Some time ago Sony announced a new series of "stacked" CMOS sensors that would bring a new level of quality to smartphone cameras. And now, several months later, rumors are floating about that Sony's new LT29i smartphone -- codenamed the Hayabusa -- will be packing a 13-megapixel version of the new tech.
If you're planning to hang a bunch of picture frames on a wall, Marissa Waddell of Roost suggests laying them out on the ground to figure out frame placement. Once you're happy with how the frames look, simply take a large sheet of wax paper and outline the frames. The paper can then be used as a guide for where to hammer in nails on the wall, giving you the exact layout you came up with.
Yesterday we were whimsically wondering what life would be like if we could Photoshop away some of life's more unpleasant moments, and today we've stumbled onto a different approach in the form of the Retouch Mirror. The mirror, which will cost you about $85 from Atypyk, is a fun bathroom accessory for photographers who want to make their morning routine feel more like a post-processing session. If you don't want to drop $85, you can always convert your existing mirror into a Retouch Mirror …
Just like in real estate, for which good photos of homes can make a huge difference in attracting potential buyers, animal shelters often see spikes in adoptions when the animals are advertised with attractive photographs. For this reason, Arizona-based photographer Michael Kloth visits shelters on a weekly basis to offer his services to local adoption agencies.
The big Leica announcement in Berlin is only three short days away, and as it draws closer more and more details about the highly-anticipated M9-M monochrome rangefinder are leaking. The most recent updates involve pricing and design. It seems that the new rangefinder will feature an all black body, much like the M9-P, with a Leica Monochrome engraving on the top plate. In fact, Leica Rumors is reporting that the M9-M will essentially be an M9-P with a monochrome sensor and a slightly higher …
There are a number of products out there that make child photography more child friendly by distracting the kid with colorful or disorienting objects. The newest member in this space is iCandy, a DSLR mount that turns your smartphone into a tool that makes your camera more appealing to youngins. For the low price of $99 (yup, it's kinda pricey), you can elicit smiles and other expressions by displaying photos and videos on your phone as you snap away at infant faces. The creator is currently …
On May 2nd, news started coming in that the previous day's MayDay Occupy protests in New York had turned violent towards photographers. At first, people viewed the assaults as unplanned, isolated incidents; but since the attacks took place, a piece on Anarchist News has been released to set the record straight: photographers, apparently, are the enemy.
One of the notable features of Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 film "Children of Men" is Cuaron's use of long, single-shot sequences, including a complicated urban warfare shot that's nearly eight minutes long. Refocused Media examined the movie and found that there were 16 shots longer than 45 seconds. The 31-minute compilation video above shows all of the shots in chronological order.
The big news spreading across the internet is that Adobe CS6 officially released today. The announcement, which confirms previous rumors of a May 7th ship date, came late last night and means that we can all finally get our hands on Content-Aware Move and all of the other features we've been dying to try.
Reuters photographer Kevin Lamarque recently got a call that summoned him for a top secret assignment: travel on an unannounced trip to Afghanistan with President Obama. After getting back, Lamarque wrote up an interesting behind-the-scenes blog post documenting his experience: …
You may remember photographer Benjamin Von Wong from last week's behind-the-scenes video of his photo shoot with the band The Agonist. In that video he showed you how he put together a very creative, cinematic composite shot that really stood out from other band photos. In this video, Benjamin runs you through the lighting challenges unique to black and white photography, and how he chose to overcome them.
Behind the scenes videos, like the one earlier about Dave Hill's Ford Fusion shoot, typically show off a photographer's technique, or the challenges he or she faces when trying to get a certain shot. But Aspen-based photographer Tyler Stableford's Buckley AirForce Base shoot posed some unique challenges.
Offering a very cinematic, editorial-style look at tradesmen doing their work, Japan-based photographer Yohei Shimada’s Workman series is an impressive display of photographic talent. The series was born out of necessity and a lack of subject matter in Shimada's small hometown of Nara. Having moved back there after completing an internship in Tokyo and coming into his own as a photographer, Shimada had to turn to the people he knew -- including his parents and friends -- to capture the series …
This behind the scenes video shows photographer Dave Hill shooting a very complicated composite shot for a Ford Fusion ad. Not every one of the photos you see him working on in the video made it into the final composites, which you can see here, but you've got to appreciate the amount of work something like this takes to get right; not just in post-production, but during the shoot as well.
Here's a great DIY project we found over on Lomography that'll help you to display your favorite photos, give them as gifts, or maybe even do a bit of self-promotion in a unique way. All you have to do is get some 3x3 prints of your favorite coaster-worthy photos, some 4x4 tiles made from the material of your choice, some foam or cork for the bottoms, some Mod Podge and a sponge applicator. This might even be a good way to put some of those already square Instagram photos to work for you.
There's been a lot of controversy around magazines using Photoshop to make real people look unrealistically pretty or fit, but what if you could actively Photoshop what you saw and experienced? That's the question the people over at Cracked decided to ask, and the answers are pretty hilarious:
Really more useful for landscape and macro photographers who are going to be shooting through very small apertures (f/22 and above), this video from FStoppers explains what diffraction is and how it can affect your shots. The trade off, as they explain in the video, is between a large depth of field and a sharp image; and the trick is to find your "sweet-spot."
