amazing

Michael Zhang

Lytro Is Developing a Camera That May Change Photography as We Know It

A company called Lytro has just launched with $50 million in funding and, unlike Color, the technology is pretty mind-blowing. It's designing a camera that may be the next giant leap in the evolution of photography -- a consumer camera that shoots photos that can be refocused at any time. Instead of capturing a single plane of light like traditional cameras do, Lytro's light-field camera will use a special sensor to capture the color, intensity, and vector direction of the rays of light (data that's lost with traditional cameras).

[...] the camera captures all the information it possibly can about the field of light in front of it. You then get a digital photo that is adjustable in an almost infinite number of ways. You can focus anywhere in the picture, change the light levels — and presuming you’re using a device with a 3-D ready screen — even create a picture you can tilt and shift in three dimensions. [#]

Try clicking the sample photograph above. You'll find that you can choose exactly where the focus point in the photo is as you're viewing it! The company plans to unveil their camera sometime this year, with the goal of having the camera's price be somewhere between $1 and $10,000...

Michael Zhang

Lens Taken From Vintage Camera Used on Canon 5D, Makes Beautiful Photos

Reddit user Bryce Hoeper recently broke an old Zeiss Ikon Contina L he purchased for $7 from Goodwill after it took a nasty tumble down some stairs. After being bummed for a while, he stumbled upon Timur Civan's experiment with sticking a 102-year old lens on a modern DSLR, and decided to attempt the same thing. He spent a few hours taking apart the camera body to extract the lens, then super glued it to a Canon body cap that he cut a hole in, allowing the lens to be mounted to his Canon 5D Mark II.

Michael Zhang

The Man with 1000+ Instant Cameras

Hong Kong-based camera enthusiast TM Wong has 1000+ instant cameras in his collection -- possibly the world's largest collection. That's enough cameras to use a different one each day for nearly three years!

Michael Zhang

76-year-old Photoshop Master in China Restores Old Photos for Free

Having old photographs restored is a service that many residents in China can't afford, but a 76-year-old man named Baojun Yuan is doing his part to help his fellow citizens by offering his astonishing Photoshop talents free of charge. After learning how to use the program when he was 60 years old, Yuan purchased a computer and scanner, and has fixed more than 2,000 photographs. He says, "my teacher just taught me how to repair the photos, but he forgot to tell me how to charge."

Michael Zhang

Surreal Double Exposure Photographs Created Entirely In-Camera

"Double Exposure" is a series of surreal photos by Dan Mountford creating by exposing single frames of film twice. While they look like photo-manipulations done with fancy image editing programs, Mountford relies on fancy camerawork for the images, leaving only the color additions/modifications to post-processing.

Michael Zhang

Amazing Camerawork with a Steadicam, a Segway, and Sprinting

This semifinal performance at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 has an awesome steadicam shot starting at 2m35s. While it might seem like they used a super high-tech RC helicopter or some computer-generated trickery, it was actually done with a segway, a steadicam, and a whole lotta talent.

Michael Zhang

The Incredible Story of Vivian Maier

In 2007, 26-year-old real estate agent John Maloof purchased a box filled with 30,000 negatives from an estate sale for $400. After being stunned by the quality of the street photographs, Maloof began digging and discovered that they were created by a nanny and street photographer named Vivian Maier.

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

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

Canon Cross Media Station Delivers Wireless Transfer and Charging

If you shoot often, then you probably go through the hassles of sticking your memory card in a card reader and battery in a battery charger often as well. While these tasks don't take much time in themselves, doing them day after day can cause them to become quite tedious. Canon's Cross Media Station is designed to make these things a breeze, allowing you to do both by simply placing your camera (or two, or three) on the device, which looks like a slick scanner.