2012

Want to improve the quality of the photos captured using your DSLR's popup flash? Tina (AKA synthetic_meat) discovered that the cardboard box that came with a particular brand of chocolate had a nice silver lining on the inside -- perfect for making a mirrored bounce reflector! After some cutting, scoring, and folding, she came up with a DIY Lightscoop clone that lets you bounce your onboard flash off the ceiling or wall for softer and more appealing images. You can download the free template …

The beautiful light painting photo you see here was created using steel wool (here's a tutorial on the technique). Basically, you fix some steel wool on the end of a rope, set it on fire by rubbing a 9V battery against it, and then swing it around to fling sparks all over the place. While it's becoming a pretty common photo project, it can also be hazardous to your lens' -- and your body's -- health. Jon Beard, the photographer behind this photo, learned the hard way. See that thick yellow line …

National Geographic photographers get to do the coolest things. In this video, photographer Carsten Peter takes us along with him on a journey into Son Doong, the world's largest cave located in Vietnam. The biggest chamber in the cave is over 3 miles long and more than four times taller than the Statue of Liberty.

Photo meme alert: here's a series of humorous images that have been spreading across the Internet like wildfire. They show the differences between what various groups of people think about what photographers do.

For his project titled "Porcelain Figurines", photographer Martin Klimas dropped various porcelain figurines onto the ground from a height of 3 meters and set up a camera to capture photos triggered by the sound of the crash. The result are razor-sharp images of exploding figurines frozen in time -- "temporary sculptures made visible to the human eye by high-speed photography".

Toys are getting fancier and cameras are getting weirder. Mattel is set to launch a new camera barbie called Barbie Photo Fashion that'll upgrade many a dollhouse with a human-shaped 5-megapixel digital camera. Unlike the soon-to-be-outdated Video Girl Barbie and its chest-cam, this new photography doll features a camera built into her back with the LCD screen moved to her frontside. She can store 100 photos, features a mini USB port on her lower back, and comes with 15 built-in photo "filters" …

Here's an interesting 12-minute video that offers one explanation into how the world of art works. Even if you don't agree with the philosophy and worldview described in the video, it's still an eye-opening tour of the different things that influence and power the mysterious world of art.

Pet photographer Seth Casteel of LittleFriendsPhoto captures hilarious underwater portraits of dogs as they jump into a swimming pool to fetch balls and toys.

Devin Coldewey of TechCrunch created this helpful diagram showing the relative sizes of various sensors, including the one found inside the Lytro light field camera (a camera that lets you focus after shots are taken). The FCC published photos of the Lytro camera's guts last week, revealing that the sensor inside is roughly 6.5×4.5mm (smaller than our previous estimate). This means that it's slightly larger than the iPhone sensor and slightly smaller than the one in most point-and-shoot …

This powerful photograph by photographer Samuel Aranda was introduced today as the World Press Photo of the Year 2012. The description reads, …

After discovering his photograph used without permission on The Telegraph's website, photographer Jonathan Kent contacted the newspaper asking to be compensated for the unauthorized use. He then received an email from deputy picture editor Matthew Fearn, who defended the newspaper's actions, stating, …

Captured on April 1, 1995 by the Hubble Telescope, the photograph Pillars of Creation is one of the most famous space images ever made. Here's a crazy fact though: did you know that the "pillars" seen in the photo were already long gone by the time the image was captured? Astronomers have concluded that the pillars -- which measure up to 4 light years in length -- were destroyed about 6,000 years ago by the shock wave from a supernova. Because of how long it takes light to travel across such …

Photography author Ben Long has a thought-provoking article over at CreativePro in which he argues that "all photos are manipulated" and that "there is no such thing as absolute truth in photography": …

Starting in 2001, photographer Mary Mattingly has created an image every year on the winter solstice -- the day of the year when daylight is shortest -- showing the first light of the day and the last light of the day blended into a single photo. The series is called "First Light / Last Light".

For those of you who are interested in the fine art of studio lighting, here's a video in which American celebrity photographer George Holz talks about how he went about photographing Beyonce for the cover of Spin magazine.

It's not uncommon to see photographs printed onto clothing, but Milan-based Marios' new Nowhere summer collection takes it to a whole new level. Many of the pieces in the collection feature landscape photographs printed across the entire garment.

Fujifilm announced back in January at CES that it was working on an M-mount adapter for the X-Pro1, a camera that looks strikingly similar to Leica's digital rangefinders. The company is now showing off the adapter at the CP+ trade show in Japan. Leica film aficionados who want to play around with digital in style can now choose between paying $1700 for the X-Pro1 or $6000-$7000 for the Leica M8 or Leica M9.

Want to inform someone of their right to take pictures in the US? Just share this short cartoon created by the ACLU, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and The Gregory Brothers. It features Benjamin Franklin's ghost, who sings about the various things you're legally allowed to do without being harassed by law enforcement.

After NASA published its latest jaw-dropping "Blue Marble" photograph of Earth last month, many of you wondered how "real" the image was. Here's NASA's explanation on how their images are created: …

Here's a sweet DIY project idea by Brittany Morin that's perfect for that special day that's right around the corner: scratch-off cards made from Polaroid pictures! Basically all you need is some acrylic paint and some dish soap. Mix the two together with a ratio of one part soap for every two parts paint and you'll have yourself some scratch-able paint!

Cloud-based photo hosting service Snapjoy launched a clever web app (and marketing ploy) yesterday called Flickraft that made it easy for Flickr users to rescue their photos "from a sinking ship". With just a few clicks, the app would import a user's entire collection of Flickr photos over to Snapjoy using the Flickr API. The response was overwhelming: in just two hours, Flickr users had exported over 250,000 photos from their accounts. The app became so popular that Flickr disabled the API key …

Photographer and makeup artist Nadia Wicker has a beautiful series of abstract photographs titled Ursides in which she captures self-portraits in which her face looks like exploding fireworks. While her method is secret, Wicker says that she uses her experience with makeup -- rather than Photoshop -- to create the photos.

This is your standard kit lens that comes with most entry-level DSLRs from Canon. It does an okay job for most things, but here's how to make it better.

Shocking news: Kodak, the company that invented the first digital camera back in 1975, announced today that it is pulling out of the camera market entirely. The phasing out of digital cameras, pocket video cameras, and digital picture frames will likely happen by the end of June. Instead, the company will be focusing on licensing out its patents and brand name (much like Polaroid does), and on inkjet photo printing. Although Kodak wasn't a big player in the digital camera space, it was once a …

When Sigma released its SD1 DSLR with its fancy Foveon sensor last year, many photographers balked at the camera's $9,700 price tag. Now, perhaps due to the launch of a new generation of Canon and Nikon DSLRs, Sigma is rethinking the camera's price. In a press release put out today, the company announced that the camera will be re-launched the Sigma SD1 Merrill -- named in honor of Foveon co-creator Richard “Dick” Merrill.

Adobe's cloud-based subscription program, called Creative Cloud, now has a price tag: $50/month with a minimum one-year agreement. Subscribing will get you access to the latest version of Adobe's popular programs (e.g. CS6 and Lightroom 4) without the pain of shelling out big bucks for buying the boxed version and subsequent upgrades. In addition to receiving updates to the programs as soon as they're released, you'll also be given 20GB of cloud storage that can be used for syncing your work.

There comes a point where your obsession with photography becomes a problem for those around you.

Metropolis is a project by photographer Martin Roemers that consists of long exposure photographs that show the bustle and chaos of large cities.

Less than a week ago we featured a viral video called "Sh*t Photographers Say", which poked fun at the various clichéd expressions commonly uttered by photographers. Now here's a humorous video by Bernie Kale about the other end of the lens: a compilations of things non-photographers say to photographers.

Today Olympus finally announced its OM-series Micro Four Thirds camera, the OM-D E-M5. In chrome and without a battery grip, the camera actually looks a lot better than the leaked images we saw a couple days ago. Styled like an old school SLR, the E-M5 is a 16-megapixel camera with blazing 9fps continuous shooting, RAW capabilities, weatherproofing, 1080i video recording, the "world's fastest autofocus" on any camera, 5-axis image stabilization, a 3-inch tilting LCD screen, an ISO range of …

Anna Franz, a researcher at the the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford, has won Nikon's first annual Small World in Motion competition with an amazing video that shows the beating heart and blood vessels of a 72-hour-old chick embryo. Franz cut a window into an egg to expose the embryo, and then carefully injected ink into the yolk sac artery in order to visualize the beating heart and the vasculature of the embryo.

Photographer Kenneth Jarecke has written up an interesting article on how Internet culture is hindering the development of people who want to get better at photography: …

Back in 2010, we shared that Facebook had a zombie photo problem: a test photo that we deleted from the service in October was still accessible for four or five months. Ars Technica has been following up on the issue, and reports that a fix is on the horizon: …

SYNC is a creative short film that tells a love story with a "backward world" twist. It was filmed an original iPhone 4 (not the 4S), a Steadicam Smoothee, and a crew of 4 people.

