November 24, 2011

Here's some interesting color footage showing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1939. Tom Pappalardo stumbled upon it after buying some 8mm film from a junk shop. He writes, …

Just launched this week, Lighting Diagram is another simple web-based tool that lets photographers create and share lighting diagrams and the photos created with the setups.

Fujifilm officially unveiled the XS-1 today after details and photos of the camera first appeared last month. Unlike the X100 and X10, the XS-1 isn't a rangefinger-esque mirrorless camera but is instead a beastly bridge camera. The camera packs the same 12-megapixel 2/3-inch sensor as the X10, and features a 26x zoom lens that's the 35mm equivalent of a 24-624mm lens. As if that range wasn't enough, they also decided to include a macro mode that allows the camera to focus from just 1cm away.

For her 3rd year dissertation project Katy Beveridge set out to find a creative way to film animation in real time rather through techniques like stop-motion. She then came up with the brilliant idea of placing paper on a bike wheel and using a video camera's -- and the human eye's -- frame rate limitations to create the animation.

Want a super simple macro lens for your phone without shelling out big bucks? You can use 3D printing to assemble your own! Shapeways user Lens42 has created a 3D model for a slide-on iPhone lens -- all you need to do is have the 3D model printed for $11 and to attach a $4 glass lens from Surplus Shed (part number L4471) using some superglue. If you have something other than an iPhone but know your way around 3D modeling programs, you make some measurements yourself and have a custom 3D model …

Here's an amazing clip from the BBC series Frozen Planet. The film crew used time-lapse photography to capture "brinicle" forming under sea ice. As the beautiful icicle forms, it also becomes deadly -- once it touches down, the resulting web of ice kills the slow-moving life on the sea floor. You can read more about the phenomenon here.