Leica may have teamed up with the Audi design team for the limited edition Titanium M9 they announced yesterday at Photokina, but Hasselblad has just announced a car partnership of their own: the limited edition Ferrari H4D digital medium format camera. Now pro photographers who are determined to flaunt opulence can shoot with a flaming red camera that matches their car. The camera is even more “limited edition” than the Titanium M9, with 499 being produced instead of 500.
Welcome to the world of cameras being status symbols. Lets hope this kind of craziness doesn’t propagate to other camera companies, or we might see Toyota Canons and Honda Nikons. Oh wait… they have Jackie Chan limited editions already…
Here are a couple new commercials for Brothers printers that blend stop-motion and time-lapse photography in pretty interesting ways with real people. We love how the technique makes the people look like claymation figures walking around in miniature sets. The foreground is done in stop-motion while time-lapse photography provided the scenes shown in the animated paper.
It would have been crazy if they had actually printed out each individual paper of the scene on the wall. Read more…
Earlier this year when Hasselblad announced the H4D-40, we found it interesting that Hasselblad claimed to be trying to reach a younger generation of photographers with the $20,000 camera. At Photokina today, Hasselblad introduced the H4D-31, a camera that actually makes digital medium format photography considerably more affordable (albeit still pretty darn expensive for a “young photographer”).
The camera weighs in at 31 megapixels rather than 40, but the 22.5% decrease in resolution translates into a generous 35% decrease in price: the H4D-31 costs about $13,000. You also get your choice of a 80mm prime lens or a lens adapter that allows you to use V-System lenses you already own.
Hopefully some day we’ll be able to give such a camera away here on PetaPixel.
National Geographic cameraman Bob Poole was in Mali searching for elephants when he and his team were engulfed by a gigantic sandstorm that spanned the horizon. The sandstorm is so massive that it blocks out the sun for four hours. Like any good cameraman, Poole keeps his camera rolling during the whole ordeal, capturing amazing footage of what it’s like to be eaten by a dust storm.
In China there’s a belief that burning paper representations of a deceased person’s belongings allows it to be transfered to the afterlife for the departed person to use. Au Yeung Ping Chi, an effigy maker in Hong Kong and the owner of Bo Wah Effigies, is often asked to create effigies of trendy consumer items such as iPhones and Nintendo Wiis for relatives of those who die young. The above is a camera he created for the purpose of afterlife photography. He’ll probably be asked to create Leica M9 Titanium editions soon.
Check out some more of Au Yeung’s paper creations here.
London filmmaker Temujin Doran created this great little video for Lego that doesn’t involve any flashy effects or fancy camera techniques — just a child-like imagination. It won a prize at the prestigious Cannes Lions advertising festival in 2010.
This concept would work great with other toys and small objects, and can obviously be done as a series of photos as well.
Leica’s announcements at Photokina have been pretty dull so far compared to some of the other cameras that have been unveiled. Aside from announcing a Panasonic LX5 rebranded as a Leica D-LUX 5 and a Panasonic FZ100 rebranded as a Leica V-Lux 2, they’ve also announcement a “Titanium” version of the M9 digital rangefinder of which only 500 pieces will be made. Read more…
I saw an article on Gizmodo the other day that was just a photo of an album over a long exposure, I’m not sure what process the creator went through but I’ve emulated it here. Read more…
Apparently Sigma worked so hard on ensuring image and build quality on its new flagship SD1 DSLR that they forgot that overlooked the fact that video recording is pretty much a standard feature on new DSLRs these days. We forgive them, because they’ve included a 46-megapixel Foveon sensor that uses 3 stacked sensors of 15.3 megapixels each to capture red, green, and blue light. The resulting images are 15.3 megapixels in size with color resolution that’s superior to traditional sensors.
The camera also has a rugged magnesium alloy build, a 3-inch LCD screen, 11 autofocus points, 98 percent and viewfinder coverage. It’ll arrive in February next year at a price that has yet to be announced. If you’re looking for a rugged DSLR and don’t care about things like Live View or video recording, then you might want to add the SD1 to your list.
A couple days ago we featured a compilation of stunning time lapse clips shot in the desert by Mike Flores. The video above is a change in scenery, but epic nonetheless. Photographer Simon Christen shot the various clips using a Canon 40D (10-22mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm) around the San Francisco Bay Area over the course of a year. His camera was always in manual mode, and he adjusted the settings as the light changed due to things like fog and clouds.
Here’s another video we posted a while ago that gives you a beautiful glimpse at what San Francisco is like.
