Large portrait taking gigs can be a bit of a nightmare. If you're taking multiple portraits of a few hundred people, trying to sort through those and organize them so that they're easily found is no walk in the park. Fortunately, you can find an automatic solution to this problem on Robert Bieber's photo blog Bieber Photographic.
Digital camera sensors come in two flavors, charge couple device (CCD) sensors and complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) sensors. In this video, Bill Hammack the Engineer Guy offers a short explanation of how CCD sensors capture and store images, and how a color filter array is used to capture color photos.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit shot this beautiful long exposure photograph showing star trails and city trails from the International Space Station. The image was created by combining 18 separate long-exposure photographs.
The DIA Parrot by Nodesign really sort of defies explanation. Even the press release, which should ideally describe the product the best, seemed to be lost for words:
Many photographers, especially those who used to shoot film, still enjoy the feedback and control offered by fully manual lenses. The only problem with using these lenses in the digital age is that modern camera bodies don't recognize them and therefore add no EXIF lens data to your images; adding that data up until now required you to install a command line tool such as ExifTool and learn complicated prompts. But now there's an easier way to make these changes happen inside of Lightroom.
To celebrate the end of the school year, the photojournalism students at Western Kentucky University created this music video for a song titled "Camera Hang Low" by Benny Sevs feat. the F-Stopz. It asks the important question that every serious photographer needs to answer: "Do ya camera hang low?".
Prior to the fancy graphics video game players enjoy today, classic games were based on simple geometric forms. German photographer Patrick Runte decided to do a quirky photo project exploring what these games might look like if translated to the real world. His series, titled Jump 'N' Run, shows people dressed in simple costumes of "characters" from games like Pac-Man, Pong, and Tetris.
Photographer Christian DeBaun of Charlottesville, Virginia captured this photograph that shows six living generations of daughters. The oldest is 111-year-old Mollie Wood, who was born in 1901. The youngest is 7-week-old Braylin Higgins. You can find more images from this photo shoot here.
In sharp contrast to the Leica way of doing things by hand, Canon has just announced that it is planning on completely eliminating the need for a human production line as early as 2015. So while your future Leica M10 will still be completely hand-made (with a price tag to match), your future 5D Mark IV (or maybe Mark VI by then) will be entirely robot-made.
PetaPixel is now a three-year-old blog. Our readership has continued to grow at a healthy rate over the past year, and recently we even added our first full time writer, DL Cade (if you follow this blog regularly then you've already seen plenty of his work). We've had a blast bringing you all the most interesting tidbits from the world of photography on a daily basis.
Metamorphose is a project by photographer Frederic Fontenoy that consists of slit-scan self portraits created in outdoor locations. The technique produces an effect that makes his body look like it's metamorphosing into some other life form.
Slow-motion video is usually the territory of expensive equipment like the Miro M120. Alternatively, if you're not looking to shoot professionally, you can always take the video you capture on your phone or regular camera and slow it down, but the results are usually choppy and (sadly) nothing you'd want to broadcast on YouTube. Fortunately, there is another way; iPhone videographers who own the 4S now have a free, fun alternative in a new app called SloPro.
Want to see how the world's most expensive camera was auctioned this past Saturday? The video above shows the 1923 Leica O-Series going up at the WestLicht Photographica Auction and being sold at the record-breaking price of $2.79 million after auction fees and tax. WestLicht points out that these cameras have been appreciating like crazy in recent years: the first sold in 2007 for $440K and a second sold in 2011 for $1.9M before this most recent auction. Each of the auctions set a new world …
Many words and/or phrases come to mind when you think of Kodak: photography, disposable camera, Kodak moment, and more recently bankruptcy. But we never thought we would be able to associate the phrases "nuclear reactor" and "enriched uranium" with the once-great photography giant -- until recently that is. That's because a few months ago a former Kodak employee let slip to the Democrat and Chronicle the existance of a little known, and never publicized, nuclear reactor hidden in the bowels of …
Here's a humorous short film titled "Smile" by director Dean Fleischer-Camp, who regularly asks people to pose for a photograph but then secretly records video instead. It shows how poses that look so natural in still photographs can look so completely awkward in videos.
