Hong Kong photographer Lok Cheung found that manual focusing his Olympus E-P1 Micro Four Thirds camera was a pain because it lacked an electronic viewfinder (EVF). He then discovered that attaching a Rollei TLR viewfinder to the camera provided a makeshift EVF:

The result is really good. Although the LCD on E-P1 is not in very high resolution and you can see every single pixels with the Rollei viewfinder, manual focus is almost as fast as you can get on a true manual camera, and the viewfinder is almost directly behind the lens which even closer to SLRs and rangefinder.

LCD viewfinder attachments already exist for DSLR systems, and help make focusing easier and more precise by magnifying the LCD screen and blocking out sunlight. Using a film viewfinder to do this for an Olympus E-P1 is pretty clever.

(via Engadget)

Image credits: Photographs by lok cheung

Speaking on the explosive improvement of camerephone technology in Helsinki yesterday, Nokia Executive Vice President Anssi Vanjoki shared his vision of the future for cameraphones — a future without DSLRs.

Pointing at a professional photographer in the room, Vanjoki said, “There will be no need to carry around those heavy lenses.”

From a poll we ran on PetaPixel last week, we found that 59% of our readers didn’t believe cameraphones would replace even compact cameras. We didn’t even think to mention DSLRs, since there currently does not seem to be any answer as to how cameraphones will address their disadvantage of smaller sensors and poorer optics.

However, the idea of cameraphones replacing even the best digital cameras continues to find its way into news articles. Just last month Wired published a story titled, “Quantum Technology Promises Wedding Photos From Phone Cameras“.

Wedding photography with a cameraphone? Really?

Perhaps these quotes and articles aren’t intended to suggest that the DSLR market will be replaced by cell phones, but rather that the quality difference will be reduced to the point that those who simply bought DSLR cameras for casual photography might be satisfied with cameraphone quality.

If that’s the case, these claims might be true. Enough consumers may buy into the megapixel myth and eschew fancier cameras for the increased “megapixel power” of cameraphones. In the same speech, Vanjoki also predicted that cellphones will be capable of filming HD video within the next 12 months.

Once we see a “Last 3 Minutes” caliber film shot with a cameraphone, we’ll be believers. Until then, we’ll keep bringing our DSLR to weddings.

Last week when Reuters released photographs of the volcanic activity at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, one photograph stood out to Wade Laube, the photo editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.

After making a few calls, Reuters decided to investigate. Laube writes on his blog,

Reuters had made contact with the photographer, an Icelandic local, and sought access to the original. It transpired that before being acquired by the wire service, the photograph had been in the possession of an Icelandic newspaper and it was there that some fairly liberal digital dodging and burning took place. When a comparison was made with the original, it became obvious that post production had been applied to sufficient extent that it violated Reuters’ very firm position on digital enhancement. So they retracted the picture and supplied the original in its place, and we dropped that image into the Herald for later editions.

Looking at the before and after photographs shown above, you can see that post-processing was done in order to make the plume of ash look extremely dramatic.

What are your thoughts on how far post-processing can go before it becomes too much?

Image credits: Photographs by Reuters

Bhautik Joshi, the guy who made the Phone-O-Scope that we tweeted a while ago, has a new do-it-yourself project for those of you who enjoy this kind of hack-ish photography project.

His latest project involves building a cheap fisheye lens using a peephole lens and a soda can.

Here are some sample photographs taken with the “tin cam”:

Built using a fisheye peephole as the main lens element and a decapitated soda can as the lens body (!), this attaches directly to my SLR camera. For well under US$20, I ended up with a lens that has nearly a 180-degree field-of-view, adjustable focus, a canon EOS mount, and due to it’s stylish and sleek exterior, can generate limitless amounts of admiration ridicule confusion.

To learn how to build one of these for yourself, head on over to the tutorial through the following link:

The fisheye tin cam (via Photojojo)

Image credits: Photographs by Bhautik Joshi and used with permission

This breathtaking timelapse was created by Tom Lowe of Timescapes, showing footage from his first film, “Southwest Light”. We love how camera movement adds another epic dimension to the footage, as if the stars spinning in the expanse overhead isn’t enough. If you have a minute and a half to spare, definitely take a look at this video.

The BeetleCam is a remote controlled car that has a Canon 400D DSLR and two flash units strapped to the top. It’s the brainchild of brothers Will & Matt Burrard-Lucas, award-winning wildlife photographers based in the UK, and allows them to capture some unique photographs of some of Africa’s most dangerous animals.

William tells us,

We are brothers from the UK specialising in wildlife photography. We aim to use teamwork and ingenuity to take unusual shots of wild animals. Recently we embarked on a project to photograph African wildlife from a ground level perspective using a camera mounted on top of a four-wheel drive remote control buggy called BeetleCam. We took BeetleCam to Tanzania and photographed lions, elephants and buffalo with it. The project proved to be a great success and we managed to get some amazing photographs from a unique perspective.

For more photographs from the BeetleCam, and some videos of the cam in action, check out the BeetleCam project page.

Image credits: Photographs by Will & Matt Burrard-Lucas and used with permission

You might have seen the coffee mug that looks like a Canon L Lens, but have you seen this camera lens that looks like a coffee mug?

This strange 150mm coffee cup pinhole lens was created by paradefotos, and actually works (though the photos are pretty blurry).

Unlike the L lens coffee mug, this coffee mug lens isn’t nearly as desirable, and probably won’t become the next “must have” camera item. Funny idea though.

Image credit: Coffee cup pinhole lens by paradefotos and used with permission

Verizon and HTC have recently unveiled the HTC Incredible phone, which runs on the Android 2.1 OS, and carries some pretty impressive camera functions.

Most notably, the Incredible has a whopping 8-megapixel camera, putting it a few megapixels shy of the average point-and-shoot on the current market.

Verizon announced in a press release that the phone provides “quick and easy access to Flickr for sharing and viewing pictures.”

The phone also has what looks like a fairly prominent, large lens (by camera phone standards), alongside two LED flashes. Additionally, the camera mode includes the ability to touch the screen in order select an autofocus point, along with impressive manual options to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and ISO from 100-1250.

Though it’s unlikely to edge out the point-and-shoot just yet, the Incredible certainly seems to be designed with the photo enthusiast in mind.

The HTC Incredible is available April 29th and will cost $199.

Two weeks ago we featured the short film “The Last 3 Minutes” by cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, which showcased the potential of the Canon 5D Mark II for filmmaking.

Hurlbut’s team also created a behind the scenes look at how the amazing short was filmed, and gives a great glimpse into the unique blend of effort and creativity it requires.

If you haven’t watched “The Last 3 Minutes” yet, here’s a link to our original post.

(via Planet5D)

Famed for his role as Harry Potter’s best pal Ron Weasley, actor Rupert Grint says he’s a bit of a tech geek and jumped at the opportunity to review the Fujifilm W1 3D.

Grint says he was fairly impressed with the camera:

…[S]witching over to the 3D mode opens up a whole new world. Shooting 3D video was the most impressive aspect of it; this really showed off what the camera is capable of. You are free to move with the camera and try more ambitious shots. I experimented, trying to capture objects moving towards you, and seemingly coming at you out of the screen when played back. I was impressed; it worked surprisingly well.

However, Grint concludes that the 3D camera is not without “a few other downsides”.

You can read the rest of Grint’s review at the UK’s Daily Mail site.