Joel Saget Responds...

Just in case you don't check comments, Joel Saget was nice enough to comment on my post about his Tour de France images.

It turns out he is using a tilt-shift lens after all, and no Photoshop trickery is involved.

What is Joel Saget doing?

(JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images)

One of the sites that has made it's way onto my Bloglines list is The Big Picture from Boston.com (The Boston Globe). The Big Picture summarizes recent events in images -- and not just little web-sized images, large, nearly 1000 pixel wide, images.

I've always thought that high-res images are a completely different world from low-res images because there's some things you can do with the added detail that you just can't do with smaller images.

Anyway, an image by Joel Sagat in July 28th's post about the 2008 Tour de France caught my eye. It is reproduced at the start of this post, and I highly recommend clicking to see the full version in all its hi-res glory. Side note: I'm not sure about the legality of including these images on my blog -- I think it is ok, because I'm discussing the artistic merit and technicals of the images, not simply using them, but if I'm wrong, please let me know.

Anyway, if you haven't noticed yet, the image is remarkable for its tiny depth of field which lends a 'model train seen from above' look to it.

(JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images)

Oddly enough, I couldn't track down much on Joel Saget outside of Tour de France photos. I would have thought someone else noticed his technique and commented on it.

And I'm completely flummoxed; I doubt you could get that sort of depth of field without post-processing, unless it is a tilt-shift lens or a scary big aperture. To make it even more confusing, in the first image, that bush in the foreground is in focus yet the hill behind it isn't. What the heck is going on?

BTW, Receding Hairline has a good fake model photography tutorial which discusses post-processing techniques.

Show Us Your Food (Documentary Photography)

Turns out, my last post wasn't as off-topic as I originally thought. On the Freakonomics blog I found a long post interviewing the authors of Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. It's easiest to just let Freakonomics intro the book:

"Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio sat down to a meal with 30 families in 24 countries, photographing their one-week food intake and talking to them about food, dieting, and shopping habits for their 2005 book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats."

If you're interested in the book, here's an Amazon link:


The photographic connection is the documentary photography involved. Instead of just writing down what each family ate in a week, the authors actually posed the family in their home with all items that were eaten in a week. There's a lot of other nice images in the book too, from what I can see (I haven't read it yet, but it has gone on my wish list).

For instance, the Caven family from the U.S.A. ate what you see below (click to see it a little larger):


Go ahead and read the full interview -- it's got some really eye-opening information. Turns out the Caven family has a very similar diet to my own (although we don't get corn dogs much!).

What would your food portrait look like?

OT: Freakonomics and Monkey Chow

This is way off-topic, but I thought I'd share the Freakonomics Blog with you. If you aren't reading it, I recommended it; it's got a ton of random, interesting, thought-provoking posts on it.

BTW, if you are living under a rock, Freakonomics is a book which looks at social problems (and other things) from an economist's point of view. If you haven't read it, buy (or borrow) a copy ASAP.

From the Freakonomics blog, I stumbled upon a diary of a guy who ate monkey chow for a week. Complete with videos!


What got me there? Let me leave you some breadcrumbs:

CC's post about food -> Freakonomics post -> Freakonomics food posts -> Monkey Chow!

The Expo Ray Flash: $300 for Only One Stop?

Strobist just put up a review of the ExpoImaging Ray Flash. The $300 unit, which attaches to the business end of an on-camera speedlight, looks very similar to my own homemade ring flash. Of course, I can't claim my DIY flash is a unique idea or nearly as good as this product.

From the product page, the secret of the light distribution is:

"...a sophisticated system of internal prisms, reflectors and light-shapers designed to distribute and project the light evenly around the lens..."

Well, darn, I guess I should have me some internal prisms.

Ok, ok. It may seem like I'm poking fun at the product, but I'm not... I'm poking fun at the price. $300? Really? 300 is the number in the Spartan elite guard, not the number of dollars you need for a passive flash modifier! You can't tell me that it can't be made for cheaper.

On the bright side, I think there's a lot of room for the price to come down once they reduce manufacturing costs. Or, maybe some Chinese company will steal the idea and sell it on eBay for $50.

************

Actually, from Hobby's description, it sounds near identical to my design:

"Speaking of engineering, this is a pretty impressive piece of optical design. It uses little light channels to guide the flash around the lens pretty darn evenly. Given that the top is closer to the flash, you know that is gonna be the hot area. But they counter it by not releasing the light fully until they are an inch or two from the top of the ring, going around. Seems to work great."

