September 2011

Michael Zhang

Gomite Tiltpod is a Quick and Easy Way to Prop Your Camera Up on the Go

Gomite's new Tiltpod is a simple "tripod" designed for people who do a lot of traveling with a compact camera. Stored on the end of your hand strap, it attaches quickly to your camera's tripod mount to help you frame and stabilize your shots when there's no one around to help you take it. The underside is made of a "grippy" magnetic material that helps it stay still on most surfaces, and the angle of the base can be adjusted after the camera is attached.

Michael Zhang

Insane Wingsuit BASE Jump in Slow Motion with Twixtor

Earlier this year, daredevil BASE jumper Jeb Corliss leaped off a cliff in Switzerland in a wingsuit and wearing 5 separate GoPro cameras. One of the things Corliss did afterward was create this ethereal slow-motion video with the footage using Twixtor, the artificial slowmo program that has become quite popular as of late.

Michael Zhang

Everpix Gathers All of Your Photos into One Place in the Cloud

Everpix is a new company that wants to make your entire photo collection -- both online and offline -- accessible from anywhere through the cloud. Introduced yesterday at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 conference, the service will come as a desktop client that monitors folders on your computer and photo sharing accounts on the Internet. Whenever you add new photographs, they're automatically beamed to the cloud (i.e. Everpix servers), allowing images created using many different devices and stored in many different places to be available in one central location. Even photos emailed to your through Gmail can be picked up and back up by the service.

Michael Zhang

Long Exposure Light Painting, MIT-style

Here's a long exposure light painting tutorial by a couple MIT Media Lab students. In addition to teaching the basics of the technique, they also show off a robot arm that they programmed to do extremely precise light painting photos and animations.

Michael Zhang

Interview with John Sypal of Tokyo Camera Style

John Sypal is the photographer behind Tokyo Camera Style, the "Sartorialist of the camera world".

PetaPixel: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?

John Sypal: I had a very typical middle class and middle American childhood. A semester followed by a year abroad at a university in Japan led me to the place I am today, namely a suburb just outside of Tokyo. I’ve been interested in photography since high school and upon studying and living in Japan have been enjoying the photographic scene of Tokyo and the people who make it all possible. In 2008 I was taking part in a weeklong photography festival and asked a guy if I could take a picture of his camera. And since there were lots of people around with film cameras at this event I asked a few more. I had just seen my first tumblr a week earlier, and so after getting a few more pictures Tokyo Camera Style was born.

Michael Zhang

Amazing Light-Painted Dinosaur Photos

San Diego-based graphic artist Darren Pearson takes light-painting to a whole new level with his Light Fossil series -- long-exposure photos with detailed dinosaur fossils carefully drawn into the frame.

Michael Zhang

Allowing Free Use of Your Photos Could Actually Save Your Business

Could allowing the use of your photos for free actually be a way to increase income? Portrait photographer Jonathan Worth -- the man behind Coventry University's free photo courses -- used to send take-down notices to any website that shared his work without permission. Then he met author Cory Doctorow, a proponent of Creative Commons licensing, who suggested that he try giving away his work for free. Worth then made a high-res photo freely available online and quickly sold 111 signed prints, netting him £800 (~$1,270).

Michael Zhang

Sad News: Fujifilm Cuts a Number of Films from Its Lineup

Things aren't look very bright in the world of film. Citing plummeting consumer demand for silver halide films, Fujifilm has announced that they're cutting a number of films in the lineup in order to ensure that production of films -- presumably the more popular ones -- will continue. They've already stopped producing the discontinued films, so you might want to grab some rolls and freeze them before they become extinct...