July 2012

If you browse the photos in your iPhone's camera roll, there's a good chance there are some in there that you forgot to upload, email, or otherwise share with your friends. Whenever you're out with a group and photos are being taken, the end of the night always consists of handing out e-mail addresses or promising to upload photos to Facebook, but sadly, more often than not, we forget. Enter Flock, a new "magic" photo sharing app from Bump Technologies.

This fascinating TED talk was given last month by MIT researcher Ramesh Raskar on his femto-photography camera that snaps images at a whopping one trillion frames per second -- a rate so fast that it can capture light in motion. The technology may one day be used to build cameras that shoot around corners or see into the human body without X-rays.

Kodak's ongoing request to dole out millions of dollars in bonuses to executives in the midst of its bankruptcy struggles has been met with plenty of criticism, but perhaps none more so than from former employees who are anxiously waiting to see whether their pensions and benefits will be affected. The Wall Street Journal writes, …

Photographer Dona Schwartz, a professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, has an interesting pair of photo projects titled "On the Nest" and "Empty Nesters". The first shows portraits of expecting parents as they prepare to welcome a new member of the family. The second features portraits of parents who are coping with an empty house after their children have grown up and moved out.

Well, there's no question about it: photography is going to the robots -- or at the very least Olympic photography is. First we saw Getty Images and the robotic rigs it was working on (among other things), then there was the Associated Press and its robots, and now we have a making of video from AFP showing off the D4 wielding rigs its photogs will be using.

It looks like at least one group of people will be in-the-know regarding Google's Project Glass, a group that has been dubbed "Glass Explorers" by the company's co-founder Sergey Brin. The group is made up of all the pre-orderers from Google's I/O event earlier this year who shelled out $1,500 to make sure they get their hands on the first of the wearable camera/computers.

Lake Bogoria in Kenya is home to one of the world's largest populations of lesser flamingos. When conditions are right, the lake turns into an eye-dazzling spectacle, with over a million birds congregating to feed on the blue-green algae in the waters. Wildlife photographer Martin Harvey was able to witness, shoot, and film one such gathering, and calls it "truly one of the worlds greatest wildlife experiences left on earth."

BlackBerry doesn't get much attention from App developers these days, and as such many of the photo apps iOS and Android users take for granted are expected to be sadly absent when RIM's new mobile operating system, BlackBerry 10, makes it onto phones. Still, the upcoming operating system has already made some waves using Scalado rewind technology, and according to CrackBerry, there's a lot more photo goodness on the way from RIM in the form of a full suite of editing options and Instagram-like …

There are plenty of documentaries out there about famous photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson; in Bresson's case there's even an hour-long interview we've featured. But while documentaries and interviews are informative and educational, there's nothing like a first hand account from a photog who actually had the chance to meet the legend. This video takes you back to May 1975, when Romanian photographer Andrei Pandele was fortunate enough to be Henri Cartier-Bresson's tour guide through …

UV lens filters are a popular way to protect the front element of lenses from damage, but you should make sure you invest in a high-quality one unless you want to make a huge sacrifice in image quality.

Video Game Tourism has an interesting article about the growing art of video game photography, or artistic snapshots captured in the virtual worlds of games: …

Compact cameras feature lenses that automatically "cap" themselves when retracted and not in use. Interchangeable lenses, on the other hand, usually don't. The X-Cap changes that. It's a Taiwan-designed lens cap that snaps onto the front of certain lenses that feature a retracting front element (the Micro Four Thirds system has lenses like this). When the front element retracts, the cap automatically closes -- great for people who hate dealing with lens caps.

Smartphone use in Photojournalism is certainly not new, and Hipstamatic has been there from the start, but the San Francisco-based company's recent decision to start a Hipstamatic Foundation for Photojournalism is drawing equal parts criticism and praise.

Everyone knows you shouldn't leave DSLRs unattended in public places on land, but did you know that the same is true for when you're shooting on the ocean floor? In the video above, one unlucky diver leaves his DSLR rig sitting on the ocean floor while swimming with sharks, only to have a klepto tiger shark swipe it and swim away.

Who said that hi-end lighting equipment has to be expensive? And who says the only way to shoot with fluorescent light is to use the flicker-free Kino Flo lights that can cost you thousands of dollars? …

Nikon has its 55-300mm, Canon has its 70-300mm, and now Sony is joining the club, adding a 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 SAM telephoto to its Alpha lens repertoire. The lens is designed for APS-C cameras and priced very competitively. In fact, at $300, it's downright cheap considering it includes Sony's Smooth Autofocus Motor (analogous to Canon's USM or Nikon's AF-S) and an Extra-Low Dispersion element not typically found in cheaper glass.

