The "flash units" found on the backs of smartphones may be getting more powerful, but the general idea has largely remained the same: use a powerful LED light that can illuminate a scene when you need a little extra light. The power output doesn't really stack up to the flashes found on compact cameras, but Google has one solution for making the flash a bit brighter.
Lomography has announced a brand new line of film called LomoChrome, and the first product is LomoChrome Purple 400. Available in both 35mm and 120 formats, the film allows photographers to shoot infrared-style photographs without any special gear or filters.
Polish photographer Marcin Ryczek captured this gorgeous black-and-white photograph of a man feeding ducks and swans in Kraków, Poland (here's a high-res version of the photo).
Olympus isn't the only camera company toying around with the concept of cheap body cap lenses. At the CP+ show in Japan, Pentax took the wraps off a body cap lens of its own for its Q system line of mirrorless cameras. Officially called the "Mount Cap Lens," the accessory is a pint-sized hyper-focal lens that will reportedly produce toy-camera-style photographs.
In December 2012, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City featured an interactive art installation by Philip Worthington called "Shadow Monsters". The exhibit was created using a computer, a camera, two projectors, a light box, and some clever software. When visitors stepped in front of the light box, their shadows were magically transformed into creatures that were brought to life through sound and animation.
Disappointed that the full-frame Sony RX1 compact camera doesn't come with an optical viewfinder? Don't worry: you can use the camera's hot shoe to attach a sweet/strange-looking universal turret viewfinder! That's how DSLR Magazine customized theirs in a recently published review.
A number of years ago, England-based photographer Dave Miller wanted an at-home darkroom, but didn't have the luxury of converting a spare room in his house into one. He did, however, have a nice garden area that wasn't being used, so he decided to upgrade the grassy area with a shed -- a darkroom shed.
The company formerly known as RIM changed its name to Blackberry yesterday, and launched a new flagship smartphone called the Z10. While the the phone is getting decent marks among reviewers, one weakness is sticking out as a sore thumb: the camera's low-light performance. Gizmodo writes, …
Brighton-based photographer and product designer Maxim Grew recently came up with the idea of building an instant camera out of a Polaroid film holder and a stack of wooden popsicle sticks.
For her projects titled Égarements and Quotidien, French photographer Cerise Doucède creates elaborate scenes by hanging objects from the ceiling, creating swarms that look computer generated but aren't.
Twitter and Dropbox aren't really known as premier destinations for sharing photographs online, but both companies are taking steps toward changing that. Both companies unveiled new features today that are geared toward making photo sharing and viewing through their respective services an easier and more enjoyable experience.
Last week, we pointed you to a piece by the New York Times on how Fujifilm is attempting to kill moiré without killing sharpness by designing its sensors in a way that eschews the traditional anti-aliasing filters used in digital cameras. Photographer Martin Doppelbauer disagrees with Fuji's claims: he has published a piece arguing that, "digital cameras without aliasing filters are cameras with a built-in design flaw": …
French optical filter company Cokin has launched a new line of lens filters under the brand name Pure Harmonie. The new filters are unique in that they're the thinnest and lightest in the world -- the UV filter in the set measures only 3.3mm (~0.13in) thick!
The Brazilian advertising agency Y&R recently came up with an extremely clever series of photographs for Colgate to promote the company's line of Total dental floss. Check out the three couple portraits in the post and see how quickly your eye is drawn to the weirdness.
Reikan Technology, the company behind the FoCal automatic lens calibration tool, tells us that it has released a new web-based tool for researching the performance of camera and lens combinations.
Have you always wanted to see what the world looks like from the top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest manmade structure in the world? Dubai, UAE-based photographer Gerald Donovan was recently given the opportunity of shooting a photograph from the peak of the massive skyscraper. Not just any ol' photograph, mind you, but an immersive 360-degree panorama that makes you feel like you're actually there!
