October 2010

Claire O'Neill and Mito Habe-Evans over at NPR's The Picture Show blog have just posted a fun experimental project you can try out this halloween: making a pinhole camera out of a pumpkin. What you'll need is a pumpkin, aluminum foil, a knife, tape, photo paper, dark spray paint, and access to a dark room. Along with the disturbing skull camera we shared earlier today, this would be a fun way to capture photos of trick-or-treaters this halloween.

This is Flickr user MrDAT's homemade halloween costume. He used a Nikon SB-600 flash mounted on helmet and an Ezybox softbox. With a little more work and some cardboard, this costume could be turned into a giant, working human flash unit! …

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.

Halloween is coming up -- are you geeky enough to make your pumpkin photography-themed? This one has a Graflex camera carved into it.

Light Studio is a new iPhone app designed to teach you the basics of studio lighting for portraiture. In addition to sections with examples of setups and tutorials, there's a 3D modeling feature that allows you to position up to three hard light sources and watch how the lights affect the 3D face model. The app is available for $1.99 in the App Store.

After a long night of working in CMYK, you're ready for a change, so what do you do? Bust out some food coloring and convert some brownscale pancakes to RGB RYB, of course! …

When Apple unveiled the iPhone 4, they also showed off a white version that would be available alongside the black one. Since then, however, the company repeatedly pushed back the launch date for the white version, claiming that the white one was, "more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected".

My buddy Kyle and I were traversing a mountain road near my home town of Tillamook, Oregon. I am intending to create a tour company that will comprise of local tours in and around the Tillamook County area. We have many beaches, mountains, rivers and bays here and I intend to show people. Without getting too off-track, we were heading up into the mountains on a gravel logging road to calculate mileage and timing for a tour. A road I'd been on regularly as I had worked for the state department …

This is a Kodak advertisement that ran in the The Saturday Evening Post 100 years ago, on April 30th, 1910, and shows how people back then gave their children a taste of photography.

A couple days ago we covered the winning image of the British Journal of Photography's international photo contest and how many readers disagreed with the photo's merits. The prize for that contest was a one week exhibition and a Sigma digital compact camera. Now compare that to the above photograph, which won AU $80,000 in the 2010 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize, one of the richest prizes in the world. Like the BJP photo, this photograph became the subject of debate.

Jenny from I Love Muffins created these awesome mini fondant lomo cameras for decorating cakes with. If you enjoy making cakes, this could be a fun project when making them for photography-enthusiast friends.

The Sprocket Rocket is a new analog camera by Lomography that the company claims is the first camera dedicated to sprocket hole photography. The sprocket holes of 35mm film are included in each panoramic exposure, giving the resulting images a unique look. Two knobs on the camera wind the film in both directions, allowing you to create multiple exposures images as well.

Earlier this month we reported that there was a star-studded short film being shot entirely with the Nokia N8 phone. It was just released, and gives a pretty interesting look at what mobile phone cameras are capable of now.

This photograph of Boulevard du Temple in Paris was made in 1838 by Louis Daguerre, the brilliant guy that invented the daguerreotype process of photography. Aside from its distinction of being a super early photograph, it's also the first photograph to ever include a human being. Because the image required an exposure time of over ten minutes, all the people, carriages, and other moving things disappear from the scene. However, in the bottom left hand corner is a man who just so happened to …

There was a rumor circulating today that Sony was potentially an acquisition target of Apple, which has $51 billion in cash lying around waiting to be used. Shares of Sony were up nearly 3 percent at one point before the rumors were quashed by analysts. If Apple did somehow acquire Sony in the future, it would bring the company back into the digital camera market that the company explored and then abandoned back in the 90s. However, it doesn't seem likely that we'll see an Apple Alpha DSLR …

Maybe this is what "Photoshop" would be like if computers had never been invented. This workspace has it all -- tools, rulers, layers, etc... These are probably the tools the "I Have PSD" guy uses.

