September 2013

Kodak clawed its way out of bankruptcy this past Tuesday, but the Rochester-based company has a long climb yet.

There's been plenty of talk on this topic over the past week, but most of it seem to be focused on what Kodak gave up to emerge from the shadow of Chapter 11. NBC News, for example, emphasizes the loss of consumer-oriented operations and a 50% reduction in yearly expected revenue when they discuss the "New Kodak Moment."

Anyone with an appreciation for Kodak’s heritage is sure to feel a twinge of sadness over these developments, but it is still far too early to be asking if the sacrifice was worth it. The more important question is "will it work?"

You'd think companies would be shying away from creating new compact cameras -- or maybe going the way of Sony with its lens cameras -- but that doesn't seem to be the case. Earlier today, another big player released a new line of compact cameras: Leica.

Earlier today, we shared the news that NASA has officially joined Instagram, and just in time to share some photos of the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (or LADEE) launch on Friday. Well, NASA weren't the only ones taking pictures that day, and one of the cooler pictures that came out of the launch is the pic you see above by former NASA photographer Ben Cooper.

Most everyone is familiar with knockoffs -- some might even own a couple -- but when it comes to the world of tech the general wisdom is to stay far away. A Prado purse or Foakley sunglasses aren't going to be much of an issue, but a fake Canon speedlight can become a serious problem.

Of course there's a big difference between a knockoff and what's referred to as a KIRF (keeping it real fake) product, and the most recent fake we've run across is just that: a Lumia 1020 look-alike that boasts '41-megaplxels' of audio performance where the PureView camera should be.

Although there's no shortage of accounts on Instagram where you can see some great space photography courtesy of NASA, the space agency just upped the ante by officially joining the social photo sharing platform itself.

Remote cameras are a great way to shoot wildlife, and have captured to some pretty incredible photos and footage over the years. An example that comes readily to mind is the amazing Bear 'dance party' captured by one of Park Ranger Glenn Naylor's wildlife cams back in July.

The Instant Wild project also uses remote cameras, but their purpose is a little different. Their cameras are helping to protect some of the world's most endangered species ... with a little help from you.

Stop motion animation has seen a resurgence of late. In addition to filmmakers continuing to make use of the technique despite the rise of CGI, stop motion apps for smartphones and outlets like Vine and Instagram video have brought many amateurs to the table as well.

Now it's possible for everyone to discover the time-consuming joy of shooting little stop motion creations.

Underwater photographer might remember the old 35mm Nikonos waterproof cameras. Originally launched in 1963, the Nikonos underwater system set the standard for underwater imaging for many years until it was ultimately discontinued in 2001.

Nowadays, underwater photography is done digitally using some sort of waterproof housing, but a fresh rumor just cropped up that says Nikon is working on a dedicated 'serious' underwater compact camera. Does that mean a digital Nikonos?

It wouldn't be the weekend without some interesting (and maybe a little silly) DIY project for the tinkerers out there. Last weekend it was turning an old film canister into an LED flashlight; this week we give you: how to turn an old SLR and lens into a DIY peephole for your apartment.

It's hard to imagine it, but in the early 1900s, child labor was still extremely common in the United States. All across the nation children would spend their days slaving away in mines and cotton mills, far away from the school rooms that the National Child Labor Committee wanted them to be in.

The NCLC had been trying to put a stop to child labor since it was founded in 1904, but statistics weren't having the effect they had hoped. So, in 1908, they decided to enlist the help of Lewis Hine and his camera to get their message out.

We've shared some amazing eclipse photos taken from Earth, we've even shared some amazing eclipse photos taken of Earth, but today marks the first time we've ever had the chance to share eclipse photos taken from the surface of a different planet.

Developers rejoice, you have another API to play with. In a recent move that should help bring more Sony apps to market, the camera manufacturer has released an API that will allow you to develop remote control apps for 8 of its WiFi-enabled cameras.

Long before there was any way to capture colors on film, filmmakers were hand painting their short movies frame by frame to breathe life into black-and-white productions. The desire to capture color, it seems, far precedes our ability to do so.

In the Filmmaker IQ video above, John Hess takes you through a comprehensive history of color in filmmaking. From hand-tinting, to Technicolor, to digital color manipulation, take a look and see just how far we've come when it comes to capturing the reds, greens and blues of our world.

An external iPhone flash actually made our recent list of 13 photo gadgets we didn't need, but that doesn't mean we don't see the potential of a flash accessory for smartphones. That particular retro-tastic flash didn't suit our fancy; the new Nova wireless flash, however, has a lot more going for it.

The dust has barely settled from the Instagram policy fumble, but it looks like parent company Facebook might be in for a similar upheaval.

The company's recently proposed changes to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Data Use Policy -- which were supposed to take effect on the 5th -- have been delayed after users and privacy groups alike have voiced serious concerns.

