Every so often, we share a story about how powerful the Internet (and six degrees of separation) can be in reuniting owners with things they lose, whether it's a camera that spent four years in the ocean or a roll of film lost in a blizzard.
Israel-based photographer Guy Prives experienced this amazing power of the Web firsthand recently after snapping a photograph of a mysterious tattooed girl.
A Leica camera from 1923 became the world's most expensive camera earlier this year when it was auctioned for a staggering $2.79 million. The world's most expensive lens has a similar price tag... and is also a Leica.
Planetary conjunctions are beautiful to photograph from Earth, but send a camera to another planet in the Solar System, and you can shoot a planetary conjunction photograph containing Earth!
Back on May 8th, 2003, the Mars Orbiter Camera on the Mars Global Surveyor had the rare opportunity to photograph both the Earth and Jupiter in the same region of space. It was the first planetary conjunction observed from another planet, with the Earth 86 million miles away and Jupiter 600 million miles away. The resulting image (shown above right), contains both planets, along with some of the moons.
This past Friday wasn't a good day for photographers. On the same day that one wedding photographer saw his client drown in a freak accident during a trash the dress shoot, a man hiking in Alaska was mauled to death by a grizzly bear after getting too close to it with his camera.
Do you remember the Instagram Socialmatic? It's a concept camera that made the rounds on the Internet back in May -- a camera that lets people snap photos, share them online, and print them out as squared-shared sticky-note-style instant photos. The camera will soon go from digital concept to physical reality: it's being turned into an actual camera, which is a proposed release date of mid-2013.
Think pancake lenses are flat? In the future, camera manufacturers might be able to replace those bulky glass elements inside lenses with lens elements that are thinner than a piece of paper. The lenses would not only be third-dimension-free, they would also be distortion-free.
Anne Geddes is known internationally for her trademark-style of baby photos showing infants dressed up like tiny animals, flowers, and various fantasy creatures. VICE magazine recently decided to parody her work, and enlisted the help of photographer Lee Goldup to photograph adults instead of babies in Geddes' iconic style.
If you're a wedding photographer, you might want to think twice about doing a trash the dress shoot in a moving river. A newly married Montreal-area woman drowned this past Friday during a photo shoot in the Ouareau River.
Dream Music: Part 2 is an amazing stop-motion and time-lapse video by Marc Donahue and Sean Michael Williams that features a technique they call "lyric-lapsing". Using still photos, they somehow planned the time-lapse sequences just right, so that the singer in the video is actually mouthing the words as he scurries around to various locations. They state that the video is a "musical voyage into the depths of the subconscious", and that it was designed to "transport the viewer from their own reality into a world of dreams and at the end, [...] awake to wonder how we were able to take them there."
The magnitude of the effort is what's truly impressive. The creators spent six months shooting the photos across two states. Every 3-4 seconds seen in the video required about 6-8 hours of work to create.
Dogshaming is a website where dogs around the world (or their owners) can submit photographs in which they confess all the bad things they do. Pet owners are asked to submit photos of their disobedient dogs containing signs that give the dogs a healthy dose of Internet shaming.
Photographing apex predators on land is one thing, but do it in the ocean and it's an entirely different ball game. This behind-the-scenes video follows underwater photographer Marc Montocchio of 36North on a trip he took to the island of Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. His goal was to capture a photograph of a free swimming blue marlin, which required the fishermen helping him to "fish" with a lure and no hook.
One way to shoot surreal photographs is to capture things where they don't ordinarily belong, whether it's glowing cubes in a forest or houses and babies floating in mid-air. Often this type of image is done using photo manipulation, but that's not true of the photos in artist Joy Umali's project titled Ladders. Umali hauled a number of distorted metal ladders onto Rodeo Beach in San Francisco, and then had photographer Walter Kitundu photograph the scene.
Just a few hours ago, a man opened fire at the Empire State Building in New York City, killing a former co-worker before being gunned down by police. Ryan Pitcheralle was passing through the area when the shooting occurred, and used Instagram to capture a photograph of the victim lying in a pool of blood.
Flickr's Creative Commons licensing options allows its users to grant licenses that allow creators to make use of the photographs under a set of terms (e.g. attribution, non-commercial). Most photo sharing services have yet to bake Creative Commons licenses into their websites, but starting today, Instagram users can now release their photos under CC -- albeit through a third-party solution.
