July 2010

We've shared a good number of time-lapse videos here on PetaPixel before, but this one is pretty unique in the way it was created: François Vautier put an ant colony inside his scanner, and scanned the colony once a week over the course of five years. He then compiled the resulting images into a time-lapse video. It's a little hard to make out what's going on, and the zooming and panning can be a little distracting, but the idea is pretty interesting nonetheless.

Just a couple months after we reported that a 45-gigapixel photo of Dubai had become the world's largest, a new panorama has arrived to steal the crown. 70 Billion Pixels Budapest is a 70-gigapixel panorama of Budapest created using a setup of two 25-megapixel Sony A900 cameras fitted with 400mm Minolta lenses and 1.4X teleconverters. Four days of shooting resulted in 20,000 images, and an additional two days of post-processing produced a single 200 GB file. If printed, the size of the photo …

Everyone is expecting news of a new Canon 60D soon, and a leak yesterday by DxO seems to indicate that it will be in our hands by November of this year, meaning that Canon is probably planning to announce the new camera in late September at Photokina 2010.

This amazing video shows what lightning looks like when slowed down to 9,000 frames per second. Even if you've seen lightning in slow motion before, this video might surprise you. Even at extremely slow speeds, many of the bursts and flashes that go on during a lightning strike happen in what appears to be real time, while the main bolts last for quite some time. It's definitely an... illuminating video. Har har.

The mystery of the Ansel Adams garage sale negatives keeps taking on new twists, but the latest twist might have solved it once and for all.

Canon recently indicated that due to consumer demand for smaller cameras, they're working on shrinking their traditional SLR system to make it more portable while retaining the mirrored design. It's still possible, however, that they're simultaneously working on developing their own EVIL camera to battle existing offerings and the camera Nikon is likely working on.

Lets say you had an uber-expensive Phantom slow motion camera, a flamethrower, and a fire extinguisher at your disposal. What would you do?

If you've been impatiently twiddling your fingers, waiting for Nikon to bust out new DSLR cameras and lenses, your wait is almost over. Nikon is planning is planning to announce the successor of the D3000 -- the D3100 -- on August 19th, 2010, along with four new lenses.

The Kata ABS-HD is a new kind of bag that starts out the size of a book, and can be inflated to become a carry-on bag for protecting full size camcorders. What's nifty about this idea is that when not in use, the bag is extremely compact and can be stowed away with your other luggage. The bag is designed specifically for stowing expensive equipment safely in the overhead bins on planes, so the bag doesn't come with a lot of bells and whistles.

We reported yesterday that a set of glass plate negatives purchased for $45 in 2000 were verified by a group of experts as being created by Ansel Adams and worth upwards of $200 million.

Mila's Daydreams is a creative photography project by Adele Enersen that's similar to Jan von Holleben's Dreams of Flying project that we featured a while back. Every day, when her baby daughter Mila takes a nap, Enersen imagines what her daughter might be dreaming about and stages a cute scene to capture it in a photograph.

We all know pointing your DSLR directly at the sun for extended periods of time isn't too healthy for your sensor, but what about laser lights like the ones used at concerts? Turns out those can be even more lethal for your camera, even with very brief exposures.

Panasonic just announced the HDC-SDT750, touting it as the "world's first 3D consumer camcorder". The exact claim is slightly dubious, since we featured a different one last month, but it's definitely the first 3D camcorder unveiled by any of the major camera corps.

Well... finally! A Nikon coffee mug has finally appeared on the Internets, months after the web went crazy over Canon look-alike mugs and cups. The black 24-70mm thermos coffee cup comes with a nifty gold box and drawstring bag to carry it around in, and sets you back $23 over at 100milligrams.

Udi Tirosh is the blogger behind DIYPhotography.net and the creator of the Bokeh Masters Kit.

Philip Heron and James Adair filmed this super slow motion video of things smashed, shot, chopped and dropped with a Photron SA1.1 high speed camera.

Rick Norsigian, a painter based in Fresno, California, was browsing through a garage sale in 2000 when he came across two small boxes with 65 glass plate negatives. He was able to purchase the photographs for $45 after bargaining them down from $70. Now it turns out he made one of the biggest finds in photographic history.

We've already got plenty of gadgets designed to facilitate photography: there's auto-focus, face detection, and some crazy features in Photoshop that can effortlessly add and remove entire elements (and people) in photographs. So now why not have a camera that tells you whether you're taking an aesthetically pleasing photograph?

This is probably not the most ergonomic camera body, but it puts fisheye into a whole different context.

