2012

Back in 2010, we shared a video showing Canon's 1200mm lens -- a giant piece of glass that has been called "The Mother of All Telephotos". If you thought that focal length was long, check out Nikon's 1200-1700mm f/5.6-8P lens. Nikon launched a prototype of the lens in 1990 for newspaper photographers covering baseball in Japan. The sample photos above show the lens' ridiculous reach. A standard 50mm FoV can be seen on the left, while the right photo shows what the same scene looks like at …

Pictures do a lot for humanity. They compress 1000 words into one simple photo, capture special moments and freeze them in time, put us back in touch with our history and, more recently, when 36.7-million of them are taken every second by one of the world's fastest cameras, pictures can also help cure cancer by catching it early. That last part is due to the brilliant minds in a lab at UCLA who have created what they are calling "The World's Fastest Camera."

Mexican photojournalist Julian Cardona has lived in Ciudad Juarez since 1960 and began documenting the city in the early 1990s as a photojournalist for the local newspaper, El Diario. He says he's seen Juarez shift from an idyllic postcard-worthy border town to the city known as the homicide capital of the world.

If you're human then you've probably looked at a portrait of yourself at some point and been dissatisfied for one specific reason or another. Most of the time, though, it just comes down to an unexplainable "I don't like it" or "I never look good in pictures" or, in extreme cases, a sound effect similar to gagging. But according to this short TED audition, the problem isn't with your expression or your looks, it's in your head.

Photographer Shawn Van Daele has launched a beautiful (and meaningful) photo project called "The Drawing Hope Project" in which he shoots magical photographs based on the drawings of children living with health conditions. The photo shoots take 1-2 hours, but combining the images in post-production takes up to 8.

We'll preface this by saying that this is very dangerous and if you choose to attempt it you do so at your own risk -- we don't recommend anyone try this at home. That being said, this is also one of the coolest "backyard" special effects we've ever seen, and one that would make for some kick-a photography backgrounds or slow-motion video.

What you see here is the first image ever uploaded to the World Wide Web. It's a graphic featuring a promo shot for comedy band Les Horribles Cernettes, and was uploaded almost exactly 20 years ago by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web. Motherboard has the interesting story behind the photo: …

Niniane Kelley of PhotoboothSF -- the SF photo shop that still shoots tintype portraits -- shot a series of tiny tintype photographs using a 110 camera. The images are likely the world's first 110 tintypes, and the world's smallest tintypes as well (each one is about half the size of a standard 35mm frame).

Getting potential clients' attention in the world of photography can be a difficult task, but photographer Gordon Stettinius has been doing quite a good job at it. So good, in fact, that one studio owner asked him to "never send anything to them again. Ever." His secret? Sending bizarre studio portraits as a follow-up.

Alex Dainis of Boston first recorded herself lip-syncing the song "Aaron's Party" by Aaron Carter back when she was 17. Three years later she made another recording, and finally this year -- at the age of 23 -- she made a third. This resulting video, titled 17-20-23, shows her singing her heart out at all three ages. She writes, …

The University of California has agreed to dish out a $162,500 settlement to David Morse, a 43-year-old photographer who was arrested back in 2009 while covering a student protest.

Canon is sending out the above invitation for a press event on July 23rd (translation, anyone?). This date is when the company's first mirrorless camera(s) is expected to be unveiled. Here are the rumored specs of the new system: two cameras with G1 X-sized sensors offering 14 and 24 megapixels, EF compatibility using an adapter, EVF on at least one of the cameras, and 3-5 lenses initially. Mark your calendars -- it's coming.

The "Smashing Booth" is a contraption that shatters objects and snaps photographs at the moment of impact. It was created by designer Henrietta Jadin, who created it as part of a school project titled "Breaking Point." The wooden device catapults an object at the back wall of its box, and a photo is captured by an open shutter, sound sensor (made from an Arduino controller), and strobe.

Here's a top ten list, in no particular order, of Nikon movie roles! Often appearing as uncredited extras, these Nikon SLRs have been present at some of the greatest moments in movie history.

Vince Devlin over at the University of Montana has the fascinating story of how four UM photojournalism students snagged the first photos of Ted Kaczynski (AKA the "Unabomber") back in 1996, beating other media organizations and making the cover of Newsweek: …

Vancouver-based photographer Eszter Burghardt creates miniature landscapes using food (e.g. seeds, powders, milk) and wool, and then photographs them using a shallow depth of field. Her images show everything from volcanos to icebergs. The projects are titled "Edible Vistas" and "Wooly Sagas".

Here's a promotional/educational video by Canon that explains both how digital cameras work and how it manufactures them. Interesting fact: lenses are so precise that if they were to be enlarged to the size of a sports stadium, the margin of error would be less than the thickness of a business card.

While there are ample resources available on portfolios, websites, leave behinds and promotional materials, there’s one important subject that I’ve found little helpful information on: the photographer’s bio.

Here's a cool video that shrinks down the process of building a massive egg-shaped studio (also known as a "full egg cyclorama") down to about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. A cyclorama this size is used to photograph anything from multiple cars to full-sized busses or, in this case, an antique fire truck. And in case you wanna know the exact specs, the dimensions of this behemoth, built by The Good Egg Studio in Sydney, come out to 12m in width, 17m in length and 4.8m in height.

Want to add some custom tints to your photos without resorting to digital trickery? dainy over at Lomography has a tutorial on how you can create a simple color filter using some cardboard and colored transparency sheets. Combining thin strips of various colors can lead to pretty artsy effects.

There are plenty of stories out there of photographers allegedly being mistreated at the hands of the police; unfortunately, this mistreatment often includes the destruction of any evidence of the altercation. But the New Jersey ACLU is hoping that their new Police Tape app helps people more discretely record these interactions for future use in court.

Postrgram is a new service that turns your Instagram and/or Flickr photo collections into photomosaics, or giant photos composed of tiny photos. The process involves a few simple steps: tell the service your username (make sure you have at least 50 photos in your stream), specify the image you'd like as the main image, and the rest is taken care of.

For the past two years, 37-year-old photographer Tou Chih-kang has been capturing the last moments of dogs at Taoyuan Animal Shelter in Taiwan. His roughly 400 portraits show the dogs -- most of them abandoned by their owners -- moments before they're put to sleep. His mission is to raise awareness and encourage responsibility among pet owners: …

After scorching over 18,000 acres and burning down 346 homes, the Waldo Canyon fire near and around Colorado Springs, CO has left scars that are both literal and metaphorical in nature. And while it would be impossible to capture an image of the metaphorical scarring left by the most destructive fire in Colorado history, NASA's Terra Satellite was able to get this false color image (which includes both visible and infrared light) showing the very literal scar the fire left in its wake.

Unlike most photographers, I hate my camera. I have read hundreds of stories on the Internet in which photographers argue about which cameras are the best and why. There are stories trying to prove that Canon is better than Nikon, or that 4x5 film is better than medium format digital. Camera review websites show scientific-style photographs displaying how much detail they have captured in a dollar bill, or pictures of color checkers and skin tones. They will also show “real-world” and …

Inspired by his father's obsession with adding new shelves to walls, photographer and furniture design student Darragh Casey decided to shoot some family portraits that featured family members themselves shelved alongside some of their prized possessions. His project spans three generations of his family and is titled "Shelving the Body".

There's good news coming out of the Nokia camp if you live in the US and you've been wanting to get your hands on the 41-megapixel camera in the company's 808 PureView smartphone. Not only is the 808 itself now available to purchase on Amazon unsubsidized for $699, but the camera technology inside it may soon be available without the hefty price tag.

Orrin Hastings spent three months creating this stop-motion music video for the song "This Man's Brighter Days" by abe&tell. He roamed the streets of Sydney asking 500+ girls to hold up an iPad containing one still frame extracted from a video. Played back, the stop motion contains a video-within-a-video. The concept is very similar to the J.Views video we shared a couple months back, except that one used actual prints.

U.S. Army soldier Alex Jansen is currently stationed in Afghanistan, and besides taking some great shots and posting them up on the Pentax forums, he also put together this video illustrating one of the reasons Pentax owners love their cameras: the dust and weather sealing.

If you keep up with the world of photography, chances are you have at one point or another read The British Journal of Photography; if it's one of your main reads you may even have their popular iPad app. And now you've been given a smaller, more portable option, because the magazine has officially released its first iPhone app, an app that the creators say will "change your expectations about how a magazine should look on an iPhone."

It doesn't look like Canon's T4i can catch a break lately. Just days after issuing a somewhat entertaining product advisory explaining why some Canon T4is were showing up as EOS Kiss X6is in EXIF data, Canon has had to issue yet another. This one, like the last, only affects certain serial numbers -- in this case those with "1" as the sixth digit (e.g. xxxxx1xxxxxx) -- but unlike the last, it could potentially be both harmful and aesthetically upsetting.

It wouldn't be the weekend without a behind the scenes look at a photo shoot, and if we can also inject a little bit of humor into it, well, in that case everyone wins. This behind the scenes comes courtesy of The New York Times and an assignment they gave to legendary sports photographer Walter Iooss Jr. The assignment was to shoot comedian Andy Samberg as several of tennis' most iconic champions in poses they themselves were famous for.

Some rumors are more far-fetched than others, and while this may be one of those it's still worth mentioning. According to Canon Rumors, some preliminary talk has come down the wire that Canon might be replacing the current EF 50mm f/1.4 with a smaller form factor 50mm f/1.8 IS.

