June 2011

Michael Zhang

Photos Recovered from Camera That Spent Four Years in the Ocean

We've heard of digital photos being recovered after lost cameras drift for 1,000 miles (in underwater casing) or spend a year at the bottom of the ocean floor, but is there any hope for a camera that experiences four years of abuse at sea? Turns out there is. A man named Peter Govaars was walking along a beach in California when he stumbled upon a battered camera "skeleton" with a memory card still attached. He took the SD card home, took it apart, spent 30 minutes cleaning it, and was surprised to discover 104 photographs taken within a 2 week period in June 2007.

Michael Zhang

How to Shoot a 360-Degree Panorama Using a Christmas Ornament

Ryan Burnside recently set out to find a cheap way to shoot 360-degree panoramas of scenes, and discovered that shooting a Christmas ornament (or any other spherical reflection) captures all the information needed -- all that's needed is a way to "unravel" the spherical image. Burnside found that the free image editor GIMP can do the trick.

Michael Zhang

Google May be Working on a Secret Photo Sharing Service Called Photovine

Even though it seems like the photo sharing market is saturated with services competing for the world's photos, the incredible growth of many young companies (e.g. Instagram) shows that there's still plenty of untapped areas for growth, with mobile sharing being one of the big ones at the moment. A trademark for "Photovine" filed by Google earlier this month seems to suggest that the search giant is looking to expand beyond Picasa.

Michael Zhang

Inside an Online Camera Store’s Bait and Switch Scam

Photographer Nasim Mansurov's friend recently ordered Canon 5D Mark II from online camera store AjRichard for just $2,350, but was then called by a sales rep and told that the battery and charger weren't included. The final order came out to $2,629, which included some unneeded accessories and 3-day shipping. When the order finally arrived in 2 weeks, he found that it was a 5D Mark II + 24-120mm kit box with the lens removed.

Michael Zhang

Portraits of Panamanian Men and Their Souped-Up Bikes

Panamanian photographer José Castrellón's series Priti Baiks features portraits of men standing proudly next to their decorated bikes. The bikes are their owners' only form of transportation, and the owners spend a considerable amount of their time and resources personalizing their bikes into symbols of identity and individuality.

Michael Zhang

How Dust and Damage on Lenses Affect Image Quality

This photograph was taken by a lens with some "obstruction" on the front element. Aside from the blurry patch of nastiness in the bottom portion of the frame, the rest of the image looks pretty decent. What do you think the "obstruction" is? A little dirt? A smudge where the photographer accidentally touched the front element? A scratch? The answer is a little closer to a scratch than a smudge...

Michael Zhang

What a 268-Megapixel Sensor Looks Like

Last week we shared the beautiful first space photo to be taken with the OmegaCAM, a 268-megapixel, 1,700-lb camera operated by the European Southern Observatory. Here are some photographs of the camera itself, which uses an array of 32 separate CCD sensors for its incredible resolution.

Michael Zhang

Cheap DSLR Follow Focus Kit that Lets You Remember Focus Points

DSLR Solutions has a new follow focus kit that allows you to keep track of focus points without being bulky or expensive. The $60 kit is basically a clamp, a velcro strap, and some metal markers that attach to the strap. Attaching the markers allows you to bounce between focus points, or keep track of a number of points if you have multiple subjects. We've featured a number of DIY follow focus solutions here in the past, but using a velcro strap and markers is something we haven't seen before.

Michael Zhang

Experimenting with Stacks of UV Filters

One of the benefits of running a gear rental business is that you have a ton of equipment you can use for random experiments. That's exactly what Roger Cicala, the owner of LensRentals, did with the UV filters he had on hand. One-upping the 19 filter stack we shared a while back, he mounted 50 different UV filters to a Canon 5D Mark II and 300 f/4 lens to see what the resulting images would look like.