Wanting to capture a nighttime panoramic photograph of Toledo, Spain in which darker areas were illuminated, the Photographic Association of Toledo decided to eschew HDR and attempt something new -- light-painting on an epic scale. They enlisted the help of 50 association photographers who strolled around the city firing off their flashes multiple times per minute. The resulting photograph was illuminated by over 3000 flashes covering 100K square meters. Wowzers! …

The Pinwide is a new pinhole cap by Wanderlust Cameras that takes advantage of the mirrorless nature of Micro Four Thirds cameras by recessing the cap into the body of the camera, achieving a wide field of view and strong natural vignetting. The "lens" is the equivalent of a 22mm on a 35mm camera, and boasts a perfectly round pinhole "made with the same precision etching technology used to manufacture semicoductors" to ensure sharpness.

Nikon is a player in the 3D game now, though not by releasing any 3D-capable camera. Instead, they've announced my Picturetown 3D, a 3D conversion and sharing service for registered members of their photo sharing and storage service my Picturetown. The service can take your boring old-school 2D photographs and convert them into 3D for you.

Goodwill has an online auction site called shopgoodwill, and categories in the Cameras & Camcorders section include film cameras, lenses and accessories, and vintage cameras. It's not nearly as well-known as popular auction sites (e.g. eBay), so you might be able to find a good deal on camera gear!

The British Journal of Photography announced recently that South African photographer Michelle Sank's image "Man asleep on the Golden Mile, Durban, South Africa." had won the single image category of its International Photography Award.

This is one of the most creative examples of light painting we've seen -- Flickr user Janne Parviainen created this unique light painting photograph to show a skeleton jumping out of a body. It's straight from the camera without any Photoshop trickery.

Amazon is selling the 10 megapixel Panasonic DMC-F2K Lumix compact camera for $69 today on its deal of the day Gold Box page. If you're looking for a cheap camera for yourself or as a gift for the upcoming Christmas season, you might want to take a look.

"Nuit Blanche" is a 4-minute long short film by Arev Manoukian of SpyFilms that will blow your mind. While you're watching it, try to guess how it was created -- see if you can pick out what's real and what's "shopped". It may remind you a bit of The Third & The Seventh, another mind-blogging short we shared at the beginning of the year.

If you have 20 minutes to spare, here's an interesting video in which winning photographers of the 66th Pictures of the Year International contest discuss the power of photojournalism and some of their work. This is similar to the "What Makes a Great Picture?" by National Geographic that we shared back in September.

Here's a quick photo related life hack: if you have a lens filter that just won't come off, try using a rubber jar opener to do the task. If you don't have one already in your kitchen, there might be cheap ones at your local dollar store!

Brian T. linked to this XKCD comic titled "Photoshops" in the comments of our "Photoshop in real life" post today. I've seen it before, but it's still pretty funny.

Update on 12/9/21: This video has been taken down by the creator.

If you're ever in beautiful San Francisco, you might want to pay a visit to the giant camera obscura, a room sized "camera" built in 1946 and based on a 15th century design by Leonardo da Vinci. It's designed to look like someone left a giant 35mm there with its lens pointed to the sky.

Earlier this week stock agency FotoLibra received an email from English Heritage (the public organization that manages historical sites) that read, …

"I Have PSD" is a creative stop-motion short film by Hyperakt imagining what life would be like if Photoshop features could be used in real life -- a world in which fixing life's small problems are as easy as correcting a photograph.

Certain higher end flashes have a strobe (AKA repeating flash) mode that can flash repeatedly, freezing a moving subject in various positions in a single exposure. This tutorial will teach you how to create a similar effect using light painting techniques, resulting in the above photo.

"Oops", created by Chris Beckman, is a 10 minute art video composed entirely of appropriated YouTube videos in which the camera is accidentally dropped. What's amazing is how seamlessly the clips are stitched together, making it difficult to discern where one clip ends and the next begins. The result is mesmerizing.

Want to print your own flash reflector? Pieroway has free PDF templates that you can use. The templates print double sided, with black printed on one side and faint gray fold lines printed on the other. Print it, cut the shape out, fold along the lines, and attach it to your flash with a rubber band.