Photographer Tabitha Soren started shooting a series of photographs titled Running after snapping a picture of her daughter running in front of the headlights of a car.

Surprisingly enough, this isn't the first time somebody has recreated Super Mario using sticky notes, nor is it the first time we've featured it, but given the improved production value and the fact that this one comes complete with a behind the scenes video... well... we couldn't help ourselves.

If you grew up enjoying 3D stereoscopic photos using a View-Master, then this picture frame is sure to cause a pang of nostalgia. It's a giant photo frame for your wall that's shaped like the paper slide holders used by the popular children's toy. It's sold by online shop Unkl347, but you might be hard pressed to find it in stock.

I have been taking pictures for almost twenty years now and so much has changed over those years. Back in the beginning gas used to cost $1.00, Bill Clinton was president, and I was picking up a camera for the first time. I started out in high school playing with my father’s Nikon FM2 and taking pictures for the school newspaper. Today, I work with a medium format digital back shooting national ad campaigns, magazine articles, and catalogs. Some aspects of how I photograph have stayed …

If you own a Micro Four Thirds or Sony NEX camera and you've been dying to use your Canon glass on it, thus far your only options have been sadly manual in nature. Because the adapters on the market today don't make the electronic link between the camera and the lens, you're left focusing and (if you can at all) adjusting the aperture by hand. Fortunately, lens adapter company Kipon has a couple of solutions around the corner that it has decided to tease us with.

Here's a cool video from the mind of videographer Devin Graham where he takes the standard, dramatic WWII scene and replaces the guns with cameras. No worries, there are still plenty of explosions -- in fact Camera Warfare is downright epic at times -- but instead of SMGs and massive rockets you get SLRs and massive lenses.

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Landsat, the longest-running program focused on acquiring satellite photos of Earth. The Landsat satellite snaps one completely photo of the Earth's surface every 16 days, and the petabytes of photos collected over the years have given scientists a view into how our planet's surface has changed over time, whether by natural or human-caused means. Google is currently working to make the photos easily enjoyable by the general public by transforming them …

Polaroid the company was named after the inexpensive polarizing film developed by founder Edwin Land back in 1929. Over the years it became an iconic brand name associated with easy-to-use cameras and instant photos. After the company went bankrupt in the early 2000s, the brand name was sold off to a holdings company, which began licensing the name to third parties.

Photographer and entrepreneur Gary Fong was recently contacted by a wedding photographer who found himself in a pickle: after doing a "great job" (in Fong's opinion) in shooting a wedding, he received a menacing letter from the couple threatening him with a $300,000 lawsuit. The video above shows Fong reading the letter -- which sounds an awful lot like blackmail -- and explaining some of the mistakes made by the photographer. The main takeaway: always sign a contract!

Photographer Tom Warner shot this http://www.weathervideohd.tv/detail/1091/cumulonimbus-cloud-to-ground-cg-stepped-leaders-overcast-continuing-current-m-components-rain-falling-clouds-primary-types-lightning-sky-moods-tornadoes-hail-downburstsslow motion incredible video of lightning at 7,207 frames per second.

If you're a Windows user that preordered a Lytro light field camera, here's some terrific news: your expensive paperweight is now a camera. Lytro announced the Windows version of its desktop application today, more than half a year after the "shoot-now-focus-later" camera was first unveiled. To free your photos from their camera prison, you'll need to be running Windows 7 with at least 2GB of ram.

Andy Pandy of Pandyland drew this humorous strip titled "Instasham" that shows what goes on behind Instagram photos -- and online photo sharing in general, for that matter. Pardon the language.

Here's a great behind-the-scenes video by The Creators Project featuring Li Wei, the Chinese photographer whose gravity-defying photographs have captured the world's imagination. You can see some of his work in this interview we did with him back in 2010.

Potter and pinhole camera enthusiast Steve Irvine created the awesome camera above using fired stoneware, glaze, copper, and found objects. The shape and pressure gauges make it look like an old school diving suit from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Yes, the camera actually works: it uses a 4x5 sheet of photo paper as film.

One of the reasons photographers raise a fuss when their rights are infringed upon is to create awareness in the general public and among law enforcement. A recent lawsuit between a photojournalist and the Washington DC police department has done just that. The Washington Post reports: …

You know the expression, "there is no such thing as bad publicity"? It's certainly true in the case of Joe Klamar's "bad" Olympic portraits. After getting the Internet talking about (and criticizing) the images earlier this month, Joe Klamar has been given an exhibition in NYC at the Powerhouse Arena. Here's the description of the show: …

If you've been anxiously waiting for a gear giveaway -- it's been some time since our last one -- today's your lucky day! We're giving away an uber-versatile Tamron 18-270MM f/3.5-6.3 worth $649 and available in Canon, Nikon, and Sony mounts.

