Kodak Press Release

Kodak Focuses Consumer Business On More Profitable Growth Opportunities

Plans to phase out dedicated capture devices business

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Feb. 9 – Eastman Kodak Company (the “Company”) (OTB: EKDKQ.PK) announced today that, as a result of its ongoing strategic review process and commitment to drive sustainable profitability through its most valuable business lines, it plans to phase out its dedicated capture devices business – comprising digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames – in the first half of 2012. Kodak will instead expand its current brand licensing program, and seek licensees for cameras. Following this decision, Kodak’s Consumer Business will include online and retail-based photo printing, as well as desktop inkjet printing.

Kodak has contacted its retail partners, and is working closely with them to ensure an orderly transition. Kodak will continue to honor all related product warranties, and provide technical support and service for its cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames.

“For some time, Kodak’s strategy has been to improve margins in the capture device business by narrowing our participation in terms of product portfolio, geographies and retail outlets. Today’s announcement is the logical extension of that process, given our analysis of the industry trends,” said Pradeep Jotwani, President, Consumer Businesses, and Kodak Chief Marketing Officer.

In addition to its Consumer Businesses segment, Kodak has a Commercial Businesses segment that includes the Digital and Functional Printing, Enterprise Services and Solutions, and Graphics, Entertainment and Commercial Films units. Kodak’s digital businesses now comprise approximately three-fourths of total revenues.

Kodak continues to have a strong position in the personal imaging market.  While photos are increasingly taken on multi-function mobile devices, Kodak technology makes it easy for consumers to produce a broad range of photo products, anywhere, anytime – from prints to photobooks, photo greeting cards and personalized calendars. These items can be made on Kodak products, with Kodak quality at retail, at home, and ordered for delivery to home.

Kodak’s continuing consumer products and services will include:
• Retail-based photo kiosks and digital dry lab systems, a market in which Kodak is the clear worldwide leader. Kodak pioneered the retail-based kiosk market, and the company now has more than 100,000 kiosks and order stations for dry lab systems around the world, with some 30,000 of those units connected to the most popular photo-sharing sites.
• Consumer inkjet printers, where Kodak has outpaced overall market growth for several years. Kodak consumer inkjet printers provide consumers with high-quality output and the lowest total ink replacement cost. Consumers can send documents and photos to Kodak printers from anywhere, using any web-connected device.
• Kodak apps for Facebook, which make it easy for consumers to obtain photo products using photos from their Facebook albums.
• Kodak Gallery (http://www.kodakgallery.com), a leading online digital photo products service. Kodak Gallery enables consumers to share their photos, and offers product and creation tools that enable people to do more with their photos.
• The Kodak camera accessories and batteries businesses. These products are universally compatible with all camera brands, and extend into other consumer product segments such as charging units for smartphones.
• The traditional film capture and photographic paper business, which continues to provide high-quality and innovative products and solutions to consumers, photographers, retailers, photofinishers and professional labs.

By abdul / yunir

Bokeh is originally a Japanese word for ‘blur’. Now in photography it means the part of the image that is out of focus. In most cases, it is rendered so to create an aesthetically pleasing, blurry background that highlights the subject of the image. We have all seen lovely portraits with beautiful light dots in the background that shows great depth of the image, but many of us didn’t know we can actually create our own interesting bokeh effect by making personalised bokeh filter.  Those lights dots can be manipulated into different shapes or even words to compliment the subject. The good thing is, it is very simple to do. Just follow these steps:

By Fújur

1. Make a fake lens hood for your camera with a piece of dark paper. You can cut a circle the size of your lens (only slightly bigger so it covers the lens entirely). In the middle of the circle, cut out whatever shape you want your bokeh spots to be, e.g. heart or star.

By rob.wiss

By I.Gouss

2. Cut a strip to wrap around your lens, then attach the circle your cut earlier to the strip with parcel tapes to complete the ‘lens hood’.

