May 2012

Dennis Calvert

Light Up Particles in the Air for a Snazzy Silhouette Portrait at Night

You can light up particles in the air for a snazzy effect. The photos in this post were done by shining a powerful focused light into the air in various weather conditions during a long exposure. You need a light source that outputs some major power to pull off the effect. I used a Coast HP21 and a 3000 lumen Stanley spotlight for these shots. The photo above was shot while it was snowing.

DL Cade

The Making of the Limited Edition Leica M9-P “Edition Hermès”

Having released three (count em') new cameras yesterday, you'd think Leica would be spent; but it looks like they had one other camera up their sleeves, a special edition of their M9-P called the "Edition Hermès." If the name sounds familiar that's because it is: every few years Leica announces an "Edition Hermès" of one of their cameras in collaboration with Parisian house Hermès -- only this year they've also decided to include a making of video to go along with it.

DL Cade

Create Your Own DIY Tilt-Shift Adapter Using a 3D Printer

We really enjoy DIY projects for photographers, and as such we've featured everything from the ultra simple to complex light-painting robots. But what excites us about Instructables' DIY tilt-shift adapter isn't just the durable plunger adapter you end up with, but rather the idea that one could manufacture their own camera accessories with a little bit of design skill and a 3D printer (check out Shapeways if you don't have one sitting around).

For this particular project you'll need a camera, an extra lens, some digital calipers, 3D design software like 123D, and access to a 3D printer or 3D printing service. After that just follow the steps in this video and you can wind up with results like the ones you see below.

Michael Zhang

100 Portraits of Women and Men Between the Ages of 1 and 100

1 to 100 Years Project is an awesome portrait project by Belgian photographer Edouard Janssens in which he photographed 100 women and 100 men at each age between 1 and 100. His goal was to show the aging process in a positive manner and to provide an interesting visualization of the link between generations. He didn't handpick the subjects either -- all the participants volunteered through the project's website (excluding the kids, of course).

Michael Zhang

Leica Updates Its Compact Camera Lineup with the X2 and V-Lux 40

The M Monochrom B&W rangefinder wasn't the only camera Leica unveiled today -- the company also announced two new models in its compact camera lineup. The first is the X2, successor to the X1 of 2009. It's an APS-C sensor camera that features 16.2-megapixels, a fixed 24mm Elmarit f/2.8 ASPH lens, a 2.7-inch LCD screen, and a hefty $2,000 price tag.

Michael Zhang

Diapod: A Simple LED Slide Projector

Have some slide film sitting around and no slide projector to show them off with? Diapod is a tiny product designed for you. It's a simple and lightweight slide projector that uses a tabletop tripod, aluminum body, and LED light to project your slide film photos.

Michael Zhang

Light Painting Photos Shot Using an RC Helicopter

Destin of Smarter Every Day recently shot some light-painting photographs using an RC helicopter loaded with colored lights. The maneuverability of the helicopter turns the great outdoors into a giant canvas on which you can light paint giant 3D shapes.

Michael Zhang

Leica Announces the M Monochrom Black and White Digital Rangefinder

Leica has officially announced its new monochrome digital rangefinder, the M Monochrom -- the world's first digital camera to do dedicated black and white photography. The camera features a newly designed 18-megapixel monochrome CCD sensor and "100% sharper imaging" due to the fact that raw data is processed directly without interpolation. The monochrome sensor allows the camera to achieve extremely low noise even upwards of ISO 10,000, and various programmed tones can be used to adjust the look and feel of the black and white photographs. It'll cost $7,950 when it hits store shelves starting in late July 2012.

DL Cade

Photoville 2012: A Photographic Village Built with Shipping Containers

Brooklyn-born and bred art cooperative United Photo Industries have a treat in store for any and all photography enthusiasts who happen to find themselves in New York between June 22nd and July 1st. In partnership with many different galleries, vendors and national institutions, United Photo Industries is putting together a photographic village it's calling Photoville -- and it'll be made almost entirely out of shipping containers.

DL Cade

LightPlot: A Robotic Arm That Creates Animated Light Paintings

The photos that went into the animation above were all created in-camera using software and a robotic arm programmed before hand with predetermined patterns. The project, known as LightPlot, started as an NXT Lego experiment in stop-motion photography by Ben Cowell-Thomas. He wanted to create a motion control rig for stop-motion using NXT, but as he was looking through some light painting projects online, he began to wonder how he could turn his lego project into a light painting rig.

