Light painting and bullet time are both amazing photographic techniques on their own, but what happens when you combine them? The amazing video above by Richard Kendall and his team shows just that: three dimensional light painting captured with a 360-degree Matrix-style bullet time camera rig. The results are stunning.
Inspiration can come in all forms, and even though some people people might not find Instagram photography inspiring, online ambient music publication Disquiet had the great idea of asking musicians to compose music based on shots taken using the popular camera app.
This is, in fact, the proper way to carry the Nikkor 1200-1700mm f/5.6-8.0 super telephoto lens. Weighing in at 36 pounds and measuring nearly 3 feet in length, the manual focus lens was introduced in 1993 and had a hefty price tag of $60,000. It would be interesting to see how it stacks up against the magical Sigma 200-500mm.
Adobe is currently holding the launch event for the highly anticipated Creative Suite 6 in San Francisco today, making it a big day for Photoshop enthusiasts everywhere. Official release will be coming "within 30 days" according to Adobe, but the event has revealed enough to whet our appetites and give us some pricing options we can chew over.
Photography enthusiast Jeff Vier made himself a cheap DIY grid spot using a $5 gutter downspout adapter he purchased from Home Depot and a $0.50 bag of drinking straws. Simply cut all the straws to the same length (the longer the straws, the more focused the light), carefully arrange them inside the adapter, and then use super glue to fix them into place. Vier found that his makeshift adapter fit perfectly over his Speedlight 580 EX II without any adjustments.
After his daughter Lotte was born, Dutch photographer Frans Hofmeester began creating weekly videos of her to document her growth. Lotte recently turned 12, and Hofmeester decided to edit all the footage so far into this amazing time-lapse video showing twelve years of growing up in just under three minutes.
Remember those beautiful macro photos that showed the inside of musical instruments as giant rooms? Sao Paolo, Brazil-based photographer Valentino Fialdini did something similar, except instead of musical instruments he used small chambers created out of LEGO blocks. With some clever lighting and camera trickery, Fialdini captured the tiny rooms and corridors as to look like giant architectural spaces.
Here's an interesting video in which street photographer Matt Stuart shares some of his work and talks about his love for street photography. In an interview with More Intelligent Life, Stuart states, …
The Camera is a beautiful 7-minute-long short film by amateur filmmaker Peter Lewis about a solitary girl who finds a creepy mysterious Polaroid camera in an abandoned beach house. It's the first film Lewis has completed, and was shot using a Canon Rebel 550D T2i (and the Canon 50mm f/1.4 and Tamron 28-200mm) on a budget of $50 during a vacation in Nags Head, North Carolina. Lewis singlehandedly managed all the stages of production, including composing the original score, creating the foley …
Over the past week there have been several complaints lodged against Nikon claiming that the LCD screen on the D4 and D800 has a green cast when compared to the older models. Nikon, however, has responded by claiming that the D3s and D700 models were in fact the less accurate pair. According to Nikon Rumors, Nikon tech support is blaming the LCD on the D3s and D700, asserting that its higher display color temperatures leads to blue tinted images.
If you've ever found yourself wishing you could take an iPhone picture of the night sky -- or a cool slide under the microscope for that matter -- than your wish could soon become a reality. The startup Arcturus Labs are in the process of funding a new product called Magnifi, an iPhone case/adapter that allows you to attach your phone to a microscope, telescope, binoculars, or any other optical instrument.
The first sample images of the Nikon D3200 have just come out of Nikon France; and although they look great for the most part, the one low-light image confirms suspicions that Nikon may have gone too far putting 24.2-megapixels in the camera. More noticeable on the full-resolution photographs, you can tell that once the ISO is cranked up to about 1600, noise begins to play a significant role.
Flickr user boingr came up with a great idea for those of us who don't want to spend money on a flash diffuser from a camera shop -- head over to Home Depot instead. All he did was buy an Amerimax Home #85208 downspout funnel, shimmy it onto his Canon Speedlite 580EX II, and presto: Open-Top Flash Diffuser.
On July 24th, 2010 tens of thousands of people captured a video snipped of their life that day and uploaded it to YouTube where director Kevin Macdonald and executive producer Ridley Scott edited the lot of them together into a 95min feature film -- which you can now watch for free. On May 15th, it's the photographer's turn.
Nokia recently put together this ad for the new 808 PureView -- their 41-megapixel monster of a camera phone -- that they claim was shot using only the smartphone itself. Cramming too many pixels on too small a sensor rarely leads to good results, but sample shots and video in the ad don't look bad at all. Of course there's probably a "real-life results will vary" tag in fine print somewhere that we're missing; but where the pixel race is concerned Nokia have definitely proved that they are …
Here's an hour-long live video interview that Photoshelter recently did with Michele Hadlow, senior photo editor over at Forbes Magazine.