The Royal Family is really getting into social media: in addition to their YouTube channel, Twitter, and series of iTunes podcasts, the Family now has a Flickr account which went live to the public this morning. Currently, the British Monarchy's photostream contains 683 uploads of both recent and older historical photographs. According to an announcement from the Royal Collection, photos will be continually added to the account. The Flickr account launch was scheduled to coincide with the …

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:

Here's a really astonishing stop-motion video of a guy walking across America. Peter Cote, director Sam Griffith, and the Conscious Minds Productions crew approached Levis jeans for sponsorship and products to use during the shoot. The trip began June 17 in New York and ended July 1 in San Francisco. For the actual photography, the crew used a Canon 5D.

Photographer Cosmin Bumbut was given the opportunity lead a photo workshop in one of the least likely places -- in a women's penitentiary in Romania. Bumbat furnished 14 women with six Canon PowerShots plus cards and batteries,  and taught them basic photography. The photo workshop began meeting weekly, and within two months, the class had produced some 14,000 images.

The model on the cover of indie band Vampire Weekend's album "Contra" is suing the band, its record label, and the photographer for more than $2 million. Ann Kirsten Kennis discovered that her image was on the cover of the top-selling album when her daughter purchased it and brought it home to show her.

This music video may not have the suave nature of the single-take Old Spice commercials, but then again, neither do the unlucky men who fall victim to their runaway love interest. Plus, musician Tim Halperin had this video made for his song, "She Runs," with a budget of a mere $500. The video was shot with a Canon 5D Mark II.

Freelance photographer Marc Feldman lost his job when Getty Images discovered that he had sent in an altered golf photo for distribution. But Feldman says that it was all an innocent mistake.

Here's a really neat video about the making of a Speedo ad campaign that is running all across Europe right now. The video traces the production from its conceptualization to its final post-processing and illustration. The actual shoot and filming took place at the Pinewood Studios Underwater Stage in the UK, where several major films were also shot, including many 007 and Harry Potter movies. It's pretty remarkable to see so much equipment underwater.

Bristol-based artist Luke Jerram had this novel wedding ring designed for his wife Shelina Nanji. The ring, created in a collaboration with jeweler Tamrakar, contains tiny slides of the couple. When placed in a darkened room with a light source behind it, the slides can be projected through the mini lens built into the ring.

The most recent fuel for resentment towards BP comes from a doctored photo of the company's crisis center in Houston. America blog's John Aravosis made the connection when he examined a hi-resolution version of the photo, which was displayed prominently on the BP website. All this comes after BP promised for increased transparency between the company and the public.

Canon announced today that five upcoming models of the Canon PIXMA printers will feature a "full HD movie print" feature that allows users to print individual frames from their HD movies. The big catch is that the HD movie files have to be .MOV file format created by certain Canon cameras only. The company has yet to release sample prints using the feature.

Today, Canon Japan's Image Communication Products head Masaya Maeda said that Canon is working on a smaller version SLR to be released in the near future. In an interview with Reuters, Maeda said the idea behind the small SLR is that it could compete with Nikon's future mirrorless system and other existing EVIL systems that are inherently more compact than most current mid-level DSLRs.

Finally, a photo accessory for ladies that isn't just frills. The new BlackRapid Camera RS-W1, is designed specifically to fit women. Sure, it has some embellishments on the strap padding, but it retains all the function of the traditional R-Strap, plus some strategic curves for comfort and fit. The camera strap will begin shipping later this month for $59 from BlackRapid.

Earlier today, Dallas Morning News photo editor Guy Reynolds noticed a strange relationship between two Getty images of golfer Matt Bettencourt at the Reno-Tahoe Open golf tournament. One photo featured a tight image of the golfer holding up his ball, victorious, after the 11th hole. The other image, vertical, shows the golfer in the same position, but with another person standing in the background, possibly the golfer's caddy. Initially, Reynolds assumed the photograph was taken by two …

Here's a really imaginative short film called AT-AT day afternoon, created by Canadian filmmaker Patrick Boivin. Boivin took a vintage Star Wars Walker toy and transformed it into man's best friend. The film was created using a blend of stop-motion animation, puppetry, and clever household green screens that aren't always green. Boivin, who is self-trained in filmmaking and effects, said in an interview that he shoots primarily with a Canon 5D Mark II.

This contraption is essentially a glorified egg timer with a tripod screw designed to allow for easy 360 degree time lapse images. The Camalapse, designed by video gear rental and retailer Camarush, slowly rotates in a full circle. If paired with a camera's time-lapse feature, it can allow for pretty seamless, panning 360 degree time-lapse over an hour. You can also stitch resulting time-lapse photos together to make a 360 degree panoramic.