DL Cade

The Famous Tiananmen Square Tank Man Photo From Slightly Different Views

Most people are familiar with the famous Tank Man photo taken by AP Photographer Jeff Widener as tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square on June 5th, 1989. Taken from a 6th floor balcony of the Beijing hotel, the iconic version we've come to know is only one of 4 very similar photos taken that same moment.

DL Cade

Cops vs. Cameras: Widespread Camera Use and the Rise of The New Media

In 1991 when the Rodney King beating was caught on tape it was a coincidence that someone happened to have a video camera with them. Today, nearly everyone carries one in their pocket. And the advent of social media means that a photo or video need only generate a few retweets before it goes completely viral. It seems that news -- especially bad news -- travels faster than ever; and it brings justice with it.

DL Cade

Snapheal Brings Content Aware Fill to Your Mac for Only $19.99

The "Content Aware Fill" tool was one of the most lauded advancements in Photoshop CS5. Of course, the tool wasn't without its occasional glitches, but the ability to select a section and have the program clone it out automatically was still very impressive. But what if that's the only tool you want to use? What if you're a casual photographer who wants to remove unwanted sections in your composition without buying and learning a whole editing suite?

DL Cade

The DigiPlate: A Rock Solid Laptop Stand for Photographers Shooting Tethered

There are plenty of products on the market specifically targeting the photographer who shoots tethered to a laptop. But when it comes to putting your laptop somewhere other than the nearest unoccupied chair or table, we haven't run into many accessories that offer a versatile, "attach anywhere" sort of solution -- until we stumbled on the DigiPlate.

Michael Zhang

Creepy Portraits of People with Anime Proportions

If you've ever watched a Japanese anime, or even American cartoons for that matter, you probably know that most of the characters have highly unrealistic body proportions -- giant eyes and tiny noses are the norm. Ideal Species is a creepy set of images by photographer Chris Scarborough that imagines what these proportions would look like in the real world. Yup, it's creepy.

DL Cade

Copyright Suit Against Tumblr May Affect All Photo Sharing Sites

Back in 2006, a pornography publishing company named Perfect 10 attempted to sue Google over copyright infringement, claiming that the thumbnails displayed on Google's image search did not fall under "fair use." Ultimately, the Supreme Court wouldn't even hear the case, allowing the ruling that thumbnails are fair use to stand and handing Perfect 10 yet another loss (they've sustained many in this area).

DL Cade

Instagram Socialmatic: A Concept Design for a Physical Instagram Camera

A week ago we shared a funny "leaked advertisement" for a fictional camera called the Instagram Snap. The video poked fun at the possibility that Instagram would use their $1 billion buyout from Facebook to build a ridiculous "real-world" camera -- basically a Polaroid camera with "sharing" features (passing a photo to another person by hand) and "filters" (coffee filter = spill coffee on your picture). Ironically enough though, a concept of just such a camera has recently come out, and it actually seems somewhat appealing.

DL Cade

Famous Crossing At Abbey Road Offers Photo Ops and Traffic Jams

Everybody know the famous Beatles album cover of the four superstars crossing Abbey Road, but did you know that you can visit the intersection yourself and re-create the photo? Well you can, and what's more, there's a 24-hour webcam pointed right at the intersection that will capture you and your friends doing what tourists do at that intersection every week -- annoy local drivers.

DL Cade

Olympus Unveils New Ultra-Rugged TG-1 iHS Tough Camera

It's usually a bit anti-climactic when a company unveils a product that was all but completely leaked beforehand, but the new Olympus TG-1 iHS is still a very exciting addition to the rugged camera market. In the end it's about quality, and on that front Olympus are delivering in big ways, prompting some to say that the TG-1 is probably the best rugged camera on the market.

Michael Zhang

Photographs of East Germany Locations Captured Decades Apart

Photographer Stefan Koppelkamm first photographed East Germany in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before the reunification. He revisited the same locations a decade later, and rephotographed them from exactly the same viewpoints to document the drastic social and economic transformations that came about during the time between the photos.

DL Cade

GIMP Adds New Interface and Nested Layer Groups in Version 2.8

The GNU Image Manipulation Project, more popularly known as GIMP, has just released version 2.8; the first complete GIMP overhaul since 2008. For those who don't know (and there probably aren't many) GIMP is famous for being a slightly more complicated (and a lot more free) alternative to Photoshop with fewer features. And it seems that, right on cue with the Adobe CS6 release, GIMP is trying to close the gap between the two products that's been widening these last 4 years.