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Around The Horn
7 February 2024
In this recurring column, we highlight a few items we've run across that don't merit a full story of their own but are interesting enough to bring to your attention. This time we look at astrophotoraphy, Sony short listers, the kiss, Year of the Dragon, Generative Fill, Nikon Z8 firmware 2.0, Light Stalking's new contests and memory quality.
- England's South Downs National Park was the location for this astrophotoraphy contest. Photographers had the chance to win up to £100 in one of three categories: Starry Skyscapes, Nature at Night and Magnificent Moon.
- Grace Ebert presents images on several shortlists from the Sony World Photography Awards. Winners will be announced this spring.
- Associated Press photographer Julio Cortez explains how he captured Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce kissing after the Chiefs defeated the Ravens to advance to Sunday's Super Bowl. "The image was made through a technique called a 'Hail Mary'," he says. "That's when a photographer takes the camera away from the eye and reaches up with a wide-angle lens to get above a group of people to capture the moment. As I saw the kiss happen, I snapped the camera's shutter button and hoped that the focusing was on the couple."
- Harold Davis celebrates the Year of the Dragon with a few of his images of dragons.
- Julieanne Kost shows how to Quickly Remove Distracting Elements Using Generative Fill in this 2:23 video:
- Thom Hogan calls the new version 2.0 firmware An Early Valentine for Z8 Users. And, with over 17 bullet items (the last of which includes "two dozen other small changes") it's one of the more extensive firmware revision we've ever seen.
- Rob Woods announces a new Monthly Photography Competition at Light Stalking. "To kick things off we decided to go with the theme of Spirit of the Earth." The grand prize is $250 via PayPal.
- In Report Reveals Decline in Quality of USB Sticks and microSD Cards, Rob Thubron cites a report from German data recovery company CBL that concluded NAND chips from Hynix, Sandisk and Samsung that had failed quality control were being resold and repurposed in the small storage devices. "When we opened defective USB sticks last year, we found an alarming number of inferior memory chips with reduced capacity and the manufacturer's logo removed from the chip," said Conrad Heinicke, managing director of CBL Datenrettung GmbH. "Most of the janky USB sticks CBL examined were promotional gifts, the kind given away free with products or by companies at conferences," Thurbon notes.
More to come! Meanwhile, here's a look back. And please support our efforts...