Roberts Raw!
Like Us on Facebook
Follow Us On Twitter
Join Us On Flickr
Watch Us On YouTube

Ask Raw: Best Practices for Canvas Prints

It’s time for the first installment of “Ask Raw,” where we answer questions we’ve received from people. Today’s question from Rick is about what settings to use for gallery photos, especially printed on canvas.

I use the Nikon D300 I bought from Roberts and am still learning all the functions. Now I wonder about the best settings to get the gallery sized photo prints (wrapped canvas) that I see st photo exhibitions. Should I shoot in RAW format for extra sharpness. Can you offer me good printing results on such large size? I would like to send my images to consignments galleries and print from you as ordered. Appreciate your help.

We do recommend raw, but it’s not necessarily for extra sharpness. Shooting raw takes a lot of the burden off of deciding how to set most things on your camera. The only settings that genuinely affect raw files are exposure and focus. Your white balance, contrast, sharpness, color gradation, saturation, noise reduction, and so on are just settings to tell the camera what assumptions to make when it creates JPEG files.

The one catch here is that most cameras use the JPEG settings for the image previews you see on the LCD. For that reason, I set my white balance to auto, my color saturation to muted, and if you have the option of auto-gradation, D-lighting, DRO, or any other range extender, I usually turn that on to better represent the full exposure range I’ll have in the raw file.

Now, since we know the in-camera settings won’t matter much since you shoot raw, let’s talk about the next point, which is resolution.

read more



Shoot to Win: Lime Rock Park’s First Motorsports Photography Workshop

You like it fast, don’t you? Fast and dirty. Motorsports, baby. Horsepower, metal, poly-carbonates, dirt, hydrocarbons, speed. Like me, you know how to set your aperture in relation to shutter speed, pick an upper max for auto-ISO, and try not to screw up the composition.

Lucky you, Roberts is proud to co-sponsor a workshop at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut with an option for one day or two days attendance where you’ll get to work with the best Motorsports photogs in the business and have access to some extra Nikon gear. Hit the jump for the full press release. read more



Roberts’ New North Store Grand Opening

You still got your calendars marked for August 6th and 7th to come see us in Carmel, Indiana for the grand opening of our new north store? Good! Great, even! Perhaps, dare we say (dare! dare!)… fabulous?

Wait, you didn’t mark your calendar? Tch. That’ll never do. Let’s see if we can motivate you to do so. Did we mention there’ll be prizes? You know, nifty things for free?

Ah, I see you perking up now. So, let’s see what’s in the bag, yes?

Nikon D3000 with 18-55mm VR

GRAND PRIZES:

Nikon D3000 with 18-55mm VR
Canon SX120 IS

DOOR PRIZES:

AUGUST 6
  • 12pm • TAMRAC Zip Shot Tripod
  • 2pm • KODAK Zi8 Video Camera
  • 4pm • WESTCOTT 417 Green Screen Kit
  • 6pm • SLIK 700DX Tripod
  • 7pm •  TOKINA 35mm Macro Lens

Kodak Zi8 Pocket Camcorder

AUGUST 7

  • 12pm • TAMRON 70-300mm Zoom Lens
  • 2pm • CANON PowerShot SD1300 IS Digital Camera
  • 4pm • LOWEPRO Pro Runner 400AW Back Pack
  • 6pm • TAMRAC Evolution 6 Back Pack
  • 7pm •  CANON PowerShot SX210 IS

Now are you marking your calendar? We bet you are, and we look forward to celebrating this momentous occasion in our company’s history with the people who matter most: you all.



Panasonic to Debut 3D Conversion Lens for G-Series Shooters

Not got quite enough scratch shoved under the mattress to buy one of those 3D-ready camcorders Panasonic’s talking up? We feel you. Did you purchase one of Panasonic’s very nifty Micro-Four Thirds G-series cameras with a good video mode, like the GH1 or G2? Yeah? Well, boy-howdy, you’re in luck! In addition to the camcorder, Panasonic is promising a 3D lens converter for its G-series mounts by the end of this year.

For those scratching their heads and looking blankly at their screen, the idea is the lens splits one image into two, the same way we’d see it with two eyes. So, the left- and right-halves of your sensor are recording slightly different versions of the same scene. You lose half your horizontal pixels, but you gain 3D. Ta-da!

Now, while any Micro Four Thirds shooter could mount this (Olympus’ Pen series uses the same mount), at this point a lot of the functionality will be in the firmware, so until we hear anything otherwise, we’ll assume this a Panasonic-only thing, k?



