1,028,000 Digital Photographs

cdneng2 writes "Rob Galbraith has an in-depth article on the digital photo process of Sports Illustrated. The article walks through SI's digital workflow of Super Bowl XXXVIII as it sorts through the 16,183 digital pictures shot by eleven of the magazine's staff photographers and the process all the way to the cover of the magazine. Sorry, no Janet Jackson or swimsuit pics in this article."

Comments

Oh that's good

[HungWeiLo]

"...has an in-depth article on the digital photo process of Sports Illustrated."

I have found the next good excuse when the IT vice squad comes around again!

Kids stuff

[Space cowboy]

[note: this could be construed as a plug. Perhaps it even is, re-reading. You have been warned]

My company (7 of us in total) wrote an asset management system used on a major film in a previous life (we were called 'unique-id' then). We were given the option of being paid and not disclosing the film, or not being paid and letting everyone know which one. It was a *big* film - we took the getting paid option, so you'll have to guess which :-)

The rushes coming in totalled 40 DTF tapes per working day over several months, several hundred million images in all. The same system was used on the 'The world was not enough' trailer, where the large quantities of mostly-naked women
gyrating around with oil being poured on them suddenly made the visualisation tools *far* better than they used to be...

Every image (every frame) was accessible and searchable, notes could be made and a proxy version played back over the net. It was completely automated - logging was done by simply untarring the data-tape or playing the rfid-labelled video tape, with metadata being inferred from path names or rfid tag, all very simple and very effective. Everything was written using OSS tools, mainly PHP and MySQL (and yes, we paid for our MySQL licences :-) You could do things like drag an image out of IE/Moz and drop into 'Shake', with Shake being instructed to load the real footage not the proxy version you were looking at in the browser - this image-based-project-load alone saved enormous time when you're dealing with millions of images.

Simon.

Re:Kids stuff

[Motherfucking Shit]

It was a *big* film - we took the getting paid option, so you'll have to guess which :-)

Well, it's pretty obvious:

a) You aren't too keen on telling anyone what movie you were associated with.

b) After paying you, they had no money left over in the budget for decent actors.

Gigli , right?

Re:Kids stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I'd love to tell you which one it was, but I signed the contract, and their lawyers are scary.

ATB,
Simon

Re:Kids stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem. Was just hoping to pick up a karma-ineffective +5, Funny. ;)

-MFS

Re:Kids stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Well done :-)

Simon

Re:Kids stuff

[drinkypoo]

The same system was used on the 'The world was not enough' trailer, where the large quantities of mostly-naked women gyrating around with oil being poured on them suddenly made the visualisation tools *far* better than they used to be...

Just the thought of mostly-named women gyrating round with oil being poured on them makes my, er, visualization tool much better too, if you believe size matters.

Que "I have at least that many pron pics' posts

[Anonymous Coward]

GO!

Hah.

[DarkHelmet]

Sorry, no Janet Jackson or swimsuit pics in this article.

The poster to this story is pretty funny... I think most of us nerds here cared more about that dangling tit than anything else in the game. Then again... I think most everyone cares about the dangling tit more than the actual game.

History has a funny way of remembering things. If you don't believe me, think about how many people sum up the Clinton presidency into one word: blowjob.

Re:Hah.

[TwistedSquare]

I'm still puzzled as to why that was such a massive deal, I mean everyone has seen female breasts at some point during their lifetime, so why the big fuss? Just because it was prime-time?

Re:Hah.

[AKnightCowboy]

The poster to this story is pretty funny... I think most of us nerds here cared more about that dangling tit than anything else in the game. Then again... I think most everyone cares about the dangling tit more than the actual game.

In all honesty I don't even remember who played in the Super Bowl this year, but I remember Janet Jackson had a nipple shield on. I feel sorry for Boston or Dallas or whoever won the Super Bowl this year.. it'll go down in history as the event where Janet Jackson showed her old floppy boob rather than where some team won their championship.

Re:Hah.

[el-spectre]

Mostly because the country is in the process of a very conservative swing right now, and some folks just live to be offended.

Re:Hah.

[cloudmaster]

Watch this week's southpark - it's *incredibly* appropriate to current events.

And people thought it was just potty humor...

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

What an awesome episode.

Re:Hah.

[angle_slam]

Real fans will remember who won Super Bowl 38 (New England). Moreover, by the end of the year, the nipple incident will have long faded from memory. But New England will be listed as the Super Bowl winners for a long time.

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean everyone has seen female breasts at some point during their lifetime

On slashdot? Not bloody likely.

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a truly awesome game. Both teams were doing some amazing stuff, especially in the second half. The funny thing is, the people I was with didn't want to watch the half time show, so they put something else on and some of us went outside as well. We didn't know about the tit thing until after the game was over and someone called us.

Doesn't compare to the Bucs winning last year, though. Living in Tampa, that was a hell of a great time.

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

>On slashdot? Not bloody likely.

Even geeks have moms... Nobody seems to have a problem with babies feeding from their mothers' breasts, but God forbid they see a breast on television.

Re:Hah.

[gringo_l_amigo]

"Sorry, no Janet Jackson or swimsuit pics in this article."

Nope, only a bunch of big guys in sweat...

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

And no slashbots were bottle fed?

Re:Hah.

[jo42]

Because it was such an UGLY tit.

Re:Hah.

[shawnce]

No it is really more about expected content of a media event that parents used to control what they want their kids to see. They have that right. They usually expect a certain level of cleanliness from prime time shows and sports events, this violated that without warning. This is what pissed folks off.

Anyway I personally think her breast was about the only good thing in the whole of the half time show...

Re:Hah.

[Joey7F]

As a fellow Tampa fan (15 years of fandom) I heartily agree. But even I know SB38 was a much better game than SB37

--Joey

Re:Hah.

[glitch23]

Some live to do nothing but offend, because it's fun to be on the 'upper hand'.

Re:Hah.

[el-spectre]

Sure, it wasn't the kind of show expected, and was inappropriate. I'm just tired of people acting as though it's going to cause the fall of the western world...

Re:Hah.

[Anonymous Coward]

i perfer the word traitor.

dang

[qewl]

At first skim I read:
16,183 digital pictures shot by eleven of the magazine's staff photographers in Super Bowl XXXVIII of Janet Jackson.

Heh, I guess we've all seen enough of her anyway! Oh well.

Umm

[blackmonday]

I'm surprised Sports Illustrated uses relatively cheap hardware and software to edit their photos. ACDSee (Fire!) is $50, and they use some pretty standard (and not all that impressive) IBM laptops for most of the field action. Even at the studios in New York they're using dual 450 G4's. No dual G5's yet. Anyone know how much that camera costs?

Re:Umm

[mrondello]

6k - 10k for the canon 1d or 1ds.

Re:Umm

[tdemark]

No dual G5's yet.

Thanks to the Quark Publishing System, which is not Mac OS X compatible. (from Page 3 of the article)

- Tony

Re:Umm

[stratjakt]

Why would they need Dual G5s or Photoshop? The most they do to the photos is crop them. Hell, photoshop shouldn't even be in a real journalists office.

Show me what happened, not an artists conception of what happened.

And how much equipment do you need to bring onsite to snap shots of a bunch of meatheads chasing a ball around?

Re:Umm

[Lizard_King]

You can purchase the EOS-1D (8 MegaPixels) for $4,499.99.

The EOS-1DS (11 MegaPixels) is $7,999.99.

Re:Umm

[angle_slam]

You need lenses too. L series telephotos are far from cheap. At least 1000 each. And each photographer probably had multiple lenses and/or multiple bodies.

Re:Umm

[angle_slam]

Damn! Should have read the article first:

Staff photographer Bob Rosato's collection of gear is fairly typical. To a football game he takes four or five EOS-1D bodies and 600mm f/4, 400mm f/2.8, 300mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, and 50mm f/1.4 lenses. For basketball, he adds five or six EOS-1Ds cameras and dispenses with the 400 and 600mm lenses. Of the ten or so camera bodies that he takes to a basketball game, many are of course mounted overhead or around the basket for remote operation.

Camera equipment ain't cheap.

Re:Umm

[badasscat]

I'm surprised Sports Illustrated uses relatively cheap hardware and software to edit their photos. ACDSee (Fire!) is $50, and they use some pretty standard (and not all that impressive) IBM laptops for most of the field action. Even at the studios in New York they're using dual 450 G4's. No dual G5's yet. Anyone know how much that camera costs?

What an odd post.