If you want to protect your pricey camera gear from burglars, one of the safest places in your house (besides a safe, of course) is one that might not be very obvious to you: your kid's room. The Readers Digest published a simple slideshow containing home-proofing tips gleaned from the minds of convicted burglars. One interesting tip is that burglars generally don't go into children's rooms when hunting for valuables to steal.
Fuji already introduced retro, Leica-style design to the world of mirrorless cameras with its gorgeous X series line, and now it appears that the company wants to do the same thing for the world of point-and-shoots. New leaked photos, first published on Digicam-info, show an unknown compact camera by Fujifilm that features a slick leather wrap and an elegantly minimal UI -- a camera that definitely wouldn't embarrass fashion-forward folk.
It's a sad day for film photographers: Kodak has announced that it will sell off its camera film business, one of the huge pillars of what made Kodak Kodak in the eyes of consumers around the world. It's yet another step in the company's effort to climb out of bankruptcy, which it hopes to do by next year, and transform itself into a commercial printing company.
Everyone knows that traveling is expensive. Some people say that photography is expensive as well (both creating and buying it). The two things should therefore be a natural fit, right?
John James Audubon, a French-American ornithologist (a person who studies birds), became internationally known in the 1800s for his ambitious goal of painting and documenting all the different bird species found in the United States. His methods, however, weren't exactly bird friendly. To prepare his subjects, Audubon would first kill them using fine shot and then fix them into striking poses using wire.
Ornithologists these days have a much better way of capturing birds for science: mist nets. The nylon mesh nets virtually invisible to birds when suspended between two poles, and allow scientists to capture, study, and release the birds unharmed. Photographer Todd R. Forsgren wants to be the modern day equivalent of Audubon. His project titled Ornithological Photographs consists entirely of photos showing different birds caught in mist nets.
Of the two images above, one of them is a computer render and one of them is an actual photograph. Can you tell which is which? If you can't, why should IKEA?
The Wall Street Journal reports that IKEA is slowly moving away from using photography in its catalogs in favor of CGI for its online and print publications.
Back in July, we reported that Fuji was preparing to launch lower-end and higher-end siblings of its popular X-Pro1 mirrorless camera. We now both what the cheaper camera will be called, and what it'll look like.
Named the "X-E1", the camera had two of its product pictures leaked today through Digicame-info.
If there was such thing as a Photoshop disaster in real life, this story would probably qualify. An elderly woman in the city of Zaragoza, Spain recently took it upon herself to restore an 19th-century fresco of Jesus that had been deteriorating over the past few years. As you can see from the before and after photos above, the results weren't pretty.
Nikon made a big splash in the compact camera world yesterday by being the first major camera manufacturer to bake Android OS into a compact camera, the Coolpix S800c (Polaroid released one a while ago, but it's hardly a major player at the moment). The S800c looks and sounds interesting as far as specs and press releases go, but what's it actually like to use a camera that could be mistaken for a smartphone?
Flickr's Android app is almost one year old now, and the service is getting it ready for its birthday by pushing out an update with a fresh UI and new features. Version 1.5 introduces a new navigation menu, new explore features, metadata editing, new camera options, and more.
Samuel Cox, the "maker of things" whose Minority Report-style photo viewer we shared last year, was recently invited to a friend's wedding. He came up with the neat idea of creating a TARDIS-themed photo booth for the wedding reception, an accessible way for guests to leave photo memories in a lighthearted manner.
Some people who find themselves on hard times try to have themselves arrested so that they can eat for free in prison. It turns out that people in Southern California can do the same thing for a free studio-style headshot. Cat Cora, a chef on the Food Network show Iron Chef, recently got booked for a DUI after drinking three beers and getting behind the wheel. Her mugshot wasn't taken until 11 days after her arrest, so Cora had time to have her hair and makeup done in order to pose for a picture-perfect mugshot. When the photo made its way onto the Internet, websites began to comment on how it looks more like a studio portrait than a police station mugshot.
Humans like preserving their memories. That's one of the big reasons we take pictures. What if you didn't need to actively do anything to preserve those memories? What if you could simply wear cameras that constantly capture photos and videos that are safely stored for your later viewing pleasure? With the rate at which technology -- particularly storage technology -- is increasing, we may soon find "lifestreaming" to be the next big thing.
