October 2010

Michael Zhang

Turn Your Halloween Pumpkin into a Pinhole Camera

Claire O'Neill and Mito Habe-Evans over at NPR's The Picture Show blog have just posted a fun experimental project you can try out this halloween: making a pinhole camera out of a pumpkin. What you'll need is a pumpkin, aluminum foil, a knife, tape, photo paper, dark spray paint, and access to a dark room. Along with the disturbing skull camera we shared earlier today, this would be a fun way to capture photos of trick-or-treaters this halloween.

Michael Zhang

Third Eye: A Human Skull Pinhole Camera

There probably isn't a more suitable camera for halloween picture taking than "Third Eye", a macabre pinhole camera created with a 150-year-old human skull by Wayne Martin Belger. Light enters the camera through the "third eye" on the forehead, exposing the film that's placed in the middle of the skull.

Michael Zhang

White iPhone 4 Delay Reportedly Due to Light Leaks with the Camera

When Apple unveiled the iPhone 4, they also showed off a white version that would be available alongside the black one. Since then, however, the company repeatedly pushed back the launch date for the white version, claiming that the white one was, "more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected".

Brian Cameron

Nikon D200 Tumbles Down Steep Rock Face… and Survives

My buddy Kyle and I were traversing a mountain road near my home town of Tillamook, Oregon. I am intending to create a tour company that will comprise of local tours in and around the Tillamook County area. We have many beaches, mountains, rivers and bays here and I intend to show people. Without getting too off-track, we were heading up into the mountains on a gravel logging road to calculate mileage and timing for a tour. A road I'd been on regularly as I had worked for the state department of forestry for a number of years. Eventually we came to a freshly repaired washout, where a landslide had completely deleted the road in that particular drainage. The washout had created the most amazing view of the Tillamook valley, a reservoir lake and some mountains with intense directional light catching every crag. I was compelled to take a photo so I might use it on a future brochure.

Michael Zhang

Winning Photo of the $80,000 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize

A couple days ago we covered the winning image of the British Journal of Photography's international photo contest and how many readers disagreed with the photo's merits. The prize for that contest was a one week exhibition and a Sigma digital compact camera. Now compare that to the above photograph, which won AU $80,000 in the 2010 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, one of the richest prizes in the world. Like the BJP photo, this photograph became the subject of debate.

Michael Zhang

Mini Fondant Camera Cake Decorations

Jenny from I Love Muffins created these awesome mini fondant lomo cameras for decorating cakes with. If you enjoy making cakes, this could be a fun project when making them for photography-enthusiast friends.

Michael Zhang

Sprocket Rocket Helps You Include Those Sprockets in Your Shots

The Sprocket Rocket is a new analog camera by Lomography that the company claims is the first camera dedicated to sprocket hole photography. The sprocket holes of 35mm film are included in each panoramic exposure, giving the resulting images a unique look. Two knobs on the camera wind the film in both directions, allowing you to create multiple exposures images as well.

Michael Zhang

First Ever Photograph of a Human Being

This photograph of Boulevard du Temple in Paris was made in 1838 by Louis Daguerre, the brilliant guy that invented the daguerreotype process of photography. Aside from its distinction of being a super early photograph, it's also the first photograph to ever include a human being. Because the image required an exposure time of over ten minutes, all the people, carriages, and other moving things disappear from the scene. However, in the bottom left hand corner is a man who just so happened to stay somewhat still during the shot -- he was having his shoes shined.

Michael Zhang

Adobe Photoshop Workspace in Real Life

Maybe this is what "Photoshop" would be like if computers had never been invented. This workspace has it all -- tools, rulers, layers, etc... These are probably the tools the "I Have PSD" guy uses.

Michael Zhang

Wide Angle Pinhole Cap for Micro Four Thirds Bodies

The Pinwide is a new pinhole cap by Wanderlust Cameras that takes advantage of the mirrorless nature of Micro Four Thirds cameras by recessing the cap into the body of the camera, achieving a wide field of view and strong natural vignetting. The "lens" is the equivalent of a 22mm on a 35mm camera, and boasts a perfectly round pinhole "made with the same precision etching technology used to manufacture semicoductors" to ensure sharpness.

