July 2013

Sigma Announces Conversion Service for Switching Lenses Between Mounts

The rumor was true -- kinda. Sigma today announced a new Mount Conversion Service for its Global Vision line of lenses that will allow photographers to convert their lens lineups to different mounts if they ever decide to change camera brands (e.g. Canon to Nikon and vice versa).

Unlike what was previously rumored, it's not a free service: the conversion will cost you a pretty penny -- just not as much as you'd pay to buy a new copy of the lens.

Real Beauty Isn’t Retouched

Dove Canada is getting serious about promoting Real Beauty by going after art directors, graphic designers and photo retouchers -- basically anyone who distorts body image in print. In order to fight those who they feel create an unrealistic representation of what the body actually looks like, they created a "Beautify" action that can be downloaded for free from popular editing sites. The action appears to add a "glowing skin" effect when in reality, it reverts the image back to its original, unretouched state, thus driving home Dove's philosophy that "Real Beauty Isn't Retouched."

I don't know about you, but if I downloaded a skin enhancing action only to find it reverted my image back to the unretouched state, I'd be throwing out all my Dove products in protest.

Portraits of the Bearded Men in an Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest

Every year, in the third week of July, over 100 silver bearded men descend upon the city of Key West, Florida. Their goal: to be declared the man who most resembles American writer Ernest Hemingway. The contest they participate in is put on by the Hemingway Look-Alike Society, and is the largest sanctioned look-alike competition in the world.

Photographer Henry Hargreaves visited the festivities this year and created a new photo project titled "Becoming Hemingawy." It's a series of portraits showing some of this year's contestants.

The Photograph that Launched My Career

Being so close to the release of the 2013 Arizona State University Football campaign, I wanted to take an opportunity on to talk about an image that I created many years ago while still a student at ASU. When many people ask me where I believe I crossed the line from hobbyist to professional, I tell them of this campaign, and actually place the beginning on a single image. The fact that the image still lives on my website is a testament to how much I enjoy it and how much it means to me. It is the photo that opened many doors in my career, yet very few people know the background behind its creation.

Archives of Influential Early Photographer Fox Talbot Get New Lease on Life

A British group working to preserve the work of influential 19th-century photographer William Henry Fox Talbot has discovered previously unseen work by the innovator.

A project led by Oxford University's Bodleian Libraries has been working to preserve the largest extant pivate collection of Talbot's work since family members revealed last year that they were working with a New York dealer who could sell key works to private collectors.

600,000-Pixel-Wide Tokyo Panorama is the 2nd Largest Photo Ever Made

Do you remember the 320-gigapixel photo taken from atop the BT Tower in London? That 360° panorama, shot by Founder of 360-cities Jeffrey Martin, holds the title of world's largest photo. But just because you have the top spot, doesn't mean you have to stop.

Another of Martin's creations, this one shot from the lower observation deck of the Tokyo Tower, has earned him the number two spot as well.

Nikon F2D: A Homemade Digital Nikon F2 Replica Crafted Out of Wood

When you hear the words "retro camera," you probably think of some kind of silver or black camera crafted decades ago out of solid chunks of metal. But what would a retro camera look like if you kept the design the same but replaced its metal body with wood?

French photo enthusiast Cesar Sebouhian and his father recently decided to find out, and created the gorgeous Nikon "F2D" seen above.

When Perfect Isn’t Perfect or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blur

Quite a few years ago I took a solo trip down to Key West, FL. It was the first time I had gone on a vacation by myself, and since I was free of the distraction of friends and family, I decided it would make a great opportunity to expand upon my photography skills.

You see, the trip was shortly after I had decided to take this whole photography hobby of mine seriously. I had worked with video for years but now I wanted to work on becoming a good photographer as well, not just one that took as many photos as possible and then looked for the three good ones out of the hundreds shot (seriously, it's a horrible method and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody).

Humorous Video Pokes Fun at the Food Pic Fad

Professional food photography is a legitimate pursuit that takes some serious skill. It's done in a studio, with professional lighting and often enlists the help of a professional food stylist to get the shot just right.

Food pics are a different matter, often taken in a restaurant with a cell phone while the other people at the table wait impatiently to dig in. The humorous clip above pokes fun at the latter.

Google’s New ‘Views’ Site Gives Android Users a Place to Share Photo Spheres

The launch of Android 4.2 in October of last year brought with it the ability to create special 360° panoramas called "Photo Spheres." But as cool as these panoramas were, there was no real way to share them with the exception of a widget Google released a few months back.

Yesterday, all of that changed when Google announced a brand new Google Maps website called Views, built from the ground up for the Android community and their many un-shared Photo Spheres.

Picfair Screen 1

Journalist Quits Job, Becomes Coder, and Develops Simplistic Stock Photo Site

There's something to say about the curious nature of journalists. Some spend all of their hours researching a particular subject, others go out into the field to experience first-hand, and some others quit their job and take up coding classes.

Wait -- what?

It's true. Just ask Benji Lanyado. This once full-time Guardian writer and contributor to other publications decided to quite literally quit his day job to pursue building what he thinks is the next big thing in stock photo buying and selling.

Sigma May Be Building a Groundbreaking 24-70mm f/2 Lens for Full Frame Cameras

Sigma has been on a tear as of late. Since late 2012, the company has put out a highly regarded 35mm f/1.4 lens, a novel USB dock that lets you calibrate lenses at home, and a revolutionary 18-35mm lens with a constant f/1.8 aperture (shown above).

It appears Sigma is only just getting warmed up: new rumors suggest that Sigma may be building a 24-70mm zoom lens for full frame cameras that boasts a constant f/2.0 aperture.

Intense Macro Photos of Ants Battling to the Death

Want to see some action-packed photographs on a really small scale? Look no further than photographer Alex Wild's collection of photos titled "Ants Fighting." It's a series of macro photographs showing various species of ants engaged in intense battles to the death.

Goodbye to the Days of Point and Shoot

According to a report in today's Wall Street Journal, the market is not looking great for digital cameras. The report states that as the popularity of smartphones has increased, sales of digital cameras have decreased.

SmugMug Launches a Major Redesign to Wage War Against Flickr and 500px

As higher resolution photography (and photography in general) has become ubiquitous, photo sharing and storage websites have had to adjust to keep up. From increasing storage capacity and file-size limitations to launching "spectacular" redesigns that offer beautiful browsing experiences, everybody is adjusting in their own way.

The latest player in the photography sharing game to make some big changes is SmugMug, who announced and launched a major overhaul earlier today.

Vu Booth Rig Lets You Quickly and Easily Turn Your Gear Into a Photo Booth

It's not uncommon these days for photographers to want to add a photo booth option to their offerings. In the past, we've seen everything from an awesome VW Photo Bus, to a portable battery-powered option, to an Instagram-inspired DIY project.

The Vu Booth is a rig that offers yet another approach. Made up of 4 separate parts, it allows you to put together your SLR, a monitor, tripod and a wireless trigger into a ready-to-use photo booth.

Portraits of Complete Strangers Touching Each Other

While photographer Richard Renadli was in the midst of his 2003 project, See America By Bus, where he was photographing groupings of strangers waiting in Greyhound bus stations, he began to think about exploring the idea of expanding on his group portraitures of strangers concept.  “To create spontaneous and fleeting relationships between complete strangers,” as he as stated.

OPPO to Create a Line of Camera-Centric Devices to Rival Samsung’s Galaxy Cam

While smartphones have, especially of late, taken to blurring the lines between camera and phone, "smartcameras" like Samsung's Galaxy Camera flipped the idea on its head by putting a phone's operating system on a camera rather than the other way around.

Since then, Samsung has announced a few other options in the same milieu, (e.g. the Galaxy NX interchangeable lens camera and the 10x optical zoom Galaxy S4 Zoom) with fairly little in way of competition on that front. But Chinese electronics manufacturer OPPO is looking to move in on Samsung's territory.

Flickr Redesigns Groups Pages to Match the Site’s New Look

When Yahoo! launched the new Flickr at the end of May, not every part of the website got the "spectacular" treatment. One of the sections of the site that has been lagging behind the rest were the Groups pages, and Flickr has finally decided to bring them up to speed.

NBC’s Bullet Time Replay Rigs: How They Work and What You Can Expect

A couple of days ago, we shared the news that NBC's Sunday Night Football was going to show you pro football like you've never seen it before: in bullet time. Details were a bit thin, but it looked like a 24-camera bullet time rig would be installed in each end zone, providing Matrix-like replays that would do their best to blow your mind.

As it turns out, the technology is called 'freeD' and was developed by Replay Technologies. And Patrick Myles of Teledyne DALSA (the company providing the 4K cameras for the system) got in touch with us to share some of the juicy details, which we now get to pass along to you.

Product Shots and Specs for Panasonic’s Upcoming GX7 Leaked

Panasonic is having a hard time keeping a lid on its upcoming rangefinder-styled GX7 Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera. Just last week, the first images and a list of specs leaked through an online photo magazine, and now we have a full set of specs and product shots to look at.

Bodyscapes: Creating Landscape Photos With the Human Body

Carl Warner isn't your typical landscape photographer. Where most would take to the outdoors, the London-based photog creates landscapes in his studio. Previously, we shared his surreal photo series Foodscapes: landscapes created using all manner of edible products.

His most recent project is a departure from his work with food, and perhaps posed an even greater challenge. Dubbed "Bodyscapes," the series turns the ridges, hills and valleys of one or more human bodies into strange and surreal landscape photos.

Creating a Fantasy Skateboarding World With a High Speed Camera and Powder

There's just something about skateboarding that attracts photographers and videographers. Whether they're traveling the world photographing crazy tricks in exotic places, or shooting 1000 fps footage of tricks that haven't even been named, camera junkies are always finding new and interesting ways to capture the sport.

Sebastian Linda's newest video does just that. By using high-speed cameras, some creative camera movements and colored powder, he's managed to create a magical skateboarding world through the lens of his camera.