatory 5 minutes stop at 5 m. In our ascend we saw a shark in the hole. Nice.
After this dive we went to half moon caye where we did one of the most incredible dives ever. Canyons, 2 sharks, coral reef, a huge lobster, a very nice dive.
After the second dive we went to he island to have lunch. Very nice food. We went to an observation deck to see birds. It is a beautiful natural reserve. After lunch we went for the last dive at long caye, the aquarium. What can I say. I have never seen such a nice variety if coral, sponges, etc. incredible.
The trip was long but worthily. Tomorrow we will dive in the morning and we will take the water taxi to caye caulker.

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Day 7: tackle box, sharks and dolphins

As usual we had an amazing breakfast, we FaceTimed to see Kai and Noa, Nuria’s parents and my mum.
We called the diving shop and YES they were going out. They picked us up at the wharf in front of the B&B at 8:30 and we went to the shop. It was packed We left with the big boat and did a couple of tanks counting toward our advanced PADI certification.
The dive was amazing. Sharks dolphins, caves canyons. Beautiful.
Tomorrow we will miss the fabulous breakfast because they pick us up at 5:15am to go to the blue hole.
The blue hole is a unique diving site but it is a very deep dive at 42m so on the limits of recreational diving. We are a bit concerned, but I’m sure it will be a unique experience. Then there are 2 extra dives at the aquarium and at another location. Lunch is in an island. It will be all day as the blue hole is 2 hours away by boat.
Anyway, after the dives today we went to have lunch to the Blue Water Grill that is usually packed and honestly I don’t see why. It was just plain. Then we went to the beach to read a bit more on our PADI book and to relax. Now back at the B&B. we will go to bed soon as we have to wake up pretty soon.

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Day 6: off the beaten path

Breakfast at “changes in latitudes” was excellent. Different from yesterday. We had fruit, then pancakes with banana and caramel. Delicious. We called home to see Kai and Noa and then we called the diving center. They cancelled today’s outings, still a lot of wind. Looks like we won’t dive. No problem as we are on holiday mood. We took two bicycles that are available to the guests and went up to the north of the island. We stopped at a nice spot and read the PADI book and did the tests. Then we went to the PADI shop and talked to Nigel. He suggested snorkeling but we decided to go around with the bike. Fist though, we had lunch at Estels and went to the beach for a while to read our books. Then we took the bike and went to the south, 7 miles of not very nice roads. Very nice off the beaten path trip. We ended up at a wharf sitting and watching the sunset. Then visited Maya ruins (a bit of a joke compared to those inland) and returned to the B&B where we had a shower and now I am writing this while having some white wine with peanuts.

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Day 5: very very rough sea

We did not have diner yesterday but peanuts and wine, like in the old times when we were doing the round the world trip.
We have room number 3 at changes in latitudes b&b. it is facing the patio and is the only one in the corner so windows everywhere. I guess is the best room…. But it is damn noisy as is also close to the road.
We don’t like to use the air conditioner when we sleep so it becomes hot.
Breakfast was very very good. First some fruits, yogurt and muesli, then frijoles with xxx
At 8 we called the diving center who told us they were not going out this morning, but that they might at 1:30pm.
We take it easy. We walked to the diving center and they confirmed they were going out so we paid and Nigel putted the PADI advance DVD for us to watch. He lent us the book and we won’t back to the B&B.
at 1:30 a boat picked us up and we went to the shop. I did not see any improvement in the weather but they are the experts. We jumped into the boat with our wetsuits and the guy told us that passed the barrier reed the the sea was rough.
OMG… I have never seen such waves and the little boat was jumping and crashing… Until we hit a huge one and voila that was the end of the dive. Everybody on the floor, injured. One has been taken to the hospital and my back hurts like hell. Nuria went now to look for some pain killers, but the German lady who was sitting next to me had to go to the hospital.
I am very disappointed with the irresponsibility of these guys. Now I realized that it was suicidal to make us put the weights. If any of us might have fallen over board we were dead weighs.
Anyway, here I am on the beach. Enjoying. But I ha the feeling diving is off. It is too windy and it does not get any better.

