September 2010

Michael Zhang

HDR Video Demonstration Made with Two Canon 5D Mark IIs

You've most likely seen HDR photographs before, but how about HDR video? The above is a demonstration of HDR video by Soviet Montage, created using two Canon 5D Mark II DSLR cameras. Both cameras recorded identical scenes using a beam splitter, and captured the footage at different exposure values (over and under exposed).

Eleonora Mambrini

How to Give an Outdoor Portrait a Warm Cross-Processed Look

I took this shot with my Canon EOS 450D, and a Canon 50mm f1.8 -- my favourite lens in the case of portraits especially.

I chose to make the shooting session about a hour and half before sunset when there's still a lot of light, but with a warm, lovely quality to the light. I prefer warm tones, and to emphasize these tones and balance the cool colours of my model dress and tree leaves I set White Balancing to "cloudy". You can see in the picture that the sun was on the right side of model, so she didn't have too much direct light on her face. The white wall behind acted as a discrete reflecting panel, resulting in light that's quite uniform.

Michael Zhang

Pentax Embraces Customizability with LEGO-Style Blocks and Skins

Pentax is trying all sorts of ways to differentiate its cameras from the 800-pound gorillas in the camera market, and apparently thinks customization is the best way to go. After allowing customizer the colors on traditionally boring-looking DSLRs with their K-x, they've just announced two new compact cameras that allow users to choose their own style.

Michael Zhang

New Pentax K-r Replaces the Rainbow-Friendly K-x DSLR

Pentax has just launched a new color-happy DSLR to replace the K-x: the Pentax K-r. If you remember, the K-x was offered in a bajillion different body colors -- up to 100 in Japan. The company looks like it's aiming for the same eye-candy loving market with this new camera, unveiling it in red and white in addition to the standard black DSLR body.

Michael Zhang

The Kite Photography of UC Berkeley Professor Charles Benton

Here's an interesting video created by Make Magazine showing how UC Berkeley architecture professor Charles Benton uses kites to capture amazing aerial photographs. Benton creates his own gear for mounting his DSLR on a kite and controlling it from afar -- you might be surprised at how creative some of his contraptions are (for one rig he uses a disposable camera, rubber bands, and a ping-pong ball).

Michael Zhang

Hands-On with the Nikon 24-70mm Cup

We reported on the Nikon coffee cup that finally appeared on the web months ago, but didn't get our hands on one until today. We did an unboxing of the Canon coffee mug and thermos back in June, so we'll do a similar hands-on for this Nikon one. Like the Canon ones, there's a whole bunch of places making these things (none of which are the camera companies themselves), so there might be some variation on how the thing looks depending on where you buy it from.

Michael Zhang

Sara Bareilles Music Video Features Polaroids and Contact Sheets

The music video for Sara Bareilles' song "King of Anything" has everything contained in Polaroids and contact sheets. The concept is pretty neat. Can you imagine how mind-boggling this video would have been if they had done it in stop-motion with individual Polaroid photos and carefully exposed film strips? That'd be epic.

Michael Zhang

Nikon Unveils the P7000, S8100, and S80 Compact Cameras

Nikon announced three new compact digital cameras this morning. The first is the COOLPIX P7000, a competitor to the Canon G11 (and possibly G12 soon). This is a prosumer level 10.1 megapixel (CCD) camera that allows you to shoot in RAW with all sorts of manual controls. It can also record HD video (720p) at 24 fps, and has an ISO range up to 6400. Additional plusses are a 3-inch LCD screen and an optical viewfinder. The camera will arrive later this month at a price of $500.

Michael Zhang

Tom Guilmette Tries Out the Phantom HD

You know all those eye-popping slow motion videos we feature occasionally on PetaPixel? Many (if not most) of them were filmed with the Phantom HD Gold camera. This camera is capable of shooting thousands of frames per second, and costs a staggering $2,500 to rent for a single day.

Michael Zhang

Limited Edition Canon F-1 Belt Buckle

We featured a Nikon belt buckle here last month, and now here's one by Canon. It's a limited edition Canon F-1 belt buckle made by Lewis Buckles in Chicago for Canon in the 1970s. Charles Eves won the one above for $3 in an eBay auction. The seller was a former Canon salesman that was awarded the belt buckle for his high sales.

