June 2012

DL Cade

Frankenlens: A Polaroid Fused with a Micro Four Thirds Camera

Here's an interesting project that photographer Gabriel Verdugo Soto put together this last weekend by slapping together an old polaroid lens/aperture mechanism and a micro four thirds camera. In order to keep the lens in focus, he measured the distance from the lens to the polaroid paper in the orignal camera and used macro tubes to ensure the same distance was maintained between the lens and the sensor. The whole thing was then attached to a 52mm ring, and held together using that white epoxy clay you see in the pictures.

DL Cade

Street View Trekker: A Backpack-Mounted 360-Degree Camera Rig

Besides sharing some impressive specs at that Google Maps presentation we mentioned yesterday, Google also unveiled a new street view tool that should go a long way in further mapping out our world. The Street View Trekker, as they call it, is a backpack-mounted street view camera that allows the wearer to photograph and document places that can only be reached using the good ol' shoelace express. According to Engadget, the 40lbd Android powered backpack packs 15-megapixel cameras, an on-board hard drive, and enough battery to run for an entire day.

DL Cade

Leaked Details for Canon’s New EF 40mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens

Alongside picture and spec leaks for Canon's soon-to-be-announced T4i, details on their up and coming 40mm f/2.8 pancake lens have also surfaced. Besides pictures and schematics, which you can see above and below, we now know that the new EF lens will also be an "STM" lens -- meaning it will be sporting a silent AF motor. Weighing in at only 130 grams and with a speculated price under $200, this has the potential to be come a portable amateur favorite pretty quick.

DL Cade

Canon T4i Pictures, Specs, and Touch Screen Examples Leaked

Just one short day away from the official release, massive leaks have sprung regarding Canon's new Rebel T4i. Courtesy of Canon Rumors, we now have a full list of specs for the T4i/650D. As previously rumored, the camera will indeed sport an 18-megapixel APS-C sensor, articulating touchscreen LCD, 9 cross-type AF points and a better "hybrid" AF system for live view and video recording. But the specs we hadn't yet heard of include: ~5fps continuous shooting, ISO 100-12,800 (expandable to 25,600), and the same viewfinder and metering system found in the previous Rebel T3i.

Michael Zhang

Futuristic Family Portraits Involving Skype Projections

In many Asian cultures it's common for families to gather together for formal portraits on special occasions, but this tradition is becoming much harder to coordinate as more and more young people are moving abroad for work. Photographer John Clang has a new series of photographs that features an interesting solution to this problem: Skype webcam projections. Clang visited various individuals around the world and had them video chat with family members in Singapore. By projecting the feed onto a wall and having the entire family pose, Clang shot traditional-style family portraits with the subjects separated by thousands of miles.

Michael Zhang

How to Make a 360° Analog Camera Hat

Mike Warren has written up an in-depth tutorial on how you can build a 360° camera hat using 6-8 disposable cameras. The cameras are worn around the head like a crown, and are simultaneously trigger using a single shutter release with the help of servo motors that depress the shutter when triggered. Warren writes,

With the camera array sitting on your head, you're able to capture a 360° panorama view of your surroundings. This project requires no special electronics knowledge and can be assembled in about an hour.

I designed this camera array off something I saw on the "Radar Detector" music video by Darwin Deez. But, after making the camera hat, everyone kept asking if it was a low-fi version of Google Street View. It's more the former than the latter, but people can draw their own interpretations.

DL Cade

Sony Announces the RX100, Touted as “Best Pocket Camera of All Time”

Sony's new Cybershot -- specs and pictures of which were leaked just a couple of days ago -- was just made official this morning, accompanied by quite a few nods of approval from tech and photo nerds everywhere. PC World are even calling it the "Best Pocket Camera of All Time," and they may not be far off. That's because the new Cybershot DSC-RX100 is a fixed lens point-and-shoot compact that packs a wallop.

Michael Zhang

A High Definition Time-Lapse of Venus Flying Past the Sun

There was a much-hyped transit of Venus yesterday in which Venus appeared as a small black circle moving across the face of the sun. This rare phenomenon occurs in pairs of eight years separated by more than a century: the previous transit was in 2004, but the next one won't occur until 2117. If you missed out, don't worry -- there's a boatload of beautiful photos and videos out there that can give you an even better view than what your eyes would have seen. The amazing high-definition video above was created using images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Michael Zhang

Photographs of Various Workspaces

Photographer Joseph O. Holmes spent four years between 2007 and 2011 documenting the place where a person's personal and professional lives meet: their desk. He traveled around to various companies and businesses making photographs of workspaces exactly as he found them.

DL Cade

Your Own Personal Google Street View Camera Kit

Contrary to popular belief, Google can't be everywhere at once (they're working on it), and one of the most obvious examples of this limitation is the extent of Street View functionality in Google Maps. Of course, tons of roads and even some obscure neighborhoods have been mapped out with street view, but all too often your own front yard is left un-street-viewable. And while that may not be much of a tragedy for most people, those that would rather change that now have the option to with DIY Street View's new Street View Camera System.

DL Cade

The 100 Project: What Do You Get When You Give Every Age a Camera?

If you keep up with interesting photography projects you might have heard about the Disposable Memory Project -- a disposable camera endeavor in which people take a photo and the leave the camera sitting somewhere for someone else to pick up, the person who takes the last photo sends it in. Well, from the minds behind that comes another disposable camera project, this one with a bit of an age-y twist. Instead of sending out cameras and the leaving them lying around (only 30 of the 410 DMP cameras have returned so far) they're sending a camera to 100 people ages 1 to 100 and they're calling it The 100 Project.

Pat David

Slow Light: Illuminating Subjects with Long Exposure Light Painting

A while back I was too cheap (lazy?) to get around to purchasing some speedlights and in typical DIY fashion for me, I figured I could replicate most results using nothing more than a flashlight. So one evening with my friend Sean and his wife, we decided to try out some long exposure light painting ideas.

DL Cade

Olympic Committee Clarifies Photography Rules for London 2012

A month ago, quite a bit of controversy was stirred up when Amateur Photographer pointed out some stringent and seemingly unenforceable restrictions included in the London 2012 Ticker Holder Agreement. Initially it seemed that attendees might have been prevented from posting images to social networks (an assumption which was later refuted). But even though attendees will be allowed to post images to Facebook to their heart's content, amateurs and non-media who wanted to get some commercial-grade pictures of the Olympic events are still out of luck.