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I was meant to be at a party for some 30 people yesterday. I swapped it for a party for 80,000 people at the Olympic Stadium. On the one hand I didn’t want to disappoint my friends who organised the party ages ago. On the other hand, when will I ever have another chance to see Usain Bolt, Mo Farah and other top athletes  – breaking world records – in the same place at the same time? The decision was therefore slightly painful, but in the end Usain and Mo won (sorry, Cath). It was a real privilege to witness the 5000m men’s finals, 4x400m women’s finals and the 4x100m men’s finals with this awesome crowd at the Olympic Stadium. The deafening roar that accompanied both Usain Bolt and Mo Farah was simply astounding. I have never experienced anything like that. And to witness both men (and let’s not forget about the mind-blowingly fast women – see pic below) right there was just – cliche alert! – a once in a lifetime opportunity. Thanks Lawrence for making this possible. The 5000m final was particularly exciting as Mo, rather worryingly, stayed at the very back initially. And even though we all knew this was his usual strategy and he would eventually switch to his magic 6th gear, it was a bit disconcerting to see him bringing up the rear. But after a few laps he moved closer to the middle of the group… …only to become a clear leader as he approached the finish line. What an amazing man. And then there was Usain and his crew. Joking before the race and striking his trademark pose several times during his lap of honour. While being chased by what seemed like three-quarters of the world’s media: While many kept doing ‘the Bolt’ all evening, others just relied on inflatable replicas. Lazy buggers. And as always, the atmosphere at the stadium was phenomenal and carnival-like. A truly amazing evening. Cath, will you ever forgive me? Hope the garden party was a roaring success… See the full gallery from the athletics finals here. See also: the London 2012 Opening Ceremony in pictures and the Olympic Park in pictures. #london2012 #mofarah #olympics #usainbolt

As you no doubt know already, focusing using the 3-inch (or smaller) LCD screen at the back of your camera is a pain. Initially it didn’t bother me, I simply accepted it as one of those features you’d need to put up with. Back then, I used my Canon to take pictures and only occasionally filmed something. But with time I started using the video feature more and more. And experienced more and more disappointments. Why? What I thought was pin-sharp on the LCD screen turned out to be out of focus when watched on a big computer screen. I was aware of Zacuto and its products, but could never justify the expense. Their fantastic-quality viewfinders are solid, adjustable and attach to your camera using a sturdy metal plate. But for casual use, £300+ is a bit steep. With time, however, the need to have one of these became apparent. Not only do they allow you to focus and see the magnified LCD screen clearly (the magnification is usually between 2x and 3x), but also provide extra support for the camera. So I started looking at other options. I first played with the Zacuto to set my expectations and learn what I really need from the viewfinder. Luckily, I don’t wear glasses, so diopter correction wasn’t a critical factor. Neither was the metal plate. (However, initially I saw this as the only option, as I didn’t want to glue anything to my screen. Soon, I got over that, more on that later). I knew I wanted something sturdy and, above everything else, clear, sharp and without any distortions. There are several options available for Canon DSLR users (like the 5D/7D or the 550D) – and they cover a wide spectrum of prices: from around £25-£30 per piece to £450 (yes, some viewfinders I looked at were even more expensive than Zacuto products). I quickly identified the LCDVF as one of the best entry-level viewfinders, at a third of the price of its Zacuto cousin. You can buy it for around £85-100 online or in some bigger camera shops in the UK. It’s simple, but provides a 2x magnification and a clear, distortion-free picture. You wouldn’t believe how many other viewfinders with cheaper glass suffer from barrel distortion issues. I’ve tried a couple and the experience is really bad: not only are the edges of the image soft and blurred, but also focusing – or checking the focus – outside the centre of the image seems problematic. As I mentioned earlier, I was a bit sceptical about gluing anything directly to my LCD screen. And in order to use the LCDVF you first need to attach a small metal frame to your screen. The frame comes with an adhesive strip that sticks firmly to the screen and becomes a more or less permanent fixture on your camera. (Yes, you can remove it, although I haven’t tried yet.) The frame is needed to hold the viewfinder in place. The latter click into place using 4 small magnets, which means that – provided you glued your frame on correctly – mounting and demounting will always be easy and the viewfinder will remain properly aligned with the screen. And allegedly the magnets are strong enough to hold it in place, but not strong enough to mess with the camera itself. Let’s hope so. So far, it’s been great and I’m glad I bought it. If your budget doesn’t allow you to splash out on any expensive viewfinders, you can’t go wrong with this one. If you want a more in-depth review of the LCDVF, Nino Leitner and Philip Bloom have written extensively about it. For full specs and compatibility see the LCDVF website. #lcdvf #viewfinder #zacuto

