
Frank Said What? is an amazing new iOS camera app that can accurately describe any photo you show it. It’s not just smart, it’s witty too: “Frank” will usually give your photographs humorous captions. Some will make you smile, while others will make you laugh out loud.
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German ad agency Jung von Matt created this brilliant series of photographs for a LEGO advertising campaign titled “Imagine”. The images show famous characters from children’s television shows in simplified LEGO form. Can you figure out each of the shows?
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Here’s a simple yet brilliant stop-motion video showing a person sitting at a table plays with shapes. Instead of computer-trickery, cleverly captured still photographs were used to bring the simple materials to life. It was created by animator Steven Briand while he was doing a two-month internship at Partizan.
(via PictureCorrect)

Photographer Jesse Rosten wanted a more efficient and mobile way to do off-camera lighting, so he invented this backpack-style apparatus that he calls “The Strobist Jet Pack”. Although it’s pretty ridiculous looking (it reminds us of Ghostbusters), it works well for placing lighting equipment in exactly the place needed while still being able to move about.
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Verena Lang of Ivy Design came up with this brilliant idea of a table that conveniently folds up into a giant picture frame when it isn’t needed. They’re built out of wood, plexiglass, and stainless steel, and cost about $2,200 on the Ivy Design site. Of course, you could always try your hand at building your own!
Picture Table (via DVICE via Make via Lifehacker)

The Image Fulgurator is a brilliant device created — and patented — by Berlin-based artist Julius von Bismarck. It’s an optically triggered slave flash that fires through the back of a camera, projecting a message or image on the film through the lens — basically, it’s an optically triggered projector. What this allows von Bismarck to do is prank unsuspecting photographers by adding random pictures or words into their photographs whenever they use their camera’s flash.
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If Apple ever got into the photo printer business, this SWYP (“See What You Print”) printer might be similar to what they’d come up with. It’s a brilliant concept photo printer design by Artefact, the same design group that dreamed up the WVIL concept camera. Instead of having to send photos to the printer from a computer, users use a giant touchscreen interface that shows you exactly what’s going to pop out of the bottom. Come on SWYP, hurry up and exist!
Johan Rijpma spent six months creating this two and a half minute time-lapse video showing rolls of transparent adhesive tape slowly unwinding. For one of the shots, he spent hours standing in the wind and rain, turning a plate 0.4 degrees every 30 seconds and then snapping a photo. Some of the sequences took as long as 12 hours to develop.
(via Laughing Squid)

We’ve shared a lens cap and hood hybrid here before, but this one is much nicer. “Flower”, dreamt up by designers Rhie Hyi Joong and Lee Sang Hwa, is a concept lens cap that blooms into a hood by simply turning a ring.
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We’ve seen all kinds of ideas for keeping track of your camera’s lens cap when it’s not being used, including velcro, special mounts, fashionable pouches, and even a retractable cap, but Nikon has come up with the best idea yet: a lens cap that attaches to camera straps! A patent filed by the company in 2009 and published yesterday shows a lens cap that can easily clip onto a strap when not in use — a simple solution to a small problem that apparently many entrepreneurs have been interested in solving. Sorry, but Nikon wins this one.
(via Egami)