2012

There are plenty of presets out there that attempt to make your digital images look like they were shot with film, but VSCO Film by Visual Supply Co is different: it's a Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW add-on that uses film profiles to change how the RAW files are interpreted rather than simply perform standard adjustments on the images. The video introduction above shows some examples of what the various options can do. This patent-pending method of film emulation doesn't come cheap -- it costs …

B&H is one of the most popular retailers in the photo world, but most customers haven't set foot inside the physical superstore in New York City, one of the largest photo stores in the world. If you've been wondering what it looks like on the inside, you can take a virtual tour through Google Street View (click the arrow pointing into the building). Starting late last year, Street View started including imagery of the inside of some buildings in addition to its street-level views.

For his project Lightscapes by photographer James Reeve photographed cities at night, and then stripped away everything but the lights and windows. The technique turns both buildings and cityscapes into "anonymous patterns of light".

Swedish artist Sanna Dullaway recently started a business in which she restores and colorizes old black and white photographs. To show off her skills, she decided to colorize some famous B&W photographs captured throughout history.

YouTube member MJRecession came up with the idea of placing a digital camera onto the conveyor belt a sushi restaurant in Japan to record candid portraits of the other patrons in the restaurant. It'd be interesting to see this same thing done at sushi bars around the world to see how different cultures would react.

Some spec rumors for the Olympus OM-D camera that we wrote about yesterday are starting to emerge. The retro-styled, weather-sealed magnesium body will reportedly resemble classic OM series film SLR cameras, and will be available in both black and silver. Rather than have a pentaprism like an actual SLR, the 16MP camera will feature a 1.44M dot electronic viewfinder. It'll be 121mm wide, and will weigh 425g. The release date is rumored to be sometime in late March 2012.

A young woman living in Los Angeles named Madeline did a 365 day project that's a bit different than most: instead of taking a picture a day, she decided to document each day with roughly one second of footage. At the conclusion of 2011, she combined all 365 video clips into this beautiful 7-minute-long video that offers a glimpse into what her year was like.

Candidtag is a new service designed to make it easy to earn a little cash by photographing strangers you meet out in public. The idea is that there are people (e.g. tourists) out there who are too busy enjoying their lives to carry a camera around, but at the same time would like memories of their experiences. If you always carry your camera around, you can offer to take pictures for strangers and then give them a card pointing them to your Candidtag "collection". The client can later visit the …

City Silhouettes is a beautiful project by Beijing-based photographer Jasper James that consists of portraits of city dwellers blended with the cityscapes in the background. There's no Photoshop trickery involved -- James uses reflections seen in glass and the images are composed entirely in-camera.

Apparently there's a camera shop in Houston, Texas called Houston Camera Exchange that's taking preorders for the upcoming -- but yet unannounced -- Nikon D800 for $2,699.99. While photos and specs of the 36MP camera have been leaking for some time now, there hasn't been much information about the camera's price.

A clever little stop-motion video that shows what baking would be like if you could do it in Photoshop. Unlike with photos, it'd probably be wise to steer clear of the Burn Tool.

There might be a giant corporate scandal hovering over its head, but that's not stopping Olympus from planning big things for its digital camera lineup. The company has placed a giant full page advertisement in Amateur Photographer magazine with the headline "OH MY GOODNESS!". 43 Rumors is reporting that the company will be announcing a new Micro Four Thirds camera around February 8th that's part of the 40-year-old OM camera lineup -- in other words, a digital mirrorless camera that's …

Now here's a bizarre fusion of photography, food, and functionality: the Photorito Lens Wrap is a new protective lens wrap that's not just inspired by the burrito -- it looks like one too! The one-size-fits-all wrap can help you safely transport lenses from 24mm to 200mm, and is made from waterproof Tyvek and neoprene. They cost $15 $20 each over at Photojojo.

At the end of last year a new format called XQD was unveiled as the eventual replacement for CompactFlash. About a month later at CES 2012, Sony announced the first XQD cards. If you're not sold on the new format, here's some good news for you: Lexar and SanDisk have both announced that they have no plans to release XQD cards in the near future and that they're both committed to the CompactFlash format (a bit strange though, given that SanDisk was one of the companies that announced XQD in …

French artist Philippe Ramette captures surreal self-portraits in which he appears to be defying gravity. Rather than use digital trickery, Ramette -- who started his career as a sculptor -- builds metal support structures that allow him to stand or sit at impossible angles.