First of all, what "studios in New York"? I work in New York for a creative company, and we mostly use PC's. If someone prefers to work on Mac we issue them a Mac. Same as SI. Most people, in all honesty, prefer to work on PC's at my company, so that's what we give them. And those people work no more slowly than those using Macs (dual 450 CPU's is hardly impressive these days either, so it's a little weird that you'd put that up against the IBM T40's and dual Xeons SI is using. The last Mac we issued was a dual 1.8 G5).

Secondly, what the hell does cost have to do with anything in qualitative terms? It's any company's responsibility to be efficient in budgeting, and part of that means choosing the cheapest tools you can that will reliably get the job done (key word being "reliably" - it's no use spending the least money you can if what you buy is going to be broken half the time). IBM Thinkpads seem a perfectly sensible idea to me for what SI is doing with them - they're reliable, they're not expensive, they're small and easily transportable, and with Pentium-M chips and 768MB of RAM they're more than adequate for what SI is using them for, which is downloading and tranferring image files. This is efficient use of tools.

Similarly, did you even read why they're using ACDSee? We use it at my company as well. It's simply a very fast image viewer; there's nothing I know of that's faster either, or more suitable to the task of sifting through large quantities of images in as quick a time as possible. We use it for the exact same purpose.

I'm honestly impressed at how efficient and organized it seems SI is running their image processing program. They seem to know what they're doing and they've selected the right tools for the job. Who cares if they use "cheap" cameras and PC's? You got a problem with the technical image quality on any of their recent covers?

Re:Umm

[badasscat]

First of all, what "studios in New York"?

Argh, seems I hadn't read all the way to the end of the article.

Still, my basic point still stands. There's no law that says you have to use one brand of products all the time, or that you have to use the fastest thing available for every mundane task (not that those T40's are slow).

Re:Umm

[i.r.id10t]

Yeah, but they may have had lenses from their film cameras... that seems to be one of the major big selling points for a professional/near professional grade digital SLR.

Re:Umm

[dan g]

Hell, photoshop shouldn't even be in a real journalists office.

Show me what happened, not an artists conception of what happened.

Just because you use photoshop doesn't mean you're mucking with the journalistic integrity of a photo. Color correction, contrast adjustment, sharpening, etc are all perfectly valid processes that don't alter the story of 'what happened'.

dan.

Re:Umm

[blackmonday]

Maybe it was an odd post after all, but you didn't get what I was saying. I'm not dissapointed that they use standard off the shelf hardware / software, I'm just surprised. In the recesses of my crazy infantile mind I imagined a large organization like SI using stuff so advanced, so expensive, so grear that I'd never even heare of it. Now I know different. I actually *like* the fact that they use relatively inexpensive equipment. It means all I need is a ten thousand dollar digital camera!

Re:Umm

[janbjurstrom]

I work (in IT) with photographers/journalists at a small news organization. True, they don't need the bells-n-whistles of Photoshop (effect filters, etc.). And yes, cropping is probably used on every picture that goes in the newspaper.

But:

Tempo. Photographers storming in from say a fire, an accident, etc., with a large number of images, and with minutes until the next assignment, or until the pages goes to print. Every second often counts, many times a week.

Good hardware shaving off a little time here and there helps.

Image corrections. Pretty much every image (to be published - in print or online) needs sharpening, color/hue/brightness corrections, and similar touch-ups (but never image manipulations like cloning, etc. Then, like you say, it would cease to be a journalistic photo, and become misleading and/or fraudulent). Actually, even cropping is done with caution - does the meaning change? is it still representative of the events that took place? etc.

Photoshop is still among the best software for doing this (corrections). Plus, most photographers are familiar with it, so freelancers, temps, etc., can jump into the production chain and be productive immediately.

So, I guess I'm arguing that they do need fast computers (we use P4s on the desktop, SUN servers & SAN) and Photoshop (we have additional image software, for batch conversions, etc.).

Re:Umm

[suwain_2]

Anyone know how much that camera costs?

The cameras are (1D)s (parenthesis because the 1Ds is a different camera costing twice as much). They've come down a bit in price now that there's a couple successors to it out, but I think you're still looking at between $3500 and $4500 for the body. The camera's pretty crazy -- up to eight frames a second means it rocks for sports and stuff.

Don't forget, though, that this is the camera body. And in sports, you need a really fast lens if you don't want a big blur -- figure several thousand more for the lens. (And a lot of photographers -- I'm not sure about SI -- carry around multiple lenses. Actually, the really good ones have a camera for each lens, and keep them on a strap, so you drop one camera and pick up one with a longer lens when you need it. Costs rack up real quick.)

By way of being a total 'photogeek,' there are a pair of cameras that 'replace' the 1D now: the 1D Mark II (8.5 fps, 6 megapixels?) for around $4500, and the 1Ds at 11 megapixels (though not nearly as many frames/second as the others), going for about $8,000.

I'm not sure what your point is, though. Why spend $5,000 on a laptop if a $2,000 one works just as well?

Re:Umm

[Civil_Disobedient]

Not true. You can get Canon L glass on some of the middle-range lenses for half that. The problem is that middle-range will not get the kinds of shots SI needs. They need big-honkin' glass to get shots from any distance at a good speed. Just look at all the pretty white lens bodies on the sidelines. The 2.8L 400mm IS USM goes for about $5500.

The funny thing is, they use the same glass for their swimsuit issue to flatten the depth, (though the 300mm is usually enough). Walkie talkies are standard issue when the photog has to instruct the guy holding the reflector on his model to "move a little to the right".

Re:Umm

[rgmoore]

Anyone know how much that camera costs?

The cameras are quite expensive. The cheapest camera mentioned, the EOS-10D, runs about $1500 retail. The EOS-1D, which they mention as the main camera that SI uses, is about $4500. (That's actually for the updated Mark II, but AFAIK the original 1D was about the same price.) The EOS-1Ds is $8000. The Nikon D-1X and D-2H are about $4000 and $3000, respectively. And the lenses can make the cameras seem cheap in comparison. The article mentioned 600mm F/4 ($7200), 400mm F/2.8 ($6500), 300mm F/2.8 ($3900), and 70-200mm F/2.8 ($1600) lenses. A professional sports photographer may very well have $50,000 in cameras and lenses.

Re:Umm

[Bob Davis, Retired]

Actually, I think that the intelligent imaging folks use Macs mainly because color management is so damn much easier than on a PC running Windows. That, and Macs what many of them have been using for years.

Of course it is possible to get the same results on a PC, but you need to do a bit more legwork to get color accuracy. With a modern Mac and Apple monitor everything is profiled to be accurate out-of-box (no color matching peripherals required).

Re:Umm

[ManxStef]

I don't think that's so true (anymore). Colour management on Mac/PC is practically identical when it comes to Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign, and colour profiles have been handled better in Windows since 98 (I think, certainly 2000/XP). Yes, Colorsync is still nicer, but there's not as much of "wow, that's so much better than PCs" as there used to be. The historical reason is very much valid though, people work best when they use something they're comfortable with and used to.

As for Mac monitors being *completely* accurate out of the box, that's wrong. They're certified to a certain factory level - not wildly inaccurate by any means and *much* better than most standard off-the-shelf components, but still not good enough for critical work (in fact even Apple themselves recommend using hardware calibration on their website). Besides, devices go "out" with time anyway - esp. CRTs, which on the whole are much better at colour than LCDs: though the Apple Cinema displays are lovely I'd much rather have something like a Sony Artisan:
http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/ac cessories/ sony-artisan.shtml

There's no way around it, you MUST profile your devices with a colorimeter (the Monaco equipment is excellent, GretagMacbeth also, and the Pantone Colorvision stuff serviceable and cheap) unless it's got hardware built in such as the Barco's or high-end Sony's, it's the only way to be sure. Also, a good thing about profiling is you can set devices to specifically match each other, so say you've just bought a batch of laptops to go along with the workstations, you can easily profile them to all look exactly the same - very useful when the photographers may have to share resources. I'm not going to start on profiling print devices or the intricacies of open or closed loop colour systems though, cause it all gets very boring :)

Re:Umm

[Gumber]

Well, for one thing, Sports Illustrated's photo department doesn't have to impress anyone with their gear to keep getting jobs.

Thos studios in NYC have to look the part.

/. geeks are confused

[grub]

All around the world /.'ers are looking at sports pictures and saying:

So that's are what other people look like...

What's that bright round thing in the sky in some of the pictures? It doesn't look like any fluorescent light I've ever seen!

How can I IM those cheerleaders "A/S/L?"

Is there a torrent for those million-plus pictures?

www.john316.com isnt a geek site! Who is that guy?

Re:/. geeks are confused

[Otter]

No, they're probably reflexively panicking, before realizing that they're only pictures of football players and that Jake Delhomme isn't about to stuff them in a locker.