We've been saying that the "compact" camera will still have a spot in the camera market, even after cell phones drink most of its milkshake, due to the fact that they can be specialized in ways phones can't. Here's another example: the new Olympus Stylus SP-820UZ is a super-zoom compact camera that packs an absurdly long 40x zoom lens. In 35mm terms, this lens reaches from 22.4mm to 896mm -- wide angle to super telephoto. In case that's not enough reach for you ("we need to go deeper!"), the camera also features a "super-resolution zoom" that uses digital zoom to offer up to 80x.
Men at Lunch is an amazing new documentary film by Seán Ó Cualáin that explores the story of one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century: Lunch atop a Skyscraper. the 1932 photo of eleven construction workers taking a lunch break while sitting on a girder suspended 850 feet above New York City.
Manchester-based couple Lisa and Alex are on a mission to find the best place in the world to get married, and through first hand experience rather than other people's opinions. They're currently in the midst of a two-year journey around the world in a 24-year-old camper van, hunting for both the perfect location and the best cultural wedding ceremonies.
If your DSLR ever dies in your arms or starts acting funny, here's a simple thing to check before shelling out money to have it examined by professionals: the camera's internal clock battery. Redditor Aero93 writes,
So my camera died out of nowhere. No matter what I did and tested, it wouldn't turn on. Canon quoted $400 to check the cam + labor parts. Independent repair guy was around $250. It was too much for me. I decided to tackle the problem on my own. I got the manual online. Started taking the camera apart. I got stuck on one thing.
After that, I started asking around on a forum. Somebody suggested I check the internal clock battery, I didn't even now it existed and its right next to the regular battery. I went out and bought a new one. Boom, camera fired right up.
The internal clock battery is the one that keeps the clock in your camera running even when the main battery is removed. They usually cost about a buck each.
It's standard procedure for photo labs around the world to contact authorities if illegal activity is discovered in pictures, but what constitutes "illegal activity" can different widely from place to place. Case in point: three French tourists were recently given jail terms in Sri Lanka for photographs they took containing Buddha statues.
Earlier this month we wrote about a new Keanu Reeves-produced movie titled Side by Side, a documentary about the major shift going on in Hollywood away from film and toward digital. In addition to the interesting subject matter and star studded list of interviewees, here's another thing that makes the movie awesome: PetaPixel makes a cameo.
Facebook agreed to buy Instagram for $1 billion back in April, but the deal has been in limbo over the past four months while the Federal Trade Commission gave the deal a long look-over. Both online companies got goods news today when the FTC announced that the investigation has been completed, and that the deal may "proceed as proposed."
When NASA's Curiosity rover performed its "seven minutes of terror" landing on Mars a couple weeks ago, the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) camera had the task of capturing 1600x1200 (~1.9 megapixel) photographs at a rate of 5 frames per second. The camera began snapping away from when the heatshield separated to a few seconds after the rover touched down. The amazing high-definition video above was created with these photographs, showing what it's like to fall onto the surface of the red planet.
When filmmaker Ben Gill recently needed a way to attach his cameras to a car dashboard for a movie he was making, he decided to go the DIY route and come up with a makeshift solution. His resulting mount costed less than $10, and worked quite well. It was created using a car sponge (the kind that looks like a giant peanut) and some rug pad.
The people over at New York-based hackerspace NYC Resistor recently found an old Apple Macintosh SE on the side of a road in Brooklyn -- a computer that was manufactured between 1987 and 1990.
Guess who's back? Back again. 8x10 instant film's back. Tell a friend.
After successfully reviving various lines of instant film for Polaroid cameras, The Impossible Project announced today that they've created a new line of 8x10 instant film for large format cameras.
Want to enjoy your favorite Instagram feeds through a picture frame on your wall or desk? Instacube is a product designed for you. Created by design group D2M, the Android-powered frame is completely designed around viewing and interacting with Instagram photographs.
Earlier this month, we shared the crazy story of a DSLR that sat at the bottom of a creek for three years before being returned to its owner, thanks to the fact that the memory card was still readable. In case you were wondering what the camera looked like after chillin' in such an unfriendly environment, here are some photographs of it sent to us by owner Michael Comeau.