Here's a silly video that'll start off your Saturday on a light note. It's called Camera Dominos and it's exactly what it sounds like: a couple of hundred cameras cascading one after the other to epic music.

What do you do when your last photo series went viral and earned you numerous awards and accolades? Well, if you're Jordan Matter, the photographer behind the wildly popular photo series and book Dancers Among Us, you move on to the next great idea.

For him, that means taking the original idea and tweaking it a bit. First he did Dancers Among Us, now he's capturing the dedicated and passionate lives of those professional Athletes Among Us.

A Malaysian researcher may have dealt a major blow to image thieves by using the mathematical formulas behind Sudoku puzzles to create hidden, super-strong watermarks.

Benny Winfield Jr, perhaps better known as mrpimpgoodgame, has almost 36,000 followers on Instagram and plans to put his face on a T-Shirt that will likely sell pretty well if he does. What did the Huston, TX resident do to earn this kind of Internet fame and recognition? Why, he took selfies of course.

Up till now, we hadn't heard much in way of specs for Fuji's rumored entry-level X-Series camera, the X-A1. We knew it was going to be a step down from the X-M1 and a step up from the X100, and we'd seen a questionable picture, but that was it.

A Czech site changed all that yesterday, however, when they accidentally published both a press release and more photos of the upcoming shooter.

Photographer John Free's many years of experience as a professional in the industry have given him a deep reservoir of tips, tricks and advice from which to pull. In the past, we shared his inspirational no-BS video on shooting without tension and the importance of practice.

That video offered some all-around "how to get better" advice. But yesterday, he uploaded a new video in which he addresses a specific problem many photographers (himself included) face: getting too emotionally attached to your images.

We've seen cameras sent to the edge of space to take pictures, and we've even seen toys photographed at the edge of space. What we had never see, however, was a toy camera photo taken from the edge of space -- until now that is.

The photo above was the result of a summer-long project by a class at Harrington College of Design in Chicago, and it's the first Holga toy camera photo taken from the Stratosphere.

On Monday, a massive set of Sony Lens Camera photos leaked online just a couple of days before the official announcement was made. Well, the same thing has happened to Olympus, whose upcoming OM-D E-M1 Micro Four Thirds camera was just outed in photos that show it from just about every angle imaginable.

Consumer film scanners don't provide enough detail, and professional models require too much money and pampering. What's a dedicated film nerd to do? For Peter De Smidt, the answer was to build his own high-res scanner using the Nikon D600 and 50mm Micro lens he already had on hand, a bit of lumber and a lot of patience.

San Francisco-based photographer and self-proclaimed super nerd Doctor Popular -- the same one that made this film canister valentines day card back in February -- started off his photographic career with an iPhone. Unlike many photographers, he moved backwards, eventually purchasing a film camera "strictly out of curiosity" at a yard sale and shifting his focus more and more to film.

His most recent endeavor, Glitch Double Exposures, mixes the two worlds of digital and analog by combining street photos with photos of purposely glitched images into ethereal double exposures.

Back in early August, we told you about Badass Cameras and their plan to create an adapter that could turn your iPhone into an uber-cheap (relatively speaking) digital back for your old Hasselblad film camera. Well, the wait is over. Arriving on Kickstarter a bit later than expected, the Hasselnuts adapter does just that.

Joe Capra of Scientifantastic is a Los Angeles-based time-lapse cinematographer, photographer and filmmaker who gets to travel around the world shooting beautiful footage of beautiful places. When you're done envying his job though, it's worth taking a look at some of what he's put together. Most recently, a gorgeous time-lapse tour of Rio de Janeiro and the Iguazù Falls.

Samsung finally made its move into the world of smartwatches earlier today when the company announced the all new Samsung Galaxy Gear. But where the watch didn't surprise reviewers and testers in many respects, one thing did catch most by surprise: the watch comes with its own built-in camera.

Remember back in early July, when we shared a breathtaking POV parkour video shot by athlete James Kingston of the Ampisound team? Many compared that video to the parkour-influenced first person video game Mirror's Edge, and Ampisound was quick to mention that any resemblance was totally and completely intentional.

The team took it to another level in their newest video, however, by dressing team member Neil Cointet up in the same clothes as the game's protagonist Faith Connors and having him go on a little jaunt with a camera attached to his head.

When you first see the all-new Ricoh Theta, it might remind you a bit of those old Apple remotes. But this is no remote, it's a new-fangled camera that can snap 360-degree panoramas in one click -- no swiping or stitching required -- with some help from the free companion iOS app (Android coming later this year).

Agence France Presse is drawing fire from other journalists for withdrawing what one rival described as a "village idiot photo" of French President Francois Hollande.

