Earlier this year we saw the launch of two search engines — Stolen Camera Finder and GadgetTrak Serial Search — that help find stolen cameras by searching photos on the web for the serial numbers. The idea is neat, but no one knew whether it would actually help recover stolen gear or not. Turns out it does work.
Read more…

Photographer JP Cariño experienced the awesomeness of pro DSLR weather sealing when doing bird photography from a floating blind:

I spent an hour at the least in the water. This “accident” happened in the first 10 minutes because of my poor floating blind design. Seeing the birds were so cooperative I decided to go on shooting. From time to time, I had to pour water from the swamp on the LCD so I could view my photos. When I surfaced, I took out the battery and started cleaning the body. I placed the camera in my dry cabinet when I got home and started it up the next day. No issues whatsoever. Works perfectly fine. All the seals worked and the compartments (cf, terminals and batt) had no dirt in it. I guess you really get what you pay for with pro camera bodies. [#]

You know you’re a hardcore outdoor shooter when you’re pouring swamp water onto your camera to clean it.
Read more…

Here’s an interesting glimpse into what a DSLR’s aperture blades and shutter curtain look like in super slow motion. Specifically, it’s a Nikon D3 shooting at 11 frames per second with 1/4000 shutter speed and f/16, all captured at 5,000 frames per second. What’s amazing is that the shutter curtain moves so quickly that you can’t see the sensor at all, even at 5000fps!