First and foremost, the picture above is credited to David Slater, who says that he owned the photo but he didn't capture it. He created the conditions that were optimum for such a picture and as such had claimed to it. Unfortunately, Wiki-commons disagreed and now there is a ongoing copyright battle on who owns the picture. 

What is Public Domain?

Wiki-commons lets people put up copyright free images for everyone's use and these become public domain picture which cannot be used commercially. But seriously folks, do you think people will ever care to respect this bit?

public domain images of Steve Jobs

There are plenty of images in public domain which you can use for blogs and researched papers that will be deposited in pubic domain. Such images cannot be used for commercial gain so even if you used this picture on a banner advertising your garage sale, that would be in breach of the law, citing wiki-commons isn't going to save you.

Who can put Pictures in Public Domain?

Only the photographer can decide to donate a picture he took to public domain. Nothing else matters. The problem here is two folds, Slater didn't take the picture nor did he get a signed release from the Monkey as a model. This makes the whole idea on Slater owning the picture very murky.

So technically, the monkey owns the picture, regardless if it was Slater's camera that took the picture. And since Slater did not get a signed model contract....there is no copyright contention.

Monkey See Monkey Do

Slater baited the monkey to take the selfie. But in the end, he could have just sold the picture as something he had owned. To save himself, he could have fibbed about the picture and then made millions in selling the image for commercial use. Selfie was in essence a bad tag for the picture because this is what created the copyright debate.

Stupidly, he didn't have the brains to do this and now it is too late. However all is not lost. Even if the image is in public domain, it still cannot be used commercially. Slater can still profit from this if he can prove he is the holder of the analogue image.

Opps. He shot digital. Damn. He could have gone the analogue route and saved himself a ton of problems.

Digital files are useless. You may own the RAW image of the file but no one is going to look at a RAW file as proof of copy. Anyone can technically steal a RAW image from your HD and put that up as his own. Even a high resolution JPG can be turned into a DNG file with the right app. Quite a different story if you had a copy of the analogue image in your HD and the real slide or film image in safe keeping.

Lesson is, professional stock image photographers would be better off shooting analogue to protect their own interest. Digital is vaporware...think about it.

This is the lesson gleaned from photographers all over the world who have accidentally shot and released images onto the Internet and regretted it later as it would have cost them lots in commercial licensing.

Rated at ASA200, the new Cine200 Tungsten film isn't all that new to begin with. During my day as a photographer, I would not have bought such a film for use for outdoors for one simple reason, the film gives a cold cast, looking more blue than what you'd get with daylight film.

What are Tungsten Rated Films

Used primarily in studio that have floodlights, these lights give a extremely warm cast, and to balance them, you'd use a Tungsten film so that the colors would appear accurately as perceived in daylight.

The idea behind this is to allow the photographer the freedom to shoot in Tungsten lighting without the use of lens filters. This was a god send for analog photographer who worked constantly under floodlights shooting magazine adverts to printed catalogs.

All you needed to do is to load up the film and shoot. You could also do a vise-versa on normal daylight balanced film with a lens filter that balanced the harsh lighting. Either way,  Tungsten film fell out of fashion during the digital age because White Balance controls negated the need to use any type of filters.

Digital Tungsten White Balance

You can of course switch on your digital camera, go to your White Balance controls and select Tungsten lighting and get the same effect. There is no big deal about this. This method will only give you a bluish looking tint. Not a bad thing if that's what you are looking for but if you have RAW files on your HD, you can give all your digital photos the same look in any post production program like Photoshop or Lightroom.

Lomo's Tungsten Revival

For the young and aspiring analog photographer, the whole Tungsten film revival might seem like a big deal but to the old hands in the industry, it's a yawn.

But this is not a bad thing for people who continue to shoot film. The reason? Well, for art sake. These days, you can virtually tell if an image is digital or analog based on its tint and color reproduction. The closest to digital reproduction can only be achieved through good quality slide film but that too must be under optimum lighting conditions. Films are generally balanced for daylight exposure, if you have heavy clouds hovering before you, that changes the definition of daylight as well so your pictures won't look as good.

Digital Auto White Balance is better at detecting and correcting these minor shifts in the weather so you won't have to do this manually.

Shooting Tungsten in Daylight

Easy as pie but don't be surprised if you don't get the cooler tint during a hot summer's day at the beach. Very warm and sunny weather almost mimics the real conditions of Tungsten lights so you get a well balanced picture in the end.

There is no reason not to use it in everyday mixed lighting conditions just to take your artistic freedom up a notch.

My advice is ultimately this. Film is expensive so remember to capture something worth keeping.

I love Leica lenses. Having owned one, you'll find that there is something really exquisite about the imaging quality. The color, contrast, and clarity is superb. So Leica is celebrating 100 years in photography. Wow. That's a long time. Looking back, one can't help but realize how much photography has changed since then. 

Today, the average digital photo is pretty much worthless. To buy one for use on your website, you pay a dollar for royalty free rights. The only people who seem to be making money from it all are the stock photo agencies who charge you that dollar to download an image. 

Leica has moved away from film to digital. Good for you. Look at the spiffy new Leica 100th D-Lux 6 with 5,000 of these will be sold world wide. That said, it will be a collectors item. I don't want to go into the pricing. You can't do that with a Leica. It has a great lens and that should cost you in the ballpark of a full frame DSLR alone. 

To pay that much for a camera speaks volumes of Leica photographers. Rich, affluent and probably a point and shoot enthusiast. You are not going to be the next Alfred Eisenstaedt or Robert Capa. 

Instead, we find Leica indulging their fans with Street Photography and offering courses and exhibitions for would be street photographers. This genre of photography was made famous by HCB, who in his free time spent hours upon hours on the streets of Paris. But Leica, haven't you noticed that the people who buy your cameras do not necessary venture out to the street? 

The typical Leica user would probably avoid spending too many hours on the street as his Leica gear would cost more than his left kidney on the black market. You can go to a cafe and the moment you put down your camera bag or gear, you'd be assured it'll be gone within a few minutes of you taking your eyes off it. A Leica camera is like magnet for thieves and robbers. Unless you venture out with a shotgun in tow, chances are people everywhere will try to rip you off. 

Lastly, why Street Photography? As a career pursuit, it won't be as financially rewarding as Paparazzi Photography. Even wedding photography makes more money on a regular basis than any street photographer. You should be aware that the constabulary of every Western country has an axe to grind with people who point cameras in the street. Post 911 they say. It's a sign of a would e terrorist. 

Then there is the privacy issue. In Hungary, it is illegal to take photos of people on the street without their consent. In the age of the NSA with eyes on your Facebook profile, you'd be happy that your face doesn't appear in a picture on Flickr captured in a embargoed country. 

What's more street photos are often made up of people, with recognisable faces. This means that if you ever tried to sell a street photo as a royalty free stock image, you'd be asked to supply a model release. You can of course take photos when there is no one around. For this, all you have to do is wait till the eerie hours of the night to do so. But I understand that Leica cameras don't handle well in low light, so are you saying that this is a myth?

Regardless, I think you are doing well financially as a camera manufacturer. Those limited edition cameras are genuine rip offs but hey, let's keep that a secret between the both of us. I still think you make fabulous lenses and I am addicted to them. Saves me hours behind the desktop trying to enhance those digital images on Adobe Lightroom. For this, let me wish you a very Happy Birthday, and let the good times roll.