March 30, 2011

IT consultant and photo enthusiast Viktor Takacs didn't have much success when he tried capturing lightning on camera, so he decided to build this fancy do-it-yourself trigger (which he named "Zeus") that automatically snaps a photo whenever the photodiode detects a flash of lightning. He even built a knob into the device that can be used to adjust sensitivity. The demo above shows the trigger reacting to manually triggered flashes from a strobe.

You can now build you own version of the cardboard Hasselblad pinhole camera that we featured a couple days ago. Kelly Angood has released a PDF with the template and detailed instructions for putting the pieces together. The finished product is a working pinhole camera that takes 120 35mm film.

Ever wonder what actually happens between the time you press the shutter button on a DSLR and when the image shows up on the LCD screen? Canon made these two videos explaining how their DSLR cameras work and how they use CMOS sensors to turn photons into photos. You'll probably find this pretty interesting if you've never learned about CMOS sensors before. For a more in-depth lesson, check out the sensor tutorial over on Cambridge in Colour.

After a seven year journey that involved being slingshotted around the planets in our solar system, NASA's MESSENGER probe entered Mercury's orbit on March 17th, 2011. Yesterday the probe beamed back the first photograph ever taken of the planet from orbit (seen above).

Great photos come from happy cameras. Fabric artist Nicole Gastonguay crocheted this cute little Polaroid camera and picture duo. You can find a whole gallery of her wonderful creations here, though we think this photography-related one is the neatest of them all! …

Berlin-based photographer Stephan Tillmans shot a series of photographs titled "Luminant Point Arrays" that show old CRT televisions being switched off, capturing the strange and unique light patterns that appear for an instant but immediately vanish.