Nikon and NASA are showcasing some amazing photos taken aboard the International Space Station with Nikon equipment. According to Nikon, NASA took over 700,000 photos with the Nikon gear kept on board, which includes one Nikon D3S DSLR, eight Nikon D2XS cameras, 36 NIKKOR lenses including three teleconverters, seven SB-800 Speedlights, and other gear. Nikon notes that the D3S is unmodified, and is the same quality as available on the consumer market.
Nikon has a long history with NASA since sending a Nikon F camera with Apollo 15 in 1971. Since then, Nikon’s enjoyed exposure while helping NASA get image exposures. Most recently, the D3S that is currently on board was delivered to the ISS via the Space Shuttle Discovery, launched April 10, 2010. NASA says each shuttle launch costs approximately $450 million — that is one expensive delivery! Here are more images from the International Space Station taken with Nikon gear:
It looks like Nikon Corp. might just beat Canon to the EVIL punch after all. In an interview with Bloomberg, Nikon President Makoto Kimura said Nikon has plans to improve video and may adopt the mirrorless structure of electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lens (EVIL) cameras.
While Nikon is still playing catch-up with Canon’s HD video quality, it seems that they are pushing to get ahead on the EVIL system. Interestingly, less than two weeks ago, Nikon Imaging Company President Yasuyuki Okamoto hinted that Nikon wouldn’t be dipping into EVIL just yet. Okamoto had said:
Although we considered a variety of so-called mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras for the digital SLR camera market, we discern the appropriate timing for the launch of our new-generation digital cameras based on the direction of the market demand.
However, it seems that the market demand in Japan has indeed been trending in favor of new EVIL model cameras produced by Sony and Panasonic. Bloomberg cites:
Sales in Japan of cameras with interchangeable lenses rose 35 percent in unit terms and 26 percent by value in May, partly because of the introduction of the news models, according to electronics research firm BCN Inc. in Tokyo.
Nikon President Kimura was reluctant to say when the “new concept” camera would be available, only that it could be this fiscal year, which ends in March 2011, or the next.
If you want to dabble in 3D on your SLR without having to use separate frames or “gluing” your cameras together, this 3D lens accessory by Loreo might be a happy solution. The Loreo 3D Lens-in-a-Cap is a standalone lens that mounts onto the camera body like a normal lens. The resulting image is duplicated side-by-side, and can be enjoyed in 3D with a special monitor viewer.
You can see sample photos taken with the accessory on the Loreo site.
The Lens-in-a-Cap is available for Nikon, Canon, Pentax, and Sony/Minolta mounts for $150. Individual monitor viewers are $2.50 or less.
Or, if you don’t mind being cross-eyed or seeing double (remember that technique you used to see Magic Eye 3D books in the 90s?), you can actually see the image above in 3D.
Whether you’re keen on it or not, Sony is adding an extra dimension to the next line of Cyber-shots. Just last week, Sony released a firmware update for NEX-3 and NEX-5 EVIL cameras to include 3D panoramic sweep. The Cyber-shot DSC-TX9 and DSC-WX5 will have the same 3D panoramic sweep mode, but the TX9 model will also have a special LCD display by which 3D still images can be viewed on the camera by tilting the screen back and forth. The 3D images from both cameras can be viewed on 3D televisions.
Available in Septemter, the TX9 will run around $400 and the WX5 model is about $300.
Both prices severely undercut the cost of Fujifilm’s competing 3D point-and-shoot, the FinePix REAL 3D W1, which still runs for $599.95.
There’s no app for this: Etsy seller Erin Paysse designed this pinhole camera out of an iPhone box. It’s been done before with an iPod box, but Paysse added a clean, retro touch to the camera. She’s selling the camera for $80, as well as some prints produced by the camera for $25.
Check out her store to see more creative pinhole cameras made out of boxes and books.
Canon may have revealed its plans for the Wonder Camera yesterday, but Olympus also quietly released something of its own to marvel at.
According to a newly published Olympus patent, originally filed in 2004, a new camera may be in development that is designed to make consumer point-and-shoots even more intuitive for casual photographers.
Fine art photographer Susan Burnstine came up with the idea of making her own cameras from a hodgepodge of common household and hardware store objects. She picked up an old magnifying glass, plastic, rubber, garbage bags, cinema foil, metal, vintage toy camera parts, and cardboard, among other items, to create lenses and cameras. Here is a picture of one of her cameras, along with some images she captured:
There’s an increasingly overwhelming sense of frustration coming from the Gulf region, but this time, it’s coming from photographers and journalists. Media access has been tough since the beginning of the oil spill, whether on land, on beaches, or in the air. According to a new safety zone rule passed down from the US government, reporters and photographers are not allowed within 20 meters of booms, boom operations, and other cleanup activities, except with the express permission of the US Coast Guard. CNN’s Anderson Cooper reports that the limit was originally 300 feet, but it was reduced to 65 feet.
But to complicate matters, under the new rule, anyone found “willfully” in violation of the rule would be fined $40,000 and charged with a Class D felony. Class D felonies typically carry a jail sentence. The law especially affects photographers in the area who need to be on site in order to properly cover the events.
Canon debuted this concept camera at the Shanghai World Expo, revealing their plans for the future of photography. The concept camera, dubbed the Wonder Camera, has many functions that already exist in many cameras, but takes them a step further.
The Wonder Camera would have high-speed, multi-level focus. It would also have the ability to shoot both stills and video, but quality stills can also be taken out from individual frames of the video reel. Not only will it have face recognition, it will have smile recognition and the ability to single out those who smile out of a crowd.
It also would have super zoom capabilities, but improved built-in image stabilization to reduce the need for tripods — and perhaps eliminating the need for interchangeable lenses altogether. Canon also hopes to integrate faster wireless connectivity into the camera body.
And on top of all the features, the resolution might be measured in something much larger than megapixels — petapixels, perhaps?
Canon forecasts that a working, consumer-ready model of this camera might not exist for another 20 years, but it’s likely that we’ll see some of these features seeping into near-future consumer cameras.
Brothers Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas, the same UK-based duo who created a remote-control BeetleCam to photograph wildlife in Africa, decided to get up-close and personal with some of nature’s less desirable creatures. The two originally noticed mosquito larvae in stagnant water sitting in the backyard of their home, and decided they’d found their next photo subjects. They patiently set up the photo shoot, waiting for key moment when the adult mosquitoes emerged from their larval state. It’s fascinating how delicate and alien the pesky critter is up-close:
Their patience and planning went a long way, Will tells us:
We did a bit of research into their development and discovered that it takes about 1-2 weeks (depending on the temperature) for them to develop into the adult form. This gave us a good amount of time to devise a set up to photograph them as they emerged.
Over the course of about 14 days, we kept a keen eye on their development. We kept the larvae in a glass of distilled water indoors and covered it with perforated cling film – we didn’t want to suffer any bites during the night! Once the larvae had turned into pupae, we knew they were close to hatching. We soon discovered that when one straightened out, we had about 5 minutes until they hatched.
It looks like Nikon Corp. might just beat Canon to the EVIL punch after all. In an interview with 