Panasonic’s New HDC-SDT750 Will Let You Record 3D Home Videos

Need a 3MOS HD cacorder with 5.1 channel audio recording? Did you just yawn? Fine! How about a 3MOS 1080p camcorder with 5.1 channel audio, 12x optical Leica zoom, and an included 3D conversion lens so you can record all your memories in 3D and play them back on your new-fangled 3D television? Happy now?

Good, because that’s exactly what Panasonic is announcing with the rolls-off-the-tongue HDC-SDT750. It’ll shoot split HD video (so, the final HD videos are 960×1080 pixels). Or take the conversion lens off and shoot boring old 1080p, see if we care.

The other features that make this a product and not just a gimmicky press release mention things like a 3 touchscreen, a manual control ring providing quick access to focus, zoo, iris, exposure, what-have-you, time lapse intervals of 1 second, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, or two minutes, a Focus Microphone made from five ‘highly directional microphones’ to capture dare-we-say panoramic surround sound,and of course 3MOS recording with a total of over 7 million pixels recording your red, blue, and green channels independently.

Word is suggesting an October release date, and a street tag of about $1,400. Whether that’s stiff or a steal probably depends on how excited you got when I said “3D conversion lens included.”

And look, a press release after the jump, for those who thirst and yearn for the very details of the cosmos:

read more



Roberts Now Carries Kodak Pocket Camcorder

See this bit of sexiness right here? That’s the Kodak Zi8 (go ahead, click it and see it larger). To not dance delicately around the issue, it’s Kodak’s answer to the wildly popular Flip video camera. It’s got one-touch recording, full 1080p HD capture, a 2.5″ screen, flip-out USB plug, streamlined uploading to YouTube, you name it.

It’s also got 4x digital zoom, takes 5mp 16:9 still images, and records to SD/SDHC cards. And, in macro mode it has a minimum focusing distance of about 6″.

And, for right now, you can pick one up in a special Roberts kit with the wireless remote control and a free Tamrac ouch for, oh, $129.97. That’s 50 bucks less than Kodak’s MSRP for the camera by itself!

Seriously, this is a huge deal. If you need a quick, easy way to record videos for Facebook and YouTube, well, you’re looking at it. But, the kits are really, really limited, so, uh, act fast?



Apple’s New Mac Pro Can Probably Eat Your Current Computer

Starting next month the Mac Pro range will get an update (though I see Apple has once again left the exterior pretty well unchanged, I don’t think this line has seen a face-lift since it was still the G5 tower and I was still in college), and there’ll now be an upgrade options for the dual-processor model that’ll push it up to 12 CPU cores. Yes, 12. One dozen.

In any configuration, you’ll be looking at a Xeon series processor, and the base graphics card has been updated to the ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory.

They come with the usual thingers, you know, OSX, keyboard, Magic Mouse. Check out the table below for what the builds will look like, and what options there’ll be. Your base price points are going to be about $2,500 for the quad core, $3,500 for the 8 core, and we’re hearing around $5,000 to play in the 12 core club (but my, what a club to play in).

2010 Mac Pro Base Configurations
Quad-Core Mac Pro
  • One 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3530 processor with 8MB of fully-shared L3 cache;
  • 3GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 16GB;
  • ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
  • two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);
  • 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
  • 18x SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
  • four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
  • five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire® 800 ports;
  • AirPort Extreme® 802.11n;
  • Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
  • Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.
Upgrade Options
  • one 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon W3565 processor
  • one 3.33 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon W3680 processor
  • two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
  • one ATI Radeon HD 5870 card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
  • up to 16GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory
  • up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD); or
  • up to four 1TB or 2TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm;
  • Mac Pro RAID card;
  • dual-channel or quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel card; and
  • up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support.
8-Core Mac Pro
  • Two 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5620 processors with 12MB of fully-shared L3 cache per processor;
  • 6GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory, expandable up to 32GB;
  • ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
  • two Mini DisplayPorts and one DVI (dual-link) port (adapters sold separately);
  • 1TB Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drive running at 7200 rpm;
  • 18x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW);
  • four PCI Express 2.0 slots;
  • five USB 2.0 ports and four FireWire 800 ports;
  • AirPort Extreme 802.11n;
  • Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; and
  • Apple Keyboard with numerical keypad and Magic Mouse.
Upgrade Options
  • two 2.66 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5650 processors (12-cores)
  • two 2.93 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon X5670 processors (12-cores)
  • two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
  • one ATI Radeon HD 5870 card with 1GB of GDDR5 memory;
  • up to 32GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM memory
  • up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD); or
  • up to four 1TB or 2TB Serial ATA hard drives running at 7200 rpm;
  • Mac Pro RAID card;
  • dual-channel or quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel card; and
  • up to two 18x SuperDrives with double-layer support.


