This is pretty impressive: photographer Pascal Kulcsar needed to digitize some old slide film left behind by his grandfather. Rather than purchase a film scanner, Kulcsar decided to combine his technical ingenuity and love for LEGOs to create a DIY slide film scanner using LEGO pieces.
Apple recently launched a global advertising campaign touting the camera quality of the iPhone 6. As part of the campaign, the company put up billboards all over the world with its favorite photos captured by iPhone 6 users with the phone.
Somalia is a country that doesn't often get good press. Most headlines about it seem to focus on things like pirates, violence, and political unrest. With media organizations largely ignoring the happier aspects of the country, one woman is taking it upon herself to do so, becoming something of an Instagram celebrity along the way.
Photographers who are out and about often have thousands of dollars in camera gear kept inside a camera bag, and keeping an eye on your bag at all times can be taxing and sometimes impossible. KitSentry is a new product that's designed to keep an eye on your gear so you don't have to, giving you peace of mind to help you focus on making photos.
If you're a fan of both retro cameras and instant photos, you may be delighted to learn of a new camera called the InstantFlex TL70. It's designed to look like a Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex camera, but it's a fully functional instant camera that takes Fujifilm Instax film.
DigitalRev TV, the Top Gear of photography, is the latest to do a hands-on comparison of the classic Canon 50mm f/1.8 II lens against its new copycat competitor, the YongNuo 50mm f/1.8. In DigitalRev's typical fashion, Kai offers a humorous yet insightful look at how the two products compare against one another in performance and build. (Note: there's a bit of strong language).
One of the many amazing photographs that emerged after the recent total solar eclipse was this epic shot of stunt biker Danny MacAskill soaring down a hill with the moon eclipsing the sun in the background. Many on the Internet immediately called the shot a "fake," but it's far from it.
Moscow-based artist Dmitry Morozov has created a strange DIY camera unlike any we've seen before. It's an 8-bit instant photo shooter created with an old Game Boy, a camera, a thermal printer, an Arduino board, and a gun.
A photographer named Andy Davidhazy hiked the 2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was both a physical endeavor and a photographic one: every mile he traveled, Davidhazy stopped and took a single selfie. The video above is the time-lapse that he created after his epic journey.
I received a Rosco Gel kit a week ago, and after a few tests I can say I really love using all the awesome colors for my photography.
The kit includes 20 individual 30x48cm square sheets for color corrections (e.g. CTO, CTB, ND) and a range of different colors, all of them contained in a protected and resealable packaging.
Earlier this month, we shared a video showing the incredible reach of the Canon SX60, a superzoom compact camera with a 65x lens. If you thought that video was crazy, check out this one featuring the new Nikon P900, which packs an even longer 83x optical zoom lens -- the equivalent of a 24-2000mm lens in 35mm terms.
Back in 2013, Vadym Chalenko successfully raised nearly $40,000 to launch a product called the Beastgrip, the first universal lens adapter and camera rig for smartphones. Now, two years later, he's refreshing the Beastgrip with a new version that's even more versatile and powerful. It's called the Beastgrip Pro.
The camera on smartphones is one of the main selling points these days, and Apple is working hard to push its iPhone camera ahead of the pack. A newly discovered patent reveals that Apple has created an innovative sensor design that increases quality by using three separate sensors and a prism for splitting light.
Huw Alexander Ogilvie was flying over the Pacific Ocean in 2005 when he shot this peculiar photograph of a lone cloud dumping rain onto the world. After uploading it to Flickr, it quickly became his most popular photo and was even featured recently by NASA in a story about rainfall. You can view a larger version here.
(The Roosevelt quote above is one of my all time favorites. I have a couple of copies of it and one is on the wall next to my cluttered, USB encrusted desk.) …
Amazon has just dropped a huge bomb on the file storage industry by announcing two new unlimited cloud storage subscription plans. One lets you store all the files your heart desires for just $60 a year, and the second is one that may be a very attractive backup option for photographers: unlimited photo storage for just $12 a year.