Heartwarming video alert: soccer fans snapping photos inside a London Olympics 2012 photo booth were given a surprise of a lifetime when soccer legend David Beckham randomly poked his head in. The video above -- created by Adidas -- captures the priceless reactions of the shocked fans. See if you can spot the die-hard Beckham fan (hint: he's young).

Photographer Rick Giles' project Light features abstract long-exposure shots of light pouring in through the door of a barn. He tells us, …

Capture is a new show hosted by world-renowned celebrity photographer Mark Seliger. In every episode, Seliger will invite one other famous photographer and one celebrity who's passionate about photography. The three then have a conversation about their work, their experiences, and their trade secrets. This first episode features photographer Platon and actor Dylan McDermott.

ASMP Releases is a free model and property release app for iOS by the American Society of Media Photographers. Quite useful for if you'd like to use your street photographs commercially.

The Dirkon pinhole 35mm camera is made entirely from paper cut from a template by designers Martin Pilný, Mirek Kolář and Richard Vyškovský. The three published the template in a 1979 issue of Czechoslovakian magazine ABC mladých techniků a přírodovědců (translated as An ABC of Young Technicians and Natural Scientists). While original prints of the magazine are rare, the Dirkon gained cult popularity in Chzechoslovakia.

It's been less than 24 hours since Canon announced their first mirrorless camera, and already the Internet is filling up with samples, commercials and hands-on videos for those interested in buying it when it arrives in October. Here's a video roundup for the new Canon EOS M mirrorless ILC:

We Are Nature is an awesome portrait project by photographer Christoffer Relander of Raseborg, Finland. He used a Nikon D700 for in-camera multiple exposures and then made small contrast and tone adjustments in post for his surreal portraits.

Photography, at its essence, tells a story. And even though the majority of the "photography" we see today tells the story of how we went to Pinkberry yesterday or what city we happen to be in at the moment, powerful photography is still very much alive because there are plenty of powerful stories. 100Cameras, like so many charities, relies on photography to tell the powerful stories of underprivileged children; only, unlike the rest, they don't put the children in front of the camera, they put …

Cocoagraph is a Philly-based chocolate company that turns customer photos into Polaroid-style chocolate bars. It's a fun and tasty way to make your photos a treat for the eyes and the mouth.

The idea that the camera doesn't make the photographer is, most will agree, a sufficiently dead and overly beaten horse of a subject. It's nice, however, to actually see the concept in action and taken to an extreme. Of course you could give an enthusiast a several thousand dollar camera and see what effect it has, but the people over at DigitalRev take the opposite approach: they give a crappy camera to a pro photographer.

This photograph by artist Chuck Anderson has received over 30,000 notes on Tumblr since it was posted back in September of 2010. It might look like a Photoshop creation, but Anderson assures us that what you see is straight off the camera.

Instagram grew to its $1 billion acquisition price through a service that's used almost entirely through a mobile app. As it continues to balloon in size, it only makes sense that it would expand onto the web to compete against the likes of Flickr and 500px. That day may be closer than you think.

Astrophotographer Laurent Laveder has a delightful series of photographs titled Moon Games that feature creative photographs shot as the moon hangs low over a hill. Laveder's subjects play with the moon as if it's a glowing sphere here on Earth. In one shot it's a reading lamp, and in another it's a framed art piece waiting to be hung. The photos are sure to make you want to find your own hill so you can play with the moon yourself!

Many of the photos we get back from space come either via powerful telescopes in orbit or talented astronauts in the ISS. Another way to explore the cosmos in pictures, however, is to mount a high-powered telescope to a sub-orbital rocket, and fire away. During the trip, the telescope is allotted about 10 minutes to get the photos it's looking for. And lest you think 10 minutes isn't enough, a couple of weeks ago NASA used this exact method to capture the clearest ever images of the Sun's …

Photographer Knate Myers of Albuquerque, New Mexico created this awe-inspiring time-lapse video using long-exposure night shots captured by astronauts on the International Space Station. This is one video you'll have to watch in HD and at full screen.

It's finally here. After many months of rumors and the now-typical day before announcement leak, Canon has officially announced the EOS M mirrorless ILC -- and fortunately, all evidence points to the little camera being worth the wait. So buckle up and let's dive into the specifics.

Official product photos of Canon's soon-to-arrive mirrorless camera -- the EOS M -- leaked late last week, and now the camera's specs are following suit. Canon Rumors reports that the camera will feature an 18MP APS-C sensor, an ISO range of 100-12800 (expandable to 25,600), a 3-inch touchscreen, phase and contrast autofocus, autofocus during video recording, 1080p HD video, and various image enhancement features (twilight mode, creative filters, HDR, multi-shot noise reduction).