Releasing the light about a third of the way down the tube was one of my ideas to even out the light distribution. But, losing only a stop of light (or half the light energy) is really, really efficient.

The biggest drawback of DIY models like mine is that they eat so much light (I estimated a loss of 4-5 stops, although I suspect a stop or two of that is due to the office paper diffuser). When you lose 95% of the light, that doesn't leave much left over for lighting, especially outdoors. Obviously, there's something else going on here, and it'd be great if Mr. Strobist could help us DIYers reverse engineer the secret to maintaining such high output. Reverse engineering the product would probably go against whatever agreement got him an evaluation unit in the first place though.

Realistically, I won't be buying one of these things. If I have an extra $300, I'll buy a real macro lens or some studio lights, not a flash modifier. Sure, the extra output would allow me to actually use ring light for outdoor shots of things larger than a flower, but the price-performance ratio just isn't worth it to me.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't be willing to evaluate and review a unit for free, though... (hint, hint)

Photoshop Disasters

Stumbled upon the Photoshop Disasters blog today.

It has been added to my Bloglines. Turns out, most movie posters are photoshopped together... badly!

Forrest M. Mims the Third

The book at left is what I found on my desk this morning.

The other week one of the guys in the lab had reason to breadboard an amplifier circuit so I handed him the Op Amp IC Circuits book pictured (o.k., not an actual picture of my book, but my book looks amazingly similar, right down to the brown tinge of the cover).

Forrest M. Mims wrote a series of electronics books for Radioshack in the 80s including Getting Started in Electronics and the Engineer's Mini-Notebook series. I taught myself electronics through his books (at the time, my goal was to build a computer, but we ended up buying one before I ever got close).

And, yes, my books really are 20 years old.

All the books were formatted using handwriting on graph paper, like the following page from the 555 Timer IC Circuits below grabbed from here:

That page brings back memories of many a flashing LED.

On a whim, I googled Mr. Mims. Turns out, he's still very active both in writing and science and has his own Wikipedia page. He is also a creationist (err... maybe intelligent design-ist?) and there was a well-publicised contraversy between him and Scientific American over his beliefs (read more here).

The reason he gets a post on this photography blog is he's done a lot of photographic documentation of science. In particular, I loved his time-lapse movie of frost flowers (apparently, some texas plant emits ribbons of ice when the temperature falls below zero). He's got some other really nice images on his web site, along with plenty of photographic documentation of his projects.

Forrest Mims is a great example of a successful amateur scientist. In my mind, his books are just as relevant today as they were 20 years ago if you are starting out in electronics. You can find them at his commercial site, www.forrestmims.com, and Amazon (below):

Recommendation: PicLens 1.6 for Firefox

I've known for a while that Firefox has some cool add-ons but I've held off adding any to my home computer... until PicLens that is. What an excellent photo browser, MUCH better for Flickr than the standard interface. It also lets you browse most of the other major photo repositories, including Google Images!

It lets you quickly scroll through a bunch of images to find those you like, automatically loads more as you go (no more clicking the 'next' button!), and has a seamless interface for scrolling, viewing them full screen, and playing a slide show.

A good way to get an idea of how PicLens helps you is this video:



Really, though, there is just no substitute for trying PicLens out. I will warn you, it is relatively processor intensive, so avoid it if you have an older computer. It is supported for Firefox, Safari, and IE.

A Monster Mirror Lens

I was doing a quick web search today when I stumbled upon the 1000mm Carl Zeiss Mirror f/5.6 lens, a pure monster. It fits the Pentacon Six, a medium format camera sold until the early '90s by Pentacon GmbH. The company currently makes digital point and shoots under the brand Praktika.

Anyway, I would have loved to include an image or two here, but the site is pretty clear about copyright issues. So let me paint you a picture instead: 31 lbs (14 kg), a lens cap the size of a dinnerplate, switchable filters actually sealed inside the lens, and amazing images. If you want to waste a little time, click on over and check it out:

• Overview page with some sample images.
• Later comparative review consisting of pages: [1] [2] [3] [4]
• If you look at one page, look at the second -- it includes some great shots (including a full camera sitting inside of the lenscap).