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Day 4: la isla bonita

We wanted to leave early … But we didn’t. We woke up and had full breakfast at the Radisson. We packed and checked out. It was 8:45 and the water taxi to San Pedro was leaving at 9am, so even if it was 10 min walking we took a taxi. Then we realized that it could not have taken more then 5 minutes walking. Anyway we bought one way tickets $15 us each. The. It was late… Like 1/2 an hour.
It was windy and the water taxi was packed, but it was a nice trip of 1.5hours. Once there we noticed it was full of diving shops but that is was very windy so nobody was going out. We spent the day on the beach, sinking beer by the sea and having lunch at hurricane, a nice place with excellent ceviche.
Now here we are chilling out at the b&b. if tomorrow is windy we won’t be able to dive either, but we are on holidays mood. We found a diving shop (ambergris divers) that is cheaper than the one we checked before (ecologic divers). At 8am we will call them and if they go out we will go diving with them. We would do the PADI advanced on Monday then Tuesday to the blue hole and the final advanced dives on Wednesday.
Now we are just having some peanuts and white wine. :-)

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Day 3: Cave Tubing

Friday. We slept all the way until 7am when the alarm clock ringed. Nuria had to go for work for the last time this week. We met her colleagues for breakfast and after they left and I stayed at the pool side listening to a Lee Child book.
Around noon they all came and left to the airport. Our holidays officially started. At 13h Jose came to pick us up at the Radisson to go cave tubing.
Wow. We were Núria and me and the guide Jose. All for ourselves. We stopped at Vitalino’s cavetubing.bz place, we had lunch, we paid $150 and we went to the starting place. We took one of the tubes and walked for 45 minutes. We saw a dangerous snake “coral snake” and when we reached the end of the trail through the amazing vegetation we jumped onto the tube and he took us down the river through 3 of the 9 existing caves. Absolutely amazing. A must do experience. So relaxing. So beautiful. And Jose was an incredible guide. Unfortunately I could not take many photos as we were on the river and inside caves, but here some from the way up.

Now we are enjoying local beer “Belkin” and live music by the pool.
Tomorrow we’ll have breakfast early and we will check out to go to the water taxis and to caye ambergris or “isla bonita”.

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Day 2: Houston to Belize and relax

Terrible night. I woke up every hour. I guess is the jet lag. The hotel was just fine. They have the free shuttle which is very convenient, although Houston airport is not very well designed. Every time the driver has to pick up someone in another terminal he had to edit the airport.
The hotel, Red Roof Inn was just like any other motel in the US. Rooms are ok, with two queen size beds, a coffee machine in the room and a tv.
I made the booking using booking.com but when you check in you have to give the credit card and I believe when you check out they charge extra 17% for the taxes.
I ordered a wake up call at 5:30am and I took the shuttle at 6am. It is a 15 min ride.
The terminal for international flights from United is E but the check in is in C. 200 m apart.
Once you get the boarding pass you can go through security there or, following the advice of a nice woman, going upstairs where there is a less crowded security check already in terminal E.
I had breakfast at “Famiglia”, sort of a panino with omelette and jam, and a coffee. Then I just walked around the shops and boarded the plane at hate E22, and here I am. A two hours flight to Belize.
I will continue from the Radisson hotel.

Finally I made it. I arrived to Belize airport ahead of time and I went to Radisson hotel with the shuttle. I had lunch and now I’m here at the pool with perfect temperature and a nice breeze.

At 7pm Núria came from work an we went out for lunch with her colleagues. We took a taxi and went to the Riverside tavern.

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Day 1: Geneva, Washington and Houston

Day one. Sunny in Thoiry. Nuria’s dad drove me to the airport a 9:30am. I passed security without any problems. I only carry my ikea family cabin bag, my Scottevest and no computer or iPad, just my iPhone 4S and my Nikon d300 that I did not have remove from the bag. Once inside I just walked around and went to the C gates. There is another passport control there and once inside just a bar and a shop with watches. The flight was announced as being early, so it turned well that I had time. We boarded into this American Airlines B767-300 and took off early. The plane is half empty so I have plenty of room here at seats 32k and J.
I am writing from the plane after having had lunch and watched a pretty bad movie (here comes the boom). It is 14:10 Geneva time and the flight will be 8h:35 mins.

I guess I will be able to upload this in Houston at the hotel. I will continue there.

I am now in Houston, in the red roof inn. It is 21:00 and tomorrow I have the wake up call at 5:30 so, I publish this and to bed.
Tomorrow Houston Belize.

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Day -1: Going through the checklists

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Today is mainly packing and making sure I don’t forget anything, that the camera card is formatted, all batteries are on full and that is basically it.
Today Kai was going with the school out the village for carnival so we went to take photos and see all the kids.

I got an email from American Airlines saying I could do the check in. When I went online I saw there was no point as the boarding passes I have to collect them from the airport anyway.

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