By hlkljgk

3. Set your camera to its lowest aperture, and snap away! Enjoy your own bokeh!

Here are some great examples of personalised bokeh:

By DaltonKat2

By JS’s favorite things

By James Jordan

By Serge Melki

By benjaminasmith

By tim geers

By Lel4nd

By  Phalaenopsis Aphrodite

By rob.wiss

By surfzone™

French photographer Laurent Laveder’s  Moon Games photo series has been an internet sensation for several years now. Several years is a long time in the cyber world. To survive this long on the internet means you can almost be called timeless. The Moon Games series no doubt deserves this word. Featuring simple silhouettes of people interacting with the Moon, this witty, peaceful, fun-filled series proves that sometimes the simplest approach can achieve the greatest result. By using a few props and tweaking the camera angles, Laurent has made the Moon into many unexpected things in this magical series.

Having seen his photos being passed around on countless websites (sometimes without any credits to himself), I decided to track him down for the real story behind his amazing artworks. Here is our conversation (J – myself, L – Laurent):

J: Laurent, please tell us a little about yourself . What do you do and who are you?

L: I studied physics at University because of my passion for astronomy. I have been a professional photographer for four years now. Before that, I did many jobs: scientific journalist, computing course tutor, writer of user manuals (mainly of computer programmes), etc. Now I’m a full time photographer, but I also edit books, postcards, and sometime I give lectures about the sky.

As a specialist of landscape astrophotography (which means I capture both the astronomical phenomenon in the sky and the landscape), I’m a member of The World At Night (TWAN: http://www.twanight.org/), a program participated by about 30 landscape
astrophotographers from around the world. This group holds exhibitions, workshops and has also produced a book.

I left my birth place French Riviera when I was 25 year old, and ever since then I have lived in Brittany, a great place for people who love nature.

moon games

J: Your Moon play photos are very original and never-before-seen. Could you tell us what inspired you? Is it a book from your childhood? A dream or just pure imagination?

L: The Moon Games series came from a discussion I had with my girlfriend Sabine (Sabine is also a photographer: http://www.sabinesannier.com/) about 8 years ago. I told her I was doing original astrophotogaphy by capturing the landscape along with stars and the Moon, but I wanted to go further. After the discussion we decided to do some photos of someone interacting with the Moon. So this is OUR Moon Games.
Sabine is a graphic artist, so she has a lot of imagination. Most of the best ideas came from her mind. Sometime, I’m just the photographer.

J: Many things look simple but are in fact complicated. I am sure this applies to your photos. Tell us about the setup of your photo shoots. What equipments did you use? How long did each photo take in average?

L: The setup was easy: a DSLR camera with a telelens, usually between 200 and 300 mm. And a tripod of course (even for the gardening Moon series). The most important thing was where to take the picture. You have to be in a place where the model was right in front of the Moon when it was rising or setting. When Sabine was the model she had to be in a higher position than me. There’s a beach a few kilometres from our house and it was an ideal location. If Sabine was higher or lower than the Moon, I had to move down or up on the beach. I also had to shift to the left or right to place Sabine at the right spot in the photo.

One Moon Game session lasted about one hour, and we could usually get about 10 to15 good pictures. In those days, we only did 8 sessions after we started in Summer 2006.

J: Did you materialise your idea in sketches before taking a picture?

L: This is actually an important point. The Moon rises and sets quickly (slower in June), so if you didn’t know what to do but try to
improvise on the beach, you would lose a lot of time. We knew exactly what to do, and in what order. The sketches also allowed us to understand our ideas better, and to modify them for better results.

J: Was Photoshop involved in any photos?

L: The only time I used Photoshop was to increase the depth of field. Because at twilight, there is not enough light to stop down the lens’s diaphragm to focus on the model and the Moon (I used a long focal length, and with a full frame camera like Canon 5D Mark II, the depth of field is very shallow). In fact, even when stopped down to 22 or 32, it was still impossible to have the whole scene in focus.

So sometimes I took a first photo with the focus on the model, and a few seconds later, another one focused on the Moon. I then merge the two photos in Photoshop. But I only did it twice, for the framed Moon, and for some of the Gardening Moon series.
It would be easier to use Photoshop for having better results (good exposure and focus of the Moon AND the foreground), but it’s too
easy. And I think people really love these pictures because they look natural and real, not perfect but realistic.

J:  You have published a book based on Moon Games. Could you tell us about it? There are poems (in French) accompanying each photo. Was each poem written specifically for the photo?

L: For this book, we asked 19 different writers to choose a photo as the inspiration for their writing. They had “Quartier libre” (in French, to have “qartier libre” means you can do whatever you want during a period of time, but a “quartier” is also a “Quarter Moon”). Then, Sabine got her inspiration from the photso and the texts to create the calligrams.