Obviously, this isn't a practical lens since most tripods can't even support it, but it was really cool to see a really good quality 1000mm reflex lens. And, at 1000mm, the f/5.6 aperture is quite amazing.

Cycle 61 Photography: "... absolutely own it..."

Through the Bay Area Strobists Flickr group, I stumbled upon Cycle 61 Photography, a.k.a. Nick Davis. Nick is working on starting up a photography business, and while I think he's chosen one of the hardest tasks possible (supporting himself with photography in one of the most expensive cities in the world) I think he has the right idea.

From Nick's first page of business goals:

"... I don't want to be just another landscape photographer, another wedding or headshot or whatever guy. I'm willing to work through that, but I'm going to find a niche, dig it out with an axe, make it viable, and absolutely own it. I want everybody who shoots in my field to have the thought, nagging in the back of their mind, that if they do a kick-ass job then everybody will think they're copying Nick Davis."

As someone who flirted with starting a business a while ago I know a bit about what it takes to succeed in photography: a ton of effort and a way to distinguish yourself from all those other photographers. Not to say that I've succeeded in any way, but I've seen enough to know how much work is involved. Trying to be a photographer 'like everyone else' isn't going to cut it anymore, nor will depending on selling microstock. You have to offer your customers something they can't get from anywhere else, be it your vision, unique style, personal skills, or experience.

And you have to commit to the endeavor: part time photography will not make you a lot of money without building the business for years, which is ultimately why I abandoned my plans (because we need money NOW, not in three years). Or, maybe I should say I just put them on the shelf for a while...

So, I'll wish Nick luck and recommend that you check out his blog. He's got good stuff on there already and it will be interesting to see his business plans evolve.

(from Cycle 61 Photography, used with permission)

PS My favorite image on his site was at the top of his second goals post (I won't show it here because I don't have permission). It has excellent color and texture, and it made me think:

"What the hell is that there for? Nuts and bolts?
...
...
Oh, I get it!"

The Shot: Finale

Don't worry, no spoilers on the finale here unless you haven't seen the earlier shows.

I just wanted to go on record with my prediction that Maria will win. While she doesn't have the technicals down completely yet, the technicals are pretty easy to learn. Interacting with models and clients isn't, and she's got that in spades.

Dean has too much arrogance. I can't imagine a company would want him representing them.

And John is just... not as talented, I guess. He gets nervous and flustered too easily.

So, Maria is my prediction. Now to watch and see who wins!

I know, I know, I'm getting way too far into this stupid reality show. For the record, I do really enjoy the analysis of the images. The pause button on my DVR is super-useful because it lets me come up with my own critique before I hear everyone elses!

The Cost of Advertising

There's a very educational post up at the Photo Business News & Forum about advertising budgets and usage rights to images. Harrington's message is to know what questions to ask so you can price your quote according to the expected exposure (and rights needs) of the image(s).

Essentially, if you're a big-time (or even small-time) photog and an advertising company comes to you for a quote, they probably know exactly what the budget is even if they are evasive when you ask them about numbers. So ask them for the proposal docs (outlining the budget) and the media schedule (where the ads will run). This will both give you an idea of where your quote should be and allow you to adjust your quote upwards if the exposure will be very high for the photo.

While his point is great, I got a heck of a lot more from looking at his visual aids.

For instance, he gives an example proposal cover page, including:

"We recommend a full-day shoot, in one New York City location. This will allow time for shooting photography for both the "parents centric" and the "children centric" ads in the same day, which is the most cost-effective approach. The budget for this shoot, including all photographer's fees, location scout, permit fees, stylist, and photographers rights package is $12,000-$14,000."

Yeah, there's some big money in photography. Even if the photographer gets only a quarter of that budget for her time and equipment, that's still $3-4 K for a day's work plus post.

I've had plenty of concerns about the photography industry as a whole but I see now how a mid/high end photographer can make ends meet. Sadly, it's the low end that suffers, since the industry is under attack from both directions: the consumer camera market makes do-it-yourself portraits more appealing and micro-stock allows many companies that pay a decent chunk of change for images to pay a tiny fraction of that. But that's a post for another day.

Another thing that was awesome to see was the media schedule (click here to go directly to it). For quite a while I've been curious about the costs of advertising, and the three quarters of a million dollars in this budget was quite a surprise. Wow, that's some big money (makes sense though, since ad agencies aren't known for barely making a profit).