The Economist has a fascinating piece looking at the similarities and differences between Kodak and Fujifilm, two juggernauts of film photography that took different paths when digital photography came around: …

Industrial design student Hunter Frerich came up with a simple and cheap DIY beauty dish that's created using fabric, foil, velcro, and glue. To make your own, simply download and print out the template and follow the step-by-step instructions.

Last year Levi's teamed up with Hong Kong magazine New Monday on an exclusive denim camera strap that was included for free with an issue of the magazine. The strap was produced with the same materials used to manufacture Levi's jeans and came in both red and black. You can find the straps for sale on eBay for around $20-$30.

Reuters is reporting that US-based investment firm TPG Capital has expressed interest in pouring $1 billion into Olympus in a joint deal, and has notified other possible suitors including Sony, Canon, Fujifilm, and Panasonic.

Similar to the centenarian portraits we shared earlier today, here's a beautiful video with moving portraits (both literally and figuratively) of elderly people by photographer Simon Biswas. The piece is titled "The Light of Day".

There's some shady business going on at CES 2012 in Vegas. Sigma has announced that one of the lenses it unveiled at the trade show this year, the 180mm f/2.8 macro lens, disappeared after being unveiled on Tuesday. The lens is believed to be one of only two pre-production models that exist.

Reflections is a series of photographs by New York-based fine art photographer Ira Fox. Shot through the reflections seen in puddles on their ground, they show shadows of passers-by as they cross paths with Fox on a rainy day.

The T-Bike is a concept bicycle by designer Reza Rachmat Sumirat that's inspired by the camera tripod. In addition to having three sliding bars that can help riders easily adjust the bike to their desired size, the bike also doubles as a tripod for active outdoor photographers. The handlebars provide a tripod mount, and the kickstand on the front wheel helps stabilize the shot.

The final nail in the Kodachrome coffin came at the end of 2010 when the last lab that processed the film, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, ceased its support. In Kodachrome's final years, every roll sent to Kodak for processing from around the world was sent to Dwayne's. This mini-documentary created by Xander Robin offers an interesting glimpse into Kodakchrome processing at Dwayne's Photo before it came to an end.

For his project titled Jahrhundertmensch, German photographer Karsten Thormaehlen shot portraits of elderly men and women who have reached the ripe old age of 100, also known as a "centenarian". In 2009, the UN estimated that there are only about 455,000 centenarians in the world.

Adobe caused a stir last November after changing its upgrade policy to only cover one version back instead of three. This meant that only Photoshop CS5 owners would qualify for the upgrade price on CS6 when it's launched, leaving CS3 and CS4 owners the not-so-nice option of buying the CS5 upgrade before buying the CS6 one. Perhaps in response to the angry customer response, Adobe announced a "special offer" for CS3 and CS4 owners today: …

TIME magazine named "The Protester" as its "Person of the Year" last year. This behind-the-scenes video shows how photographer Peter Hapak traveled around to seven different countries to capture portraits of protestors for the story. The resulting photographs can be viewed here.

Photographer Pep Ventosa made these abstract composite images of carousels in various amusement parks around the world by photographing them from multiple angles and then blending the photographs together.

Canon's latest compact cameras at CES this year have some fancy new facial recognition features that assist in portrait shots. Up to 12 people can be stored in the camera. Simply snap a photo of your friends face, provide the friend's name (and birthday if you wish), and the camera will recognize your friend from that point forward. In group shots, the camera will give your friends' faces preferential treatment, making sure that they're properly in focus and exposed.

Reminiscent of the Fatescapes series we featured recently, LIVE ! is an ongoing project by Hatim el Hihi and Jean-Marie Delbes in which they post classic album covers that have had deceased band members carefully Photoshopped out of them.

CNNMoney has an interesting article on how the Kodak brand will likely survive even if the company itself declares bankruptcy: …

Casio is showing off a crazy 2D to 3D conversion service at CES that turns ordinary photographs into three-dimensional sculptures. The service takes a photograph, calculates depth using some fancy technology, and then prints out the result using a proprietary 3D printer. The examples they're showing off aren't too flattering though -- the dog and cat sample photos were turned into sculptures that look like transdimensional taxidermy.

Fujifilm claims that the sensor in its new X-Pro1 mirrorless camera system beats DSLR sensors (both crop and full frame) in resolution and signal/noise ratio. To give salivating photographers a taste of the camera's image quality, the company has released 9 full-resolution JPEG images shot at different settings and focal lengths. The photo above was captured at ISO 1600 (check out the full-res here). They also provide a glimpse into the camera's film simulation mode, as each one was shot in …

If you've always wanted your own military-grade portable darkroom, today's your lucky day! There's a used US Army one for sale on eBay with the starting price of $4,500. The 4,500LB shelter contains 3 rooms with 614 cubic feet of space, and comes with all the darkroom equipment you need, including a fridge, film drying cabinet, film processors, sink, storage spaces, and an escape door! It even packs its own temperate water control system and heating/AC unit. You can find more photos here.

Art director Sean Ohlenkamp, his wife Lisa, and an army of volunteers spent many sleepless nights at Type Books in Toronto, Canada moving, stacking, and photographing books. The result was this beautiful stop-motion video showing books coming to life at night.

Kodak might be on its deathbed, but that's not stopping the company from launching a new volley of lawsuits over patent infringements. Already trying to milk $1 billion from Apple, the company has filed new lawsuits against smartphone makers Apple and HTC, alleging that Apple violated four of its patents and HTC five. The lawsuits center around technology for transferring photos on and off devices. While today's lawsuits might simply be a creative marketing effort in Kodak's attempt to sell off …

This is what the new Nikon D4 looks like when stripped down to its rugged magnesium alloy frame.

Smartphones are constantly getting better at imitating compact cameras, but so far we haven't seen many cameras that attempt to mimic smartphones. That changes today with the Polaroid SC1630 Smart Camera, a 16-megapixel compact camera unveiled at CES. It's a point-and-shoot camera that's pretty much a smartphone without the phone. Powered by Android, the camera features a 3x (36-108mmm) optical zoom lens, a 3.2-inch touchscreen, Wi-Fi connectivity, 720p video recording, and geotagging. The …

Japanese photographer Mariko Sakaguchi has a curious self-portrait series in which she photographs herself sitting in a bathtub in all kinds of random locations, which range from business offices to lecture halls.

So this was the first sunset I captured in 2012. It cost me $6,612 to take this photo.

Adobe released a beta version of Lightroom 4 today. New features include support for location data through a map module, book making through Blurb, new video features, new shadow/highlight controls, simplified basic adjustments, new local adjustments, and space saving lossy compression for DNG files. You can find a complete list of changes here. You can downloaded the program for free and use it until the beta version expires on March 31st, 2012.

dpreview has published an in-depth hands-on preview of the new Fujifilm X-Pro1. The image above shows the camera next to a Leica M9-P digital rangefinder, which costs about $8,000 -- body only.

Filmmaker Jesse Rosten created this satirical commercial for Fotoshop by Adobé with the tagline "This commercial isn't real, neither are society's standards of beauty." It's a humorous response to how the beauty industry has distorted our society's perception of beauty through ubiquitous Photoshopping. The video may or may not be work safe, depending on where you work.

With camera-equipped phones eating up more and more of the compact camera market, manufacturers are turning to gimmicky features in order to lure consumers. Canon's new line of ELPH cameras have a Sleeping Face Recognition mode that'll make your camera creepy stealthy (i.e. turn off flash, assist beam, and sounds) when it detects someone sleeping in the frame. Olympus' new VR-340 has a Beauty Make-Up Mode that offers 18 in-camera enhancements (e.g. whiten teeth, lift cheek bones) -- something …

Here's something that might give you a chuckle (or be too painfully accurate for some of you): Visual Idiot created a web-based Adobe Photoshop simulator that attempts to faithfully reproduce how the program works in Mac OS X.

Walter Mason of Berlin, Germany shot these beautiful photographs of land art he created. Land art is abstract artwork created using natural materials found outdoors.

Here's a hands-on tour of the new Fujifilm X-Pro1 that was announced yesterday -- a gorgeous camera that has the photo world buzzing with excitement. There's been a lot of speculation on the camera's price, which hasn't been announced, with most sources reporting that it will be in the range of $1,600-$1,700.

If you saw any of these images on the back of your digital camera after snapping a photograph, you'd probably want to get the camera checked out. Phillip Stearns, on the other hand, feels a sense of accomplishment. The Brooklyn-based shutterbug has a project called Year of the Glitch in which he publishes electronic glitches as art.

Farmlands might look pretty ordinary from ground level, but photograph crop fields from space (or even from an airplane) and you'll see strange and beautiful patterns.

Pretty much everything we wanted to know about the Fujifilm X-Pro1 was leaked over the weekend, but now the camera finally transitioned from the world of rumors into official reality. Fujifilm unveiled the X-Pro1 at CES today, and confirmed the leaked specs. They also announced plans to release 9 additional lenses within the next three years. Sadly, the usefulness of the official announcement ends there -- there was no word on how much things will cost when they become available late February …