Rocco Galatioto, nice photos and good food

This old walled city north of Florence has a very lively centro storico within it's walls. The streets and alleys are narrow and very colorful.

Canon Creates a Full-frame CMOS Sensor for For Shooting Video in  Very Low Light Very low light situations are difficult, but Canon's new video sensor comes to the rescue. This innovative  company has created a full-frame 35mm sensor that can shoot HD video where there's only 0.03 lux of light. Canon says that this is the threshold  where the human eye has trouble distinguishing objects, and that this camera is up to the task of delivering high quality video in near darkness. I love the whole irrational idea of shooting in darkness. Some oxymoron! To be able to achieve this, Canon  lowered the pixel count. The sensor offers up just 2-megapixels, but each of those pixels is around 7.5 times larger than those found on modern sensors. There are other innovations - Canon has specially dedicated hardware and software  as order to provide the best low light performance possible.  The official press release,  with a photo of the prototype camera s...

The Sicilian Cuisine Blog: Extortion to Sicilian Chef Natale Giunta: "It was a nightmare!" http://galatiotophoto.blogspot.com

Spring will be here soon. It will soon look like this .

Posting photos is not easy. Although my archive is extensive, it's not always easy to locate old photos. The o;d negatives must all be re filed and then the contact prints locate and finally, the scans must be made. While I work on this project, I still need to post. So there's always Venice. These photos were shot with the Canon 5-D. It's now too big as a travel camera; smaller but still competent cameras are what I use now.

A few more from this gem of a city.

 The Val D'Agragas Folk Group is the oldest continuing running group of this type in Sicily. This past December they came to the Sates and among the places they performed, I attended the show at St, John's  University under the sponsorship of Arba Sicula a Sicilian cultural society whose main goal is to keep alive Sicilian culture and the Sicilian language. A visit to arbasicula.org is worth making. Here the group performed in what was the front of a large lecture hall at the college. They were able to improvise and performed very well. Val D'Agrakas is the name of the famous valley in modern Agrigento where the renown Greek temples are. It's called la valle dei templi . the valley of the temples. Agrakas was the original mame for Agrigento that for many years was named Girgenti and whose name was changed under the Duce in an effort to add value to the site. No matter what you call it, Agrigento is a wonderful place whose culture dates back to the era before...

There's absolutely no Photoshop manipulation here.  No layers, no BS. It's a scan of a Kodachrome-X  slide [ISO 64] shot in the distant summer of 1972. The moon was at the right place. It's site is the valley of the temples in Agrigento.

3D imaging may be at hand Panasonic's New Sensor Can Take 3D Photos using  your existing lenses 3D photography has been  evolving   for some time, and in recently the pace  has speeded up. We've seen mny different techniques for shooting 3D photos, from dual lens cameras to specialized lenses. Now Panasonic has something totally different in the works. This new  Panasonic  sensor has created allows photographers to use whatever type of lens they choose and still get a 3D image. The sensor uses a lenticular lens, much like those used in glasses-free 3D displays. The problem with the sensor is the same as the problem with these glasses-free displays - there's a significantly limited distance where the photos will work. We'll see if this is something Panasonic can solve once these sensors make it to mass production. (via PetaPixel )

This lovely city in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy is of course famous as the place where all the greatest violins were made. This craft is still strong here. There are a number of violin makers still practicing their craft. A beautiful and peaceful place. The food is not bad either.

No interesting light no interesting photo. It's one of the axioms of photography. Here the light is of late afternoon is magical. It turns what would ordinarily be cliche photos into pleasant ones. The camera was the Olympus E PL-2.

Things are changing fast and the big cameras will be show off dinosaurs soon. Samsung Unvails a Wi-Fi Only Version of the Galaxy Camera Samsung's Galaxy Camera is a look at the evolution of what cameras will  look and be like in the future, How consumers will react to it  will tell us a lot about what we may expect in the near furure. One thing that could be a problem is the camera's requirement of a data plan. Needing a 3G or 4G plan makes the price of the camera costlier, but everyone has such a plan these days. The nice people at Samsung have compensated by creating a Wi-Fi only version. The current 3G/4G version of the camera costs $500, so  the Wi-Fi version should be in slightly cheaper. It may also be easier to acquire - no need to go through a phone provider if you're not using data.  Stay tuned