This also relates a bit to my experiences with Google Adsense. Without giving a lot of detail ("The first rule of Adsense revenue is..."), I've been curious why some clicks get me a penny of revenue while others are 50 cents or more. How do companies make a profit with almost a dollar a click? Can they really make that money back just by someone visiting their site?

But compare those rates to the provided media schedule. Assuming the impressions figure given is per 'in', it costs around 1.9 cents each impression for in the paper, 16.5 cents for the style magazine, and 1.9 cents on the web. Think about it -- that's 1.9 cents each time the image is shown on the web -- even if nobody looks at it (or your ad blocker ignores it). So 50+ cents for an actual website visit isn't much.

There is definitely some big money in advertising, and as a result, some big money in advertising photography. Imagine the difference a great image will make in the effectiveness of a campaign vs an image that is merely o.k. A few extra thousand for a quality photographer is nothing when your overall advertising budget is nearly a million dollars!

Flash Balance: High Voltage Style

How to make your standard night time christmas tree picture:

DSLR on a tripod in long exposure mode... Check.
Flash to light up my santa clause suit... Check.
Tesla coil to light up the christmas tree... What?

From Wired's online article about Peter Terren:

Terren stands beside his holiday display. To make it, he prepared a wire structure outlining the tree and star. Since sparks tend to stay in one place, the tree can't be lit up with one big jolt. It's a gradual process, taking 91 seconds to create a completed tree. He used a manual SLR camera to record a single still picture of the entire process, and utilized filters to get the different colors.

If you've spent any time with the Strobist point of view, try to figure out the process he went through. Hint: it is kind of like light painting balanced with flash, but using 100,000 volts.

The cage of sparks around the car is definitely worth a look too (slide 4)!

Drool...

While I will never, ever own a top of the line DSLR right after it comes out, it is fun to read about them.

John Harrington over at the Photo Business News & Forum just posted a comparison/review of the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III and Nikon D3. Unlike most reviews, he focuses more on the usability of the cameras than the stats (for indepth reviews, check out here (1Ds) or here (D3)). His consensus was "Nikon by a nose" even though on most issues (especially high-ISO noise) Nikon came out ahead. And he's planning on shooting with both...

What's it mean for the rest of us, who don't have an extra $500 laying around, let alone the $5K (Nikon) or $8K (Canon) necessary to buy one of those cameras? Not much, really, since the primary component of your images is what you put in front of the camera. Harrington's conclusion really highlights this effect -- he's pretty happy with both cameras. Even though one is 22 megapixel (Canon) and the other is only 12 megapixel!

And just because a camera is expensive, it doesn't mean it will be free of problems (like the 1D Mark III's autofocus).

Although the one thing on the top of the line cameras that I'm jealous of is the reduction in high-ISO noise. That would definitely come in handy -- I feel like I'm always banging into limitations on the amount of ambient light, so less noise and higher ISOs would be awesome. Believe it or not, Nikon goes up to 25,600 ISO with less noise than the 20D's 3200 ISO!

Edit: The D3 vs 5D noise comparison at Ken Rockwell's site is worth looking at.

I dream of...

If you want to know one of my dreams, check out my poker blog. I've decided to dust it off for a bit while I take a shot at rebuilding my bankroll.

Probably not going to interest you though unless you are a poker addict fanatic.

Is Photography Dead?

A thought-provoking Newsweek article: "Is Photography Dead?" There's also a thread on the DPC forums discussing the article and ideas.

You know, the best part about the web is the ability to look up many famous photographs, especially using Google Images. For instance, the image above from The Art of the American Snapshot 1888-1978 is referenced in the article but not shown. A quick google images search brings it up though. Likewise, if you are unfamiliar with Cindy Sherman, as I was, you can search for her images.

Also notable (from the DPC thread): Eric Baudelaire's Dreadful Details. Take the time to figure out why and how the photo was made -- you won't be disappointed.

The Shot: Take Two

My first review about The Shot got two angry comments (from the same person I suspect). Apparently the show has some critics, and while I like the show enough to keep watching, the commenter had some points. But before I get to that, I have some comments about Episode 4 (PopPhoto review) which I watched on Monday. If you haven't seen it, you may want to hold off reading this post until you have, because I may spoil some things.

