Have you checked out the Photosynth technology that Microsoft has been working on?

Microsoft Photosynth Website

The project takes photographs from many different photographers, but all from the same general geographic location and builds a 3-dimensional model of how the photographs relate to each other. The latest set they have released is of the Space Shuttle on the launch pad and in it’s maintenance hanger. It is fun to fly around and check out the different angles of the same object that the project brings together.

There is some serious processing going on behind the scenes if you read about the technology on their website. Each photograph is processed and analyzed and unique details are found within the image. Those details are cataloged and compared to the other photographs in the collection. If the same unique details are found the images can be placed near one another in the 3-D model. The analysis also figures out camera angle and location in relation to all the other pictures. It’s quite impressive.

Uses

So how could this be used? The most obvious would be to make an online repository for photographs from anyone that wanted to upload them. In time entire locations could be completely recreated in this virtual 3-D world, allowing anyone to click through and get an idea of what the place really looks like without having to travel there. Google Earth is doing a similar type of virtualization by allowing people to upload 3-D models of buildings. The Microsoft technology has the advantage of using actual photographs.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually are able to warp the images into actual 3-D models of the buildings being photographed.

For me this would be very interesting to use for residential real estate or virtual tour type applications. It would be quick and easy to take a bunch of photos of a location and then have then processed by Photosynth technology and be made available for online viewing. If the processing didn’t take days this could be very cool.

Residential Real Estate

I guess the title says it all. We have bunnies in our backyard. And I don’t mean the proverbial backyard, I mean our fenced in backyard. The one our golden retriever calls home.

Now we have always known that bunnies come and visit us and munch on the clover in our grass. We see them quite often. Shala (the golden, pronounced with a long ‘a’) loves to chase them out of the yard, and does so frequently. Most of the time they live across the street in a small green belt.

This is different. One of the mother bunnies decided that our backyard was a good place to raise her babies. Maybe it was the week of vacation we took and lack of canine activity that lured her to our yard.

My wife did see a bunny digging in our yard before we left, and I had seen evidence of digging just outside our fence. We didn’t think much of it.

Two days ago I let Shala out back to take care of business and she walked around the side of the house. I followed thinking she was going to bark at our neighbors again and I would have to try to keep her quiet. Strangely she started pawing at the ground near our fence. When I pulled back the dead grass laying near where she was pawing I found two baby bunnies and their eyes weren’t even opened yet.

Yesterday and today the mother bunny has been hanging around the yard or just outside the fence. We see her at times sitting directly over her babies, apparently feeding them.

We have since put up a barrier so that Shala can no longer get to the part of the yard with the babies. It should be fun to watch them start hopping around, which I can only guess will be very soon. My two kids (4 and 2) want to see the bunnies every chance they can. My wife and I limit the viewings to once or maybe twice a day.

In the second picture you can just see the nose and eye of one of the babies coming out of the ground just in front of the mother. Click on the small versions to see larger images.

The picture of the mother rabbit above was taken from a second story window. I removed the screen and stuck the camera out the window. The camera was a Canon 5D with a 70-200 2.8 L IS USM with a EF 2x II extender. I set the camera to 400 ISO to keep the shutter speed at 1/25 second with the aperture at f5.6. With the Extender I lose two stops of aperture (2.8 - 5.6). The Image Stabilization (IS) helped keep the image sharp even though I was hand holding at 1/25.

The picture of the babies was with the 5D and a 24-70mm 2.8L USM at 63mm. 1/125 at f5.6. I cropped the picture to highlight the babies. I like this lens because it has macro focusing capabilities which came in handy in this case.

Digital Photography bunnies, dslr, rabbit

It’s all over the news again. Now Microsoft and Google among others are contesting copyright warnings issued by major league sports broadcasts.

I have links to articles on this and other copyright issues on the Photography News page of my website.

Fair Use

What these issues boil down to is “fair use”. What am I allowed to do with someone else’s copyrighted works? These issues come up frequently when new methods of copying movies and/or music become available. When videotapes came around the movie industry was worried that their business would crumble because people could make copies of their movies. Same worries with DVD’s and now the internet. Of course there has been, and probably always will be, some amount of bootlegging. That’s not really what these articles are talking about as the reproduction and sale for profit of other people’s copyrighted works is obviously against the law.

What if I’m not selling a copy? Can I record a TV show from my local cable broadcast? Of course I can ever since the VCR came out. Can I record that show to a DVD and play it for my kids on a car trip? I’m sure makers of DVD’s for kids would hope I don’t so they can sell me a DVD of the same program. But what if the programs aren’t available on DVD or tape for that matter? DVR’s have now given me the ability to record shows and watch them when I have time, and Slingbox gives me the ability to send those same shows to my cell phone if I want. Is that a fair use of copyrighted content?

Using Images

What can you do with one of my pictures? If you pay me to take pictures for you we will have a licensing agreement on how you can use those images. It may be very broad, or it may be very narrow. If you don’t get an agreement what does that mean? Good question and one that probably has to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

I got a question from a real estate agent about this very question. A previous real estate agent had paid for images to be taken of a property. It had been listed and then taken off the market. The original agent did not get any license agreement with the images. The new real estate agent wondered if it was OK to use the images in a new listing for the property. I referred him back to the original photographer, but without a licensing agreement it was probably OK to use the images in another listing. They aren’t reselling the images and they are being used for the same purpose they were originally purchased.

Now what if that client wanted to submit those images to a micro-stock photography agency and see if anyone would license them for money? As he is not the original copyright holder this is probably not advisable. The original photographer has the exclusive right to license or sell the images.

Money, Money, Money

I feel the line is drawn when money starts changing hands. This can get a bit tricky. With music sharing sites, no money changed hands, but each person who downloaded a copy of a song didn’t go buy it on a CD, basically keeping the recording artist from gaining revenue from his work. Now we have DRM software (Digital Rights Managment) that attempts to keep copying to a minimum.

Personally, I don’t mind if you use a copy of one of my images as a background on your computer. Using an image on a personal (non-commercial) website with a link to my website would be fine too.

Now if you start selling advertising space on your site and make money from people visiting your site, that’s a different story. You are now choosing content for your website that will bring you income. If you choose one of my images because you think it will help draw visitors and gain you revenue, then my image is valuable. You think it will attract more visitors than other images. That value should be paid for.

What Do You Think

Copyright is a huge and complicated issue for photographers, the music and movie industries, and anyone else who creates copyrighted works. What are your thoughts on the matter?

Copyright Links

Copyright Basics from the United States Copyright Office
U.S. Copyright Office

Digital Photography