Apple’s New iMac Range Adds IPS, Moves to i3, i5, and i7 Processors

Alright, let’s move on to the iMac refreshes. Presumably these specs are different than last year’s, but let’s be honest, it’s not like if they aren’t quite to your taste there’ll be more options until next year anyway, and if you don’t buy a new iMac every year they’ll assuredly be better than the last one you bought (and if you do buy a new iMac every year, will you be my sugar daddy/mommy?). So, we’re just going to tell you where the basic specs stand now, and mention and call-out changes, sound good? Great! Onwards, then!

Important all-around upgrades here are that the displays are now IPS, a la the iPad and the new Cinema Display, and the graphics cards have been upgraded to ATI Radeon HD 5670 with 512MB memory on most models, and to the ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1GB memory on the quad-core 27″ config. They’re all i-series now, mostly Core i3 and Core i5, though the 27″ can get an upgrade to Core i7. There’re some new SSD options available for those of you who favor stability over capacity, and it gets a bit complex so it’s worth just using Apple’s online Store to see what your options are now.

They all come with the Magic Mouse, if you want that awesome new Magic Trackpad (and you probably do), it’ll be extra (and worth it, I’m guessing). Whee!

2010 iMac Base Configs

21.5-inch: 3.06GHz
 3.06GHz Intel Core i3, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 5670 with 512MB memory, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, 21.5″ LED-backlit IPS LCD with 1920 x 1080px native resolution

21.5-inch: 3.2GHz
 3.2GHz Intel Core i3, 4GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 5670 with 512MB memory, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, 21.5″ LED-backlit IPS LCD with 1920 x 1080px native resolution

27-inch: 3.2GHz
 3.2GHz Intel Core i3, 4GB RAM, 1TBB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 5670 with 512MB memory, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, 27″ LED-backlit IPS LCD with 2560 x 1440px native resolution

27-inch: 2.8GHz Quad Core
 2.8GHz Intel Core i5 (2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 available as an upgrade), 4GB RAM, 1TBB hard drive, ATI Radeon HD 5750 with 1GB, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, 27″ LED-backlit IPS LCD with 2560 x 1440px native resolution


Apples New Cinema Display Is New, Adds IPS

The other low-hanging fruit of today’s announcements is the new 27″ Cinema Display, up from 24″. It’s 16×9 now, with a native resolution of 2560 x 1440px, and it adds that fancy IPS technology that Apple made such a fuss about with the iPad. It’s got a powered 3-port USB hub on the back, and features a cable that splits out into USB, MiniDisplay, and universal MagSafe, making it ridiculously geared towards being slaved to your MacBook Pro.

It coasts in under a grand or so. Did we mention 27″ of edge-to-edge glass-covered IPS LCD LED-backlit display framed in aluminum, though? Now that’s quality.



Apple Announces Magic Trackpad, Charge It With New Apple Battery Charger

Apple announced several things today, and while arguably the iMac refreshes and the new Mac Pro configs are the bigger news here, they involve things like comparing specs tables and reading through mind-numbing press releases. So, we’re going to start with the low hanging fruit and tackle the new Magic Trackpad.

I, for one, am excited by this Bluetooth-powered wireless trackpad. Why? Because I love the one on my Macbook Pro, and this is that, but bigger, and for desktops. It lets you use the same gestures the laptops support (two-finger scroll, four-finger exposé, etc), it’s all glass and aluminum, the whole thing clicks (death to buttons!), etc…

And, for those wondering how well a trackpad could perform to make it a better option than say, a Magic Mouse, well, I play Left 4 Dead 2 on my MBP with one. And survive. So, I figure if it’s well-dampened and big enough to safely play a first-person shooter with, it’ll probably do for any general purpose usage, and it’s not even too bad for casual Photoshopping, really.

And did we mention the gestures? C’mon, that’s worth the $69 bucks right there and you know it. Two-finger “right click” makes OSX considerably better than having to remember to hold down option. I promise.

Also announced is the new… battery charger? Yes, a battery charger. It’s white (natch), and uses the same slip of folding prong wall plug as the laptop bricks do (natch), charges two batteries at a time (NiMH), and is of course touted for being environmentally friendly and having one of the lowest vampire rates of any charger going. It’ll set you back 29 clam, but to be fair it does come with 6 of Apple’s NiMH batteries, promising a 10 year life span each.

Apple says they’re available the heck now, so the sooner you call your friendly neighborhood Roberts, the sooner we can have some heading to your door to power your wireless life.