If you’ve tried to scan film using an ordinary flatbed scanner as you would a piece of paper, you’ve probably discovered that it didn’t turn out very well. The reason is because film needs to be illuminated from behind, while conventional scanners capture light that’s reflected off what they’re scanning. Before you give up hope and shell out money for a film scanner, here’s some good news: you can build a cheap and simple cardboard adapter that turns any scanner into a film scanner! Read more…
Pose is a camera case that doubles as a simple stand. Designed to replace the little bean bags or mini-tripods that many people carry around separately, Pose has an attachment mount built in, and can either be propped up by itself on flat surfaces or wrapped around poles and curved surfaces. The $24 accessory is available for pre-order over at quirky, and will be manufactured if at least 1,000 people join in.
Time-lapse enthusiast and electronics wiz Achim Sack came up with this super-small hardware-based intervalometer. Only a little larger than the size of a standard 2.5mm stereo plug, the device doesn’t require any special setup or configuration — all you do is plug it into your Canon/Nikon/Pentax DSLR and then take two photographs between 0.4 seconds and 18 minutes apart. The device will continue to shoot photos at that interval until the memory card is full or the battery dies. Sadly, it’s not for sale, but if you’re handy with electronics you can find the schematics and code for free on Sack’s website.
Researchers in Australia are working on developing a thin piezoelectric film that can be used to convert mechanical energy into electricity. An uber-useful application would be to use the film in existing gadgets, allowing button presses and finger swipes to be used to recharge the device’s battery. One of the lead scientists, Dr. Madhu Bhaskaran, states,
The power of piezoelectrics could be integrated into running shoes to charge mobile phones, enable laptops to be powered through typing or even used to convert blood pressure into a power source for pacemakers – essentially creating an everlasting battery.
Wouldn’t it be crazy if cameras of the future could be powered solely by pressing the shutter button when taking photos (and perhaps other buttons while chimping)?
If you use Photoshop, you’re probably experienced with the uber-useful — and oft-abused — Clone Stamp tool, but what about the Clone Source panel that’s been around since CS 4? This brief but informative tutorial by Photoshop guru Brian Wood is a great primer for that panel, and also includes some general Photoshop tips and tricks that you might not have known.
Last week we featured Shopobot, a new website that can show you the price history of camera gear and tell you whether it’s stable or not. Decide is a new service (just launched yesterday) that goes a step further — it not only tells you whether to buy or not based on price stability, but checks to see whether there’s a newer model available or likely to be announced in the near future. The service bases each decision on 40 price factors, historical trends, and relevant rumors regarding upcoming announcements. With a new camera being announced every 45 hours on average, Decide might just help you avoid the pain of buyers remorse.
Update: A reader reports that the retailer AJRichard (which reportedly does bait and switch scams) is listed on Decide. Be smart when choosing where to purchase from! (Thanks Ryan!)
Shopobot is a new shopping tool that helps buyers determine the best price to buy products from various retailers by tracking their price changes across time. Retailers often change the prices of different items often to determine the best price point, which can cause frustration for people who buy a product only to find it $50 cheaper the next day. If you’re looking to buy a camera, lens, or any other piece of gear, you might benefit from doing a quick search on Shopobot to find the price history of that item.
Flickr is a popular method of sharing photos, but the service doesn’t provide any easy way to download them in bulk. Flick and Share is a web app that creates simple download links for Flickr sets that you can send to family and friends, allowing them to quickly download a copy of the images you shot at an event. We’ve tested it out, and it works as advertised.
Bad news for TinEye but good news for photographers: Google is adding reverse image search to their ever-growing list of products, allowing photographers to search using their photos to see the different places they’re being used online. You can search for images by entering a URL, uploading from your computer, dragging and dropping onto the search page, or via Chrome and Firefox extensions. The feature will be rolling out to Google’s users over the next few days — once you see the camera icon in your search bar you’ll know you have it!
Confused about what a certain acronym means when it comes to Nikon’s line of Nikkor lenses? There’s a helpful Lens Glossary over on the company’s website that provides a short explanation of each one.