People do some pretty dumb things on reality TV shows, but perhaps none more asinine than this. During the filming of the Discovery Channel's reality TV show The Devils Ride back in January, the camera crew captured footage of a confrontation between one of the show's subjects and photographer Ashi Fachler, who was taking pictures from a public sidewalk. Here's the description of the clip above (warning: it's pretty disturbing):
When a photographer gets too close to a group of club wives and girlfriends enjoying a dinner out, Charles, a Laffing Devils prospect, steps in.
In case you didn't catch that, Fachler was assaulted by a number of people involved in the show simply because he was getting too close while photographing from a public space.
Boy, have we got a giveaway for you this week! We're giving away one of every single photo-related product sold by camera gear company CustomSLR. One lucky (randomly selected) reader will receive C-Loop swiveling camera strap mounts (silver, black, blue, red, and gunmetal), a helpful Glide Strap, a comfortable Camera Split Strap, an M-Plate universal tripod plate system, an M-Plate Hand Strap Attachment, and a $250 gift certificate so you can load up on any future CustomSLR products you fancy. The total value of this package is worth $550!
In addition to the Android-powered compact camera announced this morning, Nikon has also announced two other compact cameras in the Coolpix lineup. We'd call them "beauty and the beast", except for the fact that the beast isn't very beastly (on the inside).
Lets talk about the semi-"beast" first. It's the new P7700 -- successor to the P7100 -- which was leaked extensively prior to today. The main spec people wondered about was the sensor: whether it would be another weak point-and-shoot sensor, or whether the company would upgrade it to the Nikon 1 series size. Guess what? It's still weak.
Canon's new flagship DSLR, the 1D X, can shoot 18.1-megapixel JPEG photographs at a staggering 14 frames per second in burst mode. This is nearly at the 16 frames per second needed to hide jerkiness from the human eye -- the flicker fusion threshold for moving images. Though the frame rate falls short of the 24fps used for Hollywood movies and by many video cameras, 18.1 megapixels per frame translates to 5K resolution in video lingo, while the video feature of the 1D X only shoots at 1080p (~2 megapixels per frame).
Gizmodo's Michael Hession realized that the camera's burst mode could still be used to produce reasonably smooth video. The clip above shows Hession's experiments with using the 1D X as a relatively cheap 5K video camera. 2,000 separate JPEG stills went into creating the two-minute-long video.
This creative stop-motion video was created over the course of one year by a boy named Kristen (unbeatableme on YouTube). He took at least one photograph every day for 365 days showing himself standing in front of a whiteboard. By changing elements inside the shot (e.g. his clothing, the art on the whiteboard, his hair), Kristen made one of the most "time-consuming" animation projects we've seen.
After weeks of rumors and leaked photos, Nikon has finally officially announced its new Coolpix S800c compact camera -- the company's first camera to be powered by Android OS. It's designed to be a powerful point-and-shoot that offers the versatility of app-based mobile phones.
It seems like ever few weeks Canon announces another 10 million lenses produced. Soon, that might not be too big of an exaggeration. The company announced today that it produced its 80-millionth EF lens back on August 3rd, 2012. In case you're wondering, that particular lens was an EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM. The bar graph above shows the growth in the number of EF lenses in the world.
Remember those leaked "spy" shots that supposedly show someone using the upcoming Leica M10 digital rangefinder? Leica Rumors took those images and everything that we know about the camera so far, and created some mockups showing what the camera will likely look like. The most striking feature is the special port on the back that allows for an electronic viewfinder attachment on the hot shoe.
Texas wedding photographer Allen Ayres was recently contacted by an advertising agency that wanted to use one of his wedding photographs for one of its pharmaceutical clients. Ayres had in mind to ask for $1,000, but wisely decided to ask for advice over at Digital Wedding Forum.
Conflict minerals are minerals supplied by war-stricken parts of the world in which armed conflict and human rights abuses are prevalent -- minerals that are essential in the manufacture of consumer electronics. There has been a huge push recently to eradicate conflict minerals from the gadget industry, since the trade of these materials lines the pockets of unscrupulous folk and directly funds violence.
The Center for American Progress's Enough Project is trying to get major manufacturers involved by releasing an annual ranking on how well those companies are doing in avoiding conflict minerals. The latest report, released earlier this month, shows that certain camera companies -- namely Canon and Nikon -- are lagging behind big-time when it comes to being involved in this matter.