RGB Digital Pro Photo Lab: Overcome corporate apathy and print what you see [Print Comparison]

Have you ever taken your photos to your local photo lab or electronics shop, spent half an hour on a touch screen loading up the pictures you want to print, only to be disappointed by them being too contrasty, or dark, or maybe over-saturated?

It’s a frustrating experience.  These days everyone has self-serve system software that automatically adjusts your images to a specific “punchy” look that makes your pictures jump out at you.  As far as I have seen, there are no reset options to pass images through without auto-adjustment anymore and self-serve system screens often are poorly calibrated to actual printed output.  Well, for those of you who live in or near Australia, help may be at hand.

Enter RGB Digital Pro Photo Lab.  Looking for somewhere to print wedding pictures for a wedding I shot earlier this year, I stumbled across these guys and gave them a go.  The results to say the least were highly impressive (and fast service too).

Look below for a results comparison between the original digital file, the RGB Digital Pro Photo Lab print and the print from a major Australian electronics retailer using the Fujifilm Frontier system.  Note the tonality, colour and overall impression of the final results.

(please take into account that I have scanned the printed images, so there will always be some shift in colour and tonality compared to the original digital file due to the character of the printing paper/materials)

Original

RGB

Australian Retailer

Oiginal

RGB

Australian Retailer

Original

RGB

Australian Retailer

So if your really care about your prints, I’d urge you to have a look at RGB Digital Pro Photo Lab.

*I’d appreciate any feedback on RGB – I don’t want to pass out compliments to companies that don’t deserve it.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Canon 6D faces off against Nikon D600, faces off against Sony A99 [General Look]

So Canon, Nikon and Sony have all bought out cheaper full frame SLR (Single Lens Reflex) cameras.  Joy to the world you may say.  But sadly, it is not so for many, because despite the cheaper bodies, the lenses to do them justice are still REALLY expensive (especially the zooms).  That’s fine for crazies like myself, but it is not going to result in a revolution over night.

What do these cameras have to offer you may ask?  Good question.

All have very big, light sensitive sensors with somewhere around 20-24 megapixels.  This means shooting in darker conditions and getting clearer shots.  These cameras offer much expanded colour depth and dynamic range (dynamic range basically means capturing more bright and dark in a photo – so shadows have more detail within them for example).  It also means some changes in depth of field compared to smaller sensor cameras.  All are rocking pretty hi-tech autofocus systems that are well above the SLR norm, and all are built a lot more ruggedly than your average SLR.  I’m not going to give a spec for spec comparison between the cameras, there are websites out there that do a far better job of analysing cameras and listing specs than me, so I’ll direct you to them instead below.  But I will give you the basics.

Notably, the Sony A99 has an all digital system (electronic viewfinder), and is in-fact an SLT (Single Lens Translucent) system, where the mirror does not move when a shot is taken.  This provides better video focusing (and in the smaller crop sensor digital SLRs, much higher  shooting speed) although with a penalty of letting less light through to the sensor and shorter battery life.  The Nikon D600 and Canon 6D are more similar and traditional SLR cameras, with moving mirrors and will most likely have slightly better light gathering capabilities compared to the Sony, although both have comparably slow autofocus in video, and (edit: slighty) slower frames per second than the A99 in camera mode.

Compared to older SLRs, all give up some button and switch functionality for video functions, so if you don’t do video, this may be annoying.  But if you do, they can capture some nice input, although I am no videographer, so I can’t tell you how good (compared to an equally expensive video camera).  If you have any interest in buying any of these cameras, and are fairly new to photography, it’s worthwhile getting to understand each brand’s ecosystem of lenses and flashes first before weighing the differences of each camera.

Links and more information below:

Sony A99

Preview 1: The Verge

Preview 2: Digital Photography Review

Places to consider purchase in USA: BHPhotovideo

Places to consider purchase in Australia: Ted’s Cameras

Canon 6D

Brochure: Canon

Preview 1: The Verge

Preview 2: Digital Photography Review

Places to consider purchase in USA: BHPhotovideo

Places to consider purchase in Australia: Ted’s (not available yet)

Nikon D600

Brochure: Nikon

Preview 1: The Verge

Preview 2: Digital Photography Review

Places to consider purchase in USA: BHPhotovideo

Places to consider purchase in Australia: Ted’s Cameras

Compare camera specs @ Snapsort

Compare camera specs @ The Verge

Compare sensors @ DXO

(It is worthwhile mentioning at DXO, all ISO performance curves for each image characteristic should be examined to get a complete understanding of each sensor, as the front-end number ratings appear to only account for things such as tonality and colour depth at base ISO)

Amazing 3D digital artwork

I stumbled across CG Society a few days ago and I was blown away by some fantastic examples of 3D digital artwork.  If you like art in general, or 3D design, then their CG Choice Award Gallery is worth a few minutes of your time.

Some of the images/artists I liked the most can be found by clicking on the artists name below:

Serg Andreychenco

David Moratilla Amago

Olivier Ponsonnet

Steve Barrett

Jie Ma

More to be found @ CG Society