(By the way, does anyone still read SI outside of three year old copies in dentists' offices? Haven't seen anyone read a new one in ages. The ESPN TV/web/magazine empire seems to have buried them.?

Re:/. geeks are confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Otter, your .sig: have you gotten any replies, or read any posts about it whatsoever?

Re:/. geeks are confused

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that bright round thing in the sky in some of the pictures? It doesn't look like any fluorescent light I've ever seen!

I read on the web that we're living on planet orbiting around a star. Apparently our star is 150 million km away, has a mean radius of 700,000 km, and is of spectral type G2. This could explain a half-degree-wide yellow (RGB ~255,255,0) disk in outdoors pictures.

Re:/. geeks are confused

[PsiPsiStar]

Looking at the cheerleaders, if you have to ask what their sex is, you're definitly confused.

Heh.

[SatanicPuppy]

I hadn't thought of that angle of it. One of the problems with old fashioned cameras was the fact that you only had so much film...You could only CARRY so much.

But with a high end digital camera it practically unlimited, as long as you can offload your chips. So you don't have to pick your shots so carefully; I've never met a photographer who wouldn't rather take 10 pictures of the same thing than just one, because it's impossible to tell which picture will end up being the best. Now they can do that and it doesn't cost them a damn dime. I bet SI is getting swamped with digital photos.

At the root of it though, it's just another facet of the same problem indemic to tech...How do you deal with the massive amount of info that you can now obtain.

Re:Heh.

[dan g]

I've never met a photographer who wouldn't rather take 10 pictures of the same thing than just one, because it's impossible to tell which picture will end up being the best.

Getting a good photo isn't pure luck, so just firing off a bunch of shots doesn't necessarily increase your chances of getting one. Lots of photographers (myself amongst them) would prefer to spend the time to carefully and thoughtfully set up a single shot than squeeze off ten because that one will probably be far superior to any of the ten.

Of course that doesn't really apply to sports photography which, given the context, maybe you considered implicitly obvious. :-)

Re:Heh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posed photographs, still life, and landscapes can be set up this way.. but can you really be sure that your one carefully chosen shot of..

a child on a swing
guests laughing together at a wedding
sunset at the beach with sea lions
a cloud formation in summer
a plane lifting off ..is better than ten shots only somewhat carefully chosen? It's not like a photographer shuts his eyes and blind-shoots ten pictures, ya know.

Granted, most of my personal pictures are landscapes and nature. But the best pictures I have -- hands down -- are unposed shots of friends and family.

Re:Heh.

[Bob Davis, Retired]

Sometimes it does pay to take multiple images of a composition. Exposure and focus bracketing, environmental concerns (if you're trying to shoot a flower and its very windy, for example), or quickly moving subjects all may call for multiple images.

I agree that composition is the root of a successful photograph, however.

1,028,000 photographs I can't use

[MisterBad]

I was hoping from the article name that this was going to be about a great Open Content digital photo archive, like PDPhoto, OpenPhoto, or all the great stuff at the Internet Archive or Common Content.

Instead it's about somebody else's photos I can't use. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Re:1,028,000 photographs I can't use

[Motherfucking Shit]

Don't forget GIMP-Savvy. They have over 4GB of free as in [beer|speech] pics; plus, even if you don't have any images to donate, you can contribute to the site by categorizing existing photos.

Attn: entrepeneurs

[indros13]

"Do I like having to use two tools? No," says Jache of this two-application approach to browsing and captioning, but he can't find a single application that combines ACDSee's display speed with good captioning features.

Forget the ???
1. Make software that does both
2. Sell to SI
3. Profit!

Re:Attn: entrepeneurs

[greenfield]

Phil wasn't kidding here. We would definitely like an application that had the speed of ACDSee and the captioning features of MediaGrid. Throw in some good editing features and raw support and you have yourself a great product.

If anyone is serious in terms of skills and desire to do this kind of work, drop me a note and we can talk about specifications.

Re:Attn: entrepeneurs

[Civil_Disobedient]

Or you can just rename the file. I believe the shortcut on Windows is F2. Works pretty well as long as your captions don't require \ / : * ? or |.

Re:Attn: entrepeneurs

[ManxStef]

Perhaps it'd be worth getting in touch directly with both and seeing what they say? (and checking out what's new in ACDSee v6, it's probably improved a fair bit):

www.acdsystems.com/English/Company/ContactUs/ind ex
SCC - Tel: 770 205 5756 Fax: 770 205 5880

They may be able to offer what you wish as a bespoke development, be it for cash, advertising or both? At the least they may be able to expose various parts of the software via COM interfaces so you can write the automation between the two? I know I'd be keen to be able to say that Sports Illustrated used my imaging software: that's on par with having Natural Geographic on the client list :) So you may find that they jump over themselves to help... (Well, there's a small chance anyway!)

If that doesn't work out then there's a good deal of other software worth checking out, such as IMatch from Photools.com (I'm evaluating this now and it seems pretty good), or the whole host of software listed off Rob Galbraith's site (I'm sure Rob'll be able to help in the suggestions department better than I can, anyway).

Good luck!

Re:IN CASE OF SLASHDOTTING

[buckeyeguy]

I'd be interested to see how pro pics taken at the Super Bowl with Nikon's D2H camera (high-frame-rate, 4MP) compare with the digital EOS, especially since the photo editor claims that most of what he's getting from the EOS users is 'shit'.

Like people need a reason not to RTFA ?

[Dave21212]

Sorry, no Janet Jackson or swimsuit pics in this article.


Read it anyway, neat tech, plenty of details ! (ACDSee is an old favorite of mine)

Well, they could do one thing to help

[Atario]

RAW? What about PNG? Use some compression at the very least, guys...

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[gordyf]

From what I understand, cameras that use a RAW mode are saving all the output from the CCD, without any processing at all. You can then load it into a program and apply exposure compensation, lighting adjustments and whatnot, rather than having the camera do the image processing.

Saving as a PNG would require turning the raw CCD data into an image, which is defeating the point.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Storing the image with in a lossless format like PNG will not result in any loss of information. What you get from the CCD is what you store in the PNG, no image processing done.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[bwoodring]

This is simply not correct and betrays that while you may understand image file formats, you do not understand digital photography well at all.

Linkage

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[BdosError]

Neither that link nor your comment says anything that contradicts the parent poster. How is the lossless PNG format worse than RAW?

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[dietz]

RAW means it's the image data taken directly from the CCD. Canon's RAW format does, in fact, have lossless compression.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[gordyf]

The RAW format is not an image. PNG is an image file format. The RAW file stores more information about the image than just the color of each pixel, it stores the signal level from each element on the CCD.

Saving as a PNG would require processing the data into an image, which is what RAW format avoids.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[stratjakt]

RAW 12-bit (which the 1Ds captures) is a lossless representation of a bitmap with 24 or 32 bit color. RAW is the raw data from the CCDs of the camera itself, with a much higher color range. They capture 12bit Bayer patern, IIRC.

The RAW files are saved, to be converted into CMYK for printing, not RGB colorspace that PNG, JPEG and other monitor-centric display technologies use. The JPEGs are merely for previewing on a monitor.

RAW and JPEG are captured because that's the two formats the cameras they use spit out.

More details here.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[dan g]

To generate pixels that can be encoded in PNG from the CCD data requires lossy signal processing. The exact processing is influenced by a number of parameters which can either be chosen automatically by software (on the camera or a computer) or they can be hand tweaked. Since the process is lossy, you can't go back and do it again without having the original RAW data. The ability to hand tweak is important to anyone who wants the absolute best quality from their images.

Also, for Canon, RAW != TIFF so maybe the files aren't as big as you're thinking. My 6 megapixel Canon 10-D generates 5-6MB RAW images (they vary in size because they have a jpeg embedded in them). Comare this to the ~15MB (8 bit/channel) or ~30MB (16 bit/channel) TIFF files I can generate from the RAW. Further, for an interesting scene (i.e. not with the lens cap on), this is relatively uncompressible data, so even if you could in some way encode the raw CCD data in PNG format, you wouldn't see much of a gain.

dan.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[Atario]

As far as I ever knew, RAW meant a simple byte array. No metadata, no compression, no nothing. As in, the word "raw".

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[rgmoore]

As another poster points out, most manufacturers' RAW formats do use lossless compression, so the data is being squeezed at least a bit. More importantly, though, PNG won't do the job. Good quality digital cameras- basically anything in the digital SLR class- have more color depth than the common image formats can handle. PNG and JPEG use 24 bit color(plus 8 bits of alpha for PNG), while the cameras can produce 36 bit color. You can't display all that color depth on a monitor, which is why PNG and JPEG don't bother keeping it, but it is useful when manipulating the pictures in Photoshop/Cinepaint and when printing to paper. IIRC, most camera companies export their RAW formats to 48 bit TIFFs for processing in common image manipulation programs.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[SuperBanana]

RAW? What about PNG? Use some compression at the very least, guys...

