Attention Micro Four Thirds shooters: there's a new speedy "35mm prime lens" headed your way. Okay, it's actually a 34mm equivalent lens in 35mm terms, but it still boasts a f/1.8 aperture. It's the new Olympus M.ZUIKO 17mm f/1.8, a lens that designed for street photography, landscapes, and shooting in low-light environments.
Snapping mirror self-portraits may have gotten a huge boost from the introduction of digital photography and smartphoneography, but it is by no means a new activity limited to our era. The photograph above was created back in 1917 -- nearly 100 years ago! It was snapped by an Australian flying ace named Thomas Baker when he was 20 years old.
A Canadian woman named Karen Gwillim was driving through the village of Craven, Saskatchewan back in September when she came across a cormorant (perhaps like the one above) standing in the middle of the road. Seeing that it was struggling, Gwillim got out of her car to take a closer look, and found that there was a silver digital camera hanging from the bird's neck. After taking the camera off -- or stealing the camera from the bird, depending on how you look at it -- Gwillim took the gear home …
During the Iranian election protests back in 2009, a 26-year-old woman named Nedā Āghā-Soltān (above right) was shot and killed while standing around and observing protestors. After footage of her death went viral online -- Time says it's likely the "most widely witnessed death in human history" -- Neda's portrait became the face of the movement, as countless protestors around the world held large prints overlaid with statements like, "Neda did not die in vain." The problem is, one of the …
Photography isn't even 200-years-old yet, but there have already been over 150 different chemical processes developed over its relatively short lifetime. In this interesting 5-minute video titled "A Brief History of Photography: Innovations in Chemistry," photo conservation scientist Art Kaplan of the Getty Conservation Institute quickly introduces some of the groundbreaking processes that have made a significant impact on the history of photography -- processes such as the daguerreotype, …
The National Gallery in London, the world's 4th most visited art museum, is currently holding its first major exhibition of photography, titled, "Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present." Andrew Graham-Dixon of The Telegraph has published a review of the show, and has some strong opinions on photography's place in the art world: …
Projecteo is what you would get if you crossed a View-Master with a carousel slide projector and then miniaturized the love child using a shrink ray. It's a tiny LED-illuminated, battery-powered projector that takes in wheels created from 35mm slide film. Each wheel holds 9 photographs, and focusing the resulting image is done by twisting the lens barrel on the tiny gadget.
ABC Denver is very apologetic today after learning a hard (and embarrassing) lesson on why you need to be extra careful when sourcing photos from the web. On Monday, the 7NEWS station aired a segment on ex-CIA director David Petraeus and his affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell. When mentioning Bradwells new book, titled "All In," the station put up a book cover with a lewd title that read, "All Up In My S**tch."
Corbis, one of the largest photo agencies in the world, has agreed to acquire Demotix, a crowd-sourced citizen journalism photo agency that was founded in 2008. Corbis had already picked up a piece of the young agency through an investment last year, but now it has decided to purchase the whole company outright. The acquisition price was not disclosed.
David Talley is a 19-year-old fine art photographer who has attracted a sizable following on Flickr through his dreamlike portraits and self-portraits. He often spends a good deal of time and energy setting up his shots. For the photograph above, Talley and his buddy hauled a huge door nearly a mile to the beach.
Samsung released the open source kernel files for its new Galaxy Camera late last week, something commonly done in the smartphone world -- at least with certain platforms -- but a foreign concept in the world of digital photography. This opens the door to all kinds of possibilities as hackers begin to peer into the cameras brain and dream up new possibilities for how it should work.
In 1984, photographer Steve McCurry shot a portrait titled "Afghan Girl" that would become the defining image of his career and one of the most famous National Geographic covers ever published. In 2002, McCurry was able to locate the subject, Sharbat Gula, and learn her story.