Want to see how far DSLRs have come in the past decade? Lee Morris of Fstoppers published these two photos taken at Super Bowl halftime shows. The crop on the left was captured in 2001, possibly with the Nikon D1H at 2.7 megapixels and ISO 800 (state of the art specs at the time). The slice on the right was from this past weekend, and was shot with a Nikon D3s at 12MP and ISO 12,800.

You've likely seen plenty of images of giant waves from above the surface of the water, but have you ever seen what it's like to pass under a wave? Photographer Mark Tipple has an amazing project called "The Underwater Project" in which he captures epic photographs of swimmers diving deep in order to survive passing waves, which look like ominous storm clouds rolling overhead.

After images started leaking last night, Canon today officially announced three new lenses for the EF lineup: the 24-70mm f/2.8L II, 24mm f/2.8 IS, and 28mm f/2.8 IS. Compared to the first version, the new 24-70mm weighs 100 grams less (it's 850g), costs $1,000 more, still doesn't offer IS, uses 82mm filters (instead of 77mm), extends at the telephoto end (instead of the wide end like the previous version), features a zoom lock, and connects with the hood at the extension. As we noted …

For his project Life on the Edge, Detroit-based photographer Dennis Maitland seeks out high locations for vertigo-inducing shots of his feet dangling off the edges. Rather than use a remote shutter release, he captures all his photographs by hand. Once an acrophobe, Maitland now craves the adrenaline that comes from doing his photography.

The months of rumors and speculation are finally over: Nikon has announced its long-awaited D800 FX-format DSLR. As was revealed back in October 2011, the camera offers a staggering 36.3-megapixels -- the world's highest in a 35mm DSLR. Other specs include an ISO range of 100-6400 (expandable to 25,600), 91k RGB 3D color metering, a speedy 51-point AF system, a 3.2-inch LCD screen, 4fps continuous shooting (5fps for DX shots), 1080/30p HD video recording, and... in-camera two-shot HDR.

This is the first photo of Canon's upcoming 24-70mm f/2.8L II, the followup to an extremely popular and well-regarded lens. It'll weigh less than the first version (which is nicknamed "The Brick") and have a 82mm filter thread (up from 77mm), but -- to the dismay of Canonites everywhere -- won't have Image Stabilization. No word on availability, but Canon Rumors thinks it'll be priced between $1,800 and $1,900 when it hits store shelves.

Here's a first look at two lenses Canon has up its sleeve: the new Canon 24mm f/2.8 IS USM and Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 IS USM. It looks like Canon is making an effort to bring image stabilization to cheaper and wider prime lenses. Currently the "widest" Canon prime lens with image stabilization is the Canon 100mm f/2.8L IS USM. These would also be the first non-L series prime lenses to offer IS. Price and release date for both are currently unknown.

Swedish photographer Göran Strand created this amazing "little planet" photo (AKA a stereographic projection) that shows the Aurora Borealis overhead. He titled it "Planet Aurora".

Last week we reported that the Sacramento Bee had suspended one of its photographers for splicing together a photo of egrets. After some further investigation into Bryan Patrick's body of work, the newspaper discovered two more photos that had been Photoshopped. It immediately fired Patrick and published a notice: …

A funny photography-related remix of a well-known Dueling Analogs comic.

Remember the hoopla last year after artist/programmer Kyle McDonald installed an app on Apple store computers to secretly snap portraits of customers? Outcries of "invasion of privacy" sprang up everywhere, and Apple got the Secret Service involved in putting an end to it. Well, photographer Irby Pace has done something similar, but instead of secretly capturing images, Pace simply visits Apple Stores and harvests self-portraits "abandoned" on the devices. Pace collected over 1,000 images in …

Photographer Brock Davis likes playing with food. Among his food related experiments are recreations of famous explosions done with cauliflower. The image above shows the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

Destin of Smarter Every Day made this helpful video in which he and his daughter explain the basics of light painting and digital camera sensors using "super simple speak".

Malaysian photographer Peiling Lee captures beautiful, dreamlike macro photographs of tiny critters she finds in her garden. She uses a Canon 50D and a 100mm Macro lens. Her work reminds us of Nadav Bagim's Wonderland project that we shared last year.

Here's a disturbing video called "If You See Something, Film Something" that shows why it's important that citizens have the right to turn cameras on the activities of police officers without being stopped or harassed: …

Here are the first full photographs of Olympus' new OM-D series Micro Four Thirds camera, the EM-5 (with an optional battery grip attached). The images were published to Amazon Japan before quickly being taken down. The camera is expected to become official on Wednesday, so we'll have a full spec list in a couple days.