Flash - page 3

Flashpoint Ring Light Puts A Sparkle In The Eyes Of Those You Photograph [Review]

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As a photographer, I love playing with new lights that can change the look and feel and my portraits. So when Adorama asked me if I’d like to review their new $99 Flashpoint Ring Light, I was intrigued.

Could such an inexpensive piece of lighting equipment perform as well as gear that costs hundreds more? I’ll answer that question in a moment, but before I do, let me tell you a little bit about what ring lights do.

Make Your Website Shine With The Professional Web Template Bundle [Deals]

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Let’s face it: the more you surf the web, the more sites you’ll see that look similar to others. And t often doesn’t matter how great the content is on those sites – if they don’t stand out then they don’t get the attention they deserve. This is especially so for those sites trying to establish themselves.

Chances are, yours is one of those sites.

This latest Cult of Mac Deals offer serves up just what you need to ensure that your site stands out from the rest, with these 4 polished sets of Flash templates for just $25!

Camera+ For iPhone Gets Lots Of New Features & Improvements In Latest Update

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Camera+ now offers a horizontal level and live exposure on iPhone.
Camera+ now offers a horizontal level and live exposure on iPhone.

Tap Tap Tap has updated its hugely popular Camera+ app for iPhone today, introducing a stack of great new features and lots of improvements. It claims to have “made the impossible possible” by introducing a front-facing flash, in addition to a horizontal level, live exposure, and more.

Use A Business Card To Add Color To Your iPhone’s Flash

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Here’s an incredibly neat little hack for making your iPhone’s flash suck less, and it’s marred only by the photo used to illustrate it, which features some kind of Android “phone.”

If you ever wondered how you might use colored gels on your iPhone’s flash, read on. Or just look at the picture — it’s pretty self explanatory (once you get over the inexplicable purchase of an Android handset anyway).

How To Fix Mac Missing Plug-In Errors [MacRx]

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If you’re a Mac user on the Internet, chances are you’ve come across a few websites where embedded content isn’t displayed correctly. Instead you get an icon or an error message saying Missing Plug-In, often with few additional details about exactly what is missing.

While there’s no single installer which will solve all missing plug-in problems, there are a few common things to start with. If those don’t work you can delve deeper into non-common formats or the forgotten codecs of yesteryear.

Old-Style Newspaperman Flash Gun For iPhone [Kickstarter]

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Flash!

 

It’s hard to overstate my love of the Paparazzo light, despite the fact that I have never touched or even seen one outside of the photos on its Kickstarter page. Maybe it's the idea I like so much: it's an old-style flashgun which pumps out a ridiculous 300 lumens of subject-petrifying light whilst making you look like and old-school newspaperman.

Myths: Why Flash Photography Is Banned In Art Galleries

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Evil flashes terrify museum guards. Photo Phil Hearing / Flickr
 

 

NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY. You’ve all read that sign, and you have all likely – being good obedient citizens – abided by the wishes of the museum or gallery which posted it. But why is it there? Why can’t you use your camera’s flash to take a photo of a painting or a sculpture? The answer, it seems, is as depressingly wrongheaded as you might suspect.

The Nifty MiniDrive Is An SD Card Designed To Go Unnoticed In Your MacBook [Kickstarter]

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See — the Nifty MiniDrive is almost unnoticeable.
See — the Nifty MiniDrive is almost unnoticeable.

Apple is clearly working towards making solid-state storage a standard for its MacBook line, which means our notebook computers have never been speedier. The only problem is, the flash storage Apple uses is still pretty expensive, and so most of us have to settle for less of it when we’re buying a new MacBook.

That means we either need to come up with ways to decrease our data consumption, or add cheaper external storage for things like our iTunes libraries and torrent archives. If you’re going for the latter (the easier option) then you need the Nifty MiniDrive, an SD card specifically designed for MacBooks that you’ll hardly ever notice.

The Phottix Odin Is One Of The Best DSLR Flash Triggers I’ve Ever Used [Review]

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The brains of the operation: the Phottix Odin Transceiver

All great photographers know how to light well. And step one of good lighting is getting your flash off the top of your DLSR, where it sits and spews gross rays onto every one of your unfortunate victims, and onto a light stand where it belongs.

But how does one make a flash work when it’s not on the camera? The Phottix Odin Flash Trigger for Canon ($350) is up to the task, but that’s a major understatement. The Odin isn’t just another flash trigger system — it’s a Cadillac of features at a Honda price.

