2012

Way back in February 2011, Canon announced that it is developing a new EF 200-400 f/4L IS 1.4x super-telephoto lens. Since then, there hasn't been much news on when we might finally see the lens on store shelves, and Canon has issued a couple of press releases stating that it has been delayed. Rumors are now emerging that Canon had to go back to the drawing board with the lens in order to resolve a design flaw that had been reported during tests.

Omote 3D is a new "photo booth" that has popped up in the Harajuku district of Tokyo Japan. A project by creative studio PARTY, the booth differs from any other portrait studio you'll find on Earth: instead of producing 2D portrait photos, it turns subjects' images into small 3D figurines.

Kodak has finally been thrown a lifeline. Yesterday, the beleaguered photography company announced that it had convinced banks to loan it $793 million in order to climb out of bankruptcy by the first half of 2013. The loan agreement comes with one big catch: Kodak must be able to sell its extensive collection of patents for at least half a billion dollars.

Documentary filmmaker and photography enthusiast Matt Morris recently noticed a magazine article about a tintype photographer named Harry Taylor based in his hometown of Wilmington, NC. Having recently gotten engaged, Morris and his fiancée decided to have Taylor shoot their engagement photos using the 150-year-old photo process. They ended up sitting for a 5-hour-portrait session, and Morris was stunned by the results.

Sony Australia is trying its hand at some viral marketing for its mirrorless cameras. The company has created a YouTube account called DSLR Gear No Idea, which contains a number of very short videos that poke fun at clueless DSLR users. The description of the channel reads: …

For his project titled "Bubbles", London-based photographer Jason Tozer photographed soap bubbles in a way that makes them look photos of planets taken from space. Unlike NASA's actual space probe photos, Tozer's images contain wild, psychedelic colors.

Photographer Dominique Vankan wanted to play around with the old Autochrome Lumière process from the early 1900s, so he built himself a custom large format camera using LEGO pieces, cardboard, and duct tape.

Back in September, we shared the first photos snapped by the world's largest and most powerful digital camera: the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera located on a mountaintop in Chile. Reuters recently paid a visit to the massive astro-camera and the scientists behind it, and created the short 2-minute piece above that offers a closer look at the unique piece of camera equipment.

Sean O'Hagan over at The Observer has published an interesting profile of famed NYC street photographer Joel Meyerowitz, who had some pretty harsh things to say about his fellow NYC street shooter, Bruce Gilden.

Samsung's smartphone-esque Galaxy Camera finally has a definite price and launch date. AT&T announced today that it will begin selling the Android-powered camera on November 16, 2012 for $500. The camera comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and can be connected to the Internet via the carrier's 4G mobile network.

Ireland-based portrait photographer Mark Nixon has an interesting project titled "MuchLoved" that features 30 portraits of teddy bears that have been disfigured from years and years of love. The well-worn toys show battle scars of being the prized possessions of children -- cherished companions that have seen many a repair as different parts start wearing down. They may look hideous to our eyes, but each one is beloved by its owner.

Leave it up to Samsung to hold crazy promotions for its mirrorless cameras -- at least in the UK. The company recently offered to give a NX1000 mirrorless camera to anyone named David Bailey; 142 David Baileys came forward to claim their camera. Now the camera maker is doing another unique promo, and this time it's open to the general public: it's giving away tablet computers with its mirrorless cameras.

Photographer Stephen Wilkes has become well-known for his project titled "Day to Night," which features single images of various locations that capture the passing of a day. CBS News recently caught up with Wilkes and aired the feature above. In it, the photographer talks about how the project began and walks through how the composite images are shot and created.

What is street photography? The question is controversial, that's for sure. The first problem arises when trying to define it. According to Wikipedia: …

About a year ago, we shared a neat DIY method of transferring black-and-white photos onto blocks of wood. A very similar technique can be used for displaying your photos on glass. Inspired Ideas writes that all you need are a toner-based print of your photo (e.g. using a copier or laser printer) and some clear contact paper.

In 2009, NYC-based headshot photographer Jordan Matter began photographing professional dancers performing moves in and around New York City for a project titled "Dancers Among Us". When the photographs went viral online, Matter began taking similar photographs in major cities around the world. The photographs show dancers leaping and holding poses in all kinds of environments and situations, from a picnic in the park to workers shoveling snow.

