March 2010

Michael Zhang

Camera Failure Versus Price and Brand

SquareTrade is a company that provides warranties for consumer electronics. As such, it has a good deal of data on digital cameras and, more specifically, how often they fail. After a three year study of over 60,000 new digital cameras, they've published a report with their findings.

Michael Zhang

Unofficial Flickr App Approved for the iPad

An unofficial iPad Flickr app called "Flickr Photos" has been approved for the iPad app store. The $2.99 app, created by Garlic Dumpling, allows you to do download and view both your own photos and your contacts' photos in a minimalistic interface. There's no word on whether the official Flickr application will be ready for the iPad when the store launches, but the iTunes preview page for the official Flickr app already states "Flickr for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store".

Jessica Lum

NBA Jam for Wii Incorporates Photos into Game Graphics

Boom shaka laka! If you're familiar with 90s arcade games, you might recall NBA Jam, the over-the-top basketball sim. EA Sports is developing a remixed, updated version of the classic for the Nintendo Wii, to be released this fall. As a major part of their art design, the game uses real photographs of NBA players' heads, attached to digitized bodies.

Michael Zhang

Photoshop Content Aware Fill Parody

Last week the web was abuzz with excitement over a demo Adobe created for their upcoming "Content Aware Fill" feature. Well, it didn't take long for parody videos to spring up, mocking how easily Photoshop will soon be able to completely create new "realities". The above video is one such parody, ending with this gem:

Jessica Lum

Actor Aaron Eckhart Loves Photography

It's fairly common for actors to try their hand at directing or producing films, but Aaron Eckhart has created a bit of a buzz by shooting his own photos. The self-described "photo geek" completed a commercial shoot for Molly Sim's jewelery line. Eckhart hopes to go pro soon and have his own exhibitions.

Michael Zhang

Stop Motion Animation with Knitting

Knitting is getting quite a bit of coverage on PetaPixel this week. Just a couple days ago we featured the surreal knitting photographs of Daniela Edburg. The above is an creative commercial for natural gas by TBWA Brussels and directed by Olivier Babinet. What's amazing is that all the stop-motion animation you see is done using wool and a team of super dedicated knitters. They've also released a behind the scenes video showing how the commercial was made.

Michael Zhang

Make Your Own Printable Lens Hood

Lens hoods are ridiculously expensive considering the fact that they're simply fancy plastic tubes. If you'd like to use a lens hood but don't feel like shelling out wads of cash, you can create your own cardboard lens hoods!

Michael Zhang

Ads Coming Soon to a Photo Near You

You've probably seen in-video advertising, but how about ads placed in images? A company called Image Space Media wants to make sure you do.

Established in 2008, they're the first and leading provider of in-image advertising on the web. This means relevant advertisements are placed in an overlay that appears over a portion of an image or photograph, just like the advertisements YouTube places at the bottom of most videos.

Michael Zhang

Magazine Cover Mockup for the iPad

This video, created by California photographer Jesse Rosten, offers an interesting glimpse at what digital magazine covers might look like for the iPad. Rather than offer a static photograph of the beach as the print version of Sunset Magazine would, this cover is brought to life with both video and animation.

Michael Zhang

Dress Shirt with Built-In Microfiber Cloth

I don't know about you, but I often find myself wiping off the LCD on my DSLR or point-and-shoot with my clothes. The unseemly but common practice of wiping gadgets with clothes is exactly what FIFT, a husband and wife design team in Japan, had in mind when they designed the 'Wipe Shirt'.

Michael Zhang

13 Gigapixel Photo on a 22 Megapixel Interactive Display Wall

Students at the University of Tromso in Norway have created an interactive display wall using 28 separate projectors, which creates a 7168x3072, or 22 megapixel, display. Interactive with the display simply involves placing your hands in front of it. Touching the display itself is not necessary, and multitouch is supported. What better way to demonstrate the capabilities of such a system than zooming through a gigapixel photograph?

Michael Zhang

Stock Photography Books Recycled to Teach Reading

As online stock photography services and libraries have expanded in recent years, stock photography books have become more and more obsolete.

Advertising and communications corp JWT recently came up with an idea to breath new life into these dying books by transforming them into tools to help teach disadvantaged children to read.

Michael Zhang

Cable Management with Binder Clips

If you're like me, then you have a bazillion cables lying on and around your desk for various gadgets, including laptops, cameras, cell phones, Bluetooth headsets, and the like. Here's a tip for organizing all those cables to always have them neat and ready for action: use binder clips.

Michael Zhang

Would You Like a Portrait with Your Burger?

Burger King recently partnered up with marketing agency Ogilvy for a unique "Have It Your Way" campaign. In order to convey how personalized the orders are, they used a hidden camera and printer to slap a candid photograph of the customer's face right on the burger wrapper. A separate hidden camera was used to document the reactions of the customers after seeing themselves on their food.

Michael Zhang

Camera Sensor Tech Makes Quantum Leap

InVisage, a California-based start up company, has announced a new image sensor technology that it claims is up to four times more sensitive than traditional sensor technologies.

Their product, QuantumFilm, is a layer of semiconductor material added on top of the traditional silicon that uses quantum dots to gather light.

Jessica Lum

Lady Gaga Hard at Work for Polaroid

Lady Gaga's most recent music video for "Telephone", featuring Beyonce, is like most modern music videos: rife with product placement. But among the most prominent products was Gaga's own employer, Polaroid, which gets a 10-second spot.

Jessica Lum

Canon Supply of 70-200mm f/2.8 Lens Low

According to the Canon Japan website, the company is experiencing a shortage of the EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS II USM lens. The company says  demand for the lens, which was announced in January and released recently in the US, was much higher than expected.

Michael Zhang

A Ragdoll for Your Camera Lens Cap

Here's the latest innovation from Pentax: a puppet body for your lens cap! The "Cameraman" is a handmade puppet body that comes with a 52mm lens cap showing a smiley face. It costs ¥2,914, or about $32, and is only available for a limited amount of time.