April 2013

Jump to articles by year, month, or day.

Year
Month
Day

Year alone opens that year’s archive. Add a month or day to narrow it.

Creative Market Launches PS Extension, Lets You Buy Your Assets In-App

Following on the heels of a similar announcement by Adobe itself, design marketplace Creative Market has announced that it too has set up an in-app marketplace for Photoshop users. Out now, Creative Market's Photoshop extension allows users to browse and buy from the company's massive catalog of templates, fonts, infographics and more without ever leaving the comfort of Photoshop.

500px Upgrades Portfolios, Adds Features and Hikes Prices

Earlier today, online photo community and Flickr competitor 500px announced that it would be releasing an overhauled portfolio system very soon. Rebuilt from the ground up, the new system offers a slew of features that 500px "Awesome" users will be able to take advantage of in order to build online portfolios they're proud of.

Super Colour: Exploring the Play Between Color, Light, Motion and Emotion

By his own admission, photographer Andrew McGibbon doesn't like using natural light. It's not that there's anything wrong with shooting natural light -- he's done it before when the situation called for it -- it's just that he prefers the wow factor that he knows he can get by experimenting with crazy lighting setups.

Immersive 360° Panorama Timelapse Lets You Experience the Aurora Borealis

If you've always wanted to feast your eyes on the aurora borealis but haven't had the time or the money to travel to areas of the world where the light display occurs, photographer Göran Strand has a treat for you. He has created an immersive 360-degree panorama using time-lapse photographs shot during a particularly active aurora. The video lets you pan around in the scene, offering a small taste of what experiencing the northern lights feels like.

This LEGO DSLR Comes with a Flexible Strap and External Flash

If you thought the LEGO Nikon F SLR we shared earlier this week was neat, check out this LEGO DSLR created by Taiwanese LEGO enthusiast RGB900. The realistic toy camera is created entirely out of various LEGO pieces, and features an external hotshoe-mounted flash unit and a flexible camera strap!

Man Attacked and Killed by the Beaver He Was Trying to Photograph

When snapping pictures of wild animals in the great outdoors, there are some animals that photographers generally know to be careful around. These include creatures that are massive (e.g. moose, elephants), anything at the top of the food chain (e.g. lions, tigers, bears), and anything venomous (e.g. snakes). Well, you might also want to add the beaver to that mental list of yours.

Hink Says Its Spacefish Flashgun Will Be “Modular with a British Voice Inside”

I recently sat down with the founders of Hink, the British startup that wants to take the photographic lighting industry by storm. The company — based in Bedford — has been running a teaser campaign since March for their mysterious first product, the “Spacefish” flashgun, which is due to be unveiled and released this summer.

Secretbook App Lets You Share Secret Messages Through Facebook Photos

Steganography is the art of passing secret messages in a way that most observers wouldn't detect even though the message is in plain view. Unlike cryptography, which attempts to transmit messages as nonsense, steganography uses security through obscurity, relying on the fact that most people aren't looking for secret messages in ordinary things. Passing notes in invisible ink would be one example.

Radical New Concept Hyper-Simplifies the Camera as We Know It

When BBC Future approached design company Conran with a challenge to "redesign any object," Senior Product Designer Jared Mankelow chose the camera. He believes that the form factor of our cameras hasn't kept pace with their function, and so his square creation harkens back to the film cameras of old, while simultaneously catapulting the camera into the future.

New Vermont Bill Would Make it Illegal to Photograph Anybody Without Consent

A short form bill was recently introduced into the Vermont House of Representatives that ought to have photographers curious, if not worried. That's because this particular bill seeks to "make it illegal to [photograph] a person without his or her consent ... and distribute it," essentially outlawing most forms of public photography.

Man Asks Strangers If He Can Instagram the Food They’re Eating

One of the stereotypes that has become associated with Instagram users (and smartphone shooters in general) is that they're obsessed with snapping photos of their food. YouTube channel Hungry decided to see how people would react when this obsession is taken too far. They sent a Instagram photographer to random strangers and had him ask if he could photograph their food. Cameras were placed nearby to document their reactions to the strange request.

An Introduction to Playing with Ultraviolet Fluorescence in Photographs

Ultraviolet fluorescence is a mechanism in which UV radiation excites chemicals in an object and causes them to release visible light. There are many household objects which fluoresce, such as some washing detergents (anything that ‘makes your whites whiter), soda water (it contains a chemical called quinine which makes it taste bitter, and also causes the fluorescence), the dyes found in highlighters, the bacteria found on the face (which cause spots and acne), bodily fluids (including …

Couple Travels 135,000 Miles Over 5 Years for Wedding Dress Portraits

Photographer Jeff Salvage and his wife Jennifer got married back in 2008 near a volcano crater on Easter Island. While they were there, Salvage had his new wife wear her wedding dress for three photo shoots in various locations and at various times. Those shoots sparked a photo project idea that would take the two on an adventure around the world.

Was There Then: The Importance of Dates in Understanding Photography

Put your name and date on everything. That's the first lesson every kindergartener learns in school. Drawings, writing, scratch marks, pinecone Santas, they all get labeled. Kids are taught to do this because name and date are essential in understanding any piece of content. And hopefully it's a habit that remains with them for life. If that pinecone Santa ever makes it into a retrospective, viewers are going to want to know who made it. And more importantly, when.

Commuter Uses Newspaper Photobombs to Liven Up a Boring Ride to Work

The New York Daily News reports that an anonymous commuter has decided to improve his boring ride to work everyday in a very unique way: newspaper photobombs. The paper won't reveal who the photographer behind the pics is, but he or she has made quite a splash using forced perspective photography to make fellow commuters look downright hilarious.