J: Finally, which photo is your favorite and why?

L: My favorite one is the Moon like a balloon because this view is really peaceful and well composed. There is no empty space and it looks very natural.
But Sabine prefers to the pictures with the Crescent Moon, because she likes the black silhouette on a blue sky.

Here is the link for our book: http://quartier.libre.pixheaven.net/
You can also buy our postcards: http://cartes.pixheaven.net/

All photos © Laurent Laveder

SANDISK INTRODUCES WORLD’S FASTEST 128GB SDXC CARD (SDHC SDXC)—IDEAL FOR CAPTURING FULL HD 3D VIDEOS AND HIGH-RESOLUTION PHOTOS

* Can capture up to 10 hours of Full HD 3D video—enough capacity to film an entire day at the Consumer Electronics Show

* Features up to 45 megabyte per second read and write speeds for faster shot-to-shot performance and quick data transfers

* Shipping worldwide in 64GB and 128GB capacities carrying MSRPs of £119 and £239 respectively

Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, 10 January, 2012 — SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today introduced the 128 gigabyte (GB)1 SanDisk Extreme® SDXC™ UHS-I card. The new card is ideal for photography enthusiasts capturing Full HD2 3D videos and high-resolution photos.

Video Recording Drives Growth of User-Generated Content

Advanced DSLR cameras and HD camcorders enable imaging enthusiasts to capture Full HD 1080p videos, even in 3D. According to IDC3, user-generated video from digital cameras and flash memory-equipped camcorders will increase more than 50 percent, from 4 exabytes in 2011 to 6.8 exabytes in 2014.

“Consumer video capture is driving user-generated content creation,” said Chris Chute, research manager, worldwide digital imaging solutions, IDC. “This is the first year that more than half of all video captured will be in HD, and that number is set to reach nearly 80 percent in 2014. This trend highlights the need for memory cards that are fast enough to handle a massive data flow while offering enough capacity to store the resulting files.”

The 128GB SanDisk Extreme SDXC UHS-I card is based on the new Ultra High Speed (UHS-I) architecture and is designed to capture hours of top-quality video footage. The card’s UHS Speed Class 1 rating surpasses the recording requirements of demanding video use cases — from home movies captured on a DSLR to high-quality 3D footage.

“Five minutes of Full HD video can consume one gigabyte of storage space,” said Susan Park, director, product marketing, SanDisk. “Our new SanDisk Extreme SDXC card can capture up to ten hours of Full HD 3D video, enough to film an entire day here at the Consumer Electronics Show.”

The SanDisk Extreme SDXC UHS-I card is designed to help imaging enthusiasts shoot like the pros, with the speed and capacity needed to capture not only high-quality videos but also high-resolution RAW+JPEG photos, which can reach up to 30 megabytes in size.

Faster Shot-to-Shot Performance, Faster File Transfers

The SanDisk Extreme SDXC UHS-I card features up to 45MB/sec read/write speeds4, enabling photographers to capture sequences of high-resolution photos using their camera’s burst mode and then quickly transfer the files to a computer.

The card’s fast shot-to-shot performance lets photographers capture the images that matter most to them—whether using a point-and-shoot camera to take photos of a young child’s first steps or a DSLR to capture a high school track star racing across the finish line. The card’s fast file-transfer speed lets photographers offload an hour-long Full HD video in five minutes or a batch of 500 high-resolution photos in as little as one minute5.

The SanDisk Extreme SDXC UHS-I card is backed by SanDisk’s reputation for quality—professional photographers trust SanDisk. The card provides consumers with the reliability and durability they need to capture photos anytime, anywhere, and includes a built-in write-protect switch to help prevent accidental data loss. For added protection, the card includes a one-year downloadable offer for RescuePRO® Deluxe data recovery software, which can bring accidentally deleted images back to life.

Pricing and Availability

The 64GB and 128GB SanDisk Extreme SDXC UHS-I cards are shipping worldwide with MSRPs of £119 and £239 respectively.

By Sprengben

Mirror photography is a great way to add a magical touch to an otherwise ordinary photograph. Clever use of reflections from smooth surface such as wet streets, lakes, windows etc can lead to amazing results. Here are some beautiful examples of mirror reflection photos.