Michael Zhang

John Chiara and His Amazing Trailer-Sized Camera

John Chiara is a San Francisco-based photographer that uses an uber-large format camera the size of a trailer that he constructed himself. The camera is so dang big that setting up the thing requires a car jack and lots of yanking. After setting up the film inside the camera, Chiara climbs out of the camera through a long black garbage-bag style tube. To develop the prints, he uses an 18-inch diameter sewage pipe that he pours chemicals into and rolls around on the ground.

Harold Lloyd

Aster Be Good: Post-Processing Purply Flowers

Asters of any kind provide such potential in photography: the colours and the gentle curve of their tiny thin petals combines with their close-growing nature to give the impression either of flowers fighting each other for space and light or of a mass of colour, huddled together for comfort. The clump of asters shown in this shot are a soft, luscious purply-cerulean-cornflowery-blue. Light seems to dance off the petals. Or it would, had there been much light when I took this. Instead, it was a fairly overcast day and I pondered whether it was worth the damp knees necessary to get down low enough to grab this shot. Turned out it was.

Michael Zhang

Blank Nikon D7000 Pages Confirm that Announcement is Near

Here's just a fun tidbit to chew on while we wait for the official Nikon D7000 announcement: Nikon Rumors discovered today that the Nikon sites of certain European countries (e.g. Germany, Poland, and Italy) have already put up placeholder pages for the upcoming camera. There are no links to these pages, but they can be accessed by using "d7000" in the URL.

Michael Zhang

Abstract Pinhole Photos Created with Distressed Color Film

Drew Kunz has a pretty neat way of creating abstract pinhole photographs. Using a film canister as his "camera", he drills small holes into rolls of color film, distresses the film further with a small nail, and then develops the exposed film first with coffee and sodium carbonate, and finally with C-41.

Michael Zhang

Samsung NX100 Photo and Specs Leaked

A photo and diagram of the upcoming Samsung NX100 were leaked today on the dpreview forums by a guy named Alex Ramos. According to Mirrorless Rumors, the NX100 will be a 14.6 megapixel HD video capable (720p) camera with an ISO range of 100 to 6400. An electronic viewfinder can optionally be attached via the hotshoe, and there is no built-in flash.

Michael Zhang

Using a Leica Noctilux on a Sony NEX

Darren Chan recently attached his $6,500 Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1 lens to his Sony NEX-5 camera using an adapter in order to test out the unique combo. As you might expect, the combo is great for creamy bokeh and doing nighttime street photography in areas with low light.

Michael Zhang

Less Than Ordinary by Zack Seckler

New York City-based photographer Zack Seckler's Less than Ordinary series is composed of beautifully captured photographs that have clever twists and creative concepts that make you look twice.

Michael Zhang

Man Creates a Frankencam Using an iPhone and Canon SLR

For whatever reason, Vimeo user Aniebres decided to combine the bulkiness of an SLR camera with the lowly sensor of a phone camera. Taking an old Canon film SLR, he gutted it and created a space for his iPhone to snap into place. What's sad is that the SLR acts as a completely useless shell, and the lens has to be removed for photos to be taken. If only he took off the lame Apple sticker on the front, he might be able to pass off as a photographer... as long as he only snapped photos while changing lenses or something.

Michael Zhang

Cardboard Cameras by Kiel Johnson

Kiel Johnson is an American sculptor and painter that creates a lot of his work using cardboard. Among his works are a collection of cardboard cameras that are extremely realistic (given that they're cardboard, of course). Now all he needs to do is team up with some brilliant engineer that can help him figure out how to have these awesome things actually make photos.

Alexander Shahmiri

Post Processing a Band Portrait with the Strange Birds

About a week ago I did a shoot with the band Strange Birds as we were walking there was a point that I saw light rays trickling down right in front of us. I told all of the guys to stop and arranged them to my liking.

One of the most important things about shooting for me is having an idea of you want the photo to come out in the very end. I tend to adjust my white balance in camera and set almost everything up so it makes less work on the computer and closer to the final product. Below is the original image:

Michael Zhang

New Look Strobox Even More Useful for Learning Lighting

When we featured Strobox back in 2009, it was a simple idea: provide an easy way for photographers to create lighting diagrams and share them with others. Since then, they've upgraded their website to include a gallery where you can browse photographs done by others, view their lighting diagrams, and comment on them.

If you don't have a full arsenal of lightning equipment, you can filter the photos by what kind of lighting equipment was used to browse photos that are more relevant to you.