A camera can be many things. A tool, to produce an image. A bridge, to start a conversation. An observer, to record an event, or bear witness to something. A shield, to distance and separate the photographer from the scene he or she is attempting to capture.
We've shared several articles featuring the camera obscura and the many uses it has been put through over the years. From a roaming camera obscura used for photography workshops, to the possibility that some of painting's greatest names used them as an aid, the "technology" has really gotten around.
The video above is only 44 seconds long, but we'll bet it'll take up at least a minute and a half of your time -- you'll just have to watch it twice. It was created by British psychological professor Richard Wiseman, and demonstrates the power of perspective. It's titled, "Assumptions."
We’ve shared a few pretty cool cross-section light painting projects before, but none of them were ever very... shall we say... cheery. Both projects -- 21:31 and Andy Leach's hologram photo -- were created using the same eerie video of human slices from the Visible Human Project. But for those who wanted to toy around with cross-section light painting and re-creating 3D light objects in their photos, that’s all they had.
Canon has been putting a date code on its lenses since the 1960's, but ever since 2008 the company has been transitioning to a 10-digit serial system, sans date code. At first this caused quite a stir, as many a conspiracy theory began popping up; but not to worry, the code is there, it's just been incorporated into the new 10-digit system.
It's not easy to remember life before Photoshop. When we do, we think of a world where picture were straightforward, always showing exactly what happened to be in front of the lens when the exposure was taken. But that's not entirely the case.
A few months ago, we told you about a neat, open-source attachment created by modder Andy Rawson that could instantly turn your smartphone into a thermal imaging camera. At the time, Rawson was intending to sell the production models for $150 and otherwise open source the project for the DIYers out there. Well, add about $25 to the price tag and a ridiculously successful Kickstarter campaign and you've got the IR-Blue.
Photographs captured by astronauts on the International Space Station are in the public domain, so they're often remixed into gorgeous time-lapse videos. Italian filmmaker Giacomo Sardelli went a step beyond many of the ISS time-lapses we've seen by adding in more than just epic music: he included short audio messages recorded by the astronauts who worked in the space station.
There are well over 100 million users on Instagram (assuming a quarter of them didn't just up and leave), and even though the typical Instagram photo stream consists of food and the family pet, there are certain places that show up more often than others. Times Square, The Eiffel Tower, Disneyland, the Bangkok Airport... wait... that last one seems out of place doesn't it? …
What would the world's major cities look like if they were plunged into complete darkness? Some photographers gave us a taste of it when New York City suffered major power outages during Hurricane Sandy, but those scenes were coupled with an overcast sky.
Since 2007, Jen Bekman's 20x200 has become one of the leaders in the affordable art arena. Her business has printed and sold more than 200,000 collectible prints by more than 200 artists. ArtInfo writes that the affordable-yet-collectible photography market appears to be heating up: …
Part awesome party-trick, part brilliant idea, the new Cycloramic app from Egos Ventures is about the coolest thing you can get for one dollar on the iTunes app store at the moment. The app -- which will only work with the iPhone 5 -- triggers your phone's vibration at the exact right frequency to make it spin around in a perfect circle. Just stand your phone up, hit go, and keep an eye on your friend's faces (several reviewers called the reactions "priceless").
Faking the look of old films is becoming ubiquitous in the world of mobile photo sharing apps, but so far the popular apps have stuck with various films and not older photographic processes. If you want to create a photograph that mimics the look of a wet plate, it's actually pretty easy to do in Photoshop.
All over the Internet today, reports have spread like wildfire that the Instagram Policy Backlash has cost the picture sharing service as many of 25% of their active users. All of these initial reports stemmed from data collected by app metrics firm AppData, an analytics firm that keeps track of daily, weekly and monthly active users for any given app -- and the company's most recent readouts on Instagram showed a decline of nearly 25% in daily active users (from 16 million to 12.5 million).
Canon France has published a mysterious teaser ad to its Facebook page that shows a woman pointing some kind of invisible camera at a couple of ping pong players. The short (translated) message states, "Soon, we will share information that will change the way you look at the world…"
For his project titled Reflexion Autour du Bassin, French photographer Alain Laboile created fantasy photographs of his children, seen through the reflection of a small pond.
If you've been thinking about buying a copy of Apple's Aperture 3 for your post-processing work, you might want to hold off for a bit. A replacement may be on the near horizon -- at least according to a new book listing that has popped up over on Amazon Canada.
