PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS FROM THE TOP FLOOR

A special episode with a special guest. Don Komarechka is back on the show. He and Chris discuss HP and their DRM, Samsung and their moon cheat and a German lawsuit involving a photo wallpaper. It’s also the week of the GPT-4 release and the two prove that they are geeks beyond photography.

Topics:

• [OTHER] HP OfficeJets Angered Users : HP just ratcheted up their DRM with new printer firmware for some OfficeJets. Some of them now require the presence of an HP chip in ink cartridges to print at all.
• [SOCIETY] The Photo Wallpaper Case : A bizarre copyright case in Germany: a photographer licenses a photo to a photo wallpaper maker, a holiday home host advertises their property with a photo that includes the wallpaper in the background. The photographer sues her for copyright infringement and wins. (Article in German)
• [AI, PHOTO] Moon Mode Magic : Tests seem to confirm that even artificially blurry fake moons shot taken with with their Galaxy S23 Ultra will still turn out as crisp and detailed moon photos under the right conditions, suggesting that there might some AI cheatery at play. Does Samsung just swap in pre-made moon photos?
• [AI, PHOTO] : GPT4 is here and it’s scary good. In a demo, OpenAI showed that it can program (someone used it to make pong and breakout, each within 60 seconds), a demo showed image processing, based on a notebook scribble it created a web page with html, css, js and in many disciplines it outperforms other LLMs in benchmarks. What’s especially interesting is it’s soon-to-be-released image recognition abilities which will likely allow us to add automatic captions and descriptions to each and every photo, massively improving accessibility. Chris an Don discuss other potential uses of the new tech.

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2025 Photo Tours with Chris Marquardt
ONLY 3 SPOTS
May 2025: Eastern European Electric Photo Road Trip, 10 days drive and explore with Chris (Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania)
German workshops:
» HS Mensch
» HS Licht
» HS Sehwerkstatt
» Großformat (analog)
» Analog Einstieg
» Discover the Top Floor - Photo Tours and Workshops with Chris Marquardt

Chris and Monika discuss their New Zealand adventure, Larry has a follow-up regarding subscription models and friends don’t let friends shoot vertical video, or do they?

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Yes, they have been tricking you. Millions of albums sold that were produced with cheap plastic gear. Inconceivable! Also on today’s show: a few words on dpreview’s demise (and resurrection), some thoughts (and a request for feedback) on guilt, fear and frustrations in photography. Plus thoughts on CJ Chilvers’ latest post about the gear race in music. It’s delightful and fits right in with what I’ve been saying pretty much forever.

Topics:

• [NEWS] dpreview is shutting down : So, Amazon pulls the plug and shuts down dpreview on April 10th. But fear not, Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake already have a new home with Petapixel. Also the Internet Archive is working on backing up dpreview – so not all is lost. Dpreview has been a decades-long companion for us nerds. And while I rarely go there these days, I’m glad it won’t be completely gone. Whew, that was scary there for a second.
• [PHOTO] : I have an episode in the works about Guilt, Fear and Frustration in photography. It’s not done yet, I’m still working on it, but I’d like to run a few of the key points by you and maybe get some inputs, some feedback. which you can leave at tfttf.com/hi
• [PHOTO] They Tricked Us : Oh NOOOO, they tricked us into buying music that was produced with sub-par gear. I’m blatantly stealing CJ Chilvers’ post here. Long-time listeners might remember him from this very show. His post is about music, but it translates so well into photography. Worth a listen here and a read on his site. It’s the locksmith’s paradox all over again.

<3 Support the show on Patreon or with a donation

Audio: Download the MP3 for this episode (transcript)

2025 Photo Tours with Chris Marquardt
ONLY 3 SPOTS
May 2025: Eastern European Electric Photo Road Trip, 10 days drive and explore with Chris (Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania)
German workshops:
» HS Mensch
» HS Licht
» HS Sehwerkstatt
» Großformat (analog)
» Analog Einstieg
» Discover the Top Floor - Photo Tours and Workshops with Chris Marquardt

A look at exponential growth (it’s the smartphones), an update about the state of satellite streak mitigation to keep the astro photographers happy, two history lessons (hello Lytro, hello Magnum) and a ground-breaking photo of a planet.

Topics:

• [PHOTO] Have the Smartphones Won? : Here’s an interesting animation that shows various cameras since the 1950s and how many were sold. We start with sub-million numbers and take it from there. Have the Smartphones won? Oh well...
• [SPACE, PHOTO, NEWS] Starlink and Astro Photography – an Update : Chris talks to astronomer Meredith Rawls about low-earth-orbit satellite light pollution in astronomy and astro photography. Meredith is involved in the CPS, the Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky From Satellite Constellation Interference and has a lot of really interesting insights. Including new information about how Starlink plans to mitigate satellite streaks coming from their constellation.
• [PHOTO] Video Tip: The History of Lytro : Remember Lytro? Here’s a great video taking a good look at the history of a really interesting technology and how it ended up with Google.
• [SPACE, PHOTO] JWST Images the First Exoplanet : Back in ep 912 Chris talked about how JWST finds exoplanets. One of those methods is direct imaging (e.g. taking a photo of it) – JWST hast done just that for the first time.
• [PHOTO, NEWS] Happy Birthday Magnum! : It’s Magnum’s 75th anniversary and Chris takes a minute to talk about some of the key moments in their long life.

<3 Feedback on this episode by Alex from Boston MA
(leave your own feedback at tfttf.com/hi)

<3 Support the show on Patreon or with a donation

Download the MP3 for this episode

2025 Photo Tours with Chris Marquardt
ONLY 3 SPOTS
May 2025: Eastern European Electric Photo Road Trip, 10 days drive and explore with Chris (Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania)
German workshops:
» HS Mensch
» HS Licht
» HS Sehwerkstatt
» Großformat (analog)
» Analog Einstieg
» Discover the Top Floor - Photo Tours and Workshops with Chris Marquardt

It’s the last episode for the year 2019... and we’ll talk about what I do around the holidays. This episode is also about giving your photos titles. Why should you give your photos titles and how to title your pictures?

Photo by Kyle Glenn

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2025 Photo Tours with Chris Marquardt
ONLY 3 SPOTS
May 2025: Eastern European Electric Photo Road Trip, 10 days drive and explore with Chris (Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania)
German workshops:
» HS Mensch
» HS Licht
» HS Sehwerkstatt
» Großformat (analog)
» Analog Einstieg
» Discover the Top Floor - Photo Tours and Workshops with Chris Marquardt