In a country of replicas, another copy of a better-known icon should not surprise anyone. Yet, seeing a replica of a cemetery in the middle of one of the most famous beaches in the world and next to a loud, cheap and equally famous pier couldn’t have come as a bigger surprise to me. And Arlington West is a replica, but also a memorial in its own right – it honours those who were killed or wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it’s a temporary memorial too. It appears next to Santa Monica Pier every Sunday thanks to Veterans for Peace. Just like the original Arlington cemetery, which honours fallen American war heroes, its Santa Monica ‘extension’ is a place of reflection, mourning and is intended to draw people’s attention to the ongoing conflict. I didn’t notice the enormous sea of crosses at first, too preoccupied with the crowds on what was the hottest day in Los Angeles’ history. But neither did most of the visitors. The usual, colourful, loud and laid-back crowd was busy parking their SUVs, cycling along the Malibu to Venice path, eating ice cream and rinsing their flip-flops from the sand on the unbelievably wide and long beach. The memorial is erected next to the northern entrance to the pier and contrasts sharply with the carnival-like atmosphere of the area. Surfers and coffins. Roller coasters and roll calls of thousands of American soldiers who will never see this beach again. But the memorial also honours Iraqis who were killed by the Coalition troops, as well as the fallen Coalition soldiers. Despite the appearances, the site does attract a lot of interest, both from casual passers-by like me and from those who came here to reflect and leave their condolences. But somehow, like in our everyday lives, the moment of reflection evaporates with the scorching heat and soon posters of Miley Cyrus and Usher, and Spiderman impersonators, take over. Everything goes back to normal on Santa Monica beach. Until next Sunday. See the full gallery of images from there on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649

It’s been a while since I did one of these. It’s also been two days now since I posted my latest video in the series, so I thought I’d better write a quick post about it too. I spoke to Niall well over a year ago about doing a short video about his work. We initially wanted to release different video which we shot over a couple of weekends in early 2012. But in the summer of 2012 Niall thought it would be better to focus on Crossing Paths first, an idea I really loved as I had been a huge fan of his street portraits. We ended up taking an impromptu trip to Portsmouth and then on to the Isle of Wight. No rigs, sliders or steadicams. And no (official) script. (Yes, you can call it guerrilla filmmaking if you wish.) We hoped to replicate Niall’s walks which had previously yielded some great pics and all we really wanted was to meet some colourful characters who would not only make a good video, but also end up being Niall’s subjects. And we did. Niall’s ability to spot interesting characters, start a conversation with them and convince them to pose for camera is probably what makes his Crossing Paths project so unique. And while not all people we met that day made it into the film – or the upcoming book – they all were happy to pose for Niall. With one exception – a rather innocent looking middle-aged man who seemed to be harbouring a dark secret, and who gave us both the creeps. It was a fantastic experience and if you haven’t seen Niall’s images yet – where have you been?! Crossing Paths – A Portrait of Britain from Michal Dzierza on Vimeo. #aphotographersjourney #CrossingPaths #NiallMcDiarmid #photography

This month Roger Ballen publishes his latest book, Asylum of The Birds. It’s a collection of images taken in a secret location on Johannesburg, South Africa, at a house full of uncaged birds and people. When Roger Ballen visited London almost two years ago, I shot a short film from his lecture for London Independent Photography and he mentioned the project then already (scroll down for the video). Now Roger Ballen has released a short film to coincide with the publication of Asylum of The Birds. I knew some of the images, but the wider context gives them a whole new meaning. Strong stuff. And here’s my video from Roger Ballen’s London visit. He talks about Asylum of The Birds around 2:15. Roger Ballen in London from Michal Dzierza on Vimeo. #photography #RogerBallen