It seems camera companies are trying to target Japanese anime fans these days. In September 2011, we wrote about how Leica had teamed up with the designer of Gundam (not to be confused with Gangnam) for a limited edition mech-themed V-LUX 30 digital camera.
This is probably the most beautiful video you'll see today, this week, and perhaps even this year. Titled "Full Moon Silhouettes," it's a real-time video captured by photographer Mark Gee at Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. Gee writes,
Nikon just overhauled its entire compact/superzoom lineup, so we thought we'd give it a go at a broad overview. New camera models are the Coolpix P520, L820, AW110, S9500, S9400, S5200, and S31; and all of them are trying to compete with your smartphone by offering a mix and match of great zoom, Wi-Fi connectivity and GPS.
There's a new photo sharing app in town called Reactions. That news isn't particularly unique or exciting in itself, but the developer behind the app is rather noteworthy: it's legendary hacker George Hotz (AKA "geohot").
After all of those serious news reports and lens announcements, we thought it would be fun to share something on the whimsical side. You've seen camera lens mugs, now we give you a lens-shaped humidifier that'll keep the dry skin away over the next few months.
Professional photographers have a choice to make: buy a car, put a down payment on a house, or buy Nikon's new 800mm f/5.6 FL ED VR behemoth. Obviously the last one, right? Well, maybe not, but still, this thing is impressive.
Last week, Apple unexpectedly booted 500px's photo sharing app from the iTunes App Store. At the time, Apple said that the issue was the app's ability to search for photos featuring artistic nudity. Since then, reports have also stated that Apple received complaints of child pornography in the App, leading 500px to launch an ultimately unsuccessful search for these images.
Over the past three years, Foodspotting has made a name for itself by using user-generated pictures to help you find the tastiest dish in the vicinity. And even though we've seen an anti-photo movement in upscale restaurants recently, the app clearly still has a lot to offer. We say clearly because reservation company OpenTable just agreed to buy the company for $10M in cash.
It's a big day for lens announcements, and we're not even done yet. Sigma showed MFT and E-mount some love, and now it's Tamron's turn to make mirrorless owners happy. Earlier today, the company officially announced development of its first ever Micro Four Thirds lens: the 14-150mm F/3.5-5.8 Di III VC.
Mother + Daughter is an ongoing series of portraits by North Carolina-based photographer Carra Sykes. Each diptych features one portrait of Sykes and one portrait of her mother, with both women wearing the same clothes and holding the same pose.
Sigma is making camera lovers happy today with the announcement of four new lenses. Well, actually it's one new lens and three new versions of old lenses, but it's good news all the same. All of the new lenses are part of Sigma's sleek ART product line, and were announced today at the CP+ Camera and Photo Imaging Show 2013 in Japan.
Professor Isao Echizen from Tokyo's National Institute of Informatics seems to think that photography and facial tagging are infringing a bit too eagerly on your privacy. So, in a bid to avoid being surveyed (perhaps by the all-seeing eye of the ARGUS-IS) he's designed a pair of anti-photography glasses.
Ever since Canon's new 24-70mm f/2.8L II arrived late last year, lens reviewers around the web have been saying very nice things about its sharpness. DxOMark is the latest tester to do so. Here's what it has to say: …
We've seen Instagram photography on "jewelry" before, but nothing like this. JewelGram is the Kickstarter baby of engineer Gianpiero Riva and jewelry designer Michele Marzotto, and if they get fully funded, we may start seeing high quality Instagram rings and pendents all over the place.
Photographer Brendan Taylor is currently working on an ambitious frankencamera project. He's trying to transfer the innards of a working Sony NEX 5N mirrorless camera into the body of a non-functional Nikon Nikkormat EL 35mm manual SLR.
Jill Conley was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 31. Only six months into her marriage, she and her husband had to go through the horrors of chemo, radiation, a double mastectomy and a problematic reconstruction before she finally entered remission. Now 35, she has been diagnosed with incurable stage 4 bone cancer.
