August 2012

If your DSLR ever dies in your arms or starts acting funny, here's a simple thing to check before shelling out money to have it examined by professionals: the camera's internal clock battery. Redditor Aero93 writes,

So my camera died out of nowhere. No matter what I did and tested, it wouldn't turn on. Canon quoted $400 to check the cam + labor parts. Independent repair guy was around $250. It was too much for me. I decided to tackle the problem on my own. I got the manual online. Started taking the camera apart. I got stuck on one thing.

After that, I started asking around on a forum. Somebody suggested I check the internal clock battery, I didn't even now it existed and its right next to the regular battery. I went out and bought a new one. Boom, camera fired right up.

The internal clock battery is the one that keeps the clock in your camera running even when the main battery is removed. They usually cost about a buck each.

It's standard procedure for photo labs around the world to contact authorities if illegal activity is discovered in pictures, but what constitutes "illegal activity" can different widely from place to place. Case in point: three French tourists were recently given jail terms in Sri Lanka for photographs they took containing Buddha statues.

Earlier this month we wrote about a new Keanu Reeves-produced movie titled Side by Side, a documentary about the major shift going on in Hollywood away from film and toward digital. In addition to the interesting subject matter and star studded list of interviewees, here's another thing that makes the movie awesome: PetaPixel makes a cameo.

Facebook agreed to buy Instagram for $1 billion back in April, but the deal has been in limbo over the past four months while the Federal Trade Commission gave the deal a long look-over. Both online companies got goods news today when the FTC announced that the investigation has been completed, and that the deal may "proceed as proposed."

The "as proposed" part is something that Instagram would probably love to change if it could. As we wrote a couple days ago, the fact that so much of the price was offered as shares of stock, coupled with Facebook's plummeting ticker symbol, means that the $1 billion deal is now only worth around $750 million.

When NASA's Curiosity rover performed its "seven minutes of terror" landing on Mars a couple weeks ago, the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) camera had the task of capturing 1600x1200 (~1.9 megapixel) photographs at a rate of 5 frames per second. The camera began snapping away from when the heatshield separated to a few seconds after the rover touched down. The amazing high-definition video above was created with these photographs, showing what it's like to fall onto the surface of the red planet.

When filmmaker Ben Gill recently needed a way to attach his cameras to a car dashboard for a movie he was making, he decided to go the DIY route and come up with a makeshift solution. His resulting mount costed less than $10, and worked quite well. It was created using a car sponge (the kind that looks like a giant peanut) and some rug pad.

The people over at New York-based hackerspace NYC Resistor recently found an old Apple Macintosh SE on the side of a road in Brooklyn -- a computer that was manufactured between 1987 and 1990. They decided to do a little "digital archaeology", and came across something strange:

While digging through dumps generated from the Apple Mac SE ROM images we noticed that there was a large amount of non-code, non-audio data. Adam Mayer tested different stride widths and found that at 67 bytes (536 pixels across) there appeared to be some sort of image data that clearly was a picture of people. The rest of the image was skewed and distorted, so we knew that it wasn’t stored as an uncompressed bitmap.

After some investigation, we were able to decode the scrambled mess above and turn it into the full image with a hidden message from “Thu, Nov 20, 1986“.

After some further techie magic, they were able to unearth four black and white photographs showing the engineers that worked on building the computer for Apple 25 years ago.

Guess who's back? Back again. 8x10 instant film's back. Tell a friend.

After successfully reviving various lines of instant film for Polaroid cameras, The Impossible Project announced today that they've created a new line of 8x10 instant film for large format cameras.

Want to enjoy your favorite Instagram feeds through a picture frame on your wall or desk? Instacube is a product designed for you. Created by design group D2M, the Android-powered frame is completely designed around viewing and interacting with Instagram photographs.

