Microsoft has released a free Outlook plug-in to help photographers remember which equipment to bring to photo shoots they've scheduled with the calendar and contacts software.
Microsoft Pro Photo Shoot lets photographers create gear lists for appointments. (Credit: Microsoft)
The free plug-in, called Pro Photo Shoot, lets photographers create a list of their photographic equipment and then use a check-box list to pick what's needed for a particular appointment. Outlook produces a sorted list.
The software can be downloaded for Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.
The software is part of Microsoft's gradual effort to appeal more to photography enthusiasts, an audience that historically has been one of Apple's most loyal and lucrative. Another part of that effort is Microsoft's work to standardise HD Photo as JPEG XR, an alternative to conventional JPEG that can store higher-fidelity images.
And another part is support in Windows Vista for viewing, tagging, printing, and otherwise handling "raw" photos, the unprocessed sensor data from higher-end cameras that can yield higher-quality photos than ordinary JPEG. Where Apple creates its own raw image codecs -- software for encoding and decoding digital files -- Microsoft relies on camera manufacturers to supply them. (The codecs also work with Windows Live Photo Gallery installed on Windows XP.)
In the past, locating the codecs often required navigating various camera makers' support site, but Microsoft has set up a new site with links to download the Vista raw image codecs in order to make it easier for photographers to locate the Vista raw image codecs.
So far, support is included for the main digital SLR manufacturers: Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax, and Olympus. In addition, Ardfry Imaging offers a codec for US$30, or a free trial version, to handle raw images encoded with Adobe Systems' Digital Negative (DNG) format.
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NDT
04/01/2008 12:17 PM
Haha This is possibly the most useless piece of software created. well done Microsoft! Any photographer who needs to look in his diary to remember what gear to bring to a shoot deserves to to WORK for he people that wrote his ludicrous software!!
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