The tech world has been buzzing over the past couple of days about Vine, Twitter's new app that lets you share 6-second video loops through an Instagram-style service. If you've been out of the loop and need a primer on what the difference between Facebook's Instagram and Twitter's Vine is, the above web comic by Willa’s World will bring you up to speed.
It's ironic to the point of being tragic to think that one of the pioneers of digital camera technology was Kodak. Now bankrupt and licensing off their brand to mysterious companies, it's easy to forget that it was Kodak that hit many of the initial milestones where digital imaging is concerned.
Capitol Hill 60 Minute Photo closed its doors at the end of last year. Given the transformation photography has gone through over the past decade, it hardly came as a surprise. At its core, the success, survival, and eventual demise of 60 Minute Photo is just another familiar story of a business fighting against the moving current of technology. It’s closure, however, reveals something important, something personal. It represents a shift in how we create and preserve our memories and a …
What do you get when you combine 368 5MP cellphone cameras into a mosaic and add some other super-secret parts? You get the DARPA-funded Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System (or ARGUS-IS), and this puppy can see your house from, well, wherever it darn well pleases.
My first roll processed and scanned from my new Lomography BelAir X 6-12 puts me in the position to share some notes about the camera that you won’t find elsewhere.
Today is Data Privacy Day, and all of the major social websites have come out to play. Facebook is launching an "Ask Our Chief Privacy Officer" form, Google explained its approach to government requests for information in a blog post, and Twitter launched an entire website dedicated to transparency in all things data privacy related.
Turning a retro satchel bag into a real photographer's bag is quite easy. All you need is an old camera bag (e.g. a LowePro one) with velcro inserts, scissors, super glue, sticky velcro stripes and, of course, time.
Could memory cards and hard drives one day store massive numbers of digital photographs on DNA rather than chips and platters? Possibly, and scientists are trying to make that happen.
One would hope that the medium of photography was immune to racial prejudice, but an exhibit by London-based artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin shows that this was not always the case. The artists' exhibit, on display at Johannesburg's Goodman Gallery, explores the marks that racism left on early color photography.
Photographer Clyde Butcher shoots big photos, and we mean big. He develops large format black-and-white prints that range in size from your standard 8"x10" all the way up to 5x8... feet! This phenomenal photographer's journey and the type of photography he's become famous for are an inspiration to the people out there who want to see the extent to which the medium can be pushed.
It's safe to say that most amateur photographers have wondered at one time or another if they have what it takes to make it in the big leagues. Well, here's their chance to find out, because The New York Times is hosting a professional portfolio review for 150 of the best amateurs courageous enough to send their work in.
Update: Apparently the uploader has now disabled embedding. You can watch the video over on Vimeo.
The photograph above may look like some kind of imaginary scene conjured up by a Photoshop wizard, but it's an actual photograph showing a real model swimming with a real whale shark.
A couple of new photographs of the Olympus XZ-10 high-end compact camera have leaked, revealing that the camera will look pretty similar to the current XZ-2.
Photographer and film professor Cy Kuckenbaker scored a viral hit in December 2012 with a clever video showing five hours of airplane landings condensed into a 30-second composite time-lapse. That video has been viewed more than a million times over the past couple of months.
Here's an interesting photo project idea by Matthew, who tells us that the top photo shows him being held by his father when he was 7 months old, and the bottom photo shows him holding his own 7-month-old son.
Over the last few days, many Instagram and Facebook users received a nasty shock when they were unceremoniously locked out of their accounts. The lock-out was accompanied by a message asking for government-issued proof of ID before being let back in.
You've probably seen chocolate-colored DSLR cameras before, but have you ever seen DSLR-shaped chocolate? The camera above was created by San Francisco-based Etsy seller Hans Chung as a gift for his friends and family. It's a highly detailed solid chocolate replica of a Canon 60D that has a battery grip attached.
