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Photo by Pete Souza Presidential portraiture enters the digital age
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(Thursday, January 15, 2009 - 12:34 EST)

Just days before the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, his official portrait has been unveiled - and for the first time, a digital camera was used for its capture.

A blog post on the Change.gov website notes the occasion, and provides a link to a higher-resolution version. The portrait is the work of newly-announced White House photographer, Pete Souza, and contains EXIF data describing some of the equipment and setup used.

Canon's EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR was used to capture the image, which was edited in Adobe Photoshop CS3 on a Macintosh. The EXIF data also records a focal length of 105mm, and the photo was shot without flash at ISO 100 equivalent using an aperture of F10, and a shutter speed of 1/125 second. Souza was also a White House photographer during the second term of President Ronald Reagan, and according to the National Press Photographers Association, generally uses either Canon 5D-series or Leica M8.2 digital SLRs.

To see the high-resolution photo and browse the rest of the EXIF headers for yourself, visit the Office of the President-elect's blog.

Official portrait of President-elect Barack Obama on Jan. 13, 2009. (Photo by Pete Souza)

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