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Adam Ottke
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Articles written by Adam Ottke

Adobe Updates Professional Video, Audio, and Photography CC Desktop Applications with New Features

As announced at Adobe MAX 2015, Adobe released new updates to its professional Creative Cloud suite of applications. Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Audition CC, Dreamweaver CC, Photoshop CC, Fuse CC (Preview), Adobe Stock, and more have been updated. You can download the new versions from the Adobe Creative Cloud app.

Comprehensive Guide to Shooting and Editing Astrophotography Time-Lapse Videos

The Syrp Genie caught everyone's attention with its contemporary design and advanced automation features that made it a time-lapse photographer's best tool in the field. Today, photographer Mark Gee shares tips on how to set up and use the Genie while offering a few great suggestions that apply to all methods of landscape photography, from what apps he uses on his phone to help him plan every shot to how to edit for final output. Need to shoot a time-lapse soon? Whether you're experienced or just starting, there's undoubtedly something in here for you.

Black Friday Deals: Gear, Business Services, and Other Helpful Stuff

Happy Thanksgiving! Of course, the die-hard dealmakers are busy planning for their Black Friday shopping lists, trying to find the best last-minute deals that less money can buy. From deals on prominent gear and photography business services, to those on accessories and computer equipment, we have a few deals rounded up from around the Internet for you. Take it or leave it, this is some of the best stuff you'll find tomorrow (and in some cases, through the weekend and Cyber Monday).

Hands-On with the Everyday Messenger: The Bag That Raised Nearly $5 Million

While running a Kickstarter campaign might be a bit easier for veteran company Peak Design, there’s something to be said for raising over $4.8 million of excitement over a messenger bag. What is so special about this bag that merits this reaction? After reaching out to Peak Design, they sent a just-finished version of the Everyday Messenger — the "Trey Ratcliff bag" — for review so I could answer some of those questions.

Reuters' Ban on Raw Files Only Sort Of Makes Sense

In a move to help speed up the company's workflow and to supposedly stamp out severe editing, Reuters now not only requests only JPEG images, but even mandates that images not be originally altered from a raw file. How they can verify this is unclear (metadata and other types of data about the photo might give experts better hints), but the move is supposed to also help maintain ethical photojournalism practices by reducing one's ability to alter a photograph so much that it would change its meaning.

Nikon Experiencing Severe Parts Shortage for Certain Cameras

Despite making cameras that so many people love, Nikon seems to be suffering a severe camera parts shortage at a number of its repair facilities for certain cameras. While these tend to be older cameras like the D7100, others are still in production, like the F6 (which has been the same camera since its release in 2004). Still, many professional, pro-sumer, and hobbyist photographers rely on these tools every day. Such lengthy or indefinite wait times for repairs are unheard of and could severely hurt the company's reputation as a brand of professional imaging.

Photographer Compares Two Canon Pro DSLRs: One From 2015, One From 1998

As recently as yesterday, we've seen all kinds of articles comparing various cameras' qualities to one another, pixel-peeping to see which one edges out the competition by a razor-thin margin. You can put your magnifying glass away, however, and trade it in for a beer as you sit back and watch a real comparison. Photographer Jim Goldstein took the pleasure of comparing two of Canon's top-of-the-line DSLRs from different time periods: the 5DS R and the Canon D2000.

Treat Yourself This Holiday Season: Things That Make Traveling a More Pleasant Experience

While some photographers stay close to home, others travel quite regularly. I’ve been traveling my entire life for one reason or another. And whether it was for a newspaper job I was essentially commuting to (living four days in Southern California and three days in Northern California every week) or a short trip on a personal photographic exploration, I quickly learned that it’s great to have some creature comforts to keep you company along the ride once whatever glamour of traveling that’s left these days fades away.

[NSFW] 'Nutscaping' Is a New Phenomenon That You Don't Need to Be Aware Of: Landscapes With Your Balls

In an all-time low for humankind, this one can clearly be filed under "Phenomena Against Humanity." I truly regret to inform you that, in a fit of absolute male narcissism, people are finding beautiful landscape views, dropping their pants, and positioning their cameras "just so" in order to capture the bottom of their man-junk hanging in the frame. What at first seems too obtuse to be true, slowly, photo after photo, becomes a rather gross case of human failure henceforth to forever be known as "nutscaping."

BTS: Aladdin and His Magic Carpet Come to Life in NYC in Casey Neistat's Latest VLOG

It's hard to keep up with Casey Neistat's daily vlogs, but today's stands out in particular for its special ingenuity and because it's Halloween. Thanks to a little creativity with an electric skateboard, some red cloth, and an Aladdin costume, New York City has Neistat and his buddy, Jesse Wellens, to thank for a truly epic Aladdin and Magic Carpet sighting. Go behind the scenes and see how they filmed it.