The first sequence involved each shooter getting 15 minutes to shoot women beach volleyball players in action. Surprisely, I enjoyed the volleyball shoot sequence way more than the rest of the show and I really gave the replay button on my remote a lot of use (no, not to replay the volleyball players in slow motion!). I found it SUPER interesting to see how each of the contestants approached the shoot based on their backgrounds. The wedding photographer tried to find a unique view, Dean (the resident Strobist-style hardware guy) had a PW on his camera and a guy holding a flash for fill, the rock band photographer planted herself like a ficus, and the model-crazed black guy just focused on their rear ends...

The main reason I kept rewatching segments was to see where and how the contestants were shooting, and try to get an idea of how assistants were put in play too (each contestant seemed to have at least one mobile light stand assistant, often holding a reflector). I really, really wish they'd give the contestants 30 seconds to describe their lighting setup and camera settings though. The biggest problem with the show (from my photography nerd perspective) is that it glosses over the technicals. And not to mention post-processing, or lack-thereof. But, it is a reality show, and it has to appeal to the masses...

The second sequence involved a 3-D camera, which when I saw the description on my PVR, completely went over my head. But when I saw that array of cameras set up to do bullet-time (well, a 3-D photograph) I couldn't help but grin. Gotta love all that hardware! Aside: some of my friends were involved with the Stanford Multi-Camera Array, but those cameras didn't have nearly the resolution of a dSLR.

But, in the end, what the contestants did (and what they were allowed to do) was quite disappointing, amounting to just asking the models to jump on trampolines and fire off random images. Given more time (on the order of days) and the ability to plan the shot, change the set, and modify the camera orientations, you could get some awesome results. As it was, they were tasked with shooting hair but I thought the cameras were way too far away from the models to make an effective shot.

Sadly, I am also starting to get sucked into the reality part of the reality show (the contestants). Mostly, I'm pulling for Marie, which is odd, because I don't think she is as talented as some of the other shooters, but she seems the least warped (if I have to hear the phrase hair dance one more time in my life, I'll be driven to murder!). So, yeah, the show has pulled me in, although I suspect it hasn't done too well with the general public. I wouldn't be surprised if it was cancelled after this season, although I'm sure it is dirt-cheap to produce (especially since it is light on writers).


Now, to the comments. From Mr. Anonymous:

dumbest show ever!! FInd me photographers who want to work in teams...isn't being an artist not about being unique?? Sad very sad dumb cheap american brainlessness!

While I don't agree with a lot of it, he's got a point. The teamwork aspect of the show is kind of lame and just a thinly disguised way to increase tension and make the eliminations more dramatic. After all, how many photographers work in teams? Well, probably all of the good ones, but there's only one photographer in most cases, the rest are assistants. Hence the tension.

But Mr. Anonymous wasn't done yet. He REALLY doesn't like The Shot, so he then went back for more three minutes later with character assassination of Nigel Barker (who? I have no idea who that guy is, but I also can't remember the name of that long-hair dude that runs the show). Mr. A. did have a point later on:

The show is beyond rediculous! Hanging on a rope shooting a professional shot within 10 minutes??? why not standing on the ground shooting the guy with a long lens??

This is a good point. Nobody would ever expect to make a really good shot in 10 minutes, but it is a reality show, after all. Can't expect them to give every contestant a day and 5 assistants to get their shot. I do hope, later on in the show, they give the contestants more time and resources.

Anyway, for now, I'll keep watching. But don't worry, I'm not going to review every episode!

Early Rumblings of a Strobist Photo Contest

Sounds like the cool guys at Strobist might be hosting a photo contest to choose the best images in the Flickr Strobist pool with real prizes worth actual money. Well, it is still in the advertiser soliciting stage, but given the numbers Hobby suggested, I doubt he'll have trouble getting companies to donate prizes.

The full post: Strobist: Strobist Photos of the Year Contest: Call for Sponsors

I'm excited, although realistically, given the quality of the photos in the Strobist Pool, it is highly unlikely I'd have a shot at a prize. But still, a very cool thing!

And there's always DPChallenge if you feel like photo contests; although no prizes are involved.

The Shot: Mini-Review

Yeah, I know I promised my next post would be the final installment of my macro ring flash series, but I've been too lazy to finish prepping the images for the web. So sue me...

