August 2010

The main thing with in flight hover fly photos is not to try, by that I mean if you go out to take one you will end up normally chasing a hoverfly all over the place with little chance of success. I only take them when an opportunity arises.

In this case the males of this species of hoverfly patrol the flowering bush looking for females . When they spot one they go into a stationary hover for about 10seconds whilst they decide if the female is what they think it is and if it's a suitable mate.

Flickr user joey_joey_joey wanted to customize his iPhone 4 in a unique way, so he decided to make it look like a Leica M9. This is one of the neatest looking cell phones I've seen.

To make the stickers for the front and back, Joey took a stock photograph of an M9, and modified it in Photoshop to fit the dimensions of the iPhone 4.

Sony dropped quite an announcement today with its new pellicle mirror DSLRs, but Canon doesn’t want us to …

Here's a stunning time-lapse video by Dan Eckert shot in the California and Arizona deserts. Aside from the fact that seeing the night sky spin in time-lapse is usually pretty darn cool, Eckert employs some interesting techniques that we haven't come across before.

Notice anything strange about the photograph above? It shows the Myers family taking a photograph together outside the Capital building in Madison, Wisconsin. Look a little closer, and you'll see that their Canon G7 caught something unusual.

HBO posted this interesting behind-the-scenes video that gives a glimpse into the kind of special effects that went into filming the popular miniseries John Adams. It's pretty crazy how they construct entire realities around the actors using CGI.

We here at PetaPixel are pleased to announce the new Photographers Rights Gray Card Set, a nifty accessory that can help you remember your rights and educate others if you're ever confronted while shooting.

The rumors that have been circulating in recent weeks were spot on: Sony has just announced four new DSLR cameras: the A33, A55, A560, and A580. As expected, the A33 and A55 are the world's first pellicle mirror DSLRs, and have the features and specs we posted just yesterday: phase-detect autofocus while recording HD video or shooting 7fps or 10fps respectively.

The above is supposedly a leaked photo of the not-yet-announced Sony A33 and its …

Here’s a screenshot photo.net member Brett Cole posted to a forum thread showing …

This is a 17 minute video showing Kai over at DigitalRev (the same guy that painted a Nikon D90 pink) putting a Canon 400D and Nikon D70 through various torture tests. The tests include stabbing them with knives, dropping them down escalators, smashing them with elevator doors, using them as stilts, and more.

We’ve all heard of trickery that goes into many kinds of photography to make something look more appealing to …

A while back we shared a video in a post titled “The Cliche of Enhancing Images in …

Some wedding photographers offer a package that includes an iPad pre-loaded with images from that special day.

It's a simple, yet brilliant way to get both bride and (especially) groom more excited about the album -- while assuring their photos won't lie forgotten in a dusty album years later.

The digital trend is catching on, said Pennsylvania-based photographer Daniel Lanton, who bundles the iPad with engagement photos. Lanton said in an interview with Tampa Bay Online that the iPad it adds a bit more immediacy to the images, as well as a sort of permanence in a new digital age:
"I just foresee a time when the wedding album becomes non-existent or continues falling away ... Now I'm selling more iPads with bound albums. I sold six in the first week."

This adorable Pico projector concept which comes hot on the heels of Nikon’s more standard-looking S1100pj projector camera.

Put your detective hats on -- there's a photo mystery going on over at Boing Boing. Luke Mandle sent in the above photograph of his little boy, Boing Boing published it asking readers to explain it, and how there's a fine and informative debate in the comments.

We're not exactly sure how practical this bag is, but it's definitely among the more unique camera bags we've come across. The Leopard Print Camera Bag by fashion webzine Luxirare is a camera bag/purse hybrid that houses a Nikon D90, a cell phone, and some credit cards, and allows you to shoot without removing the camera from the bag.

A recent fad in advertising is to use 3D projection mapping on buildings at night to create jaw-dropping effects. The above video shows an ad Samsung ran on a historic building in Amsterdam to promote the Samsung 3D LED TV. A perfect representation of the building is first projected onto the actual building, and then mind-blowing things begin to happen.

Here's a bit of camera/culture trivia for this beautiful Friday: Did you know that Japanese culture and many East Asian cultures dislike the number 4? Check out the above screenshot from the Wikipedia page on the Canon PowerShot G line of cameras. Notice how Canon never released a PowerShot G4.

Believe it or not, the above photograph was made with an iPhone 4. jurilog created a tiny astrophotography kit using a small telescope you can buy online for ¥9,800 (~$115) and a miniature tripod mount.