It's unfortunate that this is a piece of advice we need to give, but alas, it's necessary: never leave your camera gear unattended. One photographer recently learned that lesson the hard way at an outdoor wedding he was shooting when he was deprived of some $6,000 of camera equipment in one fell swoop. And what's more, the entire theft was caught on camera by the wedding's videographer.

It wasn't long ago that Canon revamped its compact line-up, adding a new flagship compact G16 and a few minor other updates. Now, just a few weeks behind, Nikon is doing something similar by announcing a new flagship prosumer point-and-shoot, an ultra-portable compact and a movie light for the Nikon 1-series mirrorless cameras.

Long exposure photography and light painted letters have been used in many a situation. One of the more elaborate we've seen was a massive light-painting proposal we shared with you back in 2011. But what do you get when a graphics designer and self-proclaimed Apple geek decides to use the technique? Well, in the case of Marcus Byrne, you get the typeface known as Phone Streak.

We've run across some neat web apps in the past -- be it the Face to GIF app that lets you create animated GIFs with ease using your computer's webcam, or something a bit more practical like UT's enlarging and denoising app.

The 'Average' web app definitely falls on the less-practical side of things. It allows you to easily combine any number of Flickr photos from a set or tag into a composite average of them all.

Here's an interesting idea for engagement photographers looking to try something different. This Hungarian couple not only decided to do a horror-themed engagement shoot (something we've seen before), they took it one step further by turning the whole thing into a short horror-themed engagement comic.

Treasures are often buried under dirt. Well, that's usually the case, anyway. Treasures for photographers may mean finding a working copy of their dream camera at a flea market or on the second-hand camera market. However, more often than not, the camera may not be looking great.

There are DIY projects that just about anybody can do -- for example, turning an old film canister into a flashlight -- and there are DIY projects that have a very specific "Y" in mind.

The ArnoSync High-Speed photography rig falls into the latter category. But even if you don't have the engineering prowess to build it yourself, it's still worth taking a look at what this home-brew rig can do.

It's not just Facebook that is eager to unleash the money-making capabilities of Instagram, many companies use the service regularly to connect with their clients and build a brand presence. Heineken's recent Crack the US Open competition is a great example.

When Adobe announced its shift to a subscription-only model earlier this year, there was an outcry from photographers who balked at the idea of paying over $20 a month to use Photoshop CC. There were soon murmurings that the company was brewing a special subscription package geared specifically toward photographers.

Today, that package became a reality. Adobe has announced a new Photoshop Photography Program, a more affordable subscription plan that gives photographers access to the software they can't (or don't want to) live without.

Attention amateur concert photographers: are you really being as annoying and disruptive as you could be? Because an attendee at a Major League Baseball game may have just set a new high/low at a recent Tampa Bay Rays home game.

Self-portraits aren't exactly ground-breaking -- in fact, the word "selfie" was recently added to the dictionary -- but Alex DeForest's self-portraits are anything but ordinary. His interesting creations mix light painting techniques with self-portrait photography to create some pretty cool results.

Earlier today, after weeks worth of rumors and leaks, Sony finally announced the 'lens cameras' we had heard so much about. No need to parse through rumors and speculate about what's truth and what's fiction, the company's QX100 and QX10 smartphone-attachable lens-style cameras are officially here.

It's been a long and depressing tunnel, but Kodak has finally reached the light at the end. Over a year and a half after declaring Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, the once-great camera giant officially reached the end of its financial troubles yesterday.

In an ongoing effort to control the squirming beast that is social media, Instagram recently updated its service to ban even more hashtags.

It's no secret that Sony will soon be announcing its new QX10 and QX100 lens cameras, which can be paired with Sony smartphones to form a serious -- and seriously flexible -- compact camera. A large set of product photos leaked yesterday, and now a promotion video of the lens cameras has leaked as well.

The video above is a short 1:39 ad that offers a peek at how the novel lenses will work and what features they'll pack.

When technology and marketing director Michael Kammes got married to the love of his life earlier this year, he wanted to capture some footage from a unique perspective that most people don't get to see: the groom's. Using a 1080p keychain camera, he created what may be the first ever pair of groom point-of-view hidden camera glasses.

The video above are the highlights of the footage, captured throughout the ceremony and reception.

One of the two Canon Speedlite flashes above is fake. Can you tell which one?

About a month ago I walked into the Canon Quick Repair Centre in Shanghai. I had a minor problem with a Canon 580 EX II: the high-speed sync refused to work.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out onto the surface of the Moon, it wasn’t technically a military triumph, but it might as well have been. On July 20, 1969, the United States effectively routed the Soviet Union in the Cold War conquest of space. The suits that the astronauts wore, with the Stars and Strips splashed across the left shoulder, left no doubt as to who the victors were.

Enfojer is a new darkroom kit that mixes age-old analog photography processes with digital smartphone photography. It's a simple and portable photographic enlarger that's designed specifically to turn your smartphone photographs into physical prints created with chemicals.