Moby makes music, indy filmmakers score
I first heard about the royalty-free music site Mobygratis, in The Bark, a magazine for dogs and their people, which will make a lot more sense by the time you finish reading this block. Mobygratis is a section of musician Moby’s website where registered users may preview and request free usage licenses for high-quality audio tracks for independent films, student work, and other non-commercial usages. It is not a free-for-all, by any means. You must register with your real name and address, and apply for a license and describe your project. TOS clearly define what you can and cannot do with the downloaded tracks and come with toothed caveats about unauthorized usages.
In other words, this is the real deal. This is high-quality audio created by professional musicians, available for “serious” projects, not just YouTube silliness. And here’s where The Bark tie-in circles back: if you want to license the work for commerical usage, the proceeds benefit the Humane Society.
The Open Camera Controller also plays Super Mario Bros.
Photo Courtesy HDRLabs
Our friends over at HDRLabs have been working on a new open source camera controller for time lapse, HDR, and much more. And the Open Camera Controller’s native OS and device is a Nintendo DS! Christian Bloch and Steve Chapman use HDRI and CGI for special effects for movies and those sorts of Discovery Channel documentaries where the dinosaurs seem totally real, so this should be interesting to see evolve. If the camera manufacturers won’t build cameras with feature sets we want, as I beg and plead here; it seems photographers and third-party developers will!
And if soldering circuits yourself seems too scary for you, check out the Promote Control if you’ve got a recent Canon or Nikon camera and want more AEB or time lapse options.
Syl Arena launches Speedliting Forums, announces more dates
Syl Arena, whom we just featured on our TechTock podcast has just launched user forums on his Speedliting.com site. We’ve signed up to talk small strobes, and you should, too! Syl has added a number of new dates for his nationwide tour, too! And be sure to check out this article by me about Syl’s interview over at Sportsshooter!
Entry-Level SLR Image Quality Looks Great!
Our friends over at DxOMark just pinged us with their test results for the Pentax K-x this morning. Wow. Here’s their three-way comparison between the Pentax K-x, the Nikon D5000 and the Canon EOS Rebel T1i. As Mason Resnick explains here, image quality isn’t one of the missing features of economical SLRs these days!
Of Micro Four Thirds cameras and Marsupials
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G10, not to be confused with the Canon PowerShot G10!
The gestation period of the Virginia Opossum is thirteen days. I tell you that just so that the time between micro four thirds camera announcements seems long by comparison. You see, Panasonic yesterday unveiled the G10 and the G2. Yup, features aplenty abound: a touchscreen on one, and confusing nomenclature on the other. We wouldn’t be surprised to see at least five new M4/3 cameras before the doors open at Photokina. And at this point, nothing in a feature set would surprise us–not even a full-on through the lens optically viewfindered micro-four thirds camera!
Got any other cool tips or links to share? Let us know!
