September 17, 2010

Photographer Timur Civan had a project that required vintage-looking photographs. Originally planning to shoot the project on a 4x5 large format camera, he abandoned that route after calculating the cost for equipment and processing. His lens technician friend then discovered a 1908 Wollensak 35mm F5.0 Cine-Velostigmat hand-cranked lens in a box of spare parts, and spent 6 hours helping him make the lens fit on an EF mount for Civan's 5D Mark II.

Forget the uber-rare Leica MP2 that's going on auction at the end of this year. If you want a unique camera but don't want to trade your house for it, you can save yourself a couple hundred grand by going for this brand new made-for-NASA Hasselblad MKWE up for sale on eBay for a cool $33,751.

Less than a year ago when I was a grad student at Berkeley, I heard a guest lecture by Professor Daniel Fletcher in which he discussed his CellScope project. His group aims to transform cell phones into light microscopes to aid in disease diagnosis in developing countries. Turns out the concept can be used for more than medical purposes.

One of the big features touted by Samsung in the unveiling of the new Samsung NX100 was the i-Function lens system, which allows people to adjust camera settings traditionally handled only by the camera body. By placing an "i-Function" button on the lens, the focus ring suddenly has a dual purpose, becoming the "dial" that is traditionally used to change things like aperture and shutter speed.

The top photo was published by Al-Ahram, Egypt's second-oldest and most widely circulated newspaper, while the photo below it is another photo taken at almost exactly the same moment in time by Getty Photographer Alex Wong. The main gripe people have with the edited photo is that the paper placed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the front of the group -- suggesting that he was leading the Middle East peace talks -- while he was actually trailing behind the others.