Video: Automated Parking Garage at 1706 Rittenhouse

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Danya

Would you trust your car to a robot?

New residential tower 1706 Rittenhouse is an impressive structure, featuring whole-floor condominiums and unique city-wide views, but the most interesting facet of the development is hidden underground.

The building’s automated parking garage is one of only four in the U.S., and is the most sophisticated model currently offered by German manufacturing firm Wohr.

Recently tasked with capturing imagery of all of Philadelphia-based development and management company Parkway Corporation (who made this skyscraper happen, along with Scannapecio Development Corp.), Imagic decided to produce a video showcasing how this “auto auto lot” works.

The president of Quality Elevator, in charge of maintenance of the facility, took us on a ride on the robotic lifts, on which we descended below-ground and filmed the computerized parking system doing its thing. Moving cars around is no easy feat, and doing it in minimal space with zero damage to the vehicles is another step entirely.

Bottom line: the automated underground facility saves time, space and money. Check out our two-minute showcase, above.

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Hack Your Way to Great Web Pics: 10 Photoshop Tips for Non-Experts

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Danya

I am not a photographer, but I do use photos all the time. Whether it’s images I’ve shot myself for a Zagat Buzz article, or files sent to me for a website I’m developing, optimizing pics for the web is task I tackle often. This is true for almost anyone working online today. Good pictures make a difference (see also: “worth a thousand words”).

Though I’m not a pro shooter, I have used Photoshop for over 15 years. I also have a business partner who is a very talented commercial photographer. This has allowed me to develop an easy method for optimizing images for the web, one that anyone with access to Photoshop can adopt. The 10 tips below trace my quick processing procedure for just about all the photos I post online. Follow along with the steps or just use the tips as one-offs. Continue reading →

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Ice Ice Baby

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Danya

This may be a first, but I’m currently dancing a little jig over a Microsoft product. (Although “product” may be the wrong term, as Image Composite Editor (ICE) is a free download.) After all, I do have ICE to thank for providing my first new Twitter profile pic in nearly 2½ years.

"Video" of adorable Collingswood, NJ

But let’s start at the beginning.

Back in 2001, when we were vying for photography jobs against long-established shooters, one of the barriers to scoring the gig was being an all-digital studio. And it wasn’t unfounded prejudice against a new technique that made potential clients wary; the resolution of all but the most elite dSLR solutions were somewhat lacking (especially because the majority of advertising was still print-based). Continue reading →

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Translucent Mirrors for Lucid Shooting

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Danya

1706 Rittenhouse Tower Ever since our first digital camera (the binoculars-like Kodak DC 120, in 1997) and our first pro-level model (the Nikon D1x, in 2001), we’ve traded up for a new iteration at least once a year. Mark sets his eye on whatever’s next and best (with zero regard for brand loyalty – we’ve owned Kodak, Nikon, Canon, Fuji and Sony bodies), then sells the old and replaces it with the new.

 

 

 

The amazing thing is this progress hasn’t stopped, and keeps evolving at an amazing pace. This week we added a Sony α55 to our collection, and are happy to find it does things that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Stunning things, from a photographer and videographer’s viewpoint.

Sony says it’s the first interchangeable-lens digital cam in the world to have a “translucent mirror.” This means a few things:

1) It is not, technically, a single lens reflex (SLR) camera, a hallmark of pro- or prosumer grade capture. It is of a new category, called single lens translucent (SLT), which uses a beam splitter that allows incoming light to hit the HD CMOS sensor at the same time as it shows up on the electronic preview display. Continue reading →

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A Neural Net

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Danya

Mellon Bank Building by Mark Henninger

To me, the most striking thing about the new medium (is it text? speech?) of Twitter is that every single user’s experience is different. Your personal audience and your personal broadcast are both completely unique.

This is a new dynamic. Information is passed in a public forum, yet each person experiences something exclusive. It’s (of course) not like TV, radio or print news (one to many). It’s not like an online forum or article with comments (many to one). It’s something other – maybe most like Second Life, but grounded in reality, in this life.

The comparison I usually make is that it’s like a never-ending, location-free, global cocktail party. But it’s more like each user is carrying their own party with them, see-through bubbles of private shindigs that drift through Platonic space and occasionally intersect.

Managing a few different Twitter accounts for clients has brought this into focus. With one, I’m totally immersed in the world of golf, which gets especially fun and exciting during one of the PGA Tour majors, like this weekend’s US Open, which Rory McIlroy ran away with in record-breaking fashion. On my personal account, I caught only very brief snippets of this happening, and probably wouldn’t have made note of it at all. Continue reading →

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