PhotoSync for Lazy is an app for iOS devices that automatically syncs photographs with a PC folder over wi-fi. Once the program is installed on the a Windows PC, a special folder is monitored, and when the app is opened on the iPhone (or other iOS device) it will automatically update to reflect the contents of that folder. This can be a good way to keep your phone for sharing photos on the go, or for having your latest portfolio pictures with you at all times. It's not currently available for …

This audio slideshow interview by BagNewsSalon features New York Times contract photographer Michael Kamber, who discusses the issue of military censorship of photographs shot during the Iraq war and how his ability to document the war became more and more limited as time went on. An interesting point he makes is that uncensored photography should be allowed even if it can't be published immediately, because it can provide posterity with an accurate view into the past.

Want more precision in your focus adjustments when shooting video with your DSLR, but don't want to shell out money for a pricey follow focus? Flickr user Adam Lisagor shot this photo showing how he created his own DIY follow focus for $6. All you need is a steel hose clamp, drawer handle, nut, and bolt. Drill a hole through the clamp, and put it together as shown above.

During Game 4 of the series between the Yankees and the Rangers this past tuesday, a player broke a bat when making a hit and the broken end of the bat flew all the way into the camera well, shattering the front of a Canon DIGISUPER 86II TELE xs camera lens worth $90,000. Luckily there was a protective filter being used over the lens, though it will still cost $20,000 to replace it. What's neat is that cameraman Steve Angel kept on shooting with the smashed lens, framing the scenes through the …

The Lens Lock is the latest product in the GearGuard gear locking system by Gary Fong (maker of the well known LightSphere). It attaches to the back of a lens like an ordinary rear lens cap, but can be secured and locked using a cable/lock combo. This allows you to lock the gear down when not in use (like you would do with a bike) or lock it together with other gear in your bag, preventing individual items from being stolen from your bag.

This neat DIY video shows how you can convert an ordinary digital camera into a night vision camera. The video uses a digital video camera, but the same concept can be applied to still cameras as well.

The TED conference announced yesterday that the 2011 TED Prize would be awarded to the anonymous street artist and photographer known as JR. Previous winners of the $100,000 award include Bill Clinton, James Nachtwey and Bono.

Nikon created this short video to introduce the various Nikon cameras that have been used during space exploration. The music is pretty cheesy, but it's pretty interesting if you're into this kinda thing.

One of the things about macrophotography is that you either have to shoot wide open (and have a depth of field of about 1 micron or so) or stopped down to get some decent DOF (but have ridiculous shutter speeds making everything a blur). The solution: put a strobe on it! Given that you are so close to your subject, it's hard to properly light it. A ring flash is a good choice and at the tiny distance it is used from the subject, it has the effect of a large softbox creating even lighting.

When the leaves on trees are just starting to change color in the Autumn, try collecting them and arranging them into shapes with a spectrum of colors! The above example was created with Maples leaves by Flickr user Mr. dale.

This poor wedding photographer wasn't looking at where he was going and, as a result, caused a huge commotion and likely ruined his pricey gear. On the plus side, he's probably learned to make note of his surroundings for the rest of his life. Hopefully the photographs survived.

Update: This giveaway is now over. The winners were randomly selected and announced below.

Gap is selling a pair of vintage camera boxers for $12.50, or $10 each if you buy two.

Photographer Chris McCaw was making long exposures of the night sky during a camping trip when he forgot to cap his camera lens before going to sleep. When he woke up, he discovered that the sun had burned a hole through his negative. After processing the film, he found that it had solarized, or reversed in tone. What started as an accident McCaw now does intentionally for his "Sunburn" series of photographs.

Introduced in 1967, the Lite-Brite is a children's toy where colored pegs are inserted into a black board and then illuminated, resembling LED lights. The new music video for the song SMS by David Crowder Band tells a love story using this toy by animating the story one photograph at a time. Someone must have spent an eternity making changes to the Lite-Brite during the making of this video. The hard work definitely paid off in the end though.

On November 9th, 2009, Software programmer Antonio Musumeci was filming the arrest of a protestor outside a federal courthouse in NYC when he himself was arrested. His main camera was confiscated, but he recorded the entire encounter on a second camera (the resulting video is above). In April 2010, the New York Civil Liberties Union sued the government on Musumeci's behalf, and yesterday it was was announced that a settlement had been reached, with the government recognizing the public's right …