Understand what you're talking about, at the very least. RAW images ARE compressed- they're 10-12bit per channel files. My 10D's raw files are anywhere from 5 to 6.5MB depending upon how much detail is in the image(higher ISO settings will generate bigger files due to noise in the image), and uncompress to well over 30MB in Photoshop(part of that bloat is because photoshop does 8 or 16 bit per channel, not anything inbetween). I can do extensive color and exposure correction, as well as tweak noise reduction and sharpening functions(all cameras sharpen the image to compensate for the antialiasing filter that sits over the CCD and spreads the light across the 3 color sensors).

Further, the true pro cameras(1D, 1Ds, 1D Mark II, etc) can save both a JPEG and a RAW file and even allow you to control exactly how the JPEG is saved- resolution and such. My 10D saves a preview thumbnail in the RAW file, and you get a little control over what resolution it is, so it's similar, but not quite the same. The 1D mark II can save the images onto two different media cards at the same time.

JPEGs are ideal because decompression is very, very fast- and the camera has already saved a lower-resolution preview JPEG for you so there's less data to push around. RAW files require a large amount of processing, since it's raw CCD information. That includes interpolation(the R,G,B pixels are in different places!), color balance determination, etc...all the stuff the camera has a dedicated chip to handle.

Honestly, if you read the article, the guy's problem is that he has shit for photographers- "11 guys, 11 shots of the same touchdown out of focus!" who are sloppy and too loose with their shutters simply because they can be. Digital has shifted the work from the photographer(who had to be careful since he only had so much film) to the editor, who's now swamped with the most unbelievable crap because these guys are shutter happy.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[dietz]

Oh. I am glad that is what you thought you knew. Unfortunately, you're wrong.

Here is a definition for the word raw:

2. a. Being in a natural condition; not processed or refined: raw wool.

Canon .RAW images fit this description as the image has had no post-processing on it. It's exactly as it comes off the CCD. Lossless compression and addition of metadata do not change the actual image, so it still fits that definition of "raw".

I'm not saying your more rigorous definition of it isn't a valid one, but it's not the one Canon chooses to use.

If you want to check what you think know before posting incorrect information to slashdot you could try google. A search for "canon raw lossless" gets lots of results showing exactly how wrong you are.

I'm sorry I'm being a snide dick, but posting incorrect information to slashdot once is fine, we've all done it. But when someone corrects you and you say that you still think they are wrong without even doing 30 seconds of research... well, shit, man. That's annoying.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[dietz]

Also, for Canon, RAW != TIFF so maybe the files aren't as big as you're thinking. My 6 megapixel Canon 10-D generates 5-6MB RAW images (they vary in size because they have a jpeg embedded in them).

They vary in size because they're compressed, mostly.

Further, for an interesting scene (i.e. not with the lens cap on), this is relatively uncompressible data, so even if you could in some way encode the raw CCD data in PNG format, you wouldn't see much of a gain.

That's not true. Even in an interesting scene, you will have large fields of similar colors which can still be compressed losslessly with good results. ZIP won't get you the best results because it doesn't understand how the data is structured. It's just like how FLAC gets much better compression than ZIP for audio, even though both are lossless. If you understand the structure of the data and where the common patterns emerge, you can tune your compression algorithm to those andcan get decent results.

That's why .RAW files (which ARE compressed) are smaller than uncompressed TIFF files.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[dietz]

PNG and JPEG use 24 bit color(plus 8 bits of alpha for PNG), while the cameras can produce 36 bit color.

Actually, PNG supports up to 48 bits of color.

I don't know about JPEG.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[rgmoore]

Canon .RAW images fit this description as the image has had no post-processing on it. It's exactly as it comes off the CCD.

Extremely minor nit: Canon digital SLRs use CMOS sensors, not CCDs. Until quite recently everyone thought that CMOS was too noisy to generate really first rate pictures, but the Canons are very competitive with CCD-based SLRs. CMOS also has the advantage of costing only about 1/3 as much as a comprably sized CCD. My impression is that this is why all of the existing digital SLRs that have full frame (i.e. 24mm x 36mm) sensors use CMOS, rather than CCD; it's not economically feasible to use a CCD that big.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[davew666]

It is possible to have compressed RAW files, but it takes longer to write to the card, meaning that your ability to fire bursts of shots is limited once the buffer gets full.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[mph]

Until quite recently everyone thought that CMOS was too noisy to generate really first rate pictures, but the Canons are very competitive with CCD-based SLRs.

I'm still waiting for a SLR with a liquid nitrogen-cooled research-grade CCD.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[sircrown]

Do you know how long it takes save a PNG file? RAW and JPG need a LOT less CPU power and cycles compared to PNG. PNG just wouldn't work very well in a digital camera especially when you want to snap very quickly.

RAW vs PNG is (IMO) like comparing, say, HuffyYUV and DIVX codecs for video. You can save the raw video stream much more quickly using the former than you can with the latter. Once you have that raw stream you can compress it very nicely later on in post.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[Atario]

So just because Canon has decided they're going to make up their own file format and call it RAW (despite the previously established use of the extension), I'm supposed to go "oh, ok, sorrynevermind hahaha"?

Screw that. They should've called it CPF (Canon Picture File) or something. It's a proprietary format, and it should have a proprietary extension.

As for being raw (as opposed to RAW), it ain't. If I take a picture file (or any other kind), then zip it, is the ZIP the same as the original file? No. It's a ZIP file. Does it effectively contain the same information, given a utility to decode the ZIP file? Yes. Is it the same file? No.

Now, regarding my original suggestion about PNG, I see now that it would be counterproductive -- the raw data is not actually a simple byte- (or even word-) array. Of course, all this confusion could have been avoided had Canon (and, now I assume, unfortunately, every camera manufacturer) simply picked a better file extension.

In conclusion, I'm glad you're at least sorry about being a snide dick, but before you "correct" someone, would you mind terribly taking at least 30 seconds to think about the subject before you flame someone for hewing to common sense? Thanks.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[greenfield]

Atario, you are mistaken about the use of the RAW extension.

Canon pro cameras store the raw captures with filenames of the form *.TIF, *.CRW, and *.CR2. The TIF file is actually a real, valid TIFF file. There is a thumbnail image stored in the TIFF, as well as the full raw data. CRW and CR2 files are proprietary to Canon.

Nikon pro cameras store the raw captures with filenames of the form *.NEF. These files are also real, valid TIFF files. Again, there is a thumbnail image stored in the TIFF, as well as the full raw data.

Don't believe me about the TIFF files? Get a couple and open them with tiffinfo from the libtiff package. You will get error messages like:

DSC_0001.NEF: Warning, unknown field with tag 34665 (0x8769) ignored.
DSC_0001.NEF: Warning, unknown field with tag 36867 (0x9003) ignored.
DSC_0001.NEF: Warning, unknown field with tag 37398 (0x9216) ignored.

You might wonder why RAW is generally capitalized. Beats me. It's not an acronym, and it's not a file extension used by most digital cameras. But your description of the "previously established use" of the RAW extension is bogus. There are at least 10 different file formats that use the RAW extension. (See File Extension Source.)

In addition, your original suggestion regarding PNG was not well thought out. Both the Canon and Nikon raw formats use compression.

Now, you could consider converting all of the raw camera files to 48-bit PNG images, but you would lose some data, and the tools to manipulate the PNGs aren't as good as some of the tools to manipulate the RAW images.

It's a bit ironic that you are lecturing someone on taking time "to think about the subject" before flaming them. Personally, I don't think your initial post showed common sense.

Re:Well, they could do one thing to help

[Atario]

Oh Jebus H. Tapdancing Cripes. You mean to say RAW is not the extension, but an all-caps adjective? And I'm being told I don't have common sense?

*Sigh*. I give up. Remind me never to talk tech with photographers.

Is that a Corona???

[gatkinso]

Hey I'd love to be able to drink beer at work!

Re:Is that a Corona???

[thedillybar]

Apparently it really is a stressful job...

http://www.robgalbraith.com/data/1/rec_imgs/321_si _trailer_edit.jpg

Re:Is that a Corona???

[Anonymous Coward]

That's OK. I'd rather keep my job than look like any of those guys...

No Pictures

[punxking]

"Sorry, no Janet Jackson or swimsuit pics in this article"

That's ok, I only read it for the articles.