A few days ago the people over at CERN -- the guys behind the biggest particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -- made what has been called "the biggest advance in knowledge about the cosmos for over 30 years," they discovered the long-sought-after Higgs Boson.

Here's a great, short video by nature and culture photographer Art Wolfe in which he talks about his journey as a photographer, the artists from which he still sometimes draws his inspiration, and finding those photographical treasures that are all around us. Even if you just watch it for the examples of his work, the video should give you that dose of inspiration we all need from time to time.

Any sort of portrait photographer is intimately familiar with the huge variety of skin tones represented by us homo sapiens, but until now nobody had thought to document them all. That's the mammoth task that Brazilian artist and photographer Angelica Dass has taken upon herself with her portrait project Humanae.

One of the most important things a photographer must do is advertise and sell their services. All professionals have a good grasp on how to take great photos and edit them in post to make them look even better, but fewer have the time, expertise, or funds to put together a quality portfolio that will catch a client's eye and bring them business. That's where the Iconify platform comes in.

It's true that many (if not most) people these days think that a smartphone plus a decent camera app equals enough equipment to create great photography. Sure, they'll hire a professional to do their wedding, but when it comes to less momentous occasions -- like that trip to the Caribbean -- they tend to take the photographic reins in their own hands. According to The Wall Street Journal, however, more and more people are deciding to hand the vacation reins over to a professional photog.

In this B&H Event Space seminar, David Brommer takes you "Beyond The Rule of Thirds" by discussing many different aspects of photographic composition. The entire seminar will take about two hours to watch from start to finish, but the information Brommer covers -- from positive and negative space, to theories of color and balance and other advanced composition -- is highly informative for amateurs, and may even benefit some pros.

In this tutorial I will share how I shoot "liquid flow" photos -- smoke-like abstracts done by dropping cream colored with food dye into a small tank of water, then rotated 180 degrees.

McLean Fahnestock of Long Beach, CA took high definition video of all 135 Space Shuttle launches and synchronized them into this mesmerizing video titled "Grand Finale". It's a beautiful project with a twinge of sadness.

A few months ago 14-year-old Julia Bluhm caused quite a stir when she managed to collect over 80,000 total signatures in an attempt to get Seventeen Magazine to put one completely un-Photoshopped spread in each issue. Her argument was that the magazine's readers have a sensitive body image, and constantly seeing unrealistically thin and perfect software-enhanced models wasn't helping the matter.

The Google Glass team is starting a new series of videos called "Glass Sessions" that feature ordinary people using Google's prototype camera glasses in their everyday lives. This first video shows new mom Laetitia Gayno -- the wife of a Googler -- using the glasses to capture precious moments with her baby and share them live online with her family members back in France.

AFP photographer Joe Klamar's portraits of US Olympic athletes have caused a firestorm of controversy in the past week, with people calling the images "insulting" due to their lighting, angles, and concepts. Klamar has responded to the controversy over on AFP. Rather than being intentionally "bad" for the purpose of making a point, they were simply the result of being unprepared: …

This image might look like some kind of screenshot from an old 16-bit video game, but it's actually the first photo ever made of an atom's shadow. Researchers at Griffith University in Australia suspended a ytterbium atom in midair, shot it with a laser beam, and then used a Fresnel lens on the other side to snap a photograph of the dark shadow left by the atom. Scientist Erik Streed has a writeup explaining how they accomplished it and the project's implications for other research.

This small mountain of gear leads to two very frightening thoughts. Firstly, there’s no ending in sight; one keeps accumulating more and more equipment in order to keep pushing the edge of what’s possible both from a compositional and artistic standpoint, as well as from an image quality standpoint. You’ve either got to have a great day job and very deep pockets, or some good recurring clients.

There's a lot of resources out there for people who want to get to know their SLR just that much better -- ranging from books to about a gazillion (that's a technical term) YouTube tutorials -- but not a lot of people seem to know about Nikon's own Digitutor website. The Nikon Digitutor offers helpful flash tutorials about all of the different aspects of your Nikon camera.

World travel bloggers Michael Powell and Jürgen Horn recently visited the The Trick Eye Museum in South Korea, where visitors can snap humorous and mind-bending pictures of themselves interacting with various painted rooms.

Filmmaker Ian Gamester created this video of moments collected over the course of several years, inspired by artist David Hockney's photocollages, his famous "joiners."

Most people already know that one of the ways Kodak tried to dig itself out of its sizable financial hole was to sell the Kodak Gallery to Shutterfly, and the service officially shut down just a few short days ago. Most Kodak Gallery users probably won't be too upset with the move, but unfortunately, it looks like even the 2-million active users (the Kodak Gallery had a total of about 75-million) will have to go a few weeks without access to their photos as their accounts are transferred over.