How does a Pulitzer Prize worthy photograph come into existence? For most of us the photos that are considered the best of the best each year seem somewhat untouchable; as if one has to be in the right place at the right time, and when they look down find that they also happen to have their camera on them. The truth, however, is rarely so unanticipated. In the case of Craig F. Walker's 2012 Pulitzer Prize winning series, it all began with a hike.
A couple of weeks ago, Facebook took everybody by surprise when they acquired Instagram; the massively popular -- though not yet profitable -- photo-sharing application. A few days ago we learned that they may have only just beat Twitter to the punch. Now rumors are flying about that Mark Zuckerberg not only acted on his own -- without the Facebook board's knowledge -- but managed to lower Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom's asking price from $2 billion to the reported $1 billion that Facebook …
The Michael Jacksons, by photographer and social scientist Lorena Turner, is a study of people who make a living or perform as the late great Michael Jackson. In her own words:
It is an index of the refraction of Michael Jackson's public persona within the culture by exploring issues of fantasy, reality and representation as influenced by and filtered through cultural experience.
Innovation is why we love companies like Google. Several times a week, it seems, the company comes out with another program or product idea that makes us all smile (and secretly wonder how long we have until they've achieved world domination). Their best ideas, however, involve their user base -- and their latest expansion idea for Google Earth does just that.
Prison is no cake walk -- and rightfully so. Inmates of maximum security prisons have often done terrible things, things that in some states are still punishable by death. But is there a fate worse than death?
Some might say that the city of Rochester, New York is struggling; others might say that it's evolving. One thing's for sure though: Rochester -- nicknamed The World's Image Centre -- is changing. Because of this, and because of the city's rich photographical history (think Kodak), ten of Magnum Photos' photographers have chosen Rochester as one of three locations currently being documented across the United States.
This is probably the strangest and most awkward thing you'll see today. It's a short 5-minute video titled "The World's Most Downloaded Man" that chronicles photographer Fernado Martins' journey to meet Jesper Bruun, the world's best-selling stock photography model.
"Fake People Suck" -- now that's a tagline. In 2009 David Katzenstein and Sherrie Nickol began a fine arts project that involved asking people off the street to come to their studio and photographing them against a white background. The idea was to capture the striking diversity that's commonplace in New York. But after photographing about 50 people -- and due also to a steady drop in commissions from commercial and corporate projects -- they realized the potential the project had as a …
Stephen Shankland over at CNET has written an interesting behind-the-scenes look at how DxO Labs -- one of the world's premier camera testing services -- evaluates equipment. DxO Labs is based near Paris, France and was the result of a 2003 spinoff from a company called Vision IQ, which specialized in swimming pool safety. Since then, the group has published over 185 in-depth camera reviews on its website DxOMark.
When working with rim lights, or shooting into a significant backlight, glare becomes a serious issue. The typical solution to this problem is setting up flags on either side of your subject, but who needs flags when you have a spare piece of Coroplast sitting around your studio?
2008 marked the first time in history that more of Earth's population lived in cities rather than in the countryside, and by 2050 nearly 70% of the world's population will reside in large cities. A new series of satellite photographs captured decades apart by NASA's Landsat department and the U.S. Geological Survey offers a striking look at how human cities have spread across the face of the Earth in just a few short years. The image above shows Las Vegas in 1984 and in 2011.
Photo sharing apps for smartphones are a dime-a-dozen. Ever since Instagram achieved worldwide success -- and was rewarded with a $1 billion dollar buyout by Facebook -- many developers have tried to follow in their footsteps. That being said, finding a photo sharing app that stands out is rare, which is why the OpenPhoto app release this week struck a chord with us.
Comedian and musician Mike Falzone often records monologues on various subjects while going for walks. Here's what he has to say about professional Instagram photography. Little does he know that one of his "farfetched" examples is very much a reality.
Camera rating business DxOMark has published its in-depth sensor review for the Canon 5D Mark III. For Canon fans, there's both good and bad news: while the camera boasts the best sensor seen in a Canon DSLR so far -- besting the sensor found in the 1Ds Mark III -- its score of 81 is far below the Nikon D800's 95. DxOMark does, however, point out that the two cameras focus on different strengths: …
About a week ago rumors of an iPhone app that could shoot in RAW format raged across the Internet. The app in question, the 645 PRO by developer Jag.gr, was to be the first camera app for the iPhone to achieve this feat. And although by all accounts the app is a very impressive and useful app, it turns out that shooting in true RAW isn't among its features.