Canon has long been rumored to have a small 4K camera up its sleeve, and now the world is getting its first glimpse of the new product. The company has unveiled the camera at a press event in China ahead of its rumored official launch in the United States at the NAB 2015 show in Las Vegas next month.
Back in June, I was lucky enough to partner with a Boston-based nonprofit, Shooting Touch, to travel to Rwanda and document the participants in their "Basketball Health Corps" initiative. They use the sport of basketball and their partnerships with health administrators to teach children valuable skills and preventative treatments when it comes to HIV/AIDS, malaria, and daily health.
Apple's new Macbook features a redesigned pressure-sensitive trackpad called the Force Touch. In addition to being more powerful for inputs from your fingers, the new design allows for the use of a stylus on the touchpad if you'd like to retouch your photographs tablet-style.
Last year I launched a new initiative called the Streettogs Academy, a biweekly challenge for motivating and sharpening the skills of street photographers around the world. Photographers are given 2 weeks to shoot photos for the latest theme and upload 1 to 3 of them to our Facebook page.
Every year at the Gulf Photo Plus photography festival in Dubai, attendees are treated to a special event called the GPP ShootOut. Called the "most exciting hour in the photography world" by David Hobby, the event pits famous photographers head-to-head in creating the best photo they can on the spot. It's a freestyle battle for imaging.
As New York City prepares to digitize and publish thousands of historical crime scene photos captured by photo unit police officers, here's a look at the subject from the photojournalist's point of view.
The photographer known as Weegee made his mark on photography by hunting for crime scenes and uncomfortable shots in New York City. We may soon be seeing some of the crime scenes he captured from an alternate perspective.
Three year old children can make sense of what they see in photos and describe them to us, but even the most advanced computers have historically had difficulties with that same task. That's quickly changing though, as computer scientists are developing powerful new ways to have computers identify what a photograph is showing.
A team at the University of Texas is set to create thousands of macro photographs showing the beauty and diversity of the smallest critters in the state of Texas. Every one of the photos will be released to the public domain, allowing anyone to do anything with the photos without charge (or even permission).
Sony is making big restructuring moves in order to increase profitability, and one of the big changes has been closing its inefficient physical retail stores. 26 of the stores were closed in 2014, and now the latest word is that in addition to closing all of its shops in Canada, Sony will be pulling the plug on 8 of the 10 remaining US locations.
Raspberry Pi project platform PiJuice is currently raising funds for its portable module on Kickstarter. As a demo of its capabilities, the team has created a step-by-step tutorial showing how the product can be used to build a DIY Raspberry Pi compact digital camera.
Back in 2012, The Camera Store released a lighthearted stop-motion video of mirrorless cameras attending a party. It reflected the state of the industry at the time -- particularly how the Canon EOS M was late to the game and how it had a painfully slow autofocus system.
As China expands its anticorruption initiatives, quite a few government officials have met their political demise through being caught in a wide range of unethical behavior. One of them, a politician named Qin Yuhai, was busted under different circumstances than most: his corruption was related to his love for photography.
The North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina was home to top NASCAR races from when it opened in 1949 through when it closed in 1996. It reopened briefly in 2010 but was shuttered again in 2011. Since then, it has been lying dormant as investors and businesses sort out the fate of the historic racetrack.
Did you know that the Hubble Space Telescope is only able to capture black-and-white photos? In order to capture a maximum amount of information in their space photos, NASA captures multiple black-and-white images using different filters in the camera. These images are then combined in post to create the iconic color photographs that you see published by the space agency.
For the past five years, portrait photographer Jenny Lewis of Hackney, London, has been finding and photographing new mothers with their newborn babies within 24 hours after childbirth.