'HASHTAG NOFILTER' Plays on Instagram Clichés Just in Time for Halloween

South Africa native Matthew Rycroft creatively combined creepy music, a creepy-looking dude, and some dark, chiaroscuro lighting techniques to create a video that brilliantly mocks the cliché Instagram accounts with which we're all too familiar. The final result is a well thought-out piece that's short and sweet and definitely leaves room for more.

Hyperlapse Shows Thousands of Years of Color and Culture Still Present in Modern Iran

Stanislas Giroux gets it. All of his videos have a common thread of featuring fantastic soundtracks. This video, "Curves of Iran," celebrates modern Iran's rich visual textures and — you guessed it — curves. Fitted to great music, fun (but fitting) sound effects to every cut, and a great overall tempo, this video makes use of hyperlapse-like cuts, but spares your brain from the monotony of yet another time-lapse by letting the actual shots play in real time once you've "arrived" at your new destination. Truly imaginative. And at the Giroux's request, I'll remind you to listen with headphones.

It's Official: Sony Will Take Over All of Toshiba's CMOS Manufacturing Facilities and Operations

It's no secret that Sony is the amongst the biggest players in the imaging sensor business. Aside from the sensors that go into their own cameras, they make the sensors that go into your iPhone, Nikon's DSLRs... you name it. Even Canon is recently reported to be testing outside sensors for the first time (and there's a good chance some of those are Sony's). Needless to say, all of this talk and excitement over Sony's sensors means they're going to need to scale up manufacturing. Solution: buy and manage Toshiba's CMOS chip factories.

Fuji, Sony, Nikon, Leica - Firmware Updates for Everyone

For one reason or another, this has been the week of all weeks for those anxiously awaiting firmware updates. While some are rather mild updates to fix various bugs (which is still important, granted), other updates like the one for Leica's T camera boost things like autofocus speed twofold. Fresh updates! Come and get 'em!

Adobe Photoshop Mix and Fix Add Support for Split View, iPad Pro, and the Apple Pencil

I don't have specific numbers. I don't even have vague numbers. But I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me Adobe's mobile photo editing apps have seen a huge success. The biggest reason: they're free. And the second: they really work, which makes the first reason even better. Today, Adobe updated two of these apps, Photoshop Mix and Photoshop Fix, with support for split view in iOS 9, for the screen size of the iPad Pro, and for the pressure and tilt sensitivity of the Apple Pencil for use on the iPad Pro.

68 Percent of Adults Edit Their Selfies Before Sharing Them With Anyone

Think we're in the middle of a Photoshopping epidemic? You don't even know how bad it is (well, now you do). According to a recent survey, 68 percent of adults take to some kind of photo editing before they share any photo with another person or online. As desktop and mobile editing tools become easier to use — with some even serving the specific purpose of being easy to use for the less technically inclined — Photoshopping images is the latest trend... and it's still growing.

An All-Too-Important Primer on Insuring Your Drone Activities

AIG's recent move to begin insuring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) marked the beginning of the first large, national insurance company to get ahead of (or catch up with) the "drone movement." Like this season's migration of Canadian geese, everyone seems to be flocking in droves, clearly intent on getting to the online shopping outlets and local electronics stores that sell the latest drones. But few actually know about how to use their newly affordable crafts safely and without risking their entire life's savings. A quick phone call with the Hill & Usher insurance agency led us to a few clues about where to start.

GoPro's Video From Their Prototype Drone Due Next Year Is Amazingly Steady

GoPro announced last month that it is working on bringing a drone to market in early 2016, and the go-to action-cam company just released the first video taken from their drone. Thankfully, the footage looks incredibly stable — so stable that some shots look incredibly similar to something that would come from a track-mounted or cable-mounted rig on the ground. Of course, the slight slow-motion nature of the shots help mitigate the perception of any small movements throughout the flights, but the footage is surprisingly smooth nonetheless.

First Look: Storehouse’s New Direction and Why It Rocks on Apple’s tvOS​

Storehouse angered a number of power users in its big shakeup with the release of Storehouse 2.0 which ditched a number of features for a streamlined, more privatized system that made it harder to use the platform as a photographer’s social media marketing dream. But the numbers are out, and while it may not become the next Instagram of photo marketing and discovery, here’s why there’s a good chance it’ll find its way into your living room, regardless.

Sony Announces STARVIS Sensor: Are We on the Verge of a New Sensor Sensitivity Revolution?

To be clear, STARVIS is a new sensor whose technology is mostly meant for applications in scientific, industrial, and security spaces. And Sony won't give out any "normal" number with respect to ISO yet, either. Part of that might be because actual ISO is difficult to determine, since the back-lit CMOS sensor places its photodiodes in front of other hardware components that, conventionally, would block a substantial portion of light information. But as unclear as the exact results are, here, the latest advancements in ultra-sensitive sensor trickery point to a new level of attainability.