Earlier this month, we shared the crazy story of a DSLR that sat at the bottom of a creek for three years before being returned to its owner, thanks to the fact that the memory card was still readable. In case you were wondering what the camera looked like after chillin' in such an unfriendly environment, here are some photographs of it sent to us by owner Michael Comeau.

People do some pretty dumb things on reality TV shows, but perhaps none more asinine than this. During the filming of the Discovery Channel's reality TV show The Devils Ride back in January, the camera crew captured footage of a confrontation between one of the show's subjects and photographer Ashi Fachler, who was taking pictures from a public sidewalk. Here's the description of the clip above (warning: it's pretty disturbing):

When a photographer gets too close to a group of club wives and girlfriends enjoying a dinner out, Charles, a Laffing Devils prospect, steps in.

In case you didn't catch that, Fachler was assaulted by a number of people involved in the show simply because he was getting too close while photographing from a public space.

Boy, have we got a giveaway for you this week! We're giving away one of every single photo-related product sold by camera gear company CustomSLR. One lucky (randomly selected) reader will receive C-Loop swiveling camera strap mounts (silver, black, blue, red, and gunmetal), a helpful Glide Strap, a comfortable Camera Split Strap, an M-Plate universal tripod plate system, an M-Plate Hand Strap Attachment, and a $250 gift certificate so you can load up on any future CustomSLR products you fancy. The total value of this package is worth $550!

In addition to the Android-powered compact camera announced this morning, Nikon has also announced two other compact cameras in the Coolpix lineup. We'd call them "beauty and the beast", except for the fact that the beast isn't very beastly (on the inside).

Lets talk about the semi-"beast" first. It's the new P7700 -- successor to the P7100 -- which was leaked extensively prior to today. The main spec people wondered about was the sensor: whether it would be another weak point-and-shoot sensor, or whether the company would upgrade it to the Nikon 1 series size. Guess what? It's still weak.

Canon's new flagship DSLR, the 1D X, can shoot 18.1-megapixel JPEG photographs at a staggering 14 frames per second in burst mode. This is nearly at the 16 frames per second needed to hide jerkiness from the human eye -- the flicker fusion threshold for moving images. Though the frame rate falls short of the 24fps used for Hollywood movies and by many video cameras, 18.1 megapixels per frame translates to 5K resolution in video lingo, while the video feature of the 1D X only shoots at 1080p (~2 megapixels per frame).

Gizmodo's Michael Hession realized that the camera's burst mode could still be used to produce reasonably smooth video. The clip above shows Hession's experiments with using the 1D X as a relatively cheap 5K video camera. 2,000 separate JPEG stills went into creating the two-minute-long video.

This creative stop-motion video was created over the course of one year by a boy named Kristen (unbeatableme on YouTube). He took at least one photograph every day for 365 days showing himself standing in front of a whiteboard. By changing elements inside the shot (e.g. his clothing, the art on the whiteboard, his hair), Kristen made one of the most "time-consuming" animation projects we've seen.

After weeks of rumors and leaked photos, Nikon has finally officially announced its new Coolpix S800c compact camera -- the company's first camera to be powered by Android OS. It's designed to be a powerful point-and-shoot that offers the versatility of app-based mobile phones.

It seems like ever few weeks Canon announces another 10 million lenses produced. Soon, that might not be too big of an exaggeration. The company announced today that it produced its 80-millionth EF lens back on August 3rd, 2012. In case you're wondering, that particular lens was an EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM. The bar graph above shows the growth in the number of EF lenses in the world.

Remember those leaked "spy" shots that supposedly show someone using the upcoming Leica M10 digital rangefinder? Leica Rumors took those images and everything that we know about the camera so far, and created some mockups showing what the camera will likely look like. The most striking feature is the special port on the back that allows for an electronic viewfinder attachment on the hot shoe.

Texas wedding photographer Allen Ayres was recently contacted by an advertising agency that wanted to use one of his wedding photographs for one of its pharmaceutical clients. Ayres had in mind to ask for $1,000, but wisely decided to ask for advice over at Digital Wedding Forum.

