With camera-equipped phones eating up more and more of the compact camera market, manufacturers are turning to gimmicky features in order to lure consumers. Canon’s new line of ELPH cameras have a Sleeping Face Recognition mode that’ll make your camera creepy stealthy (i.e. turn off flash, assist beam, and sounds) when it detects someone sleeping in the frame. Olympus’ new VR-340 has a Beauty Make-Up Mode that offers 18 in-camera enhancements (e.g. whiten teeth, lift cheek bones) — something that Panasonic is also dabbling in. Too bad these features can easily be offered as an app on smartphones. Someone should tell camera makers to focus on ease of use and image quality — areas they might still be competitive in.
Now here’s an absolutely bizarre statistic if it’s actually true: 76 percent of Facebook photos with tagged Britons show the subjects in some state of drunkenness. Photo book service MyMemory.com surveyed 1,781 Britons over the age of 18, asking them to estimate the percentage of their pics that showed them under the influence of alcohol. A quarter of those respondents also said that their privacy settings allowed the general public to view their tagged images.
Japanese camera ads are sometimes very different from those you might see in the US. We’re still trying to figure out whether this is a commercial for the Fujifilm X10 or a trailer for an upcoming horror movie…
Now here’s something we haven’t seen before: a Star Wars-themed engagement shoot. All you need are two working lightsabers and a couple crazy enough about the franchise to do it. These photos were shot by San Jose-based photographer Michael James. Read more…
Mayuko Kanazawa of Tama Art University in Japan was recently given the assignment of creating a typeface without the aid of a computer. She decided to use a camera, but instead of doing a more ordinary alphabet photo project, she decided to photograph leg hair manipulated into different characters. Read more…
Here’s something you’ve probably never seen before: a white “L” version of the cheap Canon 50mm f/1.8 (AKA the “nifty fifty”). No, it’s not an uber-rare and expensive special edition. It’s a custom paint job by Clubsnap forum member nntenzo. After painting the lens with paint mixed from three $1 tubes, he used a laser printer and decal paper to add the lettering and decals back onto the lens. The resulting lens is one that will definitely befuddle any Canonite who happens to catch a glimpse of it… It’s a conversation starter for sure.
On a rainy day recently, light painting photographer Jeremy Jackson was playing around with a green laser pointer when he discovered something interesting: all the out of focus raindrops in the photograph had a lined pattern in them — and each one was unique! These “water drop snowflakes” were found in all of the photos he took that day.
Chinese photo enthusiast Benny Wong mounted his large (and rare) Canon 50mm f/0.95 lens onto his tiny Olympus E-P1 Micro for a pretty awesome looking setup. Read more…
Nine years ago, during his final year as a fine art photography student in Melbourne, Martin Cheung came up with a strange idea: seeing how roast duck was a symbol of Chinese cooking, he wanted to see how the duck saw Melbourne’s Chinatown. He then bought a roast duck, turned it into a pinhole camera, and — after a couple of failures and adjustments — used it to photograph Melbourne’s Chinatown gate. You can find more info on the project (and a step-by-step guide on making your own roast duck camera) over on Cheung’s website.
What has the world come to? Apparently the prestigious Magnum Photos has partnered with Nintendo to promote the Nintendo 3DS as a camera. Photographers Martin Parr, Thomas Dworzak and Gueorgui Pinkhassov used the handheld gaming device to shoot a series of 3D photos that were then put on display in an exhibition held at the Magnum Gallery in Paris. Here’s what Vingt Paris Magazine had to say about the show:
The exhibition has transformed the white walls of the Magnum Gallery into an upmarket video games console store. Several portable games consoles sit on flashy plastic Nintendo-branded pedestals. Peer closely at each console and you’ll see a slideshow of a few eerie 3D images of each photographer’s ‘perception’ of everyday life. (‘Perception’ because it could be too strong a word to use to describe the result.) The lack of a guiding artistic thread puts the spotlight on the tool rather than the work. The images are nothing to write home about and disappointingly so, especially from Magnum Photos’ best.
The video above shows Parr shooting with the 3DS and referring to it as a “camera in disguise.” Hmmm… That’s nice, but please go back to shooting with Leicas now.