Photographer Bryan Soderlind recently did a photo shoot with his buddy, professional wakeboarder Rusty Malinoski (the first person to ever land a 1080 in competition). Instead of the usual setup photographers use for wakeboarding photography, the two decided to try something crazier: lighting the action from the air using a battery-powered strobe placed in a helicopter.
People who spend a lot of time on their feet have products like Dr. Scholl's gel inserts to help cushion their feet and absorb the shock of walking. Likewise, photographers who press the shutter button so much that they fatigue their index finger now have a similar product as well: the Custom SLR ProDot. It's a patent-pending dot add-on for your camera's shutter button that supposedly helps reduce camera shake and finger fatigue.
After receiving worldwide attention for his photographs of dogs and horses in projects titled Dogs Gods and Equus, London-based photographer Tim Flach turned his attention to more exotic creatures. His latest project, titled More Than Human, consists of intimate studio portraits of various wild animals, from various monkeys and apes to specially-bred featherless chickens.
A new challenger has emerged to face Google Glass in the head-mounted glasses-style camera market. Interactive eyewear company Vuzix unveiled a new product today called the Smart Glasses M100, a camera-equipped Android computer that looks like a cross between a Bluetooth headset that's too long and a microphone that's worn too high.
GIF images may not be as suitable as formats such as JPG and PNG for displaying photographs online, but the format can now boast of one thing its rivals can't: Word of the Year honors. The Oxford American Dictionary announced today that 'GIF' has been selected as its Word of the Year 2012.
In 1997, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design held an art sale to give student and alumni artists an opportunity to offer their creations to art collectors. They offered around 1,000 pieces by 86 different artists, including prints by photographers. Since then, the MCAD Art Sale has exploded in popularity.
Are you a Canonite who's sick of hanging out in the same forums as photographers who pledge allegiance to other brands? If so, that's kinda sad -- why can't we all just get along? -- but Canon has something new that's perfect for you. The company has just launched its own official online forum, giving photography enthusiasts a new place to "ask questions, get answers and share experiences with peers."
Stranger Tourist Self-Portraits is an experimental photo project by photographer Benoit Paillé that consists of photos of strangers encountered on a beach in Mexico. What's different about the series is that the photographs are captured by the subjects themselves, as evidenced by the remote shutter release cable seen approaching the camera from the strangers' hands.
Way back in February 2011, Canon announced that it is developing a new EF 200-400 f/4L IS 1.4x super-telephoto lens. Since then, there hasn't been much news on when we might finally see the lens on store shelves, and Canon has issued a couple of press releases stating that it has been delayed. Rumors are now emerging that Canon had to go back to the drawing board with the lens in order to resolve a design flaw that had been reported during tests.
Omote 3D is a new "photo booth" that has popped up in the Harajuku district of Tokyo Japan. A project by creative studio PARTY, the booth differs from any other portrait studio you'll find on Earth: instead of producing 2D portrait photos, it turns subjects' images into small 3D figurines.
Kodak has finally been thrown a lifeline. Yesterday, the beleaguered photography company announced that it had convinced banks to loan it $793 million in order to climb out of bankruptcy by the first half of 2013. The loan agreement comes with one big catch: Kodak must be able to sell its extensive collection of patents for at least half a billion dollars.
Documentary filmmaker and photography enthusiast Matt Morris recently noticed a magazine article about a tintype photographer named Harry Taylor based in his hometown of Wilmington, NC. Having recently gotten engaged, Morris and his fiancée decided to have Taylor shoot their engagement photos using the 150-year-old photo process. They ended up sitting for a 5-hour-portrait session, and Morris was stunned by the results.
Sony Australia is trying its hand at some viral marketing for its mirrorless cameras. The company has created a YouTube account called DSLR Gear No Idea, which contains a number of very short videos that poke fun at clueless DSLR users. The description of the channel reads: …
For his project titled "Bubbles", London-based photographer Jason Tozer photographed soap bubbles in a way that makes them look photos of planets taken from space. Unlike NASA's actual space probe photos, Tozer's images contain wild, psychedelic colors.
Photographer