TWiP #273 – Google Acquires Nik

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Hosts: Frederick Van Johnson, Eric Cheng, Nicole Young, Steve Simon

Episode Overview

This week on TWiP:

  • New full-frame bodies from Nikon (D600) & Canon (6D) (9:30)
  • Google Acquires Nik Software (35:45)
  • Sekonic releases a touch-screen light meter (41:30)
  • Sigma adds USB connectors and reorganizes their lens lineup (50:00)

Eric Cheng, Nicole Young, and Steve Simon join Frederick Van Johnson to discuss these topics and more on this week's episode of TWiP.

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Connect with Our Hosts & Guests:

Eric Cheng: Portfolio, Blog, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, “echengcom” on Instagram

Nicole Young: Blog, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, My Books

Steve Simon: Portfolio, Blog, Twitter, Google+  Facebook

Frederick Van Johnson: www.mediabytes.com or www.twitter.com/frederickvan or Google+

Credits:

Pre-production by: Bruce Clarke

Post production by: Suzanne Llewellyn

Bandwidth provided by: Cachefly

Intro Music by Scott Cannizzaro

Photo Credits: Nik Software

20 Comments

  1. I would of liked to have heard more critism about the Canon 6D. It has a slow sync speed, it has 11 auto-focus points (one cross point), live view is 97%, etc.

    1. The one cross point on the Canon 6D is way more sensitive than the ones on the Nikon as far as I know. But we’ll see.

      From my standpoint DSLRs are history soon anyway. There isn’t any good reason to keep the mirror in the way between the lens and sensor. It will be the same as analog vs digital years ago. First, including professionals, are already switching to much more lightweight DSLMs now (OM-D, Sony etc…) and some other will stick with DSLR until thiey’re gone. Having less weight, fantastic but more compact lenses (at least in the M43 system), and not this huge camera monster between your face and the model has some great advantages.

  2. Frederick, in the show you ask about “What Wi-Fi in the body does for you?” Well, for photojournalists (that’s what I do), allow us to send pictures from the camera to a smartphone and then send does pictures to whoever you work for, while you are live at the event. In my case I use my Sony A77 with a Eye-Fi card, that goes to my Android phone and then to the newspaper editor with no need of a laptop. One more thing, Sony also lauch the A99 Full Frame Camera, Canon and Nikon are not the only good cameras on the market, remember which company fabricate the mayority of Nikon sensor(D800).

    1. I shoot both, RAW+JPEG. I just set the card to only transfer JPEGs to my smartphone. In my opinion, doing this put photojournalist back on the saddle, it gives us more flexibility over those only using the camera in their cellphones.

    2. I used to used Nikon WiFi setup for the D2x a few years back, It was a bit of a pain to set up and it batteries. I used it once for a CIF champion ship game so we could edit while was shooting send the images back to a paper to meet its deadline. I also used it for a commercial client while shooting I was able to feed images to client for feed back during the shoot.

  3. I have pretty good idea why with Sigma lenses now have USB Ports.
    Every time Canon came out with a camera 1 or 2 of their lenses needed to be rechipped because it would not work with camera correctly my guess is there is now a way to upgrade the lens’s firmware.

  4. The Sigma USB thing makes perfect sense to me. If you have 3 bodies rather than adjusting the 3 bodies to the lens, you zero the lens. Which is probably the correct fix in the first place.

    Assuming the USB device doesn’t cost a fortune (if it does then it becomes Borrowlenses new big hit) it might be cheaper than a trip or two back to sigma for recalibration if the lens is off.

  5. First of all, great show… being a both a photographer and a gadget lover I find plenty of great content on TWIP. But… as a Sony photographer I find it a bit frustrating to hear you talk wonders about this and that Canon and Nikon cameras while Sony is as much into the game as those brands, and it’s constantly thrown into oblivion.

    I can understand that you yourself might not be that much familiar with Sony gear, but you had (and I’m sure you won’t have too much difficulty in finding them) photographers, professional ones, that use and know all about Sony, why not include one of them once in a while in your show, to give your audience a broader view on what’s out there. Specially when Sony comes up with two 24mp FF, the Sony A99 and RX1. Both of them most likely to beat the Canon Mark III as seen by the DxOMark sensor scores on the Nikon D600 (same Sony sensor btw).

    Of course I don’t know anything of the behind the scenes of TWIP and I’m thinking that you just ran into problems finding someone to talk about Sony. I truly wish you guys find a way of incorporating a Sony photographer in your guests as from now on there is no more excuse not to acknowledge Sony as a player in the FF game.

    Thanks for doing TWIP.

    1. Hey Luis. Tristan is one of our regular Sony guys. He just hasn’t been on in awhile but the next time we can get him on I’m sure he’ll be happy to talk about the new cameras from Sony.

    2. I really dont understand that you can talk about the 6D and the D600 when you havent tried it (because it is not out yet), but not the A99 with the explanation that you dont know anything about it. You could easily find just as much information on the Sony-camera as you have on the Nikon and Canon ones. So it is basically just because you choose not to. Not because you cant.

    3. I very much agree – but again – I am also a Sony-shooter. There was an interview with Matthew Jordan Smith a few episodes back. He is the only high-profiled pro that I am aware of to use Sony-gear. But I am sure that more will follow – Sony is not leaving this game.

      But as you I was frustrated with the lack of Sony-talk on podcasts and other places – and I created a Facebook-group dedicated to Sony Shooters. Feel free to join and invite fellow Sonyians:
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/sonyshooters/

      But really – leaving out the announcements from Sony was a clear oversight IMHO

  6. re the clipwrap pick for AVCHD files. FCPX will import these files straight from the sd card if you follow the right process, even though there is a convoluted folder structure. 1. Insert the sd card from your camera into the mac. 2. In FCPX select ‘import from camera’ NOT import files.
    3. FCPX will load up thumbnails of all your clips; it will allow you to skim and set in and out points prior to importing. I use this alot and it works smoothly every time.

  7. When I saw the title for TWIP #273 in the new Apple Podcast app, I was excited, as I knew that Frederick and his crew would take the time to discuss all of the issues – real or perceived – with Google’s purchase of Nik.

    But instead, the focus was simply on the Snapseed vs. Instagram debate – which had already been covered by the tech press – and the future of online photo editing.

    I had hoped that time would be given to a discussion of the future of the Nik plugins for Lightroom and Photoshop.

    I know that Vic Gundotra has been quoted since the original announcement on September 17 as saying that Google has plans for them, but IMO the concern photographers feel about the future of those products warranted at least a short discussion of the topic on your show.