How To Take Awesome Fireworks Photos With Your iPhone This July 4

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A few simple tips that will help you take better firework photos on your iPhone this Independence Day.
A few simple tips that will help you take better firework photos on your iPhone this Independence Day.
Photo:

Apple’s latest iPhones take some pretty incredible images during the day, but it’s a different story when the sun goes down. Despite its LED flash, the iPhone’s performance in low-light still needs significant improvement. But if you’ve already abandoned a dedicated point-and-shoot, and you were hoping to snap some images at the firework display this July 4, here are some tips for taking great firework photos on your iPhone.

OWC Turns Your MacBook Air’s Old Flash Storage Module Into The Perfect External SSD

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Recycle your MacBook Air's old SSD module into an external drive.
Recycle your MacBook Air's old SSD module into an external drive.

If you’re planning to upgrade the flash storage in your 2010 or 2011 MacBook Air, don’t just discard your old module or let it go for pennies on eBay. With the Aurora Envoy enclosure from Other World Computing, you can turn that old flash storage into an external drive that’s designed to match your MacBook Air perfectly.

This Incredible New 3D Tech Could Finally Give You A 1+ Terabyte iPad

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SSDs are great! They make your computer run as if they were filled with greased lightning. That spinning beach ball stops spinning quite so much, and those apps struggling to load quit doing so much bouncing. Your computer gains instant-on functionality, better battery life, and ridiculously quick boot times. Win-win!

There’s only one problems: SSDs (like those found in the Retina MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPhone or iPad) don’t have the same high capacity as physical spinning drives. That’s a problem if you’re the kind of user who carries around a terrabyte of media with him at all times. Luckily, it looks like SSDs limitations when it comes to capacity sizes is about to change.

New MacBook Pro’s SSD Storage Can Be Upgraded At Home

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You'll be able to replace your new MacBook Pro's SSD, but it won't be cheap.
You'll be able to replace your new MacBook Pro's SSD, but it won't be cheap.

iFixit has described Apple’s new MacBook Pro as the “least repairable laptop” it has ever opened up, and subsequently gave the device a repair score of 1/10. However, just like the MacBook Air, you’ll be pleased to know that it is possible to upgrade the new MacBook Pro’s solid-state storage yourself.

Widget Mounts Any Flash On Sony’s Customer-Hostile Accessory Shoe

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$80 to get a feature the usually comes for free

Sony has long had an inexplicable love affair with proprietary connectors, accessories, anything. From Memory Sticks to ATRAC Minidiscs to annoying headphone sockets on phones, Sony’s philosophy seems to be "if you can piss off a customer, why not do it?"

And so it is with the NEX mirrorless cameras. Excellent devices in almost every way, unless you want to use a flash, in which case you have to spring for one of Sony’s own specialty units. Still, this customer hatred is at least good news for third-party accessory makers, and NEX Proshop will now sell you an adapter that adds a proper hot-shoe and PC socket to your NEX camera.

Apple Releases Flashback Removal Tool And Adobe Flash Disabler For OS X Leopard Users

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Still on Leopard? Grab these updates from Apple.

While the threat of the Flashback trojan has seemed to largely subside, Apple has released a tool for removing Flashback from older Macs running OS X 10.5 Leopard. A Flashback removal tool was released for Lion and Snow Leopard users a month ago, and now Leopard Macs can get in on the action. Yay for antivirus software!

Apple has also released a Leopard security update that automatically disables outdated versions of Adobe Flash player.

Adobe Got Burned For Ending Legacy Support – Will The Same Thing Happen To Apple?

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Adobe backpedals after demanding users upgrade to receive security patches
Adobe backpedals after demanding users upgrade to receive security patches

Last week, Adobe created a firestorm of user unrest when it issued a series of security bulletins impacting three applications of its Creative Suite and said that users must pay to upgrade to the latest versions of the apps if they wanted patches that would close the vulnerabilities.

The company was quickly besieged by users, technology professionals, and security experts demanding that it reverse course and offer security patches to users who couldn’t afford the upgrades (or didn’t want to spend the money). Even though company quietly backpedaled and announced it would offer security updates without acknowledging the reason for its about face or offering an apology, the gaffe raises concerns that Apple’s yearly OS X release cycle might lead it down a similar path.