A day after photos of the upcoming Sony A33 and A55 DSLR cameras (rumored to have pellicle mirrors) were leaked, photos and specs of what appear to be the upcoming A560 and A580 cameras have also sprung up. Like the photos leaked yesterday, the front view of the two cameras show exactly the same body with only the model number Photoshopped. Not sure why this is.

The two cameras will be 14 and 16 megapixels (respecitively), and will offer features similar to comparable cameras from the Canon and Nikon camps. These include an ISO range of 100-12800, 1080p HD video recording, 15 autofocus points, 5 frame per second shooting, and a swiveling LCD on the back.

Last week we featured a stunning time-lapse video that unfortunately failed to capture Perseid meteor shower well because of too much air traffic in the area. Landscape photographer Henry Jun Wah Lee attempted the same kind of video in Joshua Tree National Park. Even though there's still quite a bit of air traffic, you can clearly see quite a few shooting stars that light up the sky.

It looks like someone hit the "publish" button too early over at CNET Asia, accidentally spilling the beans on the upcoming Canon PowerShot G12. The 10-megapixel camera's main selling points seem to be features that are also included in the PowerShot cameras announced today by Canon: 1080p 720p HD video recording and a special High Dynamic Range (HDR) scene mode that snaps three bracketed photos for you and combines them into a single photo.

Canon isn’t going to have Nikon have all the announcement fun today. They’ve unveiled three new PowerShot compact cameras: …

After an eternity of rumors and leaks, Nikon has just officially announced the D3100, an entry-level DX format DSLR replacement to the D3000. The main selling point is 1080p video recording at 24fps in h.264 with continuous autofocus, a new feature for DSLR cameras. The 14.2 megapixel camera has 11 autofocus points, a 3-inch LCD screen, an ISO range of 100 to 3200 (can be expanded to 12,800), and 3 FPS shooting. The camera will be out in September at the price of $699, bundled with a 18-55mm VR kit lens.

A Venezuelan court ordered newspaper El Nacional not to print violent images after the paper published a controversial image of dead bodies piled up in a Caracas morgue.

The photo, taken by an El Nacional photographer in December, ran with a story last Friday about security problems in the country. On Monday, the image was picked up by another newspaper, Tal Cual.

The Venezuelan government deemed the decision to run the photo as a part of a campaign criticizing current president Hugo Chavez, in light of the upcoming September elections.

The court ordered El Nacional and Tal Cual to not publish violent photos, saying the ruling is to protect children:
"(The print media) should abstain from publishing violent, bloody or grotesque images, whether of crime or not, that in one way or another threaten the moral and psychological state of children."
El Nacional responded to the ruling on Wednesday by running a front-page story about what they call censorship, along with large blank spaces with "Censored" stamped across where photos usually run.

This music video by YouTube celebrity Joe Penna (AKA MysteryGuitarMan) shows him dancing in various locations while the world around him moves in slow motion. What's even cooler is that he also published a behind-the-scenes video showing how you can do the same thing. Check it out!

Yesterday, Canon announced a rather strange and unexciting Canon 7D "upgrade." It's not exactly an upgrade either -- all of the camera specs for the new Canon 7D Studio Version are unchanged. For $1829 for the body only ($130 more than the current 7D), photographers can have several "locked levels" of the camera. Pay even more and you get a barcode scanning kit and a wireless transfer unit, the WFT-E5A.

So essentially, an extra $900 on top of the regular 7D price lets you have the camera equivalent of parental controls, plus barcode scanning that embeds information into the EXIF data in photos.

Sure, there's a (somewhat niche) practical application for these features. The locked levels can allow for quick settings that can't be changed without a password -- perfect for head photographers to who send mindless drones out to shoot or have little faith in their assistants.

Alleged photographs of the upcoming Sony Alpha A33 and A55 DSLR cameras have popped up in an overseas forum. The images look legitimate, though the A55 and A33 front views are identical images that had the model number Photoshopped. Not sure why that is.

These two cameras are rumored to be pellicle mirror cameras. Read this post that we wrote last week to learn more about what pellicle mirrors are.

The cute photo above of a surprise photo booth proposal is making its arounds around the Internets right now. Angela writes on her blog,

These are the pictures from when we got engaged. I have no idea in frames one and two and am really confused in frame three (lets never make that face again!) and really surprised in frame four.

Turns out the idea of popping the question unexpectedly in a photo booth in order to capture the resulting (priceless) expression is quite popular.