When photographer Mark Meyer wakes up every morning in Alaska, the first thing he notices is the view through his room's windows. Over time, he began to notice that this view took on a wide range of appearances across different times and seasons (mostly cold weather). He then started capturing a casual series of photographs that show the abstract, minimalist views that appear due to the rain, snow, and fog. The project is called An Alaska Window.
Back in April, there was a small hoopla amongst Nikonians who purchased the Nikon D4 or D800 and discovered that the LCD screen had a greenish tint when compared to the D3s and D700. Nikon denied that anything was wrong with the new cameras, and stated that it was actually the older models that were too cool. A couple of months later, it was rumored that a soon-to-arrive firmware update would address the issue. That update has yet to arrive.
Painter Norman Rockwell's illustrations graced the covers of countless magazines over the course of the 20th century, becoming a much-loved piece of American culture for their simple snapshots of life. You might recognize many of the works, and even the name behind the paintings, but did you know that virtually all of the images started out as photographs?
Lytro is currently the only camera on the market that lets you refocus photographs after they're shot, thanks to its fancy schmancy (and proprietary) light field technology, but it won't be the only one for long. Toshiba is reportedly developing its own Lytro-style camera that will target a different segment of the photography market: smartphone and tablet photographers.
You might recognize this iconic photograph of Michael Jordan flying through the air during the 1988 NBA Dunk Contest in Chicago. It was captured by renowned Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss Jr., a man who has created some of the most memorable photographs of athletes over the past fifty years (another of his iconic photographs is "The Catch").
Photographer Michel Jones has one of the most unique photography-related tattoos we've seen yet. While most photography enthusiasts who get inked may choose designs that are easily recognizable by the general public (e.g. cameras, lenses, photos), Jones went with a design that is enigmatic to most people and even foreign to many photographers. His tattoo is based on the backing paper that comes with 120 film.
For her project Sworn Virgins of Albania, photographer Jill Peters visited to the mountain villages of northern Albania to capture portraits of "burneshas," or females who have lived their lives as men for reasons related to their culture and society.
In a recent interview with Quesabesde, Miguel Angel Garcia, the CEO of Olympus Spain, dropped another "official" hint at what the camera company is cooking up to replace the E-5. The subsequent article, which initially said that the camera would be compatible with both Micro Four Thirds and Four Thirds Lenses, has since been reworded to state simply that the replacement for the E-5 will be "capable of harnessing the full potential of Four Thirds lenses."
Here's a primer for beginning photographers on the concepts of aspect ratios and compositional theories.
We've written a number of posts regarding the NASA Curiosity rover's photography on Mars, but have you ever wondered who it is that "presses the shutter"? If you have, you're not alone. The Planetary Society recently received the question as well, and has published an official explanation from NASA: …
Researchers at the University of Leuven in Belgium are embarking on an interesting mission, and they need the help of willing photographers. What they're attempting to do is create a database of photos based on how they make the viewer feel. The project and website, dubbed Pictures With Feelings, can then be used to further our knowledge about human emotion and how specific moods come about. Where you folks come is in providing the most emotionally stimulating images buried in your archives.
After Instagram backpedaled and removed some of the more controversial language in their new privacy policy agreement, it seemed the worst was over for the Facebook-owned company. The service has surely taken a hit, but when you have over 100M users, you can probably withstand quite a few. But in the words of Yogi Berra, "It ain't over till it's over," and if Instagram user Lucy Funes and San Diego-based law firm Finkelstein & Krinsk have anything to say about it: it ain't over. Those two …
Dereck and Beverly Joubert have spent the past 30 years living among lions in the African country of Botswana, capturing incredible photographs and footage of the majestic creatures that have garnered widespread praise. They are considered two of the world's preeminent experts on the big cats, having created tens of films, books, scientific papers, and articles in National Geographic magazine (along with a list of filmmaking awards, including five Emmys).
Remote shutter release cables are extremely simple devices, but they can cost quite a bit if you buy the official accessories sold by major camera manufacturers. Instructables user nk dtk has an awesome makeshift alternative that's dirt cheap: all you'll need is a cable and a can of soda!
When photographer Jess T. Dugan picked up her luggage after a flight from Chicago to Boston on December 18th, something didn't feel quite right. It felt a bit lighter than it should have. She opened it up, and, lo and behold, several thousand dollars of camera equipment was missing -- oops.
Last week we shared a guest post by photographer Martin Legeer on how he built a Matrix-style bullet-time camera rig using 50 Canon DSLRs. Shortly afterward, Greek photographer Theodoros Tziatzios of Real Creations sent an email telling us about his own camera rig projects, which use double the number of cameras.
When it comes to the Marissa Mayer/Yahoo!/Flickr love triangle, a little timeline of events is always helpful. So first we had Marissa Mayer, Google's 20th employee, take over as CEO of Yahoo! after several other people over the course of 12 months just couldn't cut it. It was around that time that the #dearmarissamayer movement began, with the message "Please Make Flickr Awesome Again" at the top of its list.
Yesterday I wrote a post showing the high level of image quality you can achieve by scanning film using a digital camera rather than a film scanner. This post will describe my personal technique for digitizing film using a DSLR and a macro lens.
The Canon 5D Mark II's illustrious career is coming to an end. The DSLR, which Canon Rumors calls "Quite possibly the most popular and influential DSLR in history," has been added to Canon's official list of discontinued EOS products over in Japan.
We're not sure how many punk rock fans moonlight as photographers (or the other way around), but those who do may find the new CamCuff a tempting camera accessory. It's a fashion accessory wrist cuff that doubles as a camera strap for those of you who aren't big on the neck variety.
Last month we shared the story of a photographer who had his DSLR stolen and used by a lion. Wildlife photographer Dean Swartz had a similar experience recently with a different (and much larger) predator: a black bear.
We've seen quite a few wired and wireless DSLR controller options in our day -- ranging from the creative DIY variety to the cool but expensive type -- but we've never seen one that looks quite like this. The newly announced K-Circle from LockCircle looks like something Iron Man would use if he were into photography -- assuming he shot Canon, that is.
If you shoot film and aren't much into chemicals (or don’t have a basement in which to keep a gigantic 5×7″ enlarger), you’ll soon find yourself needing a way to import those beautiful pictures you’ve taken onto your computer. What? Why didn’t I say, “you'll need a scanner”? After all, it’s not 1987 anymore -- scanners are as common as toaster ovens.
It was a pretty popular week for photography-related iOS app releases. First Facebook steps all over Snapchat's toes with its new 'Poke' app, and now Shutterfly has decided to enter the mobile market, putting its recent Penguin Digital acquisition to work. The launch comes just in time to squeeze in some last-minute personalized Christmas shopping, something that you couldn't do with the old version of the app.
Polish photographer Boguslaw Strempel has a fantastic series of landscape photographs of mountains and valleys found in Poland and the Czech Republic. Strempel visits his photo spots early in the morning, when a blank of fog is hanging over the treetops. As the sun rises, the trees cast long shadows across the valley, turning the scene into a magical display of sunbeams.
When it comes to figuring out our car's life expectancy, we've come to expect a little bit of community involvement. Sure, the car company will tell you that your truck is supposed to last X-number of miles, but if the majority of real owners online disagree, we tend to side with them. But why stop at your car? Why not see what users are reporting about your camera's life expectancy?
Check out this portrait photograph of Swedish artist Fredrik Saker. It's actually a self-portrait that Saker painted by hand. While we've seen and shared photo-realistic drawings before, Saker's came up with a clever way of validating his photo's realism: he managed to have it approved as his drivers license photo.
Street photography is a genre that every photographer will try at least once in his or her career. Its broad appeal stems from the fact that you can do it anywhere; there’s a human element to the images that captivate the viewer, and if done well, can make for some extremely arresting images.
After the Instagram Terms of Service controversy erupted this past week, Randall Munroe of XKCD published the comic above that offers his take on what's going on (pardon the language). Here's the explain xkcd explanation: …
If you're a Flickr user, you can currently snag and open a Christmas present from the service a few days early. The photo sharing service -- which has been undergoing a renaissance as of late -- is currently handing out three free months of Pro membership. Simply log in to find a link to the present on your home page, or visit the Holiday Gift page directly.
The mirrorless camera market has been bustling with activity as of late. Rumors have already begun circulating that Canon will be releasing a viewfinder-equipped EOS-M sometime in 2013, Polaroid is working on a Nikon J2 lookalike, and CES is just around the corner, which means many camera makers will be taking the wraps off upgrades to their mirrorless lines.
Last week we ran a story about temporary photo and video sharing app Snapchat's recent explosion onto the market and how, sexting jokes aside, venture capitalists the world over are clawing to get a piece of the action. A few days later we found out that Facebook was about to rain all over Snapchat's parade by using Snapchat's idea to create its own app.
