You've probably heard of cameras that can detect wavelengths of light that human eyes can't, and also cameras that can detect heat in a scene, but have you ever heard of one that can capture sound? That's right: scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have created a portable sound camera that's sensitive to sound waves.
Want to see how old film single-lens reflex cameras were put together? Clare (Wyoh on Tumblr) recently found a number of camera schematics inside an old French magazine from decades ago. The schematics show exploded views of the Nikon F, Nikon F2, Nikon FM, and Nikon FA SLRs. Each camera is shown in its most basic parts, which are numbered and labeled (in French).
We’ve been managing our photos together for almost a decade now. Things were nice and simple at the start and we both knew what to expect from each other--I pulled my photos off my camera on the computer, imported them into iPhoto and arranged them. Life was good.
Think subject tracking in camera is impressive? Future Canon digital cameras may have image stabilization systems that can track stars. At least, that's what a recently published Canon patent seems to suggest. The company may also be working on technology that can produce higher resolution photographs by shifting the camera sensor.
Want to shoot insanely cool Matrix-style "bullet time" footage at home? You can do so with a single rig built out of relatively cheap components.
NASA spaceship engineer Mark Rober came up with a brilliant way to shoot eye-popping imagery using just a GoPro camera and a cheap ceiling fan.
Here is a list of 10 things an art director looks for when considering a photographer, and what keeps them coming back for more.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do,” Chuck Close told an NPR interviewer when Polaroid stopped making instant film in 2008. He wasn’t the only artist attached to the medium.
After Adobe’s Photoshop CC announcement earlier this week, Ryan Chartrand decided …
For over a year now, photographer Shawn Stockman Malone of LakeSuperiorPhoto has been pointing her cameras at the sky over Michigan's Lake Superior and capturing dazzling displays of the Northern Lights.
Dublin, Ireland-based photographer Maciej Pietuszynski was doing a bit of spring cleaning recently when he decided to upgrade a plastic box he has been using to carry his camera and flash unit. His idea was to give the box an extra job as a makeshift softbox in addition to its storage/transportation/protection duties.
Much like how many of you moonlight as wedding photographers, I double as professional wedding DJ. I've been in the business for 7 years and have somewhere around 50 weddings under my belt.
I see it as part of my job to set the scene for you take the best shots you possibly can. I create the moments, you capture them. Whether or not you realize it, we're a team. There's no reset switch, we only have one chance to get it right. The better we can work together, the better the outcome is for everyone. To help us work better together, here's some things I think you should know.
The Google+ Photos team along with photographers Thomas Hawk, Trey Ratcliff and Robert Scoble are organizing what they think may turn out to be the biggest photowalk in the history of, well, photowalking. Set for next Tuesday May 14th, the event already has almost 700 confirmed guests via Google+.
Taking all of your photography gear on the road with you can be a burden, not to mention risky. But even if you don't want to break your back carrying it all or risk having it stolen, your options are limited. Not all cities have shops that rent out gear, and smaller shops may not have the gear you want and/or need.
Thankfully, there's a new peer-to-peer solution in town that should greatly increase your odds of finding the gear you need, no matter where you're headed: it's called CameraLends.
When it comes to capturing photos of your unborn child, you're pretty much stuck to the ultrasound pics/tape that the hospital lets you take home. But what if there was a service that could take that ultrasound, and turn it into a one-of-a-kind 3D hologram? Well, that's what Pioneer is working on with its new printing service.
Hipstamatic has seen better days. Ever since Instagram came along and stole its thunder by offering filters for free, the app hasn't had the same following it once did. But the company isn't going to take this lying down. After having to fire several core employees last August, Hipstamatic is bouncing back by debuting a new social networking app called Oggl.
The ancient red pine forest surrounding Ontario's Wolf Lake is the largest that remains in the world -- and it's in trouble. Active mining leases encompass almost the entirety of this forest; leases that were just renewed last year for another 21 years. And so, in response, an organization called Save Wolf Lake has put together the above time-lapse, asking for help in preserving this endangered area.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 hasn't even made it into the hands of everyone who wants it, and yet there's already a rumor going around that the company is working on a different version geared more towards smartphone photographers with an eye for quality.
North Korea has a history of Photoshop fails, so you think the country's neighbor to the south would take heed and keep a close watch on manipulation. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case, as the above photo painfully clearly illustrates.
The photo -- chosen by South Korean news outlet Yonhap to illustrate their coverage of President Park Geun-Hye's recent visit with President Obama -- shows the two leaders shaking hands. The only problem is that they seem to be standing in different rooms ... and President Obama has two right arms.
