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Back in the day, hands-on photography required you to be closeted away in a darkened room, where you dunked sheets of paper into solutions of smelly chemicals. Now we manipulate photographs with software, a much less messy and oppressive process. But wouldn't it be great to have more control still- even before the photo is taken? Many cameras allow you to adjust their exposure settings manually, but that's about it. What if you could have full command of your camera's hardware? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On 17 July 2014, a group of New York City police officers approached 43-year-old Eric Garner on a Staten Island sidewalk and attempted to arrest him—for allegedly selling cigarettes illegally. When Garner pulled free, one officer wrapped an arm around Garner's neck, forced him to the ground, and pressed his face into the sidewalk. Garner, who had asthma and heart disease, repeatedly pleaded, "I can't breathe," before passing out. Unconscious, he was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead an hour later. The medical examiner later ruled Garner's death a homicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"I still hate this," Trevor said. "That you?re doing this to Becky." ? ?So you?ve told me,? I said wearily. "Many times." ? We sat in the clinic waiting room, done in Martian rust reds, very trendy for such an illegal operation. But, then, this was very upscale illegality. Trevor, who had so much money he never thought about it, hadn?t asked how I was paying for Becky?s surgery, and I hadn?t volunteered that I'd cashed in my retirement fund at Payne, Jeffers. We'd been waiting on the rust-red conformachairs, which were not as comfortable as advertised, for nearly an hour. ? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metric most often used by camera manufacturers and marketers to tout their products has been pixel count. That's a shame, but it was probably inevitable-it's easy to measure, and consumers are used to the idea that more is better. However, the number of pixels is a measure of quantity, not quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]