I like Photography; both taking and appreciating photos. I was really disappointed to see that retailer Jessops have been added to the growing New Year list of High street fatalities. In my experience Jessops provided great customer service, mainly because their staff seemed to know about and understand their products, and were passionate about photography.

Recent advances in digital photography seems to have launched a new age of amazing quality imagery; both still and moving. The latest entry level Nikon D3200 can take pictures at 24,000 pixels, up from 14,000 pixels on its predecessor! This improvement is huge, and this camera costs a very reasonable £400.

I have owned an SLR for a few years now and have captured a collection of good shots, particularly some Formula one races and also seeing and recording my young daughter growing up (a telephoto lens and fast shutter speed for both is a real bonus!) I’m told by various people that I can frame a good photo. I just enjoy capturing things and getting a good result. I also try and be creative by bringing a slightly different perspective to an image or subject.

Leica have always been synonymous with producing top quality cameras. Fellow blogger and business contact of mine Tim Garratt blogged about a superb Paul Smith special edition Leica. You can see it here.

Moving to motion imaging (a more modern term for ‘video’); I’ve recently been watching the BBC Africa nature documentary series, narrated by the superb Sir David Attenborough. The new techniques and equipment employed on this series has provided some amazing viewing, not least of which the HD detail of the natural world – seeing a reflection in a tiny water droplet perched on a blade of grass is phenomenal. The use of a new HD starlight camera system provided amazing images of Rhino’s in the pitch black darkness. Also using super-slow motion and macro camera technology allows us to witness natural events in quality better than the human eye and brain could take in. This is providing a new perspective of the world, especially hard to reach places and nature.

Urban photography can be equally interesting in HD as there is so much to see, especially from the air. Specialist anti-vibration cradles on helicopters can help to provide great images like the one on my blog header of London. You can see some great motion images of London from the air on the BBC Apprentice programme.

As you’d imagine, all this new technology is being developed and used in Space too. NASA have been able to capture a new the Blue Marble image of the globe in HD. You can see it here. This is one of the highest resolution images of the globe to date. On a similar theme, the likes of google and Bing are constantly updating their aerial/ mapping images and these are great everyday tools. We use them to assess potential sites for development – its a great way to understand the context of an area, without actually visiting it.

So with photo and motion imaging both enjoying significant advances in quality, we can expect to see advances in the way we produce visualisations of proposed building developments to match. We produce a lot of photo-realistic computer generated images for our projects in-house. We also use external consultants on occasions. One we have worked with extensively in Manchester is mi. These are a great team of guys who are also  passionate about what they do. They produce some amazing and diverse work for a wide range of clients, including TV and Gaming. Take a look at their showreal here.

I think this new world of high definition imaging is great progress, and will no doubt help us to understand and experience our world in new and diverse ways.