There probably isn’t a more suitable camera for halloween picture taking than “Third Eye“, a macabre pinhole camera created with a 150-year-old human skull by Wayne Martin Belger. Light enters the camera through the “third eye” on the forehead, exposing the film that’s placed in the middle of the skull.
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Remember the contact sheet art we shared a while back? Photographer Karl Baden does something similar — he creates strange contact sheet self-portraits. These images were all created back in 1980. How a roll of film is exposed needs to be carefully planned out in order to know exactly where each shot will appear on the resulting contact sheet.
Each photo is a pretty normal shot of some area of Baden’s face or hands, but when combined into a contact sheet, the resulting image is quite… unique.
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Imagine you snap out of unconsciousness and realize you’ve been in a pretty serious accident. You have no memory of what happened, but luckily you were wearing a motorcycle camera that was filming your ride. That’s exactly what happened to a guy in Kashmir recently. The 51 second video above sent chills down his spine when he first watched it after the accident. The footage became the memory he lost in an accident in which he miraculously only suffered a broken leg. Don’t worry, the video isn’t graphic — just jaw-dropping.
The rolling shutter used by the majority of consumer CMOS sensors can do crazy things to photos and videos. The video above shows what an airplane propeller looks like when shot with a Nokia N95. The rolling shutter makes the plane looks as if it’s dropping boomerang bombs that quickly disappear into thin air.
This topic also came up a couple weeks ago when a strange photograph of a boy caused debate regarding whether or not a rolling shutter was the culprit. In case your wondering, DSLRs have this issue as well.
With a select few companies currently dominating the digital camera scene, less popular brands are forced to come up with creative ways to capture market share. One possible way is to introduce esoteric features that most consumers would have absolutely no use for, and that’s exactly what Casio seems to be doing with its new EX-FC160S compact camera targeted towards golfers.
When playing back video recorded at 240fps on the camera, a special mode can overlay lines that help you check whether you’re swinging properly — in slow motion. If that’s not enough, the camera comes with commentary by professional golfer Chie Arimura.
The 10 megapixel camera will go available starting late August with an initial production volume of 5,000 cameras. To check out the announcement, visit the Casio Japan website (though you’ll probably need to translate it).
Coming soon: a compact camera that doubles as a metal detector.
(via 1001 Noisy Cameras)
This past week, BP has received a lot of attention for its release of “official” images that later turned out to be very poorly photoshopped. So far, three badly altered photos have been called out. Aside from the inevitable backlash and disappointment from the public, the photo has taken on a life of its own as an internet meme. People have been adapting their own versions of the helicopter scene, replete with geek jokes and bizarre photoshopping. Here’s one amusing example: Read more…
“I Am Sitting in a Room” is one of the best known works of experimental music composer Alvin Lucier. In the piece, he records himself speaking, plays it back while re-recording it, and repeated until the words become unintelligible and simply “the pure resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself”.
YouTube user canzona decided to pay homage to Lucier, and “covered” the piece in his own room using YouTube as the medium.
I started this project exactly 1 year ago, almost to the hour. The final version is a lot different than I thought it would be, I was expecting a lot more digital video noise, and a lot less digital audio noise. Let this be a lesson, though, always be careful how you convert your digital media!
An homage to the great Alvin Lucier, this piece explores the ‘photocopy effect’, where upon repeated copies the object begin to accumulate the idiosyncrasies of the medium doing the copying. Full words: I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice as well as the image of myself, and I am going to upload it to YouTube, rip it from YouTube, and upload it again and again, until the original characteristics of both my voice and my image are destroyed. What you will see and hear, then, are the artifacts inherent in the video codec of both YouTube and the mp4 format I convert it to on my computer. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a digital fact, but more as a way to eliminate all human qualities my speech and image might have.
Here’s the original video before the 1,000 copies:
This is similar to the JPG generation loss experiments we posted last year. Experiments with VHS generation loss are also pretty interesting.
(via Boing Boing)
Accordion Obscura is a sculpture by Andrew Lewicki that mashes together an accordion keyboard and the front of a 4×5 large format camera, joined together with the part they share — bellows. The result is a strange piece of equipment that would certainly cause weird looks if the thing were actually used on the street, though making the setup usable is a whole nother story.
Image credit: Photograph by Andrew Lewicki and used with permission
Pentax has unveiled a new “Rainbow” version of the K-x DSLR camera. The limited edition camera will only be available in Japan through Tower Records starting on July 23, 2010.
Only 1,000 of these units will be made, and each one will set you back ¥74,800 (~$800). Aside from the funky colors, the technical specifications of this camera are exactly the same as other K-x DSLRs:
The camera is part of a 2010 campaign with a “Rainbow” theme by Tower Records that also includes footwear, t-shirts, and backpacks.
Selling strange looking cameras is nothing new to Pentax — they already allow you to customize your colors, and last year they released a limited edition “robotic” themed camera.
This camera rig might not be the best to bring to a public photo shoot.
Hailing from Russia, the Zenit Fotosnaiper, or Photosniper is a manual film camera with a rather odd design. It has a shoulderstock and a gunstock outfitted with a 300mm f/4.5 lens. It’s certainly a creative alternative to a monopod or other stabilization; the camera is held and shot just like a rifle.
The whole kit, which also includes a lens hood, an eyecup, and filters, is advertised on one website for a mere $295.
Needless to say, it’s no wonder why the design hasn’t caught on in other major camera companies.
(via Reddit)