Conflict minerals are minerals supplied by war-stricken parts of the world in which armed conflict and human rights abuses are prevalent -- minerals that are essential in the manufacture of consumer electronics. There has been a huge push recently to eradicate conflict minerals from the gadget industry, since the trade of these materials lines the pockets of unscrupulous folk and directly funds violence.

The Center for American Progress's Enough Project is trying to get major manufacturers involved by releasing an annual ranking on how well those companies are doing in avoiding conflict minerals. The latest report, released earlier this month, shows that certain camera companies -- namely Canon and Nikon -- are lagging behind big-time when it comes to being involved in this matter.

The folks over at Tucson, Arizona-based ArtsEye Gallery love the Holga so much, that decided to create a gigantic version of the plastic 120 format toy camera for an annual photo competition they host. They were originally planning to create it as a fun prop, but midway through the construction process, they had the brilliant idea of making it as a functioning camera.

If you've been looking for a way to hold "photo conversations" with friends and family as easily as you chat through text messages, Skype has a solution for you. The company has added one of the features requested the most by its millions of users: mobile photo sharing. Upgrade to the latest version of Skype's iPhone and iPad apps, and you'll be able to beam your latest snaps to anyone on your contact list without having to worry about things like file size limits or paying for MMS charges.

What would happen if Apple made a DSLR? Web video artist Adam Sacks thinks it would be a hit with iPhone users who use their phones for the sole purpose of taking pictures of food, applying filters to them, and then sharing them online. He created this humorous parody of an Apple commercial in which Greg Mansfield, the "Vice President of iPhone Product Design", introduces the iPhone 5. The new phone is reinvented as a DSLR to make everyone's life easier, and features a single app: Camera.

Sony's upcoming NEX-5R and NEX-6 cameras will look very much like... previous NEX cameras. Product shots and manufacturing photos of the two cameras have leaked onto the web through sonyalpharumors and digicam-info. The NEX-5R will look nearly identical to the popular NEX-5N (yes, that camera with that was plagued with a mysterious clicking noise for a time) and has a flip screen LCD on the back. SAR reports that it will have a 16MP APS-C sensor, phase detection AF, Wi-Fi connectivity, app support, Internet browsing, and a price of $700 with an included kit lens.

Portland, Maine-based photographer Caleb Charland (whom we featured before) has a fascinating new series of science-based photos that show various alternative batteries created using things like apple trees and stacked coins. The photo above shows an experiment in which he powered a lamp using 300 apples in a Newburgh, Maine-orchard.

He spent 11 hours sticking zinc-coated galvanized nails and bare copper wires into the apples in order to generate current using the fruit. Every 10 apples provide about 5 volts. The lamp was successfully lit by the apple power, but was so dim that the photograph required a 4 hour exposure!

The number one reason for data loss is human error, and one of the other major reasons is the failure of storage mediums. When examining ways to store digital photos for a lifetime back in 2009, we noted that entrusting your data to the servers and engineers of major cloud companies (e.g. Amazon and its S3) was a better option than trying to back up your data yourself. Even though Amazon's S3 has long been an attractive option -- after all, many online photo sharing services use it for storing your data -- its pricing of around around $0.14/GB/month means that storing just a terabyte costs $100+/month.

That changes today with the introduction of Amazon Glacier. It's a new uber-low-cost storage service for people who just want a place to dump their data without having to worry about it. Pricing starts at a crazy-low $0.01/GB/month.

Canon has added two new beefy compact cameras to its SX ("superzoom") line: the PowerShot SX500 IS and the PowerShot SX160 IS. The main features of these two cameras is snappy autofocus speed and powerful optical zoom. Both cameras feature a 1/2.3-inch CCD 16 megapixel sensor, an ISO range of 100-800, 720p video at 25fps, a 3-inch LCD screen, and Canon's Intelligent Image Stabilization (which helps you shoot sharper images even when zoomed in, panning, or walking).