Hmmmm.

[SatanicPuppy]

I meant more in terms of viewing the pictures, not storing them. Can you imagine trying to go through 1,000,000 photos? I about committed suicide rather than going through my wedding photos.

Image recognition software might help a little, just for sorting, but in the end, some poor bastards are going to have to go through those damn things by hand.

Of course, what we *really* want to know is...

[OECD]

... is the "custom application written by Sam Greenfield" Open Source?

Re:Of course, what we *really* want to know is...

[greenfield]

No. :-)

What?

[lukewarmfusion]

16,183 or 1,028,000?

I should probably RTFA. Maybe that will make sense.

Re:What?

[Ravensfire]

16,183 - pictures taken at the Super Bowl
1,028,000 - pictures taken in the year

That's an insane amount of images - and all in RAW format? That's a pretty big database to store and catalog them.

-- Ravensfire

Re:What?

[angle_slam]

That's an insane amount of images - and all in RAW format? That's a pretty big database to store and catalog them.

From the article:

SI's photo department currently burns and stores DVDs using two Disc NSM 7000 DVD jukeboxes, each of which holds more than 500 discs. Jache says he will have two more jukeboxes by year-end. In all, the magazine uses more than 100 servers and possesses 30 terabytes of hard drive storage capacity as well as 24 terabytes of near-line DVD storage.

I guess you could call that database "big".

Re:IN CASE OF SLASHDOTTING

[Anonymous Coward]

He's referring to content, not picture quality. Steve Fine normally talks like that (I know because I worked for SI Photo in Atlanta). Still, he's a damn good picture editor.

Black friday

[Anonymous Coward]

Sports Illustrated is dying!

Janet Jackson

[superpulpsicle]

Come on now do you really need anothe picture of Janet Jackson's breast? As if you don't see it enough of the news.

Not to mention there is already 100 centazillion websites dedicated to her breast already.

Still using PCs

[agslashdot]

These guys should be using dedicated image processors, like SGI boxes. They're just using souped up PCs & Macs. Sure you can have dual Xeons with gigabytes of RAM, but I still think an SGI can beat the pants off the harware these guys are using.

Re:Still using PCs

[SheldonYoung]

Why would it matter? The bottleneck isn't the time it take the computer to display the image, it's the time it takes the human brain to register and think about what they're seeing.

Regardless, if for some reason the split second delay is a problem the next image can be pre-loaded while the human is looking at the current image. Faster and more specialized hardware is not the answer.

Re:Still using PCs

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure karma whoring. +5? Please. SGI has no stake in the image viewing/image processing field. Their realm is high-end computing/visualization.

Re:Still using PCs

[SlowCoder]

RTFA..

The reason they're using ACDSee is that its very fast at displaying the images. A professional editor can easily review 2-3 pictures a second. With 6Mpixels resolution on each picture, you're going to need a fast software and a fast PC to show them to keep up with that..

The SGIs would do an excellent job at this, especially the O2s, since their ICE chip basically is an JPEG accelerator..

Re:Still using PCs

[hey]

Good point. The next picture image could be
displayed in a small window and perhaps the
human editor could subconsciously get an impression
of it before it was "officially checked" further
speeding things up.

Re:Still using PCs

[SheldonYoung]

I did read the article.

It's clear that if ACDSee can't show 11MP JPEGs fast enough for the editor on modern hardware then it's the wrong tool for the job. Sports Illustrated wrote a custom app to transfer images from the cameras (I've written one myself and it looks and functions in a very similar manner) then they need to write one that will pre-cache more than one image ahead. It could also do tricks like show the next three images as small thumbnails on the bottom of the screen, letting the editor quickly skip the shots of the photographers foot. No matter, a 3GHz machine is way more than enough hardware to show large JPEGs at 3 frames a second.

Exactly!

[Anonymous Coward]

And besides, JLos snatch trumps JJs nipple any time!

(No, I have no idea if it's genuine)

Re:IN CASE OF SLASHDOTTING

[angle_slam]

The picutres being "shit" has nothing to do with the camera being a Canon. He was criticizing the photographers, not the cameras.

was concerned..

[Anonymous Coward]

no Janet Jackson

Thank god

"SuperBowl" Cannot be used without permission

[scorp1us]

Itis the property of NFL and its owners.

I suggest we user UberBowl to refer to the final playoff game of the nationwide professional football leage.

shitty *computer reporter*

[cloudmaster]

"Think we edit fast?" Fine asks, as more images flash by. "I'd be going faster if this shitty computer wasn't so slow." That shitty computer is a dual-Xeon 2.4GHz machine with 1.5GB of RAM.

I wonder why the story's author didn't realize that the bottleneck is probably the shitty IDE drive, not the dual processors and heap of RAM... Shitty computer indeed. It oughtta be able to display images faster than "Fine" can see them. Shitty software or shitty drive interface is my diagnosis. :)

Re:shitty *computer reporter*

[greenfield]

Actually, we use nice Ultra 160 SCSI Seagate drives. Our editor has high expectations. :-)

Re:shitty *computer reporter*

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome - someone *actually* modded that as a troll. ROTFL...

Pfft!

[tbone1]

Sorry, no Janet Jackson or swimsuit pics in this article.

Yeah, God knows we haven't heard enough verbal wankage about that already ...

Re:The cinematic oeuvre of Shaquile O'Neil

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool

come on..

[apdim]

I was expecting something like the way the photos are processed, kind of cropping, sharpening and this stuff. Instead the article goes on to specify what brand of computers or use card readers they use and how many images they capture before they have a good shot. Not worthy of reading definetely.

That's not saying much, bub!

[Thud457]

Sadly, there are far too few Gorilla attack stories.

So instead, I'll point you to my favorite tiger attack story from Annanova's animal attack files.

I'll never to to the bathroom without a revolver ever again!

Simon's Brother??

[MagicDude]

The editor reminds me of Simon on American Idol...

Crap ... Crap ... Double Crap ... Out of Focus ... Janet's Boob ... Overpaid Hack ... Crap ... Crap ... William Hung ...

And so on

Another interesting story...

[n0mad6]

...on Galbraith's site is about National Geographic's first ever all digital shoot here. My favorite part was about how the photographer exposed "only" 200 rolls worth of pictures by using digital!

Re:Another interesting story...

[mph]

My favorite part was about how the photographer exposed "only" 200 rolls worth of pictures by using digital!

Yeah, I think the average person has no concept of how much film the pros shoot. In one of Galen Rowell's books, he talks about an assignment he did for National Geographic. He came back with, I think, 70 rolls of Kodachrome exposed. He said the editor was incredulous, because nobody had ever shot so little film for an assignment before.

In workshops for bird or wildlife photography, I think 20 rolls/day is a typical estimate, and a lot of your time is spent finding subjects, or waiting for them to do something interesting, or waiting for the light to be right.

For the Super Bowl, the numbers come out to 40 rolls per photographer. That sounds about right to me. Figure they're getting every bit of every play that they can see from their position, and are shooting 5 frames per second or so.

Re:IN CASE OF SLASHDOTTING

[buckeyeguy]

What I was getting at was whether the speed and ease of use of the Canon is sufficient for spectator sports use and whether another camera would do better. That's all.

hope they made backups on DVD-Rs/tape/etc.

[MoFoQ]

especially if they happen to use *cough*faulty*cough* drives (deathstar, some WD's, etc.).

I wonder what sort of camera they used.
If they were digital, wat sort of storage device (CF, SD, SM, MS, microdrive, paper&pencil, etc.) was used for the cameras (knowing the model of the camera will lead to the type of media)?

Re:hope they made backups on DVD-Rs/tape/etc.

[Morgahastu]

rtfa. the article was pretty much only about what equipment they used.

Re:hope they made backups on DVD-Rs/tape/etc.

[greenfield]

By the end of the night, not counting the information we transmitted to New York, we had at least four copies of the data on various machines and hard drives.

Re:hope they made backups on DVD-Rs/tape/etc.

[MoFoQ]

but also have some backups on archival media, right? (whether that be CDR's, DVDR's, or some form of tape media)

And was it on various machines in various locations? (usually, critical data is stored in various locations in case of like a natural disaster [tornado, earthquake, etc.])

Re:hope they made backups on DVD-Rs/tape/etc.

[MoFoQ]

what the.....how's that a flamebait?

it was just a post about what sort of practices they do to ensure their pictures. I know film photos get archival treatment as well and protected. In fact, it's harder to loose (aside from misplacement) pictures that are on film due to a power failure (or a drive failure, etc.) [I'm not saying it's impossible; just harder.]