New Version Of Safari Tells Older Versions Of Adobe Flash To Take A Hike

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Today Apple released Safari 5.1.7 alongside OS X 10.7.4. The latest Safari update includes several general improvements and bug fixes, including a new way of handling Adobe Flash on the web. If an older version of Flash attempts to run in Safari 5.1.7, Apple’s browser will automatically disable it and give you the option to install the newest version of Flash from Adobe’s website.

See The Softer Side Of Your DSLR’s Speedlite With The Gary Fong Lightsphere Collapsible [Review]

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There are probably a thousand different flash-diffusing accessories out there that claim to transform your DSLR Speedlite’s sickly beam of photons into one that’s more soft’n’dreamy. Problem is, many portable diffusers are tricky to use, don’t work well, or both.

But the Gary Fong Lightsphere Collapsible ($60), though it looks a little too much like a flash’s top hat, is surprisingly effective at softly lighting all that surrounds it.

DIY Grid Spot For All You Flash Photographers Out There

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This DIY grid spot looks as professional as a store bought one. Photo Jeff Vier (CC BY-SA 2.0)

On of the funnest* things you can do with off-camera flash is to modify the light. This might mean squirting it through a “snoot” (some kind of tube or cone which focuses the light into a tight beam), reflecting it from a colored, uh, reflector, or firing it through a giant soft-box.

Or you can use a grid spot, an excellent tool for pointing your light at one single spot, far away, with a sharp fall-off into shadows at the edges. Sound expensive? It can be, unless you steal some drinking straws from your local fast food emporium and follow along with this how-to.

Colorful Filters Can Resurrect Your Old Flash

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These fun filters are a great reason to charge some AAs and dig out that old abandoned flash
These fun filters are a great reason to charge some AAs and dig out that old abandoned flash

You have a camera, and maybe you have an old flashgun lying around the place. Problem: while you know what to do with the camera, even in all-manual mode, you are terrified of that flash. Used on top the camera it washes everything out and makes it look like a drunken birthday party photo taken in a bar. Used off the camera… well, in that direction there be dragons.

You really should learn to use off-camera flash. But seeing as you never will, Photojojo’s neat set of flash-filters will at least give that old strobe something to do.

Adobe Releases First Flash Player 11.3 Beta For Mac OS X

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The Flash Player 11.3 beta brings improved support for the Mac App Store, support for older graphics cards, and more.

Installing Flash Player on a Mac is a surefire way to ensuring all of your processing power and RAM is maxed out on a frequent basis. Whether you’re watching a video on YouTube or playing a simple puzzle game, the second Flash begins to load your system becomes an unstable mess.

Unfortunately, a lot of sites still insist on using Flash content, so you’re forced to install it or put up with a half-baked worldwide web. But it’s good to know Adobe is still hard at work on improving the experience. The company has just released the first Flash Player 11.3 beta for Mac OS X, which features all sorts of enhancements and tweaks.

OnLive Desktop For iPad Adds Flash And Other Features, Announces Plans For Business

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Last month, OnLive launched its free cloud-based Windows desktop app for the iPad. OnLive Desktop provides iPad users with a cloud-based Windows 7 desktop that comes complete with the standard Microsoft Office apps (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and 2GB of storage. This week, the cloud-gaming company expanded the features and storage available to OnLive Desktop users via new subscription plans – one of the most notable being that OnLive Desktop can now play Flash videos and content.

The company will also be adding a more full featured “Pro” plan that will let users install additional Windows applications and an enterprise service that would allow companies to configure and manage virtual Windows desktops on the iPad’s of employees.

OnLive Desktop Plus Brings Flash To The iPad For $4.99 Per Month

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If you still haven’t gotten over the fact that your iPad doesn’t have Adobe Flash player, than OnLive Desktop Plus may soothe your pain. As you may have guessed, the new app is a premium version of OnLive Desktop, which brought Microsoft Office to the iPad earlier this year.

In addition to Office, the premium version offers Flash Player and a PDF-enabled web browser, but it comes at a price of $4.99 per month.

Why Mountain Lion’s AirPlay Mirroring Is Hollywood’s Worst Nightmare

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One of the features that immediately caught my eye about Mountain Lion was AirPlay Mirroring. As I noted yesterday, this offers a powerful presentation tool for business users as well as a great classroom addition for teachers and trainers.

Of course, it’s also a great entertainment solution and one that has some dramatic advantages over AirPlay Mirroring on the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. Those advantages are likely to set the stage for a showdown between Apple and the entertainment industry.