Here's a dissection video for those of you who like photography better than biology. It's a Khan Academy lesson that offers a glimpse into how digital cameras work on the inside. The camera being dissected is a Vivitar V25, a 2.1 megapixel camera that you can pick up for around $18 from places like Walmart. Although it's basically the digital equivalent of a disposable camera, the camera still shares some things in common with higher-end digital cameras. You might be able to learn an …

MyShoebox is a new photo storage and sharing service that has been making a splash after launching a little over a week ago. Its offering is easy to describe: free and unlimited cloud storage for photos that can then be viewed from anywhere. Think of it as a Dropbox dedicated to preserving and enjoying photos.

Zack Arias is a professional photographer based in Atlanta who runs a popular personal blog with a sizable following. He's also runs the photography equivalent of Dear Abby.

The Internet often has a mind of its own when it comes to viral photos, the spread of which is virtually impossible to stop. Safeway, the second largest supermarket chain in North America, found this truth out recently after photos of badly designed cakes made their way online. The company is doing its best to quell the mockery, though: apparently at least one local Safeway bakery has gone so far as to ban photos entirely.

Finland-based photographer Tommy Vikars won this year's GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest with the above photograph, titled "The Stargazer." Vikars writes, …

Subscription-based photo-sharing service SmugMug caused a lot of grumbling back in August by effectively raising raising prices by 67% for Pro members who wanted to retain all of their existing features. Members who didn't want to pay double their membership costs could stay at the same rate but lose their ability to price and sell prints. The story and reaction was strikingly similar to Netflix's poorly-received pricing change enacted earlier this year.

Stacking long-exposure photos of stars leads to some pretty neat photos and time-lapse videos, but what happens if you use a similar technique for clouds? That's what photographer Matt Molloy does. His "photo stack" images of landscapes show clouds that look like smears and brush strokes across the sky.

Flickr has quietly rolled out a great incremental update to its photo-sharing service. Individual photo pages now display a number of EXIF details under a new section labeled "Additional Info", found in the column to the right. With a quick glance, you'll be able to see the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and focal length that a photographer was using when he or she snapped any photo.

Oliver Monroe is a Los Angeles-based photographer who has photographed some of the world's most famous bands and music artists in concert. Visit his website here.

Photographer Patrick Ng has an obsession with natural materials such as wood and leather. Recently, he decided to "woodenize" his beloved Canon F-1n SLR (a professional film SLR released back in 1976). He didn't use a pre-made kit for the conversion, though... Instead, he simply ripped off the faux-leather and replaced it with faux-wood wallpaper.

This past Thursday, a spectacular three-alarm fire consumed the upper floors of a 6-story building in Old Montreal. Photographer Evan Kitaljevich found himself in the right place at the right time, and documented the blaze unintentionally in an uncommon way: through time-lapse photos.

This photo is the greatest sports photo of all time -- at least according to Sports Illustrated. The magazine has published a gallery containing 100 of the greatest images (from an American's perspective), and the #1 image is the above shot of Michael Jordan hitting the game-winning shot to help the Chicago Bulls beat the Utah Jazz and win the 1998 NBA Finals in 6 games.

If you're planning to pick up a $6,500 Hasselblad Lunar mirrorless camera and need a matching USB flash drive to store your photos, you should definitely take a look at the Apophis. It's a high-end flash drive by Polish firm Zana Design that, like the Lunar, is crafted out of rare materials. How rare? Well, one of the ingredients is meteorite.

Belgian-based photographer Frieke Janssens received quite a bit of attention last year for her portrait series showing young children smoking (don't worry, they were faked), and now he's back with another unsettling photography project. This latest one is titled, "Your Last Shot," and consists of portraits of people that will one day be used on their tombstones. Each one is captioned with a name, a birth date, and a dash leading to an unknown date. The photo above is captioned, "Marcia …

Photographers who have been patiently waiting for Adobe to bring Retina-compatibility to Lightroom will be glad to know that support is indeed part of the next update to the popular photo-editing program. In fact, you can download the compatible version already: Adobe has released a Lightroom 4.3 Release Candidate so photographers can help test the app and help squash bug before it becomes an official release.

Here's a clever trick for if you ever need to print out a photo but find your inkjet cartridges low (or dried out): bust out your hair dryer.

Hardware security guru Joe Fitz has successfully hacked the WU-1a wireless mobile adapter to be compatible with the Nikon D800. "Why would anyone want to do this?" you might ask. Well, to get the same features, you could also buy a Nikon UT-1 Communication Unit for $470 and Nikon WT-5A Wireless Transmitter for $580 -- a combined total of $1050. The Nikon WU-1a, designed for the entry-level D3200, costs just $58!

