If you happen to be in Munich I encourage you to visit Thorsten Meyer’s potrait exhibition. You can find the exhibition in a local Café called Kreislauf ( Daiserstr. 22, Munich).  The exhibition shows some big prints from recent (2009-2010) portrait work from the portfolio of Thorsten Meyer a Munich (Germany) based photographer. The PhotoMocha Photo Exhibition ends in late November 2010. If you are not in Munich visit the PhotoMocha Photo Gallery at PhotoMocha.com

ImageSorter is an image browsing application, which allows an automatic sorting by color, date taken, name, or size.

Kompetenzzentrum Mensch-Maschine-Kommunikation an der FHTW Berlin describes ImageSorter as ” The idea of ImageSorter is to find images of which you remember how they look but you forgot in which folder they were. If one or several folders are selected, all images from these folders will be visually arranged such that similar images are close to each other. In this sorted display it will be much easier to find a particular image. Selected images can be copied, moved or deleted (right mouse click).
ImageSorterdoes cache thumbnails and sortings, therefore after images have been loaded once, everything will be much faster.

The current version of ImageSorter (4.0 BETA) sorts images by the similarity of their color layouts. Future versions of the program will support additional ordering criteria. All images within a folder are sorted in such a way, that similar images are positioned close to each other. This sorting scheme makes it much easier to find a particular image within a huge image set.

Naturally also ImageSorter does not understand or recognize image content and cannot distinguish between different people or landscapes. However this program does not need a query image and is suited to display large sets of up to some thousands images in a visually well organized way that can easily be navigated.”

I traveled the in May for 3 weeks through southwest China and Shanghai taking Photos (and videos) in many places. Before I left Germany I was looking for a new tripod which is made of carbon fiber material to reduce the weight I have to carry around while photographing.  When I check the stores in Munich and online stores several carbon tripods which I found have been very expensive (andcosts more then I really want to spend). By chance and reading about Feisol in some Photographer forums I did came across Feisol which makes reliable tripod that you can buy for a reasonable price.

As I spend to much time shopping in the evening for a new carbon tripod in Munich I emailed quiet late (the day before I left to China) the Feisol office in Aachen asking them which tripod are on stock and how we could ship it to me the next day. Feisol called me back within minutes and we talked about the Tournament Class Tripod which have been marked out of stock in their online store.  However the extremely friendly and helpful sales person did understand the situation I was in and promised me that I would receive the tripod on time the next day before I leave to China. All worked out as promised and I received the FEISOL CT-3442 tripod with a FEISOL CB-50D Ball Head the next morning through DHL Express.

I was immediately impressed with the quality of the Feisol tripod. It is well crafted and robust. Fit and finish are excellent. It came with a carry case and several small adjustment tools.

When I used the tripod in China I was extremely happy about the stability which easily carried my Canon 5D Mark II with Battery Pack and “heavy” Lenses.

The FEISOL CT-3442 comes with an strength and durability in an incredibly lightweight design -– just 1.05 kg (2.31 lb) and a  Folded Length of 48cm (18.90 inch).

At this price level it seems that no other professional tripods comes close to matching the standards of quality and performance that have been set in Feisol  Tournament Class. You may get the same quality from other vendors, but you may have to pay a premium for it as well.

When I used the tripod I found that the Feisol can be really fast deployed and folded when I moved on after shooting. The CT-3442 is light weight for travelling, short enough for easy traveling.

The camera on top was always in a solid place allowed me to take the sharp pictures I wanted to take. For all my HDR (HDRI) photos, HD movies and the panoramic photos I was heavily depending on this tripod. The Feisol tripod got the job done.

The CT-3442 does not come with an Center Column, which I see as an advantage as you get extra stability. Of course if you need a center column you can add it

Specifications

• Max Heightwithout column: 142cm / 55.9in
• Minimum Height without column:  18cm / 7.1in
• Folded Length:  59cm  / 23.2in
• Maximum Leg Tube Diameter:  28mm / 1.1in
• Weight: 1.05 kg (2.31 lb)
• Max Load: 10kg  / 22lbs

I would recommend looking into this and other tripods from Feisol if you need a new carbon based tripod.  The StrongMocha team recommend this tripod for traveling photographer.