Here's a neat necklace for photo geeks -- it's a 35mm "cropper" that you can use to see what a scene would look like in a photograph. There's even rule of thirds lines built into it. They're handmade, crafted in Korea, and cost $49 over on Etsy. If you want an equally geeky tool without paying such a ridiculous price, you can punch the film out of a 35mm slide and use that.
Andrew Lathrop came up with this novel way of building a simple radiation detector using an old compact camera, plastic scintillators, some reflective material, and black tape. A scintillator is material that lights up when exposed to radiation, and might be a little difficult for you to get your hands on unless you work in a science lab. Lathrop sent his idea to newspapers in Japan after the recent earthquake, but none of them decided to publish it.
Alberto Korda's iconic photo of Che Guevara, titled "Guerrillero Heroico", is constantly at the center of copyright battles, with Koda's daughter Diana Díaz even licensing the image for branded products in order to fund the legal fights. The latest case involves a London gift company, takkoda, which recently began selling products featuring a dog Photoshopped to look like Che in Korda's photo. The designers insist that there was no copyright infringement but, rather than risking a prolonged …
As Instagram continues its meteoric rise, an ecosystem of third-party services is developing around it. Postagram is one such service by Xobni co-founder Matt Brezina and his new company Sincerely. It lets you easy send physical prints of your Instagram photos as postcards with personalized messages. The photo itself pops out of the postcard as a glossy 300-dpi print. Postagram is available as a free download in the App Store, while each postcard costs $1 and arrives in 2-5 days.
We covered the WVIL (wireless viewfinder interchangeable lens) concept camera at the beginning of the year when the design team behind it released a fake video of it being showed off at CES 2011. The above video is another neat glimpse at the supposedly patent-pending design, which puts all the camera functions in the lens itself, leaving the camera body to function as a wireless display and control panel. What do you think of the idea?
Looks like Nikon has a new 50mm lens primed for announcement. Earlier today a AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G product page appeared on Nikon's website, but was quickly pulled -- but not before it was already widely reported (here's a screenshot of the page). The lens features a Silent Wave Motor for quiet focusing, and a "newly developed optical system employing an aspherical lens element". It will be compatible with both DX and FX format cameras. No word on when this lens will become official or how …
Earlier this week Adobe launched a new subscription-based model for their Creative Suite line of software products. The program ordinarily costs $699, but a yearly subscription costs $420 and gives you access to the latest version. You can also subscribe for a monthly fee of $49 if you need the program on a short term basis. While this won't be very enticing for heavy users of the programs who can just save money by buying and upgrading, renting is a good option for anyone who needs the latest …