I’ve always been a bit fascinated by digiscoping. For those who are out of the loop, digiscoping involves taking images through a spotting scope rather than a camera lens. The advantages are obvious. A spotting scope provides magnification equivalent to a lens of 1,250 to 3,000mm. Who wouldn’t want that?

Just in case this question ever comes up while you're playing the world's hardest game of photography trivia, what you see above is the first photograph ever snapped in Finland. Mats Söderlund of The Crop Factor writes, …

Metaphysics of an Urban Landscape is an ongoing series of photographs by Milan-based photographer Gabriele Croppi that features high-contrast, black-and-white photographs of major cities around the world. His images often feature a single subject illuminated by a slice of sunlight in front of a background filled with shadows and negative space. His photographs of New York City are especially striking, as a normally chaotic city is turned into a silent play of light and darkness.

Here's a great introductory retouching tutorial by photographer Sara Kiesling, who writes, …

Just a few years ago, Eye-Fi was the only company at the wireless memory card party; now the dance floor's starting to get a bit crowded. Transcend launched its own line of Wi-Fi SD cards yesterday, joining Eye-Fi, SanDisk, Toshiba, and PQI.

Barack Obama broke online photo-sharing records this week after winning Tuesday's presidential election. When his victory became evident, Obama shared the above photograph on his Facebook timeline with the simple caption, "Four more years." That photograph quickly attracted "likes" faster than any other image shared through the social networking service. When it hit more than 2.1 million likes shortly after midnight Wednesday morning, Facebook announced that it had become the most-liked …

Professional photographers are often hired to capture moments in life that are memorable and emotional -- two words that aptly describe military homecomings. The number of photographers hired to shoot homecomings is reportedly growing, as more and more families are hiring professionals to document the reunions that occur when soldiers return from war.

"Non-lieux," or "non-place," is a term coined by French anthropologist Marc Augé in a 1995 book titled, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. It refers to places that lack history and tradition, places that people pass through, places that are solely meant for transactions, places where people are largely anonymous faces, and places that aren't significant enough to be considered "places."

Camera companies are doing their part to help victims of Hurricane Sandy get back on their feet. Here's something that might be great news to some photographers on the East Coast: Sigma is extending its warranty to cover damage caused by the hurricane.

Intellectual Ventures has announced a settlement with Olympus over a patent infringement battle launched against the camera maker back in September 2011. The patent-holding company, one of the top 5 owners of patents in the United States, is infamous for its "patent trolling", or making money simply by licensing patents from companies and then suing other companies for infringement.

Yesterday we featured a photographer's DIY teardown of the Nikon D700, offering a peek at the camera's guts. It was interesting, but a bit outdated since the camera was released back in July 2008. iFixit and Chipworks have just finish their own teardowns of a camera that's much more recent: the Nikon D600 "entry-level" full-frame DSLR.

Since 2005, photographer and photography lecturer Robert Burley has been documenting the demise of film photography through film photographs. He has traveled around the world with his 4x5 field camera in tow, capturing the demolition of buildings, the equipment that once powered a giant industry, and the desolation of factories that were once teeming with workers.

Nanoblock is a plastic building block system that's like a shrunk-down version of LEGO. It has been growing in popularity as of late, and may soon become a fad on the level of Buckyballs. Japanese novelty photo company Fuuvi has partnered up with Nanoblock for a new toy digital camera that can take on all kinds of custom shapes and designs.

Slit-scan imaging can make for some pretty trippy photos and videos. The technique involves capturing (or displaying) one "slit" at a time through a frame, causing motion to take on a bizarre appearance as each line in the image shows a slightly different moment in time. French filmmakers Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne used the technique a couple of years ago for the video above, which makes two dancers look like human Slinkys.

You know those handle-equipped glasses called 'lorgnettes' that were popular among fashionable women in the 19th century? Instead of being fixed to your face, the spectacles were simply held up to your eyes with one hand, and were used mainly for style rather than vision correction. Kenko's new Filter Stick is kinda like that, except for camera lenses instead of booshie eyeballs.

Instagram is playing a bigger and bigger part in helping the public see and understand important events. At the GigaOM RoadMap conference held this past Monday, co-founder Kevin Systrom shared his vision of how Instagram needs to become a "big data company". TechCrunch writes, …

"Half" is a series of studio portraits by London-based photographer Roman Sakovich that explores the devastating effects of drug abuse. The project was created while Sakovich was studying photgoraphy at the Arts University College at Bournemouth in England.