If you're ever photographing a baby that's sitting on anything above ground level, make sure you have a spotter near the baby at all times. This video shows why.
A member of Magnum photos since the 1960's, photographer Constantine Manos and his Leica rangefinder have been creating beautiful photography for many years. Perhaps best known for his work in Boston and Greece, much of Manos work revolves around his South Carolina upbringing and Greek heritage.
I’ve got a little story for you today, and a valuable lesson for photographers everywhere. On the Monday before last, a post that I wrote the week before started to go viral. I was receiving more traffic than I had ever experienced before, and from sites that I had never heard of. Fantastic. Only, along with the good news, we have some bad news.
Living Dolls is a series by Vancouver-based photographer and retoucher Hayden Wood that shows two models photographed and manipulated to look like plastic Barbie and Ken dolls.
A few months ago we mentioned that compact camera manufacturers were approaching smartphone competition the wrong way. We posited that instead of adding creepy unique features like sleeping face recognition and make-up mode, they should instead be focusing on improving ease-of-use and image quality.
This short video tutorial shows how you can shift the color balance of sunlight to create a blue background that looks like moonlight.
In today's post about Nikon's D3200 announcement we also mentioned in passing that the WU-1a Wireless Adapter was announced at the same time. But after taking a closer look, we think the adapter merits a little more detail and a lot more excitement.
Photographer Shane Murphy has written up an informative step-by-step tutorial on how you can photograph the International Space Station as it whizzes by overhead.
Even though Kickstarter projects are anything but few and far between, you still don't have to look far to find something great. Case in point: the Timelapse+ -- a Kickstarter project that reached full funding on February 19th -- is a feature-rich intervalometer that would make a valuable addition to any photographer's camera bag.
A strange bit of news coming out of China: couples are opting to have their wedding photos faked using Photoshop due to rising photography costs.
It's a big day for camera releases; hot on the heels of Nikon's D3200 release, Samsung have officially announced three new highly-anticipated compact system cameras: the NX20, NX210 and NX1000 -- all featuring built-in wifi connectivity, a 20.3-megapixel APS-C sensor, 8fps continuous shooting and full 1080pHD video recording.
During the 9/11 attacks in NYC, Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker shot what is perhaps the most controversial image created that day: a photo that appears to show a group of young people casually enjoying themselves while the World Trade Center burns in the background. Hoepker kept the image under wraps for four years and then caused quite a stir after publishing it in a 2006 book. Columnist Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times that "The young people in Mr. Hoepker’s photo aren’t …
Nikon officially unveiled the D3200 today. The new HDSLR -- which is the successor to the D3100 -- was announced last night alongside the WU-1a wireless transmitter and the Nikkor 28mm f/1.8G full-frame lens; and talk about bang for your buck. The D3200 offers a 24.2 megapixel DX-Format CMOS sensor, 4fps continuous shooting, 100-6400 ISO range expandable to 12,800, 11-point autofocus and the ability to shoot full 1080p video at up to 30fps.
Now here's a divisive photo series that will draw both anger and cheers: graphic designer (and former Apple employee) Michael Tompert teamed up with photographer Paul Fairchild for a project titled 12LVE that consists of photographs showing annihilated Apple products. Here's the description: …
Cinemagraphs, or still images that have a dash of movement, have become very popular as of late. So popular, in fact, that Microsoft Research is jumping onto the bandwagon.
Here's an interesting "How It's Made" segment showing how optical lenses are made. Here's a hint at why lenses are so expensive: slabs of optical glass cost up to $1000 for 2.2lb!
Canon has begun informing retailers in the UK and Canada (and probably other regions as well) that shipments of the Canon 5D Mark III have been put on hold as the company investigates the "light leak" issue that has come to light over the past month. Widely discussed in the blogosphere and on forums, the issue -- which some have dubbed "leakgate" -- is now known to cause a 1/3 stop error in exposure in very specific situations (i.e. scenarios that will not affect the vast majority of …
There's a Danish TV show called "Dumt & Farligt" in which two guys are given a house and the task of doing stupid and dangerous things that come to mind. In addition to recording the experiments in real time, the show decided to also use a Phantom Flex high speed camera to capturing everything at 2,500 frames per second. The video above provides a slow motion look at things ranging from setting off large fireworks indoors to microwaving a bottle of red wine.
Remember that monochrome Leica M camera rumor that we reported on last month? The latest rumor pegs May 10th as the announcement date. The new camera won't be a successor to the M9 -- the M10 will likely be announced in September at Photokina -- but will instead be a M9-styled rangefinder with a sensor that can only capture black and white. It is also said to have fantastic high-ISO quality and may ditch the LCD screen entirely.