My prayers have been answered. London eventually got its first decent gigapixel image this week. You’ve probably already seen what its creator calls the biggest spherical panoramic image in the world at the moment, the 80-gigapixel picture of London. It’s an amazing achievement. The level of detail is incredible – you can clearly see individual faces in the street, peer into cluttered offices and count the number of tourists in each of the London Eye’s pods. Jeffrey Martin who created this image, and who runs 360cities.net, took some time out of his very busy schedule to answer a few questions for this blog. Here’s what he had to say about the image, but also about his other projects, including 3D and timelapse panoramas: First of all, explain how you took the image(s) and how you worked on the final picture. I took 4 panoramas (about 30 gigapixels each) from each corner of the Centrepoint skyscraper in London and stitched them teogher into a single 80 gigapixel image. Many people cannot really imagine such a gigantic image. Could you explain what 80 gigapixels mean in the context of this project. 80 billion pixels is the equivalent of 400,000 x 200,000 pixels. A normal camera might give you a picture that is 4,000 x 3,000 pixels. I joined nearly 8000 images together. If you took this image to the photolab and printed it like you print your holiday photos at the photolab (or on a good inkjet printer at home) the image would be 35m x 17m in size – and not a billboard, which is just dots when you get close to it. this would be something you could press your nose against and still see detail. So the next obvious question would be about your gear… I used an 18 megapixel SLR camera (Canon 550D, but they didn’t sponsor this image) and a 400mm lens. I used the 18 megapixel SLR because it has the smallest pixels (highest pixel density) of any digital SLR on the market, allowing the largest possible panorama in terms of pixel count. I’ve written about many other gigapixel images before – it all started with Dresden and Paris, then there was Dubai and Budapest and many others. Did they inspire you in any way? What did you think about them? I made another world record image last year, the Prague Gigapixel – http://www.360cities.net/prague-18-gigapixels at about the same time, the Dresden image came out, larger but not a 360. The Paris image is wonderful. Holger who made the Dresden image, and Alexandre Jenny (and his colleagues from Kolor) who took part in the Paris image I have met a few times. They are all great guys, once or twice a year we get a chance to meet at a panoramic photographer conference, and we get to talk about all this geek stuff 🙂 What was the most challenging part of the project? The stress of not knowing if this was going to work at all! These other world record images were shot from a single point, and from that standpoint were much more straightforward to do (I won’t use the word “easy”) 😉 This image was shot from 4 quite different viewpoints, but the subject matter was mostly quite distant, but still the way to get them to fit together well is one of my trade secrets I guess. So we’ve had panoramic images, spherical panoramic images, what’s coming next? 3D? Interactive panoramas? Some people call spherical panoramas “3D” which they are not – they are 2Dphotos on a spherical surface. You can have 3D spherical panoramas also, and we have some on 360cities.net: www.360cities.net/search/anaglyph (you need red-blue 3D glasses to see these) It is geometrically impossible to make a completely spherical anaglyph panorama because when you look down the 3D effect breaks. But it mostly works. I personally don’t like to wear these red-blue glasses. Until this can be shown without any glasses, I think it is kept to a very tiny niche. I have dabbled in timelapse spherical panoramas – back in 2005 when I had more time on my hands. I shot 6 spherical panoramas from the *exact* same spot, every few days, for a whole year – there was even a flood! You can see them here. You need the adobe shockwave plugin to see these, and your browser might crash – but it’s worth the risk 😉 http://www.vrlog.net/2007/11/timelapse-panoramas/ It’s fascinating, but tell me a bit more about 360cities.net I founded 360cities with my brother David, 4 years ago. It grew out of a local project called Prague360.com which I worked on with the supremely talented designer Adam Trachtman (of http://www.lucidcircus.cz) After we made the Prague site, google maps came out and we thought “hey, we can clone this for anywhere in the world” so we did just that. I invited other panoramic photography enthusiasts to publish their own images, and it started with 7 cities. And it grew from there. In 2007 we received Angel funding, and it became my full time job (more than fulltime – running a startup is crazy!) I can imagine. What’s next for you and for the site then? Which city is next and are you hoping to set another world record? I’d love to keep making world records, it’s fun 🙂 Next could be Mumbai, or NYC, or Istanbul. Who knows? You’ll be surprised! All images in this post © Jeffrey Martin, used with permission. Thanks to @anniemole for help Related articles 80 Gigapixel 360 Degree Panorama of London Largest of Its Kind (petapixel.com) “London venue for the world’s largest panoramic photo” and related posts (pocket-lint.com) Panoramic pic captures London at 80 gigapixels (news.cnet.com) #80gigapixel #London #panoramicimage

The idea behind the project is to create a time capsule for those who were born around the time when we broke the 7 billion people barrier. Time will tell whether my picture – taken during a rather rigorous walk with friends in Petersfield, Hampshire last weekend – will make the cut. Then another picture I took yesterday outside the British Museum got ‘Explored” on Flickr. Not sure what it means – apart from the fact that I was noticed by some Yahoo! algorithm – but it’s nice to get all those nice comments anyway. At least there’s something I can now add to my bragging rights. #explored #flickr #NewYorkTimes

It’s a nice feeling when you wake up and fellow Flickr users inform you your picture has been chosen to feature on Flickr’s Explore page. Not sure what else it means apart from a little boost to my ego and a few more eyeballs checking out my work. Which is always nice. Thanks 🙂 Click on the above screengrab to see the actual image. #flickr

Ever wanted to be featured on Flickr’s explore page, but didn’t know how others get there? Photopreneur has an interesting post explaining how Flickr’s algorithm selects images for the Explore page. Worth a read, even if you hate Flickr or don’t give a damn about reaching a wider audience. Abelardo Morell’s fascinating camera obscura technique, which fills darkened rooms with amazing landscapes. National Geographic put together a gallery of his best images and posted a video explaining the technique. Wartime photographers:  the New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller talks to war photographers Joao Silva and Greg Marinovich. Both were wounded while on assignments as war photographers, both saw their colleagues die. The transcript is called “The inner lives of wartime photographers” and is essential reading for everyone, not just photographers. #cameraobscura #flickr #warphotography

Better late than never – the video I shot during last week’s Gay Pride parade in London is ready at last. It was my first video edited on Final Cut Pro X and I quite enjoyed using it, but then again it was a relatively easy and straightforward project. I do hope I’ll be saying the same after more complex projects too. The images from the parade are here. http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=26238021&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00adef&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0 #FCPX #LondonGayPride

…it may be the most striking camera ad I’ve ever seen. Possibly even the most striking ad I’ve ever seen – in general. Some of you may have already seen it as it’s been on YouTube since June, but somehow I’ve only just discovered it. Be warned, it’s age-restricted, partly explicit and therefore possibly NSFW. #ad #Fuji #video

“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” Taken from Christopher Nolan’s superb Inception. #inception #quote