By MikeBehnken

By Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix)

By Beverly & Pack

By Xristoforos aka Shooting Dog

By –Mike–

By laffy4k

By baaker2009

By Biys || .S.Y.I.B.L.I. 

By striatic

By downhilldom1984

By INK ™

By Beverly & Pack

By theilr

By Beverly & Pack

By LULZ Photography

By James Jordan

By williamcho

By graftedno1

By tinyfroglet

By  Jun Moore

By Panoramas

By lrargerich

iphone photo apps

We all know that cameras struggle in low light. As the sun sets your photos become dark and grainy – especially with the tiny camera in the iPhone!  The solution is to give the camera time to catch more light – longer exposures in photography terms. Until now that hasn’t been possible on iOS, but new app NightCap brings genuine long exposure to the iPhone and iPod touch with iOS 5 for the first time: up to 20x longer than the built-in camera app. The improvement to photos can be breathtaking!

Cheshire, United Kingdom – iOS photography and video specialists Interealtime are today delighted to announce the launch of NightCap, a photography app for the iPhone that promises to transform night-time and low-light photography on iOS.

The iPhone camera is limited to a fairly short exposure time – roughly a twentieth of a second. NightCap extends that up to a full second – 20 times longer, which means the camera can catch 20x more light. The difference that makes in dark conditions is quite amazing: in some cases NightCap can produce a good photo where the built-in camera app barely sees anything at all.

Even where the built-in camera app produces a bright photo, sometimes the photo can be very grainy. This is because the exposure time is very short, and to compensate the camera increases it’s sensitivity by using a high ISO level. The problem with high ISO levels is that noise increases with sensitivity, so you get a bright but grainy image. NightCap improves here as well: because the camera can use longer exposure it doesn’t need to use high ISO resulting in a much clearer, less grainy photo.

There’s also an artistic advantage to using NightCap: when you’re photographing a moving scene longer exposure times mean moving objects start to blur. A good photographer uses this effect to create a sense of speed, following a moving object with the camera to keep the object focused while the background zooms past, or capturing a stationary subject as a crowd flows past.

Capturing quality images with NightCap is very straightforward as it features a simple automatic mode. The camera adjusts exposure and focus automatically, and will use the flash if needed. In low light it automatically uses longer exposures. Tapping the Photo button takes a photo and saves it to the iPhone’s camera roll, and there’s a review button to quickly view the last photo.

Advanced photography features are present too – there’s a Manual mode that allows exposure to be set (1/20s to 1s exposures are supported), flash can be turned on and off, and the app supports tap-to-focus.

NightCap is designed to improve low light photos without compromising elsewhere: it takes full resolution photos and preserves full photo metadata including GPS tagging. Photos are saved directly to the iPhone’s camera roll for convenience.

Device Requirements:
* Compatible with iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S, and iPod touch 4G (iPod touch with camera)
* Requires iOS 5.0 or later
* 300KB download

Pricing and Availability:
NightCap 1.0 is just $0.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Photo & Video category. If you are interested in covering or reviewing Camera Boost in your publication, please contact us for a free download code.

Interealtime: http://www.interealtime.com
NightCap 1.0: http://www.interealtime.com/iphone-ipod-ipad-apps/nightcap-iphone-app.html
Purchase and Download: http://itunes.apple.com/app/nightcap/id486414195

Photo by Suus Wansink

Firework Photos capture a wonderful experience of both the colours and the lights against the darkness of night sky. The best opportunity of the year to photography fireworks is New Year’s Eve, when fireworks are being set off around the world as the clock strikes twelve. It is a most memorable way to open the first chapter of a new year to fill the sky with starbursts and showers of rainbow colours. Here we have selected some of the best new year eve photos of fireworks to inspire you. Happy 2012!

By Mt. Hood Territory

By Offutt Air Force Base

By texaus1

By Tom Bricker (WDWFigment)

By nigelhowe

By Desiree M. Boom

By ElvinWong

By DJP3tros

By madmarv00

By Fisher Chia

By kwb74

By Stig Nygaard

By Darius Darkly

By James Yu Photography

By nigelhowe

By Budi74

By Brett Burnes Images

By Bengt Nyman

By doktor x

Read our related article :

How to Photograph Fireworks – Fireworks Photography Fundamentals

Photo by Christmas w/a K

It is officially the most beautiful time of the year! No more excused needed for getting your camera out! Here we have gathered some of the most stunning Christmas photos for your inspiration! Have a merry little Christmas and a wonderful new year!