By now we should be used to photo apps coming from all corners of the industry -- even Snoop Lion has released a photo sharing app -- but it was still a bit of a surprise to hear that Manfrotto had released a photo taking, editing and sharing app of its own.
Nokia recently announced its new Lumia 928: a 8.7-megapixel PureView, Carl Zeiss, OIS-toting replacement for the already impressive Lumia 920 that will do its best to blow away the rest of the market in terms of image and video quality.
But in case words aren't enough, Nokia has also released the above video comparing the low-light video capability of the new Lumia with that of the Samsung Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5.
Retouching and manipulating photographs is done with fancy photo-editing programs these days, but back in 1946, making adjustments required a lot more than a computer, some software, and some pointing-and-clicking skills. Retouching required a whole box of tools, a very sharp eye, and an extremely steady hand.
Adobe has made several announcements over the past few days. We've seen a new version of Photoshop, Creative Cloud bundles geared towards photographers, and even a go at hardware with the "Mighty" Pen and "Napoleon" Ruler. But of the unveilings, none was as controversial as the announcement that we would be saying goodbye to the Creative Suite line -- from now on, it's going to be Creative Cloud or nothing.
Olympus has a major camera announcement day coming this Friday, but the cameras it's planning to unveil--the E-P5 and E-PL6--have been almost fully revealed now. New leaks have revealed the full specs for the E-P5, photos of a fancy "premium" version of the E-P5, and product photos of the E-PL6 (shown above).
If there hasn’t been a Color Run 5k or 10k race near you, there probably will be soon. And with all that color, you certainly want to take some pictures, right? Not with your camera you don’t.
Have you heard of Sid Kaplan? If you've studied the works of great American photographers, you've likely at least seen some of Kaplan's handiwork. Although he's a master photographer in his own right, Kaplan had made a name for himself as one of the industry's finest photo printers. Over the past four or five decades, Kaplan has made prints for some of the biggest names in photography.
For the first time since PetaPixel launched back in 2009, we're hiring! Team PetaPixel is looking for rockstar bloggers who would like their writing to be read by nearly 3 million photography enthusiasts every month.
Samsung found itself in an embarrassing copyright infringement controversy earlier today after the company published a street photographer's work without permission as an advertisement on its Facebook page. It wasn't just the unauthorized use of the image that was embarrassing; here's the kicker: the photograph was actually shot using a Nikon camera.
You know those iconic minimalist product photos for Apple gadgets? Have you ever wondered about how they're shot and who shoots them?
One of the people behind the photos is San Francisco-based photographer Peter Belanger. The video above is a behind-the-scenes look into how Belanger photographed the iPhone 3GS for a 2009 issue of Macworld magazine.
You might think that bearded, Carhartt-wearing, ironic dudes riding fixed geared bicycles in Brooklyn are obnoxious, but a different brand of 21st century hipster is helping make photography, er, awesomer. Let’s celebrate the nerdtastic dedication that possesses these photo hipsters.
I focus on a relatively obscure (though rapidly becoming more popular) area of photography called gigapixel-resolution photography. I use a robotic panoramic mount to capture tens if not hundreds of images of the same location and then stitch the images together to create a single massive photograph. I've combined this technique with High Dynamic Range imaging to create HDR photographs that are anywhere from 200 megapixels to 4 gigapixels in resolution size.
Last Saturday, we featured a creative music video by the band James Wallace and the Naked Light that was shot entirely in one take in the reflection of a fan's eyeball. It was a wonderfully simple video and an approach we hadn't seen before in a music video.
But shortly after featuring that video, we were told that a similar idea had actually been done before by the Italian band K-Conjog, when they made the award-winning video for their song Qwerty.
Photographer Gary Albertson calls himself "the luckiest unlucky guy in the world." In 2010, after decades spent shooting the outdoors, he developed a rare form of glaucoma that has left him with little more than a circle of peripheral vision in each eye. But after some time away from the camera he's come back stronger than ever, creating photography so stunning he's attracted the attention of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist.
While it is true that photo apps are in high demand and, therefore, a dime a dozen, we were still surprised to find out that rapper Snoop Lion (formerly Snoop Dogg) decided to branch into the market himself. In partnership with Upper Playground, 99centbrains and Cashmere Agency, the rapper has officially broken into the smartphone photography game with his new app Snoopify.
Even as compact cameras continuously attempt to up their game in order to compete with an ever more photographic smartphone market, the smartphone market is responding. We've seen Nokia with its PureView and HTC with its UltraPixel technology, and now rumor has it Sony has something up its sleeve as well.