Leica User Forum member lm_user is one lucky photographer. For his birthday recently, his kids gifted him with this beautiful Leica M10 prototype digital rangefinder -- the only one known to exist.

Here's something interesting that we spotted over at Nikon Rumors: Nikon has an F rating with the Better Business Bureau, suggesting that the company's customer support leaves something to be desired.

The Leica Monochrom M won't be hitting store shelves until August 29th, but Chris Niccolls of Canadian camera shop The Camera Store was able to get his hands on a pre-release copy of the camera to play around with. In the hands on field test seen in the video above, he shares some of his thoughts on the camera, and then invites some street photographers to use it and share their thoughts as well.

Helsinki, Finland-based photographer Janne Parviainen has been light painting since 2008, and recently created series of experimental photos showing a technique he calls Light Topography. Using a single LED light for each image, he carefully traces over every surface in the scene while the camera's shutter is open. Fully tracing a room can take as long as half an hour. The resulting light outlines provide a trippy look at what each space contains.

Check out these beautiful crystal DSLR bookends! Created by photo accessory company Fotodiox, they're handcrafted 2/3-scale replicas of the Canon 7D DSLR with a zoom kit lens. In addition to holding up your literature collection, they can also be a nice addition to your desk as paperweights.

A couple weeks ago, we shared a rumor that Nikon is working on a compact camera powered by Android OS (said to be version 2.3 Gingerbread). New leaked photos are revealing what the camera will look like.

Photographer Emma Kisiel's project At Rest is both beautiful and morbid. On one hand, they show animals lying serenely inside a ring of rocks and flowers, but on the other hand, each one is of an animal that was stuck and killed by a car. What's startling is the variety of roadkill she manages to find: everything from a squirrel to an owl (when's the last time you saw an owl as roadkill?).

If you're a superstar athlete looking to swipe a sports photographers DSLR for some impromptu picture taking, here's a pro tip: do it nicely.

Earlier this month, Usain Bolt made headlines for some "spot news photography" at the London Olympics. After winning yet another gold medal, Bolt grabbed a DSLR from a photographer he knew and started snapping some awesome POV photos. Perhaps inspired by Bolt's antics, soccer player Mario Balotelli of Manchester City tried his hand at swiping a photog's camera this past weekend, but was far less successful.

Businessmen around the world are watching Facebook's plummeting stock closely, but perhaps none more so than the folks over at Instagram. The world was shocked back in April when Facebook agreed to purchase the tiny startup for $1 billion, but one key fact is that the price was to be paid in a mixture of cash and stock. Due to the decline of FB stock, hundreds of millions of dollars have been wiped from the purchase price, which is currently valued at somewhere between $700 and $800 million.

Nikon Rumors published these first photographs of Nikon's upcoming high-end compact camera, the Nikon Coolpix P7700. The camera is the successor of the P7100, which was announced on August 24, 2011. This latest model will reportedly arrive almost exactly one year later, on August 22nd, 2012.

Good news for film photography lovers: Kodak film may be okay for at least a few more years. The company has signed new contracts with four major Hollywood movie studios that will allow it to provide film for movies at least through 2015.

German photographer Geraldine Lamanna has a great series of photographs titled "Powder Dance" that captures the elegance and powder of dance using white powder. Inspired by the music video for the song "Rolling In The Deep" by Adele, Lamanna coated dance instructor Olivia Maciejowski and two her dance students with powder, and then had them bust out their moves for the camera. The resulting photographs are meant to show "echoes" of the movement.

American portrait photographer Gregory Heisler (whom we featured yesterday) is probably best known for his 70+ cover portrait photos for TIME magazine. One of his most famous portraits shows a double exposure, "two faced" photo of President George H.W. Bush. The photograph, shot entirely in-camera, was used as the first TIME "Person of the Year" cover photo.