The 1-bit camera app is definitely not for people who love to mess around with filters and tweak high-quality images on their iPhone, there are plenty of other apps for that. Instead, the 1-bit camera is for those of us who remember using the old Nintendo Gameboy Camera; for those of us who don't mind paying $0.99 for a dose of good ol' fashioned nostalgia.
High-end DSLRs have already made inroads into the world of professional cinematography, but the new animated movie "The Pirates" was actually shot using only Canon 1D Mark III's -- 50 of them to be exact. The movie, made by Oscar-winning British animation house Aardman (the same people that brought us Wallace and Gromit), is the first full-length feature film the studio has ever shot using only DSLRs.
Scottish photographer Iain Blake's fun and, let's face it, cute Stone Footprints series caught our attention earlier this week. Like many of the series we feature, it wasn't necessarily innovative photography technique, but rather the creative execution of a unique idea that drew us in.
This incredible London flyover footage, taken by aerial photographer Jason Hawkes, shows the huge city in a way most of us haven't seen before. Through Mr. Hawkes' lens you begin to grasp the true scale of the soon-to-be Olympic city; including some beautiful dusk shots of the Shard, which is now the tallest building in Europe.
Legendary photographer Alfred Stieglitz was one of photography's pioneers. In a time when the arts, photography included, were stuck in the past and unwilling to change, he drove the art of photography into a new erra of expression. Because of this he is known by many as "the father of modern photography."
Unlike most DIY projects this one won't come cheap, but if you've always yearned for that ever elusive "perfect" light painting orb, then photographer Hugo Baptista has a solution for you. All you need to replicate his results is a Meade DS-2000 telescope mount, a drill, an LED strip with a wireless controller, and a piece of wood.
Quite a bit longer than most of the videos we put up, nevertheless, this insightful interview with Newsweek's long-time Senior International Photo Editor, Jamie Wellford, is worth watching/listening to for any and all photojournalism enthusiasts. The topics of conversation cover everything from Wellford's beginnings at Newsweek to why tragic events tend to yield the best photojournalism.
Tired of fiddling with cables and memory cards? You might not have to in the near future as wireless data transfer becomes more and more common. This brilliant concept video by designer Ishac Bertran imagines how we might soon be using "spatially aware devices", or devices that can share data simply by holding them close together. Want to transfer some photos off your camera? Simply hold it close to your computer monitor and drag them off!
The folks at Flickr don't seem to be slowing down for anything. In the fight to stay relevant as more and more competition springs up, we've seen the Yahoo! photo sharing site go through an overhaul ranging from looks to a new uploader. And now Flickr is adding two new photo sizes and a new image control setting for its Pro members.
Yesterday I attended a VIP sneak preview of the new IKEA PS designer furniture line in Malmö, Sweden. I was not the slightest bit interested in the designer furniture. I was there for one reason, to play with and acquire the new KNÄPPA, IKEA's cardboard camera.
It's common knowledge that models in magazines are Photoshopped to look the way that they do -- often to the detriment of the young girls that aspire to have these computer generated figures -- but for the most part protests have come in the form of ad campaigns like Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. But in the past couple of weeks, 14-year-old Julia Bluhm decided to take a different approach.
Although everyone has an opinion on Facebook’s purchase of Instagram for $1b, I think we can all agree: Instagram is terrible for photographers (Gotcha). Why? Let’s count the ways.
If you've always felt that you look more attractive in videos than you do in photographs, you're not alone. A recent study done by researchers at UC Davis and Harvard has found that subjects generally find video footage of people more attractive than stills showing the same face. It turns out that looking attractive in photos is no easy feat due to what the researchers are calling the "frozen face effect."
Upon first glance, Open Horizon by photographer and filmmaker Russell Houghten might look like a pretty ordinary video that shows time-lapse footage mixed with skateboarding videos. Take a closer look, however, and you start to realize somethings not quite right: the world is whizzing by as the skateboarders do their tricks. Houghten spend a great deal of time and effort rotoscoping his skateboarding scenes to show the skateboarders skating in real time while the world around them passes in …
If you happen to have $600+ just lying around (who doesn't?) and are looking to take photos from a whole new vantage point, then Event38's E382 Aerial Mapping Drone may be worth looking into. The $600 starter kit includes the plane, motor, speed controller, and the ArduPilot Mega 2.0 autopilot system to handle all of the pressure, GPS and flight data.
This amazing commercial for the Canadian Paralympic Committee was shot in one continuous take with no fancy computer-generated effects. The print ad is pretty epic as well. You can watch the "making of" video here.
Lithium-Ion batteries are awesome. A few of them jammed into a battery grip can keep your DSLR going through a long day of shooting without needing to recharge a thing. But before you can to do that you need to buy the extra batteries, and they don't come cheap. A new EN-EL18 battery for a Nikon D4 will run you $184 on Amazon right now, and even for cheaper battery units you're still looking at $50 on up per battery regardless of your DSLR.