Peter Fordham was a British photographer best-known for his music work in the 1970s. If you own a copy of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, his second solo album, you’ll be familiar with his work. Fordham was the photographer who took the picture of Lennon, sat at his white piano with a pair of headphones on, at Lennon’s Tittenhurst Park home where the 1971 album was recorded. It’s a classic of rock music photography, Lennon singing into a hard black mic set against a stark white room, and …
If you'd like to create a time-lapse of your face over long periods of time like what photographer Noah Kalina has been doing, one of the easiest options out there is an app called Everyday. It has been a popular photo app in Apple's app store since its launch in 2012, and today Version 2.0 of the app was released to make the experience even better and more flexible.
In February 2014, Leica moved its headquarters to the newly constructed Leitz Park Wetzlar, a state-of-the-art campus for its management and manufacturing. Here's a look at what the beautiful campus is like from the outside and inside the buildings.
American and European regulations generally prohibit pilots from taking pictures while flying planes, and for good reason: sometimes the camera does get in the way of safe flight -- literally.
The world of photography lost one of its own this week. Photographic lighting pioneer Paul C. Buff has passed away at the age of 78. Among his many contributions to photography were White Lightning, AlienBees, Einstein flash units; the CyberSync radio remote system; and the Vagabond power system.
If you're just getting started in learning how to light your shot with flashes, you may be confused about the terms "high speed sync" and "flash duration." Here's a helpful 6-minute primer in which photographer Daniel Norton explains what these two concepts are, how they differ, and which situations they come in handy for.
I recently stopped into the Costco in Mountain View, California with 164 rolls of Kodak Portra 400. You should’ve seen the look of the staff -- it was a look of confusion, awe, and amazement.
In my mind, there are three important elements of a photograph. Lighting, Composition and Moment. Every picture that I love has these elements, in varying amounts. A great picture may have strength in all three areas, or it may be, for example, such an emotional moment that it overpowers poor composition or light.
Today Instagram unveiled its new Layout. No, it's not a redesign of the company's website or app, but rather a new official app for easily combining multiple photos into single images that can quickly be shared.
Product design is the notion of transforming an idea into a tangible object that has a purpose. Solving problems with products is what I like to do -- it's how I try to give something back to the world. Adaptalux is something I created recently to give photographers a portable macro studio wherever they go.
NASA is a government agency, so the photographs it creates are released to the public domain and can be used by anyone for any purpose. Now that private companies such as SpaceX are getting involved in space exploration and collaborating with NASA, the copyright of mission photos becomes a little more murky.
Here's an idea for a fun weekend project and/or personalized gift: make some custom candles that feature your photographs. It's actually incredibly easy, and you may already have the necessary materials lying around at home.
If you've always dreamed of seeing your cat share photos of its life on Instagram, there's now a camera being developed that may make your dream a reality. It's called Catstacam, and is a wearable collar camera that automatically posts photographs to an Instagram account you set up for your cat.
Here's a short 10-minute profile by The Learning Connexion on photographer Peter Black, a man who has been documenting the streets of New Zealand for the past 40 years. He's known for the simple way in which he documents commonplace scenes. "I'm trying to document New Zealand," he says.
DigitalRev TV's latest episode examines this question: "What's the difference between how we approach photography these days compared to the good ol' 1990s?" It's a humorous comparison of film versus digital and various trends and techniques that have come and gone... and come again. (Note: there's a tiny bit of strong language.)
A few years ago, we wrote about how phones can be used as negative film strip viewers by simply inverting the screens. Swedish photographer Adam af Ekenstam took the idea a step further by using an iPad and iPhone together as a simple yet powerful negative viewing station.
Nikon has announced a new product called the Nikon ASC-01, a new stainless steel insert for your camera's hot shoe mount. It slides right into the mount when it's not in use, giving your camera a shinier and more "complete" look.
We photographers do love our catch-phrases, but what do they all mean? Here’s my not-so-serious and very tongue-in-cheek rundown of some of the more commonly used terms and their meanings. And yes, I’m as guilty as the next guy:
