There may soon be a new member of the Canon Extender EF lens family. A recently published patent filed by Canon describes a new 2.8x teleconverter. A 400 f/2.8L IS II would become a 1120mm f/8 lens with the teleconverter attached, though Canon will have to restore f/8 autofocus to its top-of-the-line cameras before that combo would become useful.
(via Egami via Canon Rumors)
After reading about the Wakhan Corridor in the New York Times, French photographers Fabrice Nadjari and Cedric Houin decided to visit the remote region in Afghanistan in the summer of 2011, walking for 24 days through a 140 mile stretch. Their project, titled “Traces of Time”, involved capturing instant photos of the villagers they met:
When [Nadjari and Houin] arrived in the first village, they found that even photographs, which freeze time, worked differently. The portraits they took with Polaroid cameras developed oddly, and degraded rapidly, because of the high altitude and harsh conditions. But this made them no less valuable to their subjects, many of whom had never seen a photograph. Some had never seen an outsider.
The local Afghans marveled at the fragile images and lined up to have their photos taken.
“There was something extremely precious in the way they were holding the image, in the way they wanted to get it as soon as it got out of the camera,” Mr. Nadjari said. “It was both the gift and the interaction.” [#]
The photographers soon decided that they would shoot portraits of the villagers holding their own portraits, with the instant photos seen in color while the rest of the portrait is converted to monochrome, saying that it “stops time, and mixes the past and present. The present looks like the past, and the past like the present.”
A Hard Trek to Humility (via Photojojo)
Image credits: Photographs by Fabrice Nadjari and Cedric Houin
Apollon is a concept camera designed by product designer Gordon Tiemstra for his industrial design university project. The big concept is that the camera can be physically combined with your friends’ cameras, allowing them to snap photographs together to create things like panoramas and 3D photographs. The images captured by any camera in the cluster is wirelessly transferred to all of the others, giving everyone the complete set of images that were snapped.
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VU35 is a new brand by Lucas Desimone and Matias Resich that offers products created from wood and reused 35mm film — a plastic material that’s difficult to dispose of. Their first product is a minimalistic collapsible bookshelf called Filmantes, which uses strips of film to connect three wooden shelves.
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Here’s a tutorial by photographer Joe Edelman that teaches how you can build a studio lighting setup with fluorescent lights for under $200. You can find a detailed parts list over in the description of the video on YouTube.
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Etsy seller Roberto Altieri creates unique iPhone/iPod charging docks out of old — and hopefully defunct — Pentax and Minolta SLR cameras from the 1960s and 1970s.
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Last week camera testing service DxOMark announced that the Nikon D800 had earned the highest sensor quality score ever awarded. Roger Cicala of LensRentals wanted to see for himself how much of an advantage the D800′s 36.3MP sensor had over its competition, so he did some sensor resolution tests on the camera, comparing it to the Canon 5D Mark III, 5D Mark II, and Nikon D700. His conclusion?
[...] there’s no question the D800 can actually get those pixels to show up in the final product (assuming your final product is a big print – they’re going to be wasted posting on your Facebook page). But you’d better have some really good glass in front of it. I don’t think the 28-300 superzooms are going to cut it with this camera.
In the real world, highest possible resolution is nice to know about and talk about, but usually not of critical importance compared to other factors. You’ll be able to make superb images with any decent lens for an 8 X 10 or even 11 X 16 print. But if you’re getting the camera because of the resolution, it makes sense to know which lenses will allow all of that resolution to be utilized. Just in case you get that job that needs billboard sized prints.
Last November we featured a concept camera called Air that is worn on your fingers and snaps photographs when you frame scenes with your fingers. That concept may soon become a reality. Researchers at IAMAS in Japan have developed a tiny camera called Ubi-Camera that captures photos as you position your fingers in the shape of a frame. The shutter button is triggered with your opposite hand’s thumb, and the “zoom” level is determined by how far the camera is from the photographer’s face. Expect these cameras to land on store shelves at about the same time as the gesture-controlled computers from Minority Report.
(via DigInfo TV via Geeky Gadgets)
This past Sunday, Jupiter and Venus put on a show by lining up with our moon (a conjunction). Rick Ellis of Toronto, Canada managed to create the awesome photo of the event seen above by capturing 31 separate frames. Each photo was taken 5 minute apart and had an exposure time of 5 seconds.
One Night, Dozens of Triple Conjunctions (via Geekosystem)
Image credit: Photograph by Rick Ellis
After being arrested on October 1, 2007 for using his cell phone to film officers making an arrest, Boston lawyer Simon Glik sued the city for violating his civil rights. Late last year the court denied a motion to have the case dismissed, and just yesterday it was announced that the City of Boston had come to a settlement with Glik, agreeing to pay him $170,000 for damages and legal fees. The decision last year and the settlement yesterday both reaffirm that the First Amendment protects the right to photograph and film police officers carrying out their duties in a public place.
(via ACLU via Ars Technica)
Image credit: cop snapping pics with cellphone by SpecialKRB
