sound-meets-pictures

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This article was written by the New York Institute of Photography, America’s oldest and largest photography school. NYI provides professional-level training via home study for photographers who want to give their images a professional look, and perhaps earn extra income with their camera.

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Sound Meets Pictures
By Jim Barthman, NYI Student Advisor and Digital Photography Specialist

It was inevitable. Recently Apple Computers announced the release of their newest MP3 music player, the iPod Photo. Yes, you heard correctly, an iPod for photographers. This insanely popular portable music player has now been revamped to store and view digital photographs.

Not long after the introduction of the original iPod, many digital photographers discovered that it could be used for storing JPEGs as well as their favorite music. By using an iPod as a portable hard drive digital photographers could work longer in the field without having to worry about filling up a digital memory card. In fact, third party manufacturers such as Belkin seized the opportunity and now produce a memory card reader designed to work with the early iPods. Unfortunately, with its grayscale screen, image storage was all they could really do.

Enter the iPod Photo. Available in two sizes, 40GB and 60GB this tiny powerhouse can store a whopping 25,000 digital images in addition to your favorite music. Not only that, the grayscale screen has been replaced with a full color version capable of displaying all your photos in thumbnails as well as full screen. The iPod's vaunted navigational system, the Click Wheel, is perfect for scrolling and choosing photos. Using Firewire 400 and the USB 2.0 specs, downloads are sure to fly. With the proper cables you can even hook it up to your TV or multimedia projector and have slideshow (with music, of course).

For last couple of years, Apple has extended the olive branch to its PC counterparts with cross platform versions of iTunes and other software. The iPod Photo continues the tradition, promising synchronization with the Windows "My Photos" folder as well as Apple's popular iPhoto. Can't we all just get along?

The ties between musicians and photographers have always been quite evident to me. Ansel Adams was an accomplished musician. Two musicians with some time on their hands invented Kodachrome. Steve Jobs thinks the combination of music and pictures is going to be the next big thing. He may be on to something.