Here's a really great way to turn photos from a novelty camera into something of practical use -- make the photos into mini magnetic dry erase boards! Photojojo has some nifty ideas and instructions for turning Polaroid or Instax prints into colorful refrigerator magnets, a perpetual photo calendar, reusable magnetic reminder notes, and more.

It's almost a given for new Canon DSLRs to have an HD video recording mode, but older Canons can also capture HD video with the open source software EOS Camera Movie Record. The program allows you to shoot HD 720p video with any Canon EOS camera that has LiveView capabilities. The software runs off of your computer and captures HD video from the LiveView of a tethered camera.

While this isn't exactly photo-related, a good number of our readers own iPhones and might appreciate this cheeky Taiwanese news rendition of the iPhone 4 "antennagate" situation that has been dominating tech news this past week. The animation was made by Next Media Animation, a company dedicated to making "the most dramatic" animations about current events and news.

Photoshelter hosted this truly inspirational talk with photographer Tim Mantoani. It runs a bit long, but it's definitely worth a watch. Mantoani shares about what truly motivates and inspires him in photography, as well as the experiences photography yields. Most importantly, Mantoani talks about envisioning your dream photo and how to go about capturing it.

For a cover shoot of a men's magazine, it's no surprise if liberties are taken in post-production. Generous Photoshopping is pretty much a given in any fashion or modeling photo. But here's a bit of a surprise: it may not be the culprit for Lindsay Lohan's disappearing belly button! …

Jeremy Salvador assembled this strange contraption in an attempt to combine an SLR lens with the iPhone. Salvador created a prototype with an Owle Bubo iPhone camera mount, a 37mm filter with glass removed, a 37-58mm step-up ring, a Canon EF mount adapter ring, and a 35mm Canon lens.  Though he's managed to fit all the pieces together, he's been unable to actually take a useable photograph.

Photographer Samuel Cockedey created a series of time lapse photos of Tokyo landscapes and skylines called "Floating Point." The images were captured on a Canon 5D and 5D Mark II. Cockedey has several more environmental time lapses that can be watched on Vimeo.

Since Sony's announcement for the NEX-VG10 video camera, Sony has released another demo video with actual footage taken by the camera. The demo video has a slightly creepy storyline of a videographer following a girl around with the NEX-VG10. Nevertheless, the video has some gorgeous footage, filmed in Bali, that really emphasizes the camera's ability to take advantage of  the lenses depth of field and wide apertures in low light. Also, keep watching for the clever shadow puppet show during …

It's the end of an era. Photojournalist Steve McCurry has developed the last roll of Kodachrome film produced by Kodak.

Fujifilm's Instax Mini 7S landed a pretty prominent spot in hip hop artist B.o.B's music video for "Airplanes," featuring Hayley Williams. It seems like instant photo marketing is especially seeking exposure through music videos -- Lady Gaga's "Telephones" also contains a hefty 10-second spot for Polaroid's instant  camera.

Sure, you've got duster kits and lens cloths to boot, but what about your own body's hygiene? Specialized soap-making duo Rob and Megan Green, better known on Etsy as Stinkybomb, have made this nifty camera-shaped soap for photo fans.

UK lawmakers have been in the process of reviewing anti-terrorism Terrorism Act 2000, with particular attention to street photography rights. Section 44, the controversial and broad provision that allowed authorities to stop and search anyone, and to seize property that could be used in connection with terrorism, was suspended last week. Still, there has been a lot of tension due to the similar provisions of Section 43, which still allows stop and search, though with a more limited scope.

Using a bit of drawer liner as both padding and case, Instructables Living editor scoochmaroo has created instructions for this simple DIY shock-resistant camera case. It's fairly straightforward: just cut from a template, add velcro, and sew.

Canon and Nikon broke ground when they launched DSLRs that have HD video capabilities. Now Sony's taking a different approach by offering a comparatively affordable HD video camera with all the attractiveness of interchangeable lenses, plus the ability to take high resolution stills.

Photographers can now use their iPad or iPhone to view images remotely during a photo shoot -- if they've got a Leaf or a Mamiya digital back. Today, Mamiya and Leaf announced the release of a new App compatible with Leaf backs, as well as Mamiya's DM-series and RZ33 digital cameras and backs. When tethered shooting on a Mac, the Leaf Capture Remote v 2.0 App allows one or more iPad or iPhone to function as a remote image viewer over Wi-Fi.