Massive Photo Collage Creatively Depicts Every Street Sign in Manhattan

Photographer Jacob Kedzierski first came up with the idea to create a street sign collage eight years ago while riding a bike around the streets of his hometown of North Tonawanda, NY. After completing that project and moving to New York City, the idea for a Manhattan version crossed his mind several times, but he was never ready to commit to the amount of work it would take to actually get it done.

Canon Introduces a Virtual DSLR Website to Help Beginners Learn the Basics

If you're just starting out in photography, there are a lot of resources out there to help you understand the basics before you just jump in. And while books and videos are certainly helpful, one of the more fun ways to learn your way around a camera is by using an online DSLR simulator. We've shared one with you before, and now Canon Canada has released a simulator website of its own dubbed Outside of Auto.

Breathtaking Time-Lapse Shot Over Six Months on New Zealand’s North Island

This time-lapse, shot by photographer Bevan Percival on New Zealand's North Island, has to be one of the most beautiful we've ever shared. Shot over the course of six months using a Canon 5D Mark II, various lenses, and a Dynamic Perception 6' Stage Zero motorized dolly, it will keep your eyes glued to the screen all five minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

Could Google Glass Work as a Tool For Street Photography?

Google Glass has received a lot of criticism, particularly when it comes to privacy. Given the fact you can record video and take photos without people noticing, some could call it an opportunity for taking photos without permission. Now, in my spare time, I take photos with a particular interest in is Street Photography. Candid street photography is taking photos of any stranger without permission. Why is there this controversy over Glass when candid photography without permission is a growing …

Scientists May Do Quantum Entanglement Test with a 400mm Nikon Lens on the ISS

Albert Einstein once described quantum entanglement as "spooky action at distance." The basic idea behind it is that certain things (e.g. particles, molecules) can interact with each other instantly (or nearly instantly) regardless of how far apart they are. For example, pairs of photons can affect one another when separated by vast distances, with the effects occurring even faster than light could have traveled between the two points.

Jeremy Lock: The Chuck Norris of Military Photography

Every year since 1960, the government has held a Military Photographer of the Year competition to highlight the best images created by photographers in uniform. US Air Force Master Sergeant Jeremy "JT" Lock has won the award a staggering seven times. No other military photographer has come close to that.

A Glimpse at Where Camera Gear is Kept on the International Space Station

If you're a photography enthusiast and ever have the good fortune of finding yourself floating around on the International Space Station, here are two words you should know: service module. Formally called the "Zvezda Service Module," it's the component of the ISS that houses all of the station's life support systems, and is where the astronauts gather if there is any kind of emergency. But here's the main reason you'll want to pay the module visit: the fancy camera equipment used by the …

The Nikon F SLR Recreated with LEGO

Check out this highly realistic life-sized SLR camera created entirely out of LEGOs. It was created by a LEGO enthusiast named Suzuki and is modeled after the Nikon F from the mid-1900s. We've featured a number of LEGO camera creations here in the past, and this one ranks at (or near) the top in terms of realism.

Long Distance Laser Cam Creates Precise 3D Images from Half a Mile Away

A team of researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have developed a new laser camera system that can take extremely precise 3D depth scan images from up to a kilometer away (0.62 miles). An impressive advancement in laser imaging, the camera uses a low power infrared laser beam to create 3D images precise to the millimeter.

Create a Gorgeous Hyperlapse Video with Google Street View Photographs

Hyperlapse photography involves shooting a series of photographs over large distances and then stringing the photos together into a time-lapse video that zooms the viewer through the locations. Creating a real hyperlapse involves quite a bit of work, so the folks over at Teehan+Lax Labs decided to go virtual by turning to Google Street View to source the necessary photos.

Colorful Long Exposure Photos of Glow Sticks Dropped Into Waterfalls

Photographers Sean Lenz and Kristoffer Abildgaard of From the Lenz have come up with a brilliant light painting concept that produces gorgeous results. For their project titled Neon Luminance, they dropped glow sticks into waterfalls and then used long exposures to capture the bright and colorful trails as the sticks were carried down stream.

How to Have Your DSLR Shots Published to the Web Instantly While On the Go

In the video above, I'm shooting with a DSLR (a Canon 6D in this case) and everytime I snap off a shot it goes instantly to a web gallery... from the road anywhere. I got the idea while contemplating doing live video streaming for the first time this year. Not wanting to mess with another camera as I stormchase, I thought, it'd be cool to do the same thing but have the live page be for DSLR photographs.

Rumor: Fujifilm X-Pro2 May Arrive in June Sporting Dual Processors

The popular Fujifilm X-Pro1 came out over a year ago, meaning that rumors of a replacement are starting to pick up some serious speed. According to Nippon Magazine, the company has three new cameras in the works for this year, with release dates ranging from this month to September, and one of those cameras is the X-Pro2.

Underwater Volcano Photo Wins NASA’s March Madness-style Photo Tourney

March Madness 2013 came to a thrilling end yesterday with Louisville beating Michigan in the college men's basketball national championship game. Another (less publicized) tournament selected a winner as well: NASA's first ever photo tournament. No, it wasn't a contest in which photographers submit their best image. Instead, Earth 2013 was a tourney that pitted 32 of NASA's photos of Earth against each other in a March Madness-style tourney.

Panasonic Lumix GF6 Officially Unveiled

After springing several significant leaks in which full specs and even press photos made it onto the Internet before the announcement date, Panasonic has finally taken whatever veil was left off of the Lumix GF6 -- and wireless connectivity seems to be the camera's top priority.