May 2012

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Use a Nail and Clothespin to Determine Placement When Hanging Photos

Michele over at The Scrap Shoppe offers this handy trick for hanging picture frames: hammer a nail through a clothespin and use it to determine nail placement. Simply hang the picture on the clothespin nail, figure out where you want to place the frame, and then push the clothespin into the wall to make a small indent. Voila! Target acquired.

The FlashPipe: A Lightweight, Easy-To-Use Flash Diffuser

Flash diffusers come in all shapes and sizes, from DIY Home Depot versions to more expensive professional grade equipment. None of these solutions seemed adequate for 30 year photography veteran Les Tirmenstein, however, and that's why he designed the FlashPipe.

How Playing Video Games Can Help You Become a Better Street Photographer

People ask me, “Jun Shen, how do you shoot so fast on the streets?!?” I’m like a ninja, whipping out my camera, shooting it, and putting it away so quickly that my subjects don’t know what hit them. They walk away whispering to themselves, “What was that? Did he take our photo? …

How to Take Great Pictures in Space

It might not be very applicable to the vast majority of photographers, but NASA astronaut Captain Alan Pointdexter has written up a fascinating article over on Luminous Landscape in which he shares advice about doing photography in space. Taking photos on the ground is one thing, but imagine using not just the sun, but the earth itself as a source of light.

Creative 365-Day Self-Portrait Project by a 17-Year-Old Photographer

Last October, Portland-based 17-year-old photographer Brendon Burton began an ambitious project in which he committed to creating one self-portrait every day for a year. Now, half a year later, Burton is still going strong and his Flickr photostream is full of beautiful and creative images that document his development as a photographer.

Flickr Partners with Pinterest for Deeper Integration, Proper Attribution

Users of both Flickr and Pinterest will be happy to know that the two companies have decided to collaborate. Because of the high volume of Flickr photos that end up pinned (often without any credit), the companies have decided that it would be in the best interest of photographers and users alike to add a "Pin It" button on the Flickr site. In this way photographers who allow their photos to be pinned are properly attributed, while Pinterest users can now share photos with a few easy clicks

Canon’s Brilliant Solution to the 5D Mark III Light Leak Issue: Black Tape

Canon has received some pretty bad publicity over the past month due to the 5D Mark III's "light leak" issue -- a relatively minor flaw in which light from (or through) the LCD panel can affect the camera's exposure readings in extremely dark environments. Last week Canon finished investigating the issue, and reported that it only affects a certain range of serial numbers, suggesting that the company has implemented a fix for newer bodies. It also announced that service centers would be …

Make a Cheap Shutter Release for a CHDK Canon Camera with a 5V Battery

If you have a Canon compact camera running the Canon Hack Development Kit (CHDK) firmware, you can create a simple shutter release cable using some cheap components. The firmware causes the camera to snap a photograph anytime 5V is sent down a USB cable connected to the camera. You can do this using a USB cable (e.g. the one that comes with your camera), 5V battery, simple push button, and some kind of housing (a metal candy tin, for example). Oh, and you'll need to be comfortable cutting up …

Genie Offers Cheaper Motion-Controlled Time-Lapse Solution

Time-lapse in motion can be a bit of a nightmare. Not only do you need to have your intervalometer set properly to control when and how your camera takes pictures, you also have to have the camera on a dedicated track, hopefully moving at a consistent speed, and preferably without you being the one moving it.

Student Wins Copyright Skirmish Over Falling Bear Photo

In case you missed our earlier post, let's get you up to speed: in the internet age, the argument is that you don't own anything anymore. This is relevant because yet another copyright infringement lawsuit has made its way across our computer screens, this time between a student photographer and the Colorado University newspaper The CU Independent that printed and distributed his now famous falling bear image.

Nikon May Turn to Aptina for Its Entry-Level Full-Frame Sensor

The latest rumor circulating around the "entry-level full-frame" topic is that Nikon may shying away from Sony when it comes to getting a full-frame sensor for the rumored D600. The rumor came as a result of an article on the Italian website MarsicaLive, which stated that Aptina Imaging is designing a new full-frame CMOS sensor for DSLRs; they also write that -- according to unconfirmed rumors -- the sensor is being designed specifically for Nikon. Although this is the first full-frame sensor …

Olympus Goes Nuts, Possibly to Promote Its New Uber-Durable Camera

The world of photography is full of "nuts," but these are the first we've seen that you could actually crack open with a nutcracker. For its latest photography marketing stunt, Olympus has been sending out a box complete with two walnuts and a note that simply says "coming soon." TechRadar received one, and PhotographyBlog received another.

JPEGmini Now Available for Mac: Put Your iPhoto Library on a Diet

Back in August we featured a service called JPEGmini, which gives anybody the ability to shrink their photos up to 5-times in size without any visible quality difference -- a substantial claim, but one that the service seemed to live up to quite well (we use it regularly).

Time-Lapse Shows Eight Years of 1 WTC Construction in Just Two Minutes

Yesterday One World Trade Center officially became the tallest building in New York City. Since 2004, the EarthCam network has had cameras pointed at the construction site, documenting its progress. Taking images captured over the past eight years, the website created the mesmerizing time-lapse video above that shows eight years of construction in just two minutes.

BlackBerry 10 Camera Features “Timeline Lens” that Captures Moments You Miss

The new BlackBerry 10 operating system was unveiled BlackBerry World 2012 today, and one of the amazing new features that wowed the crowd was the camera app. It features a seemingly-magical "timeline" lens that lets you rewind sections of photographs in order to recover moments that your fingers weren't fast enough to capture. Did your subject blink in the photo? No worries... simply rewind their face and you're good to go! Basically, the camera is constantly capturing frames as soon as the app …

The All.Round Camera Concept: A Bendy Take on the DSLR

Concept products aren't a rarity. In the world of cars and computers concepts usually make us ooh and ahh at their beautiful styling and implied functionality, but in the world of cameras things can get a bit, strange. Such is the case with a new SLR concept by industrial designer Arti Patel called the All.Round SLR.

Humans of New York: A Photographic Census of New York City

The United States is a diverse country, but there are few places in the US as diverse as New York City: "the greatest city on earth." In many ways The City's diversity makes it a street photographer's gold-mine, and it's this mine that photographer Brandon Stanton has been meticulously digging through over the last couple of years.

MIT Develops a New Self-Cleaning, Fog-Resistant, Anti-Glare Glass

MIT researchers are at it again: the university's latest research project to receive attention from tech blogs the world over is their new self-cleaning, anti-glare, fog-resistant glass. They're calling it "multifunctional" glass, and by using a nano-textured surface it eliminates glare and fogging entirely, essentially making it invisible.

Olympus OM-D EM-5 Called the “Most Capable Micro Four Thirds Camera”

The Olympus OM-D EM-5 generated quite a bit of buzz when it was first announced due to its retro OM-inspired styling, but now reviews of the camera are suggesting that its potential as a camera are on par with its sleek form. DPReview has published a comprehensive review of the camera, giving it glowing marks and calling it the best Micro Four Thirds camera yet: …

The 10 Most Popular “Photographers” on Instagram

We'll go ahead and start by saying that we're using the term "photographer" lightly; in reality we should probably say "users." But there's a certain irony to calling celebrity Instagramers "photographers" that we quite enjoy. Unlike Flickr where many of the best loved users are well known photogs showcasing their most recent work, Instagram's top users are made up entirely of celebrities.