Denmark-based photographer Nikolaj Lund specializes in shooting the world of classical music, and captures some pretty unique portraits of musicians with their instruments. He takes the subjects out of their natural environment -- the orchestra pit -- and has them do epic poses in random places (e.g. streets, oceans, deserts).
After receiving several complaints from professional and private sources alike, Nikon has finally stepped forward to admit to and address the reported "lock up" issue with its new D4 and D800 DSLRs. The issue, which Nikon maintains only affects "a small number of D4/D800 users," causes both cameras to lock up unexpectedly and up until now could only be "fixed" by removing and reinserting the battery.
Animator Antonio Vicentini created this short and sweet animation using Billy Brown's pixelated camera icons -- the same icons featured on our camera stickers.
Image sensors and the advent of digital imaging have been met with differing reactions from the photographical community. But what a team of doctors at the Oxford Eye Hospital have managed to do with the technology is 100% digital, and 100% amazing. Clinical trial leaders Robert MacLaren and Tim Jackson have helped two blind men to partially see again.
A team of researchers at the Japan Science and Technology Agency have recently taken 3D imaging to another level. A much smaller level. What they've managed to do is develop an electron microscope that can show 3-dimensional photos of their tiny subjects in real-time. In the past, getting a 3D photo from an electron microscope meant superimposing two images taken at slightly different angles. But this new microscope allows the scientist to slant the electron beam and obtain both angles at the …
BlackRapid's new series of rear lens caps, dubbed "LensBling," offer an interesting way to organize and identify your lenses in a hurry. The ideal moment doesn't wait for you to find the right lens, and so the precious moments you could save when trying to distinguish your 85mm from your 105mm could mean the difference between a great picture and a missed opportunity.
"Dolly zoom" is a technique that was popularized by Alfred Hitchcock in his film Vertigo, after which it was commonly referred to as "Hitchcock zoom" and the "vertigo effect". The basic idea is to photograph (or film) a subject while moving towards or away from it, and at the same time changing the focal length to keep the subject at the same size in each frame. French photographer Micaël Reynaud used this technique on a beach last year, snapping photos of a stone block at focal lengths …
After narrowly missing the opportunity to acquire Instagram, it seems that Twitter was eager to try again; this time with one of the most popular paid camera apps, Camera+. Apparently, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey actually met with tap tap tap -- the makers of Camera+ -- to discuss an acquisition shortly after news of Facebook's Instagram acquisition broke.
By and large, as a professional of whatever description, clients hire you based on experience and expertise, grace under pressure, problem-solving skills, and your finely-tuned ability to transcend the limitations of the assignment and distill the essence of an idea into its most purely realized form.
Cinematographer Jim Geduldick was lucky enough to be the first to test out Vision Research's new Phantom Miro M120 high-speed camera in the real world, and -- luckily for the rest of us -- is kind enough to share the results. Falling on the smaller, more rugged side of the Phantom line, the M120 is made to take, well, exactly the kind of footage Geduldick captured. The camera can shoot a whopping 1540 at full 1080p HD, and is estimated to cost anywhere from $25,000 to $60,000 -- a bargain …
At first glance, some of Simon Davidson's photographs look like Harry Potter stills showing flying cars floating in the clouds. They're actually a glimpse into the burnout subculture that's growing in Australia. These are competitions in which drivers try to create as much smoke as they can by spinning their tires in place.
A couple of days ago the world was wowed by the up and coming BlackBerry 10's new camera app. The app, demoed by RIM at BlackBerry World 2012, allowed you to select someone's face and scroll through frames captured before and after you hit the shutter button. If you thought the app looked familiar, you were right: it's actually a rebranded version of Scalado Rewind.
We've seen many a photo collage in our day, but New York artist Michael Mapes' Specimen Boxes are an entirely different creature. To create these unique photo compartments, he dissects various photos of his subjects into many corresponding bits and then mounts those bits on or in different materials -- much like what you see in insect collection boxes. Sometimes it's vials, sometimes it's push pins, and sometimes it's gel caps, but it always turns out looking really interesting.
Last week we reported on how photographers and a magazine are being sued for $300,000 for allegedly breaking a 2,630-year-old statue while photographing it for an assignment. While many people, including us, pointed to it as an example of why carrying liability insurance is a good idea for photographers, a more appropriate question is: does a typical insurance plan even cover something like that? David Walker over at PDN writes that it doesn't: …
Photographer Lauren Marsolier’s Transition series consists of minimalist landscape photographs of desolate locations. The various places don't actually exist -- Marsolier creates them by combining photographs captured in different places at different times.
Columbus, Ohio-based photographer Nick Fancher works as the lifestyle photographer of Men's online shopping club JackThreads, a job that has him shooting lifestyle photos for 8-12 brands every single day. The behind-the-scenes video above shows what a typical day for Fancher looks like as he hurries around to different locations in the city to photograph his models wearing different clothing items from different brands. It not only shows the process of shooting the images, but also lighting …