David Shankbone (real name David Miller) has been called "arguably the most influential new media photojournalist in the world." And if you've never heard of him you may wonder: How did he achieve such a status? How did he get his work published by The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Forbest all while his actual day job isn't even as a photographer? He did it all by giving away his photography for free.
Italian designer Tommaso Guerra is known for transforming various objects into household design items. The wall-mounted swiveling lamp above was created using a 35mm camera, with a lamp shade as the lens shade. More photos here.
It looks like not even space photography has managed to escape the pixel war, but in the case of the Russian Federal Space Agency's Elektro-L weather satellite, we're not complaining. The video you see above is a time lapse put together from 6 days worth of 121-megapixel images taken every 30 minutes by the satellite. The images themselves are not composites of several either, they are just incredibly detailed photos of the entire planet taken from some 22 thousand miles away.
Tim Noble and Sue Webster are a London-based artist duo that creates amazing shadow art installations using carefully arranged objects. They use everything from trash to metal cans shot with BB pellets, arranged to cast shadows of people and skylines on the wall when a light is shined from a certain direction.
A team led by photographer Michael Forsberg and NET Television project manager Michael Farrell recently embarked on a large-scale time lapse project the likes of which you don't usually see. The project, which you can follow on their website, constitutes an attempt to visually document the Platte River -- a long-standing source of water and power to a large part of the United States.
Continuous lights aren't used as often when shooting stills, but for those of you who enjoy using your SLR to shoot the occasional (or more than occasional) video, this cheap DIY ring light may be worth a shot. If you're going to attempt it, know in advance that you'll need to have a little bit of DIY savvy and a few tools handy (a soldering iron and a dremel tool), but as long as you're not afraid to get your hands dirty and do some basic electrical work, the final product seems to work pretty …
About a week ago Adobe sent CS5 users on a rampage when they not only announced the existence of eight "critical" vulnerabilities (split between Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash Professional), but also told users that they would have to upgrade to CS6 if they wanted a fix. Users of CS5 and CS5.5 were understandably outraged, but fortunately Adobe were listening this time and just yesterday changed their tune.
If you're the kind of person who hates expensive collectors items then you may want to look away; because a 1923 Leica O-Series just set a new world record and became the most expensive camera ever sold. The price? Approximately $2.79 million after tax. The funny thing is that the exact same model (there are 12 of the original 25 left in existence today) set the previous world record of $1.89 million last year at the exact same WestLicht Photographica Auction. And when you consider that the …
Admittedly, lighting tutorials are pretty common these days; but when it comes to a subject as vast as proper lighting in the studio, more info can't hurt. This 10 minute tutorial from The Slanted Lens by Jay P. Morgan runs you through the differences between octaboxes/octadomes and the traditional softbox, when it might be beneficial to use one over the other, and how to choose the proper octabox lighting setup to fit your needs. All pretty useful info if you ask us.
It goes without saying that nobody should ever test their camera's limits where durability is concerned (so please, don't try any of this at home); but in the interest of science (or lunacy?) someone volunteered their Canon 7D and asked the folks over at DigitalRev to see just how much the camera could really take before it gave up its digital ghost.
The focus shifter -- which, for now, is also going by the name "lens shifter" -- is a simple, lens-mounted, adjustable follow focus that works by attaching to the focus ring on lenses between 56 and 98mm in diameter. Using the attachable marker board you can then mark your focus and transition points in advance, shifting between them with ease when the time comes.
In this first episode of LitUp -- a series by [F]Network that is attempting to de-mystify the world of studio lighting -- photographer Joel Grimes takes you through his journey as he discovered how to properly manipulate and use light in his photography. The short video covers many areas: from drawing from different sources of inspiration (his came from Rembrandt), to how one should choose modifiers, to using continuous light sources for HDR photography and more.
Host Faas, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning AP combat photographer, passed away in Munich, Germany on Thursday May 10th. Best known for his striking work in Vietnam, he was perhaps one of the most famous combat photographers to date. More than just a photographer, though, Horst Faas was also an avid teacher of the art, and a photo editor who wouldn't take no for an answer.
A while back people were pretty disappointed when they found out that Nokia would not be bringing their 41-megapixel 808 PureView smartphone to North America at all. All megapixel race arguments aside, a lot of people wanted to give the camera a shot and see what those 41 million pixels could really do. Well, it looks like Nokia haven't entirely given up on the United States after all.
This video is actually part of a project called To Catch a Bike Thief -- which is trying to raise awareness about and, of course, prevent bike theft. This particular experiment was their way of doing some "aerial surveillance" of the area on a budget, but regardless of whether they achieved that goal, they did get some awesome aerial footage using only some wood, balloons and a fishing line rated at 20lbs. Viewers be advised that there is a little bit of cursing towards the beginning of the …
Those of you who were hoping that all of the Facebook/Instagram acquisition talk would end may not get a respite as soon as we thought. Although the original acquisition papers from Facebook stated that they would try to close the deal in Q2, a rumored Federal Trade Commission (FTC) competition probe may delay that closure by up to a year.
Hidden in-between all of the camera announcements from Leica at their May 10th event, was a lens that made quite a stir. At 50mm and f/2.0 the new Leica APO-Summicron-M ASPH lens doesn't seem like anything to write home about; and with a price tag of almost $8,700 it falls a bit outside most consumers' price range.
Photographer Jon Meyers has shot many different subjects at his studio in Eugene, Oregon; but the birds of the Cascades Raptor Center were a first. Fortunately, he and his videographer friend Michael Ferry chose to record this unique photo shoot and put together a behind-the-scenes video for anybody interested in how capturing a hawk mid-flight in-studio might work. Plus, it makes for a good way to start off a great weekend.
Learning to play a game and learning to use Photoshop follow two, very different patterns. In the first you "discover" how the game is played, you fiddle with the buttons, try combinations, have eureka moments and eventually become proficient at it. Learning Photoshop, on the other hand, requires extensive tutorials and help; books are available from thin "easy-to-use" instruction books to heavy tomes many hundreds of pages long.
If you pay close attention to presidents, or money (or preferably both in this case) you may have noticed that one particular famous photo of President Abraham Lincoln taken in 1864 was the inspiration for the photo we now see on the five dollar bill. But you may have also noticed that the President's mole is on the wrong side of his face on the money. Well actually it isn't, the "mirror image" on the five dollar bill shows the President as he was in real life. The original photo, taken using …
We've by no means reached the limits of flash and hard drive storage capabilities, and newer WiFi capabilities open up a seemingly unlimited amount of cloud storage, but a group of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland have taken the term "cloud" a bit literally. They've managed to store and retrieve two sequential images in a cloud of rubidium atoms.
After seeing some elegant black picture frames with brass edges in a designer magazine, Courtney of A Thoughtful Place realized that she could create the same look on the cheap by using some plain painter's tape and a can of brass spray paint. The project takes a couple hours to complete and a few dollars in supplies, and is a thrifty way to add a dash of style to your home if you don't want to shell out money for pricey frames.
If you live in the US and are used to selling cameras to overseas customers -- or if you live overseas and like to buy your cameras from US retailers -- your shipping choices just got a bit slimmer. In a statement released earlier, the US Postal Service (USPS) said that they will no longer be shipping any items with li-ion batteries in them internationally starting May 16th, declaring the batteries a "fire hazard". Lithium batteries power many personal electronic devices and have been found to …
You can light up particles in the air for a snazzy effect. The photos in this post were done by shining a powerful focused light into the air in various weather conditions during a long exposure. You need a light source that outputs some major power to pull off the effect. I used a Coast HP21 and a 3000 lumen Stanley spotlight for these shots. The photo above was shot while it was snowing.
Having released three (count em') new cameras yesterday, you'd think Leica would be spent; but it looks like they had one other camera up their sleeves, a special edition of their M9-P called the "Edition Hermès." If the name sounds familiar that's because it is: every few years Leica announces an "Edition Hermès" of one of their cameras in collaboration with Parisian house Hermès -- only this year they've also decided to include a making of video to go along with it.
Camera hoarder Stacie Grissom of Stars for Streetlights received a massive collection of old cameras from her uncle a couple years ago. She soon discovered that she wouldn't possibly have time to use all of them, so she took a few of the neglected and worn down ones and made a one-of-a-kind lamp for her home. The cameras were turned into the lamp base using a pipe and some cold weld, and the lamp shade was made using color slide film. If you have some broken cameras lying around and want to …
There have been a lot of rumors over the last month or two regarding Canon's imminent entry into the mirrorless world; and it now seems that we won't have to wait much longer before finding out. According to Canon Rumors, the new camera with its rumored APS-C sensor and 18-45mm kit lens could be announced before summer even starts. Canon's executive vice president Toshizo Tanaka was also quoted recently as saying, …
If you've ever been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, you've probably seen the countless tourists standing around with their hands in the air, pretending to push the tower of (or hold it up) in forced perspective photos. Prankster Darius Groza decided to take advantage of this unique tourist tradition by photobombing the pictures with high fives.
We really enjoy DIY projects for photographers, and as such we've featured everything from the ultra simple to complex light-painting robots. But what excites us about Instructables' DIY tilt-shift adapter isn't just the durable plunger adapter you end up with, but rather the idea that one could manufacture their own camera accessories with a little bit of design skill and a 3D printer (check out Shapeways if you don't have one sitting around).
1 to 100 Years Project is an awesome portrait project by Belgian photographer Edouard Janssens in which he photographed 100 women and 100 men at each age between 1 and 100. His goal was to show the aging process in a positive manner and to provide an interesting visualization of the link between generations. He didn't handpick the subjects either -- all the participants volunteered through the project's website (excluding the kids, of course).
After dipping its toes in Apple's Mac App Store last July by offering Photoshop Elements, Adobe has now jumped in headfirst by listing its professional-caliber program, Lightroom 4. The download costs $150 and tips the scales at 388MB. Adobe might be a giant company, but it gets charged the same commission as any other developer: for every copy sold through the App Store, Apple pockets a cool $45.
Instacanvas is a new service that helps Instagram users make money by selling their photographs as canvas wall art. Users can display their images through the "online gallery space" on the site, and sell their images to buyers as canvas prints without having to do any extra work. Instacanvas acts as the middle man, doing all the printing and shipping, and takes a 20 percent commission from sales. The prints start at $40 for a 12x12-inch canvas and go up to $80 for a 20x20-inch one.
Wonderful idea alert: to document the growth of her son, Reddit user dittidot faithfully snapped a photograph of him on his first day of school for thirteen years, from kindergarten through the end of high school. After he left for college, she lined up all the photographs for this awesome visualization showing him "growing up" (click here for a larger version).
The M Monochrom B&W rangefinder wasn't the only camera Leica unveiled today -- the company also announced two new models in its compact camera lineup. The first is the X2, successor to the X1 of 2009. It's an APS-C sensor camera that features 16.2-megapixels, a fixed 24mm Elmarit f/2.8 ASPH lens, a 2.7-inch LCD screen, and a hefty $2,000 price tag.
Have some slide film sitting around and no slide projector to show them off with? Diapod is a tiny product designed for you. It's a simple and lightweight slide projector that uses a tabletop tripod, aluminum body, and LED light to project your slide film photos.
