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Panasonic Micro-Four Thirds Camera Users Are Sexier

OKCupid, an online dating site which I may or may not be fond of myself, has let loose possibly the best blog article ever, where they have collected data on user attractiveness and correlated it against the EXIFs of the photographs. The results are kind of amazing and definitely interesting to read through. They looked at the results based on camera type, aperture, flash usage, and time of day. Some of the key findings? Interchangeable lens cameras make you hotter than point-and-shoots, and they’ll both make you way hotter than camera phones. Flash makes you look 6-8 years less attractive (not that many working shooters couldn’t have already told you that), and big, wide apertures add attractiveness to your shots. No, really, keep it at f3.5 or lower, kids.

Oh, yeah, and apparently people using Panasonic Micro-Four Thirds shooters like the GF1 or GH1 are just way totally sexy. Or something.

They break down how they collected everything in their post, which is worth reading in detail before running off and making big scandalous claims that Canon shooters are homely. Seriously people, be responsible with tantalizing data taken out of context. We’re obviously not to be trusted with it, so it’s up to you.



Roberts Offering IR Conversion, excellent pricing.

Want to take photos like this? We offer IR Conversion services...

Roberts is proud to offer IR conversion for point and shoot, APS-C, and full frame digital cameras. Why-fore would you want to convert your camera to the IR spectrum? Here’s a list (because I like lists):

  • You want more dramatic black and white photos
  • You want the Wood Effect
  • You want to capture dreamy, fantastical colored landscapes
  • You work in Law Enforcement / Forensics
  • You’re involved in certain types of scientific research
  • You have a specific assignment requiring the use of IR

Obviously the desire for ethereal coloring is the best reason for dropping a few bills on the conversion, now there are two types of conversion -

1.) 715nm: Suitable for B&W and low saturation color images. Camera will be sensitive to wavelengths higher than 715nm.

2.) 665nm: Suitable for both B&W and Color. Primarily used for color due to higher color saturation (vs. 715nm). B&W images can be produced in post processing. See a chart with the differences after the jump.

You get to pick one because, well, the fine folks at Precision Camera are going to remove with surgical precision your camera’s IR filter and feed it to the crows. Ok, I don’t know about the birds, but they’re taking that thing off and replacing it with one of the correct sensitivity.

read more



Polaroid Decides CES Is Too Boring, Declares Lady Gaga Creative Director

Insert Whatever Jokes You Want HereSo, we’re creating a “WTF” category just for this because I cannot file this anywhere else. Polaroid yesterday announced they were name Lady Gaga creative director of a new line of fashion-based products. Now, I actually rather like Lady Gaga, she’s delightfully fun, and equally insane, but even I saw this press release and went ‘bwuuuuh? srsly?’

Which is better than my editor’s reaction, which was so spectacularly incredulous I wish I had a picture of it.

Anyway, this is apparently in all seriousness, hit the external link below to read the original press release.



Being Blind Less and Less An Obstacle to Phtographers

So, I’ve been bogged down a lot at work these days, so I’m not quite as up-to-the-moment as I’m used to, so today will be a game of catch-up for news that’s really from last week, but, hey, what can you do?

Photo by Alex Dejong, Source: <a href=

Photo by Alex Dejong, Source: Gadget Lab

Getting started, first up is a fabulous and interesting article by Brian X Chen about how blind and visually impaired photographers are making use of modern technology (especially interesting is the iPhone 3GS and its uses) to overcome their handicaps and continue on making art. This has everything I approve of: cameras, art, technology, persevering and recreating paradigms and work-flow, and general brilliance.

It’s Wired’s scoop, and I won’t steal their thunder by summarizing it poorly, so click the link below and read it there. You really do owe it to yourself to do this.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/blind-photographers/



Will It Blend?

I remember spending one lonely, bachelor New Year’s Eve with two of my high school / college buddies and killing a chunk of the night watching the amazing “Will It Blend?” videos the very cool Blendtec company created to show off the raw horespower of its blender.

Cut ahead to now, and Olympus has wisely gotten in on some of that viral action, and the complete EP-1 “Will It Blend?” commerical / shamelessly silly advertisement is at once shameless, silly, hilarious, and completely awesome. Sure, it’s just a plug for Oly’s new camera, but man, what a plug:



A Crash Course in Modern Urban Photo Slang

Chimpopotamus: someone who chimps a lot to verify composition, focus, and histograms.

Chumpopotamus: someone who misses many good shots because they’re too busy chimping

Peepachu: a person more obsessed with the pixel-level noise and sharpness than the actual photograph’s merit. Any similarities in name to an annoying 90′s fad cartoon character are not lost on us.



Season’s Greetings!

So, it’s been another year of selling you the bestest Canon digital SLR cameras, Nikon digital SLR cameras, digital camera accessories (like camera tripods such as Bogen Manfrotto tripods and Trekpods), and igh definition camcorders.

You’ve listened to me, personally, babble on about my E-3 and learned waaay more than you wanted to ever know about bokeh. You’ve watched our Raw Footage segments, you’ve learned about the shiniest tech from Phil and heard from Chuck on the sales floor.

And now, it’s time for us to thank you for all of that. Because, as we all know, without you there’d be no Roberts, and we wouldn’t have been able to do any of that. We don’t see you as customers, or clients– you’re our friends, and sometimes our family.

Thanks for being with us throughout 2008, from all of us in Roberts’ web and mail-order department.

Seasons Greetings, and we're not jut kidding around.




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