Around the Web on a Lazy Saturday

World's Biggest Digital Camera
Charles Simonyi, Bill Gates, and other "geeky philanthropic billionaires" are banding together to build the world's biggest digital camera in the heart of the Andes mountains. Read more about the $400 million Large Synoptic Survey Telescope at The Guardian. Unlike most telescopes, which look deeply into one tiny patch of sky, the LSST is essentially a 3,200-megapixel digital camera that will survey the entire heavens once every three days.

Bildergalerie—Das Digitalkamera-Museum
A brief visual tour of the history of the digital camera, 1975–2002. Text is in German. The caption of the picture at left reads "1975: the first digital camera. In the mid-seventies, Steve Sasson built the first functioning digital camera for Kodak. The unwieldy device weighed 4 kilograms and had a black & white sensor with a resolution of 0.1 megapixels. It took 23 seconds for one frame to be written to the tape drive."

Jim Crow Road?
"In 2007, there's still a place called 'Jim Crow Rd.' It runs through a typical southern neighborhood.... The road crosses behind an Elementary school, right past the playground. One wonders if the kids there are still being taught what Jim Crow means...." Michael David Murphy goes for a photographic walk along this unfortunately-named remnant.

Best Software, 2007
Confused by all the software choices out there? Digital Outback Photo has named the Top Workflow and Editing Tools as of the end of 2007.

Adobe Tutorial Videos
Speaking of software, Adobe has cobbled together a massive library of video tutorials in an elegant web interface. There is no charge to view the videos.

Bjørn Rørslett Nikon D3 Review
Bjørn Rørslett has posted a very detailed and thoughtful review of the D3. It's not at all like dpreview's tests, more a very thorough set of field notes emphasizing the aspects that matter most for his uses. In addition to praising where praise is due, he's very candid about feature and user interface bugs that bother him.

To see it, go here, then click on the words "Nikon D3 review" immediately below the "Today's News" header.

36 Exposures Challenge
In a blast from the past, File magazine is sponsoring an unusual photo contest—you must submit a project idea and shoot it in 36 sequential exposures on a roll of film they send you. The pictures will be published as you shot them. (Please note that although T.O.P. only publicizes contests in which all rights are retained by the entrant photographers, we do not endorse photo contests or indemnify readers against potential difficulties. Proceed on your own.)

Paris Then and Now
The Morning News has a fascinating if all-too-brief slideshow of historic Eugene Atget photographs of Paris along with the same scenes rephotographed recently by Christopher Rauschenberg. (Click on the image above to see it larger.) With an interview.

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Tomorrow on T.O.P.: A brand new Sunday Sermon. Next Week: a new book review by Geoff Wittig, Ctein on a digital camera oddity, and more.

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Mike  (Thanks to Robert Phillips, Fred Wobus, Stan Banos, John Hogg, Matthew Hollingworth, Oren Grad, David Emerick, and Shahar Dumai)

Comments

[mwg]

Better hurry if you're interested in that File contest--the submission deadline is tomorrow (January 6, 2008). They are accepting entries by email, though.

I like the idea and think it could be fun.

[RobinP]

France is very good at preserving the overall architectural look of its old neighbourhoods (certainly better than England) but those Atget photos have a unique magic that can't be matched.
Thanks for the link Mike.

Cheers, Robin

[John]

I can see an upside of having a few things named in "honor" of Jim Crow. It prevents us from becoming complacent or willfully ignorant in the belief that racism in America is a thing of the past.

[KL]

I can't help but think that Kodak sowed the seeds for its own destruction with its pioneering work on the digital camera. It's a shame that it didn't follow up on its research with good marketing.

[Tim Baskerville]

"You can call it what you want to
But it's still a minstrel show/
You can call it what you want to
But it's still Jim Crow."

("Jim Crow" by John Mellencamp, duet with Joan Baez)

I'm wondering if the road wasn't named after a local citizen, unfortunately named "James Crow [sic]" - upstanindg sitizen, not a racist, nice guy or is that too much of a stretch? It still seems like a bad choice of names , tho.

We can only hope that, and not a 'honor' of an era and despicable set of laws.

The history of the naming of that road would be an interesting story . . .

[John Roberts]

Could you make "Around the Web" a weekly feature? Without this posting, I would have missed out on some very interesting articles. If not weekly, maybe twice a month?

[ArchiVue]

Atget's pictures are a true wealth and Rauschenberg's book seems to be quite interesting !
So much for the myth of the"clean, good old times" city when less regulations allowed people to live and work in those buildings...

Still, in his interview, Rauschenberg doesn't yet feel the "glass case effect" of Paris ! Though for those who build in Paris, it is as if the Haussmann era was to be the final touristic image versus some older but less attractive parts.

You'll find other pictures of Artget at http://expositions.bnf.fr/atget/index.htm as this link for the disappearing parts of Paris http://expositions.bnf.fr/paris/feuil/1a/index.htm

Happy New Year to all !

[Damon Schreiber]

I very much enjoyed the slideshow of Paris then and now, and while the stretch of history is longer in these photos, I have to say that the project reminds me of my own work last year in recreating photos of Toronto that were taken 30 years ago by a Japanese man who was visiting Toronto in 1977 and as it happens is exactly 30 years older than me. (Wow, that's a pretty long sentence even for me.)

The slideshow (and more information about the photos) is on my photoblog and it starts here:
http://electro.aminus3.com/image/2007-07-28.html