Photography

Photography and Linux

Carlos Echenique — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 14:31:57 +0000

Is it possible for a professional photographer to use a FOSS-based workflow?

I'm a professional photographer based out of Miami, Florida. I learned photography on my own, starting at age 12, with a Yashica TL Electro 35mm film SLR. In college, I discovered I also had quite an affinity for computers and programming, so I got my degrees in that field. I landed an IT job in county government, and photography took a back seat in my life until two things happened: I became a father, and the digital revolution came to the world of photography.

I dove into digital photography as it made practicing my art economical in the extreme. Having a child meant plenty of opportunities to take photos. All of my photographer friends suddenly needed someone who could understand both computers and photography, and I was conveniently placed to help them.

I turned pro in 2008, when a local ballet troupe asked me to photograph their performance of The Nutcracker. Other performances followed, and my skills were further honed. I later was asked by the late Pedro Pablo Peña to photograph his International Ballet Festival, which I did for two years.

Fast-forward to 2014 when I started a photography club at my day job and offered free photography lessons, once a month, to any fellow employees willing to listen.

In 2017, at the behest of my club members, I was asked to assemble a low-cost photography laptop configuration, as many of my students wanted to expand their photographic skills in the post-processing side of digital photography. I completed my task, assembling a reasonable portable digital darkroom for less than $700 USD that included all necessary photo-editing software with no recurring monthly fees, an upgraded hard drive and a colorimeter.

The laptop turned out so well, I decided to take the plunge myself and converted my Windows 10 workstation (custom-built by me) to a dedicated FOSS photography workstation.

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The High-Performance Computing Issue

Bryan Lunduke — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 15:43:31 +0000

by Bryan Lunduke

Since the dawn of computing, hardware engineers have had one goal that's stood out above all the rest: speed.

Sure, computers have many other important qualities (size, power consumption, price and so on), but nothing captures our attention like the never-ending quest for faster hardware (and software to power it). Faster drives. Faster RAM. Faster processors. Speed, speed and more speed. [Insert manly grunting sounds here.]

What's the first thing that happens when a new CPU is released? Benchmarks to compare it against the last batch of processors.

What happens when a graphics card is unveiled? Reviewers quickly load up whatever the most graphically demanding video game is and see just how it stacks up to the competition in frame-rate and resolution. Power and speed captures the attention of everyone from software engineers to gamers alike.

Nowhere is this never-ending quest for speed more apparent than in the high-performance computing (HPC) space. Built to handle some of the most computationally demanding work ever conceived by man, these supercomputers are growing faster by the day—and Linux is right there, powering just about all of them.

In this issue of Linux Journal, we take a stroll through the history of supercomputers, from its beginnings (long before Linux was a gleam in Linus Torvalds' eye...heck, long before Linus Torvalds was gleam in his parents' eyes) all the way to the present day where Linux absolutely dominates the Supercomputer and HPC world.

Then we take a deep dive into one of the most critical components of computing (affecting both desktop and supercomputers alike): storage.

Petros Koutoupis, Senior Platform Architect on IBM's Cloud Object Storage, creator of RapidDisk (Linux kernel modules for RAM drives and caching) and LJ Editor at Large, gives an overview of the history of computer storage leading up to the current, ultra-fast SSD and NVMe drives.

Once you're up to speed (see what I did there?) on NVMe storage, Petros then gives a detailed—step-by-step—walk-through of how to best utilize NVMe drives with Linux, including how to set up your system to have remote access to NVMe resources over a network, which is just plain cool.

Taking a break from talking about the fastest computers the Universe has ever known, let's turn our attention to a task that almost every single one of us tackles at least occasionally.

Photography.

Professional photographer Carlos Echenique provides an answer to the age-old question: is it possible for a professional photographer to use a FOSS-based workflow? (Spoiler: the answer is yes.)

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Using gphoto2 to Automate Taking Pictures

Shawn Powers — Sat, 27 Jan 2018 15:04:01 +0000

by Shawn Powers

Introducing an app that allows DSLR cameras to function as an image or video capture device in Linux.

With my obsession—er, I mean hobby—regarding BirdCam, I've explored a great number of camera options. Whether that means trying to get Raspberry Pi cameras to focus for a macro shot of a feeder or adjusting depth of field to blur out the neighbor's shed, I've fiddled with just about every webcam setting there is. Unfortunately, when it comes to lens options, nothing beats a DSLR for quality. Thankfully, there's an app for that.

The gphoto2 suite of drivers and apps allows a huge list of DSLR cameras to function as image or video capture devices inside Linux. There's a compatibility list at the gphoto site, and even if your camera isn't listed, it's likely you'll be able to use it in some manner. For example, my Nikon Coolpix P610 isn't officially supported, but I'm able to get some images from it regardless. In fact, it even supports previewing a photo in ASCII art. That might not be a useful feature, but I found it incredibly fun to play with.

In all reality, if you want to automate taking pictures while using a real DSLR camera, gphoto2 is probably the tool you want. Whether it's a short-term setup on a tripod or a future super-high-def BirdCam (send me a link!), be sure to check it out. And if I can get my wife to loan me her Canon DSLR with the 50mm prime lens, BirdCam might rise to a whole new level!

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