Photo by kelp1966

Photo by Shermeee

Photo by kevin dooley

Photo by James Jordan

Photo by kevin dooley

Photo by jennifer donley.

Photo by Glenn Waters ぐれん AWAY

Photo by Joel Bedford

Photo by flatworldsedge

Photo by kevin dooley

Photo by Tom Bricker (WDWFigment)

Photo by Glenn Waters ぐれん AWAY

Photo by kevin dooley

Photo by Sister72

Photo by kelp1966

Photo by h.koppdelaney

Photo by williamcho

Photo by kevin dooley

Photo byezioman

Photo by ForestGladesiWander

Photo by wsilver

Photo by eirikso

Photo by Terence S. Jones

Duck! Ops too late | Photo by Wanna Bee Farmer

High speed photography means to take a photograph of a very fast phenomenon in the way that seems to freeze the motion.  These phenomenons are usually invisible to naked eye because of the high speed at which they happen. To take a good high speed photo you need a camera with a sensor of good sensitivity and quick shutter, and the skills to time it just right. Here are some remarkable samples of high speed photos that captured the critical moment that we missed in a blink of the eye.

Photo by abdul / yunir

Photo by alexfinlay.com

Bullet Through Cookie | Photo by Wanna Bee Farmer

A Toast To The Happy Hammer | Photo by alexfinlay.com 

Purple Splash | Photo by andi.vs.zf

Gotta match? | Photo by laszlo-photo

Death of a light bulb |Photo by laszlo-photo

The orange session | Photo by  -basti-

Pellet vs water balloon | Photo by Unruely

Pink balloon | Stephen Edmonds

Splash light | Photo by Mike Dickeson

High speed retouching | Photo by 4alarmstudio

Water and ink | Photo by gagstreet

High speed crack | Photo by Warloofer 

Nothing more than a tea | Photo by Najwa Marafie

Photo by  Jun Moore

It is very common to come across the terms “Photographic Art” and “Fine Art Photography” in reference to the work of renowned photographers who have created an individual style of photography that is popular and attractive. But what really turns a simple photograph into a piece of art? There have been many debates on this topic and the terms “Photographic Art” and “Fine Art Photography” have had many definitions but they remain poorly defined and difficult to categorise.

Photo by Яick Harris

Photographers often like to describe their work as “art” and without doubt some of the work of photographers such as Tim Flach is truly beautiful, creative and entertaining. But to be considered art a piece must also engage the viewers mind as well as their eye – a piece must be thought provoking and continue to generate discussions and opinions over time. Many beautiful images hanging on walls now will, unfortunately, not hold the viewer’s interest for more than a couple of years. Whereas true art continues to be a talking point for years to come.

Photo by h.koppdelaney

It could be argued that a photographer could take a detailed picture of a flower, for example, and a traditional artist could paint that same flower in detail. But what a photographer cannot do that an artist can do with paint and other media is add depth, feeling and texture to the image. Compare the work of artist Jo Bunce with the photographer Mary Gaines. It is the sense of unreality that makes the painted images so much more appealing than the photographs.

Photo by la_bella_polenesiana

As with all art there are works that blur the boundaries between categories and perhaps the most important lesson to remember when considering what can and cannot be classified as “art” is to be open-minded. Being open-minded and ready to change your opinions can lead to unexpected discoveries such as the BeckerHarrison collaboration where original photographic prints are overpainted with acrylic, gouache and even spray-paint to create compelling and sometimes disturbing images that photography alone could never do.

Photo by neilbetter

Of course, photo-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop can be used to create a myriad of effects that could never be achieved with a camera alone but in the case of the BeckerHarrison work the physical texture and sheen of the paint cannot be replicated with even the most advanced photo-editing software and it is these features that make their work stand out from other work created on a computer.

Photo by striatic

So photographic images can be classed as art and a definition of “Photographic Art” might be an artwork that began its life as a simple photograph but has been enhanced in some way (either on a computer or by hand) to create something more than just a captured moment that is pleasing to the eye however beautiful or, indeed, disturbing that moment might be. It is a work that entertains, delights or disturbs but most of all provokes thought or discussion and imparts to the viewer a message from the artist.

Written by Michelle Symonds from Style Cube