There will be a total solar eclipse in much of the U.S. on Monday. It will represent a rare occasion to watch . . . feather-headed television anchors say things even stupider than usual, which is a feat. Many people will destroy expensive cameras and others will damage their eyesight attempting respectively to capture and observe the event.
The conversation with my friend Angelo was satisfying and thought-provoking, as they always are. We had been talking about how men, when they grow up (chronologically) and have money, are wont to buy the things they desired but didn’t get when they were little boys.
Viewers paying close attention to Apple’s first prime-time product announcement event on Monday were treated to the most impressive product highlight: one that wasn’t even spoken. The whole event was filmed on iPhone.
One of my favorite products is, of all things, a small piece of fabric. This strip of material I ran across during my jump into the Mac world two decades ago is something I now use every day. As ridiculous as that may sound, RadTech’s Optex products tend to sell themselves: usually if I show someone what it does and how well it works, RadTech ends up with another customer.
As life moves to dotage (and of course anecdotage), and like many people having allowed my recovery from COVID-19 to proceed largely at its own pace, I only now am getting around to mowing.
When I need a photo or video these days, I grab my iPhone, not my DSLR. Some of that is probably laziness, but it is more than just that. The iPhone produces a really good pictures — at times, significantly better pictures, than my more traditional camera. I wanted to take that excellent picture maker and make it more suitable for accessories without buying some sort of proprietary case and accessory system for my phone that is clunky to fool with. Here’s what I did.
For most of last year, it was nearly impossible to get a name brand video capture card for a computer. These devices help to take video from a camera, video game console or other device and make it usable on your computer to record or stream. In a world that was dependent on streaming, well known cards like Elgato’s were selling for several times over their original price, giving room for a whole range of generic cards. Some of them are pretty good, so let’s consider one of them.
If you are new to photography or videography, it is easy to overlook the importance of lighting in producing truly great results. Advances driven by machine learning photography from Apple and Google are seriously reducing the utter necessity of lighting in many situations, but if you are aiming for the best quality video, pushing your live stream into pro territory or leveraging light for artistic photography, lighting gear is your friend. And an affordable set from the maker of Viltrox lenses is a really good way to get started.
In addition, Pixelmator Photo, our incredible photo editor for iPad, is completely free for 24 hours until 9am ET, November 27th. Spread the word!
While I had higher hopes for the “machine learning” of Pixelmator Photo, it’s still a decently powerful tool for making adjustments to photos. For free, you really ought to give it a try.