On second thought, don't; I'm too poor to make it worth your time.

So, instead I'll give you a little mini-review of The Shot, a new reality series from VH1 built around fashion photography.

When I first heard about the series on the Photo Business News & Forum, I was pretty shocked that I hadn't heard about it. After all, I'm a bit of a reality series fan (I wouldn't go so far to say junkie). I still watch the Amazing Race, Survivor XXMCI, The Apprentice, etc. but I can't tell you off the top of my head who has won each Survivor season (hmmm... Richard Hatch, some girl, some guy, at some point a guy named Ethan won it and that chick married to Boston Rob). Still, though, I enjoy reality shows and something related to photography is right up my alley.

The Shot airs on VH1 every Sunday night at 10 pm EST (and there are plenty of reruns during the week). Actually, the fact it is on VH1 is probably why I didn't hear about it; I'm too old to watch crazy spring breaks and Carlson Daly on MTV yet too young to watch VH1 and find out what Vanilla Ice is doing right now (oh crap! It looks like he is touring... in Europe). Hence, I didn't hear about this show until now.

So I used the old DVR to tape the third episode and watched it a few days ago. The show is built around the concept of wanna-be professional fashion photographers in a game to select a single photographer to get some cash and some high-profile assignments. While it isn't amazing, there was enough to please the reality show fan and photography fan in me. I'll definitely be watching a few more.

Episode 3 (summary at PopPhoto.com) was built around extreme locations. In one sequence the wanna-bes hung over a cliff and tried to shoot a climber (I was really living vicariously in that one). Then, for the real competition, they got split into two teams to take shots of supermodel Kristy Hinze underwater in a pool (did I mention living vicariously?). The main thing I got out of the episode was a respect for models; Hinze was in the water for four hours patiently taking the direction (or lack of it) from novices. She looked entirely exhausted at the end.

The actual reality stuff (you know, relationships and freakouts and stuff) bores me, but it is really cool to see what the contestants are given and how they use it: sort of a mini making-of video. I wish there was more, but it'd bore the typical viewer if they put in too much. Just seeing the equipment is really cool -- the underwater housing on the camera was a monster with a lens-cover the size of a dinner plate. Must have had a really wide zoom in it.

So, overall, I'd give the show a 7 out of 10. It could be I just saw a cool episode, but I'm interested enough to watch again. If you have the time (or the space on your TiVo) check it out!


Actually, unrelated to the review, I hate VH1's website. Too many ads, too garish, uses way too much processor time. I went to look at The Shot images (too see some of the contestants results in more detail) and the photo gallery looks like it was taken with a cell phone. C'mon guys!

Hot Trends

I've talked before about the financial advantage in spotting a hot fad and monetizing a web site to take advantage. Well, turns out Google provides a nice little tool for spotting fads in a tool called Google Trends.

By leveraging the huge number of searches rolling through Google and keeping track of the frequency of popular keywords, Google Trends can highlight what is popular on the internet. Furthermore, Google even lets you link the interest (number of searches) for an item to events using news articles (like the MySpace trend that opened this post). This is a HUGE tool if you want to spot important fads as they start and try to make some advertising money off of them.

For instance, the if there's one fad that's pretty constant, it's diets:

Obviously, people use the internet to learn about diets all the time, and pretty consistently. Of course, Google must be normalizing the data based on the number of searches, to remove the influence of any growth in the number of people using (or not using) the search engine. If you look further at the graph, you'll seem some interesting trends, especially around the end of each year. Notice the sharp drop around the holidays (because everybody throws out their diet during Thanksgiving and Christmas) and the sudden upswing right after Christmas as people research their New Year's resolution!

Or, you can get more specific. How about the South Beach diet?

Looks like it isn't as popular as it used to be. But more people drop it during the holidays and pick it up afterwards though!

Google Trends is also great for comparing the popularity of things, be they Britney vs Paris (pretty much a dead heat, although Britney is currently ahead) or Chicken vs Egg (everybody knows to go with chicken). Trust me, you could build a sequence of wagers (or a drinking game) around Google Trends. Of course, this is a photography blog, so I'll leave you with the answer to the age-old question: whose lenses are the most popular? (bonus points if you can figure out where the late-year spikes come from)


If you figure out an interesting search (especially related to photography), leave a comment, I'd love to hear about it!