Michael Zhang

Sleeping Man Photo Wins BJP Award but Gets Bashed by Readers

The British Journal of Photography announced recently that South African photographer Michelle Sank's image "Man asleep on the Golden Mile, Durban, South Africa." had won the single image category of its International Photography Award.

The image, which shows a man asleep in a park just off the Golden Mile in Durban, was described by judges Nick Galvin, Bruno Ceschel and Diane Smyth as both surreal and disturbing, and was picked out from 338 other entries because of its quiet, enduring intensity. "The more I look at it, the more powerful it becomes," commented Galvin, who manages the archive at Magnum London.

Michael Zhang

‘Nuit Blanche’: A Stunningly Beautiful Short Film by Arev Manoukian

"Nuit Blanche" is a 4-minute long short film by Arev Manoukian of SpyFilms that will blow your mind. While you're watching it, try to guess how it was created -- see if you can pick out what's real and what's "shopped". It may remind you a bit of The Third & The Seventh, another mind-blogging short we shared at the beginning of the year.

Michael Zhang

Award-Winning Photogs Discussing the Power of Photojournalism

If you have 20 minutes to spare, here's an interesting video in which winning photographers of the 66th Pictures of the Year International contest discuss the power of photojournalism and some of their work. This is similar to the "What Makes a Great Picture?" by National Geographic that we shared back in September.

Michael Zhang

Giant Camera Overlooking the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco

If you're ever in beautiful San Francisco, you might want to pay a visit to the giant camera obscura, a room sized "camera" built in 1946 and based on a 15th century design by Leonardo da Vinci. It's designed to look like someone left a giant 35mm there with its lens pointed to the sky.

Michael Zhang

‘Regret’ After Stonehenge Copyright Email Causes Public Outcry

Earlier this week stock agency FotoLibra received an email from English Heritage (the public organization that manages historical sites) that read,

We are sending you an email regarding images of Stonehenge in your fotoLibra website. Please be aware that any images of Stonehenge can not be used for any commercial interest, all commercial interest to sell images must be directed to English Heritage.

After the email and a strongly worded response was published to the FotoLibra blog, the story was picked up by Boing Boing, which then published a story titled "English Heritage claims it owns every single image of Stonehenge, ever". Needless to say, there was a pretty swift public outcry.

Jonathan Ray

How to Create a Repeating Flash Effect with Light Painting

Certain higher end flashes have a strobe (AKA repeating flash) mode that can flash repeatedly, freezing a moving subject in various positions in a single exposure. This tutorial will teach you how to create a similar effect using light painting techniques, resulting in the above photo.

Michael Zhang

Print a DIY Flash Reflector on Card Stock

Want to print your own flash reflector? Pieroway has free PDF templates that you can use. The templates print double sided, with black printed on one side and faint gray fold lines printed on the other. Print it, cut the shape out, fold along the lines, and attach it to your flash with a rubber band.

Michael Zhang

Make a Simple DIY Follow Focus for $6

Want more precision in your focus adjustments when shooting video with your DSLR, but don't want to shell out money for a pricey follow focus? Flickr user Adam Lisagor shot this photo showing how he created his own DIY follow focus for $6. All you need is a steel hose clamp, drawer handle, nut, and bolt. Drill a hole through the clamp, and put it together as shown above.

Michael Zhang

Broken Bat Smashes Camera Lens at MLB Playoff Game

During Game 4 of the series between the Yankees and the Rangers this past tuesday, a player broke a bat when making a hit and the broken end of the bat flew all the way into the camera well, shattering the front of a Canon DIGISUPER 86II TELE xs camera lens worth $90,000. Luckily there was a protective filter being used over the lens, though it will still cost $20,000 to replace it. What's neat is that cameraman Steve Angel kept on shooting with the smashed lens, framing the scenes through the small hole in the shattered glass until the camera was replaced an inning later.

Michael Zhang

Locking Lens Cap Protects Gear and Makes Thieves Look Ridiculous

The Lens Lock is the latest product in the GearGuard gear locking system by Gary Fong (maker of the well known LightSphere). It attaches to the back of a lens like an ordinary rear lens cap, but can be secured and locked using a cable/lock combo. This allows you to lock the gear down when not in use (like you would do with a bike) or lock it together with other gear in your bag, preventing individual items from being stolen from your bag.