The wildly successful Kickstarter campaign Blackprints is currently at the center of a heated controversy over stolen images that has already involved one copyright dispute. It seems that the campaign's creator, Sabrina Chun, might have taken to acquiring photos of cars off of the Internet, changing them to black and white minimalist versions, and selling them as part of this campaign. (See Update)
As Google Glass ramps up to the point where it's eventually available to the general public, app developers are looking to get in on the ground floor and start developing for the platform early on. Naturally, several of those apps will seek to provide an Instagram-like service for Glass users, and the first to jump on this bandwagon is an app called Glassagram.
About a month ago, we shared the news that the George Eastman House had become the first photo museum to join the Google Art Project -- essentially making their archive of over 400,000 photos and negatives available for your browsing pleasure online.
Along those same lines, another collection of over 20,000 "rare and significant materials" is being brought to the World Wide Web. Launched earlier today, the Balboa Park Commons is an online archive that brings together over 20,000 digitized materials from seven different San Diego museums.
With the prevalence of smartphones and the massive photo community that is Instagram, it's no surprise that news outlets and journalists are more and more frequently turning to the service to source photos for major events. Unfortunately, Instagram's search functionality is almost non-existent. That's where the new open-source search tool QIS comes into play.
Adobe caused quite an outcry from the photography community yesterday after announcing that its future software offerings will only be available through subscription plans to its Creative Cloud service. The main gripe was that the $50/month cost for all the programs in the CC suite--or $20/month for just Photoshop--didn't make financial sense for independent photographers and smaller photo studios.
Well, the sound of grumbling has reached decision makers over in the San Jose-based company. In a post published on the Photoshop.com blog yesterday, the company revealed that it's thinking about introducing special Creative Cloud packages geared specifically at photographers.
You know that moment when you agree to do a favor for a friend, and it turns into something a bit... well... more? This past weekend I ended up taking headshots of 80 people during six non-stop hours of shooting. Here is the story of what happened, things I learned from it, and some random thoughts on the experience.
David Scharf is a basement pioneer in the art of making some of the world's smallest things appear huge.
If you've ever been in a bad car accident, the images Danish photographer Nicolai Howalt's Car Crash Studies may bring back bad memories. The project is a photographic study of cars that have been involved in severe (and possibly fatal) accidents.
After reading the great reviews of the Fuji X100S, I decided to take the leap and buy one. I’ve been getting more interested in street photography lately, and this camera seemed like a good fit. Plus, it's supposed to sync at all shutter speeds, which is great for flash photography outside in bright sun. David Hobby and Zack Arias both have nice in-depth reviews.
But, things are rarely perfect. It turns out that the X100S can’t sync at f/2 unless you’re at around 1/1000 or slower on the shutter. Nice, but still, I was curious why that is. So I decided to run some tests to figure it out.
David Hobby over at Strobist uncovered an intriguing new type of parabolic umbrella by B2Pro Lighting last week that has some people intrigued, even as many others are calling BS. The umbrella sports a patent pending pattern of RGB photo sites that, according to B2Pro, will "bring lighting for digital photography and motion picture into the 21st century."
In addition to the Photoshop CC and Camera RAW announcements, the Adobe XD team also debuted something entirely different at the MAX conference: the company's first shot at hardware. Coming in the form of a pressure-sensitive stylus and digital ruler, the two accessories are meant to take the creative brainstorming experience and shift it from pen-and-paper to pen-and-tablet.
In the video preview above, Adobe's VP of Product Experience, Michael Gough, introduces the two products -- code named "Mighty" and "Napoleon" -- and walks you though the experience of using them.
Just as RAW photo files contain all the information you need to put together a photograph, DNA contains all the information needed for a human being. Information artist and PhD student Heather Dewey-Hagborg has a fascinating portrait project that explores this idea.
National Geographic photographers snapped over 1 million images over the course of 2009. Only about 1000 of those photos were selected and published by the famous yellow-bordered journal.
Of these 1000 published photos, National Geographic selected the 10 best images and created a 50-minute film that offers a behind-the-scenes look at how they were made.
At its Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles today, Adobe announced Photoshop CC, the next version of its flagship photo editing software. Unlike version that came before it, Photoshop CC will only be offered through Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription plan.
Lisle, Illinois-based photographer Peter Hoffman's "Fox River Derivatives" project is a series of abstract photos that question mankind's relationship with natural resources. The photographs have a strange purple bubbles and colorations across the surface that are the result of an interesting technique: these images are what you get when you burn your negatives.
The video above is a creative stop-motion video that uses water drops as the "lens" through which the animation is seen. It was created without any computer-generated trickery: 2,000 individual photographs of different water drops were shot and combined to create the video.