It's seems like many photo enthusiasts are hating on Instagram and retro-filtered photos these days, but not photographer Richard Koci Hernandez. He has written a piece for CNN titled "Photographers, embrace Instagram," in which he explains why he thinks that "Smartphones have ushered in a golden age for photography."
We've featured a couple of projects involving cameras strapped to birds recently (see here and here), but photographing with birds is anything but a new idea. It was actually invented a little over a century ago, in 1907, by a German photography pioneer named Julius Neubronner.
A brief exchange during a passing conversation a few days ago got me thinking. Someone said something about how lucky I was to make a living as an artist. I immediately corrected them; while immensely thankful for my career, a job where I get to wake up every day and make images, I felt obligated to point out that most of the time I am not, in fact, an artist at all.
After months of dedicated hacking, Magic Lantern has finally been released for the Canon 7D. The new alpha version of the firmware add-on introduces a slew of new features to the camera, including focus peaking, zebra stripes, magic zoom, spotmeter, liveview customization, image review tweaks, and much more.
A decade ago, photographer Andrew Filer obtained the most detailed map of North Dakota he could find, and began a project of documenting the towns on it. Not just some of the towns, but every single named dot on the map. After years of dedicated work, Filer succeeded in photographing the entire state. He ended up visiting over 850 different locations and snapping 9,308 photographs.
Digital and mobile phone photography have made it easy for parents to document every waking (and non-waking) moment of a child's life, but what effect is this constant picture-taking having on kids? David Zweig has written up an article over at the New York Times arguing that our culture of photography is intruding on the preciousness of youth, and that parents should take fewer photographs of their children.
What do you get when you combine an accent light with a picture frame? Answer: the Geode. It's a new product by San Francisco-based home furnishing shop Ghost Nest that lets you light up a space while showing off your favorite photographs.
In the market for a new photo printer and not sure what to buy? Here's a tip: shelling out a little more dough on the printer itself could potentially lead to massive savings over time.
If you still process your own film in a darkroom, you probably regularly toss empty film canisters into the trash can once you've popped off the cap and retrieved the film inside. The next time you're in there, try saving those canisters: you can upcycle them into neat magnets for displaying photos on your fridge -- perhaps even prints of latent photos that were once in those canisters!
The photo above is the album cover for Jay-Z's 2009 album Blueprint 3, featuring a photo of a pile of musical instruments and recording equipment with three red lines across the front. It might look Photoshopped -- an easy way to create such an effect -- but it was actually done with perspective trickery and good ol' fashioned hard work.
What if there were a disposable digital camera that you could eat after using? Sounds bizarre, but it already exists. Scientists in the US are working on uber-thin electronics that can be dissolved inside the human body once their job is done. Among the many possible uses being explored is photography.
Spinlight 360 is a relatively young startup company that makes modular flash modifier systems for speed lights. Its products are based around a ring assembly attached on the head of flash units that various modifiers can be mounted to, allowing it to be a "jack of all trades" of sorts when it comes to controlling light and shadows.
"Out of Place" is a clever series of photo manipulations by German photographer Robert Rickhoff, who starts with somewhat mundane photographs taken around town and then adds in elements that don't belong. A residential scene shows a "speed jump", streets are turned into skateboard ramps, and highways are transformed into volleyball courts. Each scene makes you look twice and smile at the absurdity of what it seems to show.
This is probably a "duh" fact for many of you, but one that some of you have perhaps never heard or realized before: Did you know that the flashes in the Canon Speedlite lineup are named after their maximum guide numbers? To figure out the power of your Speedlite, just take the model name and hack off the zero at the end to get the GN (e.g. 430EX has GN 43, 580EX has GN 58).
Don't have any more babies to transport? Old strollers can be repurposed as a way to wheel your camera gear from place to place. Just load it up with your camera bag, tripod, lighting equipment, and accessories, and you'll have yourself a mobile mini studio.
If you ever need some encouragement for sticking with photography when times get tough, you should read about the adventures of Frank Hurley. Born in Australia in 1885, he took up photography as a young man and eventually became skilled enough to be selected as the official photographer for multiple expeditions to Antarctica and for the Australian military in both world wars. Among his many photographic escapades, one stands out from among the rest: being stranded in the Antarctic for nearly …
It has only been a month since Sony announced its latest flagship full-frame camera, the A99, but rumors are already beginning to emerge regarding the company's next top-of-the-line offering. sonyalpharumors writes that Sony has reportedly marked sometime between May and June 2013 as a tentative release date for its next high-end full-frame: …
You don't get to 200,000 followers without earning a few perks. A couple of months ago, we reported that a number of Instagram power users had been flown out to the US Open in New York as part of various companies' marketing campaigns. Free trips and freebies like that one are becoming more and more common for Instagrammers with large followings.
German photographers Marion and Dieter were visiting the Nuremberg Zoo earlier this month when they came across an odd sight: one of the polar bears named Felix was chomping on a $2,100+ Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS telephoto lens. Apparently another lady was trying to change lenses while standing at the edge of the enclosure, and accidentally let the 70-200mm slip out of her grasp and into Felix's territory.
A number of publications have begun receiving hands-on time with the new Sony RX1 full-frame compact camera. It seems that Sony is doing something right, as initial commentators and testers are saying some pretty positive things about the $2,800 shooter.
Apple is constantly engaged in its fair share of courtroom battles, but its latest one hits a little closer to home for photographers. Swiss photographer Sabine Liewald has filed a lawsuit against Apple for using her "Eye Closeup" photograph to promote the 15-inch MacBook Pro's Retina Display.
Musician Lauren White recently came across a "gold mine" at a flea market in Saugus, California; she discovered 23 candid never-before-seen photographs of the Rolling Stones captured in 1965 while the band was enjoying a road trip.
Visual Supply Co (AKA VSCO), best known for its film emulation software, has launched a new product that's designed to reduce the time you spend post-processing your images in Adobe Lightroom. VSCO Keys is a tool that adds powerful and customizable keyboard shortcuts to Lightroom 3 and 4. You can assign keys to the various sliders in the program, allowing you to keep your hands off your mouse during photo editing.
Want to see what it's like to photograph wild gorillas up close and personal? Check out the clip above from the 1974 documentary Gorilla by Dieter Plage. It shows Belgian photographer and conservationist Adrien Deschryver in heart of Kahuzi-Biega National Park in Zaire, snapping pictures of gorillas from a short distance away.
We've shared examples of stereographic projection (AKA "little planet") photography here before, but none quite like these. Sydney-based visual artist Catherine Nelson creates some of the most amazing "planets" we've seen by stitching together hundreds of individual photographs. Trained as a painter and having worked on feature films like Moulin Rouge and Harry Potter, she uses her visual effects expertise to combine the images in creative and surreal ways.
Want to see what it looks like for a photo to go viral on Facebook? Check out these visualizations by San Francisco-based studio Stamen Design, which took three of the most shared images on the social networking service -- Marvin the Martian (visualized above), Famous Failures, and Ab Fab London, all shared by George Takei -- and created a visualization using the data from the hundreds of thousands of shares.
Best Buy has been struggling in recent years as consumers have increasingly looked to the Internet for their gadget shopping needs. It's quickly gaining a reputation of being a place where people "try before they go home and buy online" (known as "showrooming") If you've been using the store as your personal camera showroom and are in the market for a new camera, you might want to bring your wallet the next time you visit: Best Buy is planning to extend its price match policies to online …
Have an old Polaroid camera lying around collecting dust? Did you know that you can use it for wet plate collodion photography? AlternativePhotography writes, …
Photographer Michel "Mijonju" Jones just sent us this humorous parody music video that he made with Irwin Wong, based on the song "Billionaire" by Bruno Mars. Here's the chorus: …
Artist Federico Pietrella has a clever and impressive way of "printing" his photographs. After selecting one he wants to use, Pietrella recreates it by hand using nothing but a date stamp and ink. Pointillism is usually done with distinct dots, but each of Pietrella's dots are a short row of numbers indicating the current date.
Is there or isn't there a new line of compact system cameras (CSC) up Leica's sleeve? Well, it depends on who you ask.
Tumblr jumped into the mobile photo sharing game today by releasing Photoset, a new photo sharing app for the iPhone and the iPad. The app is stupidly simple and is focused on doing one thing well: sharing groups of photos with others.
Want to snap a photograph of a rock climber that doesn't look like you're also pressed against the face of the rock? Just bring along a step ladder! The photographs above show how adventure photographer Corey Rich used one last year while shooting a Nikon D4 promotional video featuring free-climber Alex Honnold. He secured it perpendicular to the face of the rock and stepped out onto the end and a better view of the action.
As President Obama's four-year term in office comes to an end, TIME magazine caught up with his official photographer Pete Souza for thoughts on his career so far. It's a pretty fascinating read: …
One of the stranger announcements last month was Olympus' new 15mm lens that doubles as a body cap for your camera. If you've been wondering, how the quirky $110 lens performs, check out these sample photos by UK photographer Peter Norman shot using an Olympus OM-D EM-5.
Mobile apps with retro filters such as Instagram and Hisptamatic have been very polarizing in the photo industry, but the latest member of the anti-Instagram camp has many people scratching their heads. The NCAA has banned college coaches from using Instagram filters while recruiting prospective athletes.
YouTube user uyt384 does tests on old camera lenses, but not in the way you'd expect. Instead of testing the build or image quality, he uses a Geiger counter to see how much radiation is being emitted by each one.
Using expired film is pretty common among analog photographers, but have you heard of anyone using expired photo paper... from over a century ago? That's what artist Alison Rossiter does. For her project "Lost and Found", she collected hundreds of sheets of expired photo paper from decades past -- some more than 100 years older than the expiration date found on their packages -- and then developed them to uncover abstract images.
Hasselblad surprised the photo world last month by announcing the Lunar: a hyper-luxury mirrorless camera with an opulent exterior and a Sony NEX-7 at its core. To say it wasn't well received would be an understatement; photographers immediately mocked the camera's over-the-top design -- it's decorated with gold and precious metals -- and the fact that it will carry a price tag $5,000 more than the camera it's based on.
About a year ago, we shared a creative stop-motion video by Eran Amir that involved 500 different volunteers holding 1,500 individual photographs in order to create an animation. That video has amassed over 1.5 million views since then. It appears that Amir has a magical touch when it comes to viral web videos, because now he's back with another video that's going viral -- one that's also related to photography in an unusual way.
The Nikon D4 that Usain Bolt used at the London Olympics has been auctioned off for charity. The final price? Just $7,300.
Watermarks are commonly used by photographers these days to protect their work from unauthorized use and distribution. However, they're not very popular among photo viewers, since they do a lot to detract from the content of the photographs.
The Associated Press caused a stir this week after publishing the above photograph of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
Is the photo above the work of a genius? Last week, the MacArthur Foundation announced its “Genius” grants – a $500,000, five year grant with no strings attached prize – to people who “show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future.” Since 1981, 873 fellows have been named, and of those, only nine have been photographers. Two of them were awarded this year: Uta Barth and and An-My Lê.
With each new generation of popular digital camera lines, consumers generally expect that feature upgrades also be accompanied by improvements to the image sensor. According to camera testing service DxOMark, that's not the case with Canon's entry level DSLR lineup.
Spanish photographer Marc Vicens wanted to capture the stress and pain of the ongoing economic crisis, so he found a bunch of unemployed people and asked them to hang upside-down for right-side-up portraits. His goal of the series, titled "Hanging," was to creatively portray the feeling of anxiety that dominates the daily life of these individuals.
Have you ever wondered why computers always indicate that your hard drive or memory card has a smaller storage capacity than what's advertised on the box (and the card itself)? No, it's not because you got a defective card, it's not because your card came preloaded with a bunch of unwanted files (your hard drives, maybe), and it's not because the manufacturers are cheating you by skimping out on the storage space (well, not directly, at least). The reason has to do with math and marketing.
Here's a thought-provoking video making the rounds online -- one that you might want to watch if you love photography and have been thinking hard about your career path. It's based on a lecture given decades ago by philosopher Alan Watts, who poses the question, "What would you like to do if money were no object?"
We're getting to the point at which photographers can buy fancy aerial drones without having to sell a kidney. You've probably already seen photos and videos shot from camera-equipped radio-controlled helicopters before, but did you know that the camera's view can be beamed to a pair of goggles, allowing the photographer to be immersed in a first-person-view of what he or she is shooting?
Seattle-based photographer Bill Finger creates and photographs amazingly realistic small scale dioramas showing various imaginary locations. The things contained in each miniature model are 1/6th to 1/12th the size of their real world counterparts. Finger builds each of the dioramas while looking through his camera's viewfinder, which ensures that everything he constructs conforms nicely to the perspective limits of his lens.