Wow prices are really dropping.

[mrondello]

When I bought my 10d last april, the 1d was sbout 6999 ( at 4 MP ) and the 1ds was over 10k.

5k for an 8 MP camera is a damn good price.

1500 for the 10d (6 MP ) body was all I could possibly afford. Even at 8k the 1ds is still a dream for me.

no date stamps?

[Clod9]

>But the images, though grouped roughly by quarter, don't show up on
>Fine's screen in strictly chronological order.

I'm amazed a high-end digital camera wouldn't have the option of date-stamping the images. Wouldn't it help Fine, and editors the world over, to be have the camera do this rather than giving image files names like IMG00037.JPG? Alternatively, the JPEG format itself allows comments to be inserted in the file. The cameraman could enter his/her name once and then every image would have very handy metadata (name + date) attached.

Canon, are you listening?

Re:no date stamps?

[SlowCoder]

They're way ahead of you there..

All images are timestamped (both on the file, and in the file)
Alot of other information such as the name of the photographer, lens used, settings and much much more are also stored in the EXIF information of the JPEGs.

Probably SIs software just doesn't make use of the available data..

Re:no date stamps?

[iantri]

It's not needed -- all flash memory cards (CF, MMC, SD, etc.) use a FAT16 format, and all digicams have the ability to keep the time and date. When the picture is taken, the file SHOULD be timestamped appropriately, so 'sort by creation date' should work.

Not sure what their problem is.. (possibly the custom transfer app fucking up the timestamps?)

Re:no date stamps?

[greenfield]

The Canon files are named fairly nicely. They have four digits at the start of the file tied to the camera serial number. For example, an image taken with a Canon 1D might have the name ABCD0001.JPG and ABCD0001.TIF. My software actually uses the first four digits of the file to determine who owns that camera, and then it generates a rough IPTC caption for the JPEG.

Unfortunately, take a look at that file name. The Canon files repeat every 10,000 images. If we don't rename the files, we eventually end up with multiple images for the same filename. This is unfortunate. However, it is a heck of a lot better than the Nikon scheme.

A single image taken on any Nikon pro camera has the file name of DSC_0001.JPG and DSC_0001.NEF. This means that when you put the files in the same folder, they end up overwriting each other. This is unfortunate. On the newest camera (D2H), they added support for setting an EXIF field to identify the photographer. This means I can figure out who shot those photos as well. You cannot do this with the D1X or D1H.

So in all cases, we really want to rename the files.

We do keep the date information. Unfortunately, it is not always set correctly. But even if the date were set correctly, we still get the files out of order; we just get bags of digital cards as the game progresses. We would have to delay the edit of the files if we wanted to rename the files based on time.

But let's pretend ACDSee did sort the images by time. This is actually not really what the editor wants. Keep in mind we have 11 photographers shooting at once. The editor wants to be able to see the same sequence from the same photographer before seeing the other photos. In other words, if we have photographers A, B, C, and D, we want the order of photos for a specific play to be AAAAABBBBBCCCCCDDDDD, not ABCDABCDABCDABCD.

Re:no date stamps?

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget that even at best, the cameras' clocks are only within one second of eachother. Considering that you're firing at 8.2fps (for a 1D, but I guess 8.5 for 1D-IIs), you will end up with interleaved files out of sequence.

aQazaQa

Mod Parent Troll

[corren]

Can you say RTFA?

...and to two HP Proliant DL380 servers with dual-Xeon 2.4GHz processors, 1.5GB of RAM, and twin Ultra-III SCSI hard drives. (One of these servers, attached to a Sony CPD-G520 21" monitor, is Steve Fine's editing machine.)

Re:Mod Parent Troll

[cloudmaster]

There should be a variant of "RTFA" that includes something about reading the *whole* article - I clearly read the first few paragraphs... :)

If you wanna pick nits, though, the software should be able to compensate for even a slow drive by prefetching the next image in a queue and pre-rendering it, ready to blast it onto the screen. My suggestion that crappy software might be to blame stil stands, even if I was dead wrong regarding the drives (which appears to be the case). ;)

Excellent article

[Boarder2]

This article explains nearly everything you could possibly want to know about SI's digital workflow. They even mention the pitfalls/gains in switching from film to digital.

I find it amazing that some photographers have upwards of 12 Canon EOS 1Ds's EACH. That's about $75,000 in equipment on JUST the camera bodys.

Amazing article, one of the best ones on slashdot in a long time.

Re:

[genner]

"Warning: Camera geeks make computer geeks look tame" I'm a sys admin for a photo lab, and therefore both a computer geek and camera geek. How big of a warning sign should I get?

RTFA?

[HellKnite]

I'm sorry, but along with the other reply to this parent, this post doesn't deserve an Insightful mod at all...

Re:oh yeah...

[genner]

Your zoo is free?

To give you an idea what a non-digital flow is...

[purduephotog]

... it's significantly longer.

1) Get to the game and burn film by the end of the 1st quarter
2) Give a 'doggy bag' of the film, your paper id, to a gopher who runs the film to an onsite processing facility (if you are lucky) or takes it to a local newspaper place that has an 'agreement' with your paper to use the facilities.
3) 15 minutes, film, dry to dry (C41)
4) Proofsheet or eyeball the film
5) Scan and upload.
6) Repeat for each quarter.

Takes alot more time, alot more resources, and sadly introduces alot more errors.

I am completely floored by the workflow SI has in place. That has been obviously honed to razor sharpness- only small gains available to be had now.

Oh, and yes, I'm a photographer and (was) an editor, until I decided everyone else's photos weren't as good as mine *wink*

The Details

[Hypharse]

This sounds like a lot, but for those too lazy for the math....16,183/11 photographers/6 hours of shooting.... it *only* comes out to 4 pictures per minute. When you consider A lot of them are pictures in random succession like 10 in a row, searching for the ultimate still-frame it isn't really as mind boggling as the initial large number seems.

Sorry, no Janet Jackson or swimsuit pics in this article.

Now as far as that. How many other geeks out there are for Sports Illustrated starting a SETI-like distributed network program for their photos? Imagine the SI photographers taking thousands of swimsuit shots and sending them off to your computer for you to "process". Count me in.

Re:The Details

[Hypharse]

Interesting? I wanted to be funny you insensitive clod!

Re:The Details

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... they (the football players) are only playing the game for one hour. There were 136 plays in the Superbowl. So if the photographers took half of their shots during a play, that is 6 shots per play per photographer.

Re:IN CASE OF SLASHDOTTING

[dan g]

Sorry, facts and well-reasoned opinions have absolutely no place in a Canon/Nikon debate.

Re:IN CASE OF SLASHDOTTING

[Walterk]

The Canon EOS 1D is the fastest camera in its class, and the default choice of just about every reporter. The 1D has a frame rate of 8 fps (@4MP, with buffer of 21JPEG/16RAW pictures), it's follow up, the 1D Mark 2 has a frame rate of 8.5 fps (@8MP, with a buffer of 40JPEG/20RAW pictures). The D2H has 8fps, (@4MP, 40JPEG pictures).

Of course, the EOS 1D series is environmentally sealed, unlike Nikon cameras. You could almost use it under water (if one uses L lenses).

I work for NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

but because I signed a NDA I am unable to tell you about the life we found on mars, shit, I take that back, there is no life on Mars. I repeat, NO LIFE ON MARS.

So you are a registered liar rahter then an AC liar. Please prove your claims somehow.

I heard it on usenet so it must be true.

Impossible!

[Rick.C]

It is mathematically impossible to amass 1,028,000 pictures and not have at least 312 SI swimsuit shots.

The proof is left as an exercise for the reader.

Actually-

[purduephotog]

I was offended because I watched a little kid turn to his mother and say "Mommy what was that".

That was prime time television. Our country charged a woman with child endangerment for driving a car that had an airbrushed image of a stripper around a poll- all 'bathing suit' skin shown, yet we allow a celebrity to get away with popping her tit out, in front of MILLIONS of children.

Therefore let us apply the standards of decency across the board- jail'em both.

(or, of course, get over it... watching a little kids eyes get that big....)

Re:Actually-

[el-spectre]

I assume that you are a more conservative person than I. While I respect your right to feel whatever you like:

1) Kids see nudity. Whether it's walking in on mommy and daddy in bed, a parent changing, whatever.... unless an adult freaks out about it, it's generally not a big deal. Worst case, they might ask some questions about anatomy that they'll need to know the answers to anyway.

2) "being offended" is really your decision. Another person can't offend you. (for example, A friend might jokingly say "Hey, asshole" and I'd laugh. A stranger does it and I might get mad. The reaction is MINE, not the speakers.

3) Honestly, it's a complicated and rough world. Perhaps if kids weren't shielded from it as much they would be more well adjusted. As it is, people lose their minds over a breast. God forbid we have 6 billion of them on the planet...

Re:Actually-

[iantri]

You're going to be in for a rude awakening if you ever visit some European beaches..

Re:Actually-

[ehiris]

"get away with popping her tit out, in front of MILLIONS of children."

Ok, then try to stop all the breastfeeding in the US. That is 2 breasts in front of millions of children. Twice as bad. Just because you are uncomfortable because you have something better to do then explain to you child what a breast is (like drink beer and watch fat guys bump into each-other) doesn't mean that the child was uncomfortable.

Re:Actually-

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean 3 billion breasts? Unless you consider the world to only consist of women.

Re:Actually-

[Anonymous Coward]

...no he means 6m. Unless YOU consider the 3m women in the world to have a breast each.

Janet Jackson

[Anonymous Coward]

Janet Jackson is way better than goatse... But, her tits don't stand out that much anyhow

endemic, not indemic. ENDEMIC!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try harder next time.

most L lenses are about 1500+

[purduephotog]

I own the 70-200 2.8L. It is a gorgeous work of art. Is balanced perfectly, is tack sharp, and covers nearly all portrait ranges I need, as well as bringing in the ladies...

In 1995 I think it cost me ~1200$.

Figure a typical shooter is going to want the following

16-35mm 2.8L, $1400
70-210 2.8L IS, $1700
24-70 2.8L, $1300
And if you are really lucky
400mm f2.8L IS, $6500

The 300 2.8L is cheaper by far, but you usually need that extra reach outdoors....

I've posted a website-

[purduephotog]

that has about 3600 'film' images for people to look at that want to see how different people approach a photo subject. Several I talked with found it very interesting and usefull... others told me I ought to edit more (which would, haha, defeat the purpose of posting EVERY image).

By showing the good with the bad it teaches very quickly what worked and what didn't work. You can 'watch' as I would have walked thru the area, observing and shooting.

Fairly fun, but that was 100 rolls of film that had to get thru customs without being xrayed. heh now THAT was a challenge ;)

RAW == PNG == uncompressed TIFF

[Fat Cow]

Lossless is lossless is lossless. That's why they call it lossless, there's no loss. it's an equivalence relation, it's transitive. am i getting through to you here? :)

Re:RAW == PNG == uncompressed TIFF

[gordyf]

But it's not an image. There has been no processing done on the signals to make it an image.

From http://blanik.colorado.edu/~rtezaur/photo/other/ra w/:

"There is a number of steps involved in converting the RAW data into an image. In no particular order, the data must be color-interpolated since most digital sensors employ color masks thereby measuring at each pixel only some of the color and light intensity information. Based on the characteristics of the color mask and the spectral sensitivity of the sensor, some mapping between the measured numbers and actual colors must be used and results must be converted into one of the commonly used color spaces, with the appropriate gamma."

You're right that you can convert from one lossless file to another, as long as you're not losing precision (GIF uses lossless compression but only handles 8 bit images, for instance) but the RAW data is just not an image yet.

Re:RAW == PNG == uncompressed TIFF

[morgue-ann]

RAW data is just not an image yet.

Parent is spot-on.

To be specific RAW != TIFF because TIFF has an RGB triad per pixel (assuming we're talking digital cameras here so the TIFF isn't CMYK or grayscale or 1-bit) but RAW will be in Bayer or some other pattern of RGB or CYGM where each pixel only has a level for one color.

Bad pixels may not have been interpolated over yet and white balance may not have been applied.

I dunno what they do about black frame subtraction. You want to take an exposure with the shutter closed right before or after the main one so you get a noise profile based on current temperature. This would make the RAW file 2x, but Canon losslessly compresses their RAW & the black frame should compress very well.

Re:RAW == PNG == uncompressed TIFF

[Fat Cow]

I stand corrected, looks like there are some choices involved in going from RAW to PNG for instance.

Editors are like that ;_)

[purduephotog]

They use their personality as birth control.

Seriously, when you edit you have to forget that those shots are probably taken by your friends- you put aside all of it and look at the photos.

And when you look at image after image and see crap, either due to the idiot (in this case photographer) not focusing, not composing, or just plain missing the timing, you get irritated fast. Because seeing 200 shots with the ball too far back, or faces blocked, or a big fuzzy wuzzy can really piss you off, fast.

The hardest part about editing (to people learning to shoot) is to realize that your trashcan is never big enough. Don't delete or destroy, but keep them- the image might grow on you later.... and to not get offended if someone says the image is crap (even if you like it) because, it could very well be.

For instance:
http://home.rochester.rr.com/mrsheep/Ftp/bex_30a_f _r.jpg
http://home.rochester.rr.com/mrsheep/Ftp/washingto n_2000_2.jpg
and finally (football)
http://home.rochester.rr.com/mrsheep/Ftp/colletto. jpg

No one that judged the 1st image liked it, but I personally *love* the image more than the other two.

EXIF data

[purduephotog]

The date stamping is stored in the file itself, not on the file name.

Filenames can change afterall... and while I agree IMG00037 isn't very meaningful, it does *force* you to be very organized.

Lets face it, a 6 100 foot rolls of film have to have some sort of foldering (sheets) with captions (dates) and whatnot in order to be organized :)

Grin, actually I'm not....

[purduephotog]

... conservative. I'm the guy shooting nudes for artwork (well, not up here in Chilly Rochester atm).

I've thought long and hard about how that looked and It was just so blatant to show "Hey, look, here's a TIT AND I'M DOING IT!" that it just pissed me off. It wasn't an accident like initially claimed (more anger).

And as for European beaches, been there, enjoyed that :)

Re:Grin, actually I'm not....

[el-spectre]

Ah, I see. Yeah, the stunt itself was pretty blatant and lame. I don't have a problem with the folks who say that it was inappropriate. I'm just tired of the "the children will be ruined" crap we've been hearing for so long now.

I'm just mad she didn't do it 10 years ago. She was prettier before she had all that work done trying to look young...

Re:Umm (show me the reality)

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the things they go into in Photography class is the myth of objective reality in photographs. A LOT of reality gets filtered out between the 4-D, 5-senses world the photographer was in, and the cropped 2-D, 1-sense, heavily cropped, selective picture you see.

By waiting a few moments or changing the angle or focus of the camera somewhat, a good photographer can totally change the meaning of the photograph.

Re:IN CASE OF SLASHDOTTING

[Darkwalker]

Cameras are tools. The differences between all the higher end cameras is negligible. Check out Dpreview and do a side by side comparison of the 10D, the D100, the 1D MK ][, and the D2H. Most of the features are close enough. It's not the tool, it's the person using the tool.

Oh, and MP count doesn't really mean much of anything once you get over 4MP. It's all about the size of the sensor (less noise = Cleaner image). An 8MP P&S camera will still have a sensor half the size of a professional digicam.

I have a Powershot G3 and a Canon 10D. One of these is much nicer than the other, but it doesn't really change the quality of my pictures all that much. :)

Re:To give you an idea what a non-digital flow is.

[greenfield]

We used to have an entire barcode system to track every roll of film as it was processed. After the film dried, it was mounted in slide mounts (even if it was color neg.) and then edited. It used to take 10-15 people to handle the film and four editors to do the edit. Then, we had to have two people to scan the images. Finally, at the end of the game, we only ended up with several hundred images rather than every photo that was shot.

Not Really....

[Darkwalker]

I just do photography for fun, and I've probably got 3500 keeper photos from the past year or two. And I've probably taken 20,000 in that same timeframe.

Slow Down There Cowboy!

[bfg9000]

Sorry, no Janet Jackson or swimsuit pics in this article.

Your Regularly Scheduled Slashdotting has just been cancelled.

Re:Slow Down There Cowboy!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL!!

Re:endemic, not indemic. ENDEMIC!

[SatanicPuppy]

You forgot the bit in the first paragraph where I typed "it" instead of "it's". If you're going to be a spelling nazi, might as well be a competent one.

Also I used "of" twice in the first sentence, which is terrible style. Also I failed to hyphenate "old-fashioned" and "high-end", which shows that you're a fucking joke gramatically as well. Shameful.

Answer

[bonch]

I'm still puzzled as to why that was such a massive deal, I mean everyone has seen female breasts at some point during their lifetime, so why the big fuss? Just because it was prime-time?

You don't think it's a big deal that, to the access of all on public airwaves including little children, a major teen idol ripped the top off of another woman in front of millions of people as a form of entertainment?

We already have enough 12-year-old sluts who think they have to suck dick for attention and 12-year-old backwards-cap wearing retard males who treat girls like objects.

If you had pulled the top off of a woman and exposed her breast on the street, you'd be arrested for sexual assault. Do it in front of millions of people on freely accessible airwaves--essentially flashing people--and suddenly the lefties come out in full force and miss the point. "It's just a breast." "Who hasn't seen a breast before?"

The breast wasn't the deal, it was the context, the highly sexual nature of these two pop idols influencing more of the MTV kids to obsess about sex. It was the fact that nobody was warned, parents weren't given the chance to tell their kids not to watch, etc.

Now's the part where the morons come in, "yeah, it happened during a violent show where men run into each other with pretty cheerleaders on the side." Typical for people to draw that sort of bizarre connection as though it's the same thing. Hell, witness the other poster blaming a "conservative swing," when meanwhile the fact is that a major portion of American society has always been traditionalist. Look at the success of Passion of the Christ, despite all the liberal media bashing.

Re:Answer

[TwistedSquare]

You don't think it's a big deal that, to the access of all on public airwaves including little children, a major teen idol ripped the top off of another woman in front of millions of people as a form of entertainment?

Surely treating this as a sexual act is part of the problem? By making it shocking you are contributing the obsessing about sex. If you just said, "hey its a breast, everyone has them", then it would not be a big deal, and it would not be sexing up young children.

I'm guessing from your post that you do not view cheerleading as treating women like objects or sexual, so why does one bare breast have to be?

Re:Answer

[clontzman]

Look at the success of Passion of the Christ, despite all the liberal media bashing.

Oh, please. It was only because the "liberal media" gave TPotC a zillion dollars worth of free publicity that the anyone went to see the movie at all. Cry me a river about the liberal media while Mel Gibson lines his pockets.

ThumbsPlus 6

[ka9dgx]

ThumbsPlus 6 might be worth a look. I use its Slideshow mode to screen through the photos I shoot (sometimes 1000/day) and tag the keepers. (Alt-comma saves it to the Gallery) You can then put keywords on the files, as a start towards metadata.

It saves the thumbnails as JPEGs in either an Access compatible, or can use an SQL database, so its wicked fast. The format is open, so you can tweak it with Python, or whatever.

I've only got about 80,000 of my own photos (it's a hobby for me, not a career), but it does everything I need it to do.

--Mike--

product / system idea

[kbk7173]

I see an opportunity to better use technology here. Now I wish I had the time to implement it. What I find amazing about this is the vast amounts of money that people spend on sports.

It is interesting that the editors want to be able to index these pictures by play, but have not realized how easy that would be to do. The cameras they use track the time that the photo was taken, in the exif information and in the file system (create date). All that would be needed is to syncronize the times on the cameras to allow them the get the true chronological order. If they had an intern hit one key at the start of the play, and another at the end of the play, they would be able to isolate all of the photos by play. They are already doing most of this. Looking on their web site, they already have time indexes based on the game clock.

You could even go so far as to give the editor / reporter types a device to track the times when they expect to have a good photo. You could even have it record a voice memo so the tech doesn't get into their way. I would assume that they all have cell phones that can do this, or PDA's could be used. (overkill, but handy)

Re:product / system idea

[greenfield]

The modern pro cameras can store voice memos. This is quite useful for swimming, where you can't always tell who is in the water from the image.

Your idea of grouping the photos by play is interesting. Getting the play-by-play data is harder than you might think, but not impossible. Maybe I'll try to implement something like this for the Final Four.

Re:product / system idea

[kbk7173]

I was thinking that the reporter / editor would not be in the same place as the photographer, and the photographer would be too busy trying to get the next shot to document the last one, so another tool would need to be used.

The ease of getting the play data is going to vary widely by sport; I was thinking mainly of the football example the article focussed on. I imagine that Basketball would be much harder. But if you have the "photogenic moment" indicator in the reporters hand, that would probably be a better indicator of when the good pictures were taken than the "by play" grouping would be. Of course, it will take a while to learn how much lag time each reporter has. I would imagine that the moments tagged would correspond to the pictures/second peaks, since the photographers are essentially doing the same thing, but the reporter will be looking at the game from a different angle, and would be more selective than the photog since they are watching the game instead of recording it.

Re:product / system idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to synchronize the cameras' clocks first. I don't know of any way to do this with Nikons, but Canons' clocks can be set to whatever the computer is set to. Thus, if you can get each of the photographers to bring their cameras in to get sync'd to one "standard" computer, you should be able to get this to work.

The other option is to have each camera take a photo of a clock with a "seconds" readout sometime before each game. Then you could tell some custom app the time in the photo, and have it compute the time offset for each camera. This may be the only reasonable option for Nikons.

aQazaQa

Camera TIFFs

[greenfield]

Just to make matters more confusing, the NEF and TIF files created by the Nikon and Canon cameras are actually stored as TIFFs. But the raw data is stored in one of the TIFF segments. The CR2 and CRW files from the newer Canon cameras are not TIFFs.

very dissapointed...

[null-sRc]

i read the wholleeee article...

WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?

i was thinking this is a giant porn archive of 1,028,000 pics of sports illustrated swim suit models... *drools*

what a rip off.

Hmm, Microsoft is out to get Lindows so....

[westyvw]

Well these guys are looking at:

Single-image viewing mode in ACDSee.

And the band ACDC doesnt sue?

Re: All-cap non-acronyms

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you haven't heard of the history behind the TWAIN interface. Officially, TWAIN is not an acronym. When pressed, the engineers (not photographers) who invented it shrug and say it stands for "Technology Without an Interesting Name."

Re:IN CASE OF SLASHDOTTING

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm...I don't think you quite realize that the SI guys (and probably others) were shooting pre-production Canon EOS 1D-II cameras (higher-frame-rate, 8MP).

URL???

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

I've posted a website that has about 3600 'film' images for people to look at that want to see how different people approach a photo subject.

URL???

PS: My DNS server can't resolve "inorbit.com".

PPS: Are you serious about the film and the xray machines? The security dudes insist that xray machines pose no harm to e.g. 35mm film. Is this not true, or were you joking?

a 3GHz machine... large JPEGs at 3 frames a second

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

a 3GHz machine is way more than enough hardware to show large JPEGs at 3 frames a second

Obviously there's a going to be an argument as to what is meant by "large."

However, I'd take "large" to mean not a whole lot more than 10MB, but much less than 100MB [which would be getting into TIFF territory].

At 10MB, even on 3GHz machines, the overwhelming bottlenecks seem to be

1) The amount of time it takes to pull the image off the disk; ATA100 maxes at 100MB per second in theory, but, in practice, you're gonna get only a fraction of that [protocol overhead, slow seek times in combination with heads far from where they need to be, inadequate disk & Host Bus Adapter cache, etc.],

2) Inadequate system RAM [the moment you start throwing page files to disk, you can forget about responsiveness] - an awful lot of machines still ship with a mere 256MB, and

3) The presence of spyware, to include both classical Gator-ware crap, and even things like Web-browser generated Javascript blocking I/O pop-ups that are chowing away on CPU cycles waiting for an advertising agency to serve up some moronic Macromedia/Shockwave/Flash nonsense.

4) Poorly written graphics hardware drivers, which give you maybe an hour between crashes.

I've been doing a fair amount of this grunt-level imagery work lately [I'm the one who will eventually create the database back end for the archived images], and it's amazing how quickly you can turn a 3GHz machine into a glorified 80286.

These comments apply to both PC/Windows boxes and Apple/OSX boxes. Also, the file manager "preview" window on OSX takes an eternity to generate a thumbnail preview of e.g. a 10MB TIFF [at least Windows creates a thumbnail database to speed up the process on subsequent viewing].

Bottom line: Yeah, a 3GHz machine with 4GB of DDR 400 RAM, 1MB CACHE, a 64bit/66MHz Ultra 320 SCSI Host Bus Adapter with 64MB cache, and a 15000 RPM SCSI hard drive with 8MB cache MIGHT be able to do {3 X 10MB JPEG} / 1 SEC. However, a 3GHz machine with 256MB RAM, 512KB CACHE, 32bit/33MHz ATA 100 controller, 5400 RPM ATA100 disk with 10ms SEEK and 512KB cache, Gatorware, RealAudioware, QuickTimeWare [why does QuickTime need to phone home to Apple umpteen times a second???], and Javascript pop-ups blocking on a download of a 800 X 600 Macromedia/Shockwave/Flash multimedia presentation of the latest British Airways/Mercedes Benz/Hummer H2 advertisement is gonna take about three or four seconds to load a single 10MB JPEG.