Reddit user geft created a useful primer to get newbies started in digital photography. It’s a single image measuring 1045×5480 pixels that covers sensors, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and camera controls. This would be a great thing to print out, laminate, and give as a gift to someone who’s looking to learn.
Simple Guide to Photography (via Reddit)
Image credit: Graphic created by geft and used with permission
When a fake camera technology is unveiled, it’s normally called a “concept”. When it’s published on April 1st, however, it’s called an April Fool’s Joke (e.g. last Friday’s Canon iPad monitor). The RE-35 is another fun idea that would be absolutely awesome if it actually existed — it’s a 35mm canister that transforms any 35mm film camera into a digital one using a flexible sensor. Simply load the canister into the camera as you would with film, shoot your photos, and download them by connecting to the canister via USB.
Erik Pettersson was looking for a nice digital frame, but found that all the commercially available ones were too small, ugly, and cheap looking. He had an old Thinkpad T42 laptop lying around, so he decided to make his own custom frame. After installing Linux and writing some custom scripts for operating the frame, he disassembled it and joined it with a nice-looking IKEA frame. Best of all, he documented his entire process and published it online as a tutorial for those who want to make their own.
Digital hyper-realist artist Bert Monroy spent four years creating an incredibly detailed Times Square scene. The 5×25 foot image weighed in at 6.52 gigabytes as a flattened file, and involved more than 750,000 separate Photoshop layers and over 3,000 separate Photoshop and Illustrator files. The image is actually a “who’s who” for the world of digital imaging, and features individuals who have made an impact on the history of the field, including Photoshop’s founders, imaging experts, and notable photographers (see if you can pick any out!).
Times Square (via Photography Bay)
A new German company called X-Pire wants to give you a little more peace of mind with photographs you share online by allowing you to share them with a time-based “self-destruct” feature. According to Yahoo News,
The software should prevent the increasingly frequent occurrence of someone being refused a job or running into other embarrassing difficulties after posting a photo that maybe should have been kept private.
Before the user posts the photo, he or she drags it into the programme which assigns it an electronic key that is valid for a limited time period, said Michael Backes, founder of X-Pire.
If someone wishes to view that photo later, the server checks whether the photo has “expired” and blocks it from being displayed if its time is up.
While this might be effective in dealing with certain privacy situations, it doesn’t prevent people from downloading the “protected” photos since anything that’s visible online can be downloaded (e.g. a screenshot of it can be taken). Still, it’s an interesting attempt at a solution for people wary of having embarrassing photographs come back to haunt them in the future. It’ll be available by the end of Jan 2011 with a subscription-based cost of €24 ($32) per year.
(via Engadget)
There was quite an outcry back in September when we shared the iCannon 4 project, where some guy gutted his Canon film SLR to use it as a shell for an iPhone 4. The frankencamera shown above is a bit cooler – it was created using a Russian Leica imitation and a Sony DSC-WX1 digital compact. Both cameras were disassembled, with the rangefinder contributing the outer shell and then Sony cam offering the inner workings. What’s amazing is that the resulting camera looks like a nicely designed retro digital compact – similar to the new FujiPix X100.
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In 1998, this US Navy photo was published, showing a Nikonos camera no one recognized from the IPTC caption:
NAVAL AIR BASE CORONADO, California (June 8, 1998) — Navy SEALs attached to SEAL Team One, Naval Air Base Coronado, CA, conducts training using the Nikon/Kodak DCS 425 underwater digital camera which can sends real time digital images to decision makers, and an LPI LPD tracking device uses brevity codes to send both mission status and precise longitude/latitude. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Ted Banks. (RELEASED)
The enigmatic photo and description sparked much interest — this is a digital SLR that requires no underwater casing, and was far advanced for its time with its built-in tracking, real-time uploading, GPS, and communications. The underwater film Nikonos RS camera existed on the market already, but this futuristic iteration was unheard of in 1998.
What’s more, Kodak denied existence of the camera altogether. When Jarle Aasland of NikonWeb did some research into the matter in 2005, Kodak told him:
“I’m sorry but those cameras never existed here at Eastman Kodak. We never made cameras for that specific use. The information you have is incorrect.”
Another Kodak source told him:
“I think the issue is who they were made for.”
After further investigation into the mythical camera, Aasland finally found photos of the camera listed on eBay, hard evidence of the cameras existence. He published a story on his findings.
Days after Aasland published his article, he was contacted by Kodak’s lead engineer for the DCS cameras, Jim McGarvey. As it turns out, the camera was not quite top secret, but it was so low-profile that few knew about it, including Kodak Professional, McGarvey said. Quite simply, the specialized cameras were not advertised on a consumer level, since they were designed for government use, McGarvey wrote:
“The Nikonos body cameras were made by Kodak’s Commercial & Government Systems division. Through most of the DCS years, that group would take our commercial camera designs and adapt them for government and other special needs. Some of that work was secret, but most of the products were simply only marketed in limited venues and didn’t appear on the commer[c]ical photography radar screens. I don’t think the Nikonos cameras were ever actually secret.
…I have no idea how many Nikonos units were built, but I doubt the total would be over 100. They had no super secret special communications stuff, just standard DCS420 features.”
While it’s still highly unlikely that we’ll see such a formidable does-it-all camera on the mainstream market anytime soon, it’s pretty fascinating to see how today’s consumer products are taking a step in that direction. Some 12 years after the legendary digital Nikonos, we’ve got cameras equipped with GPS, wi-fi enabled cards for real-time uploading, and a plethora of hardy, underwater point-and-shoots on the market.
(via Nikon Rumors)
Animated films have had enjoyed increased exposure on the big screen this year. Films like Pixar’s Up, Miyazaki’s Ponyo, and Ari Folman’s animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir, have received widespread critical acclaim, demonstrating that while animated films can be family-friendly, they are at their core a dynamic and imaginative medium with impressive potential.
Two major animated films this year, Henry Selick’s 3D film, Coraline, and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, utilize an old animating technique that has been used for nearly a century: stop-motion.
According to the IMDB websites of both films, the individual frames of Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox were captured with Nikon DSLRs: the Nikon D80 and D3, respectively, along with a variety of other lenses, bodies, and equipment. Additionally, several Canon bodies can be spotted in a Wired.com video feature on Fantastic Mr. Fox.
Producer Jeremy Dawson notes how differently the film was produced because it was on a digital medium: instead of director Wes Anderson being present during the entire filming process, captured photographs could be remotely accessed and viewed for his approval, no matter where he was physically. The final film consists of 5,229 shots, 621,450 frames, an average of 120 gigabytes of data was captured per day, and the total storage for the images took up 18.5 terabytes of space.
Coraline also seems to have its share of behind-the-scenes camera aficionados; the titular character can be seen in one scene using a Leica camera.
Both films are visually captivating. Coraline director Selick does not stray far from the styles of his previous animated masterpieces, James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Director Wes Anderson’s trademark vintage color palette also stays consistently impressive.
The behind the scenes featurettes of the films are worth a watch as well, and provide some interesting insight into the tedious effort and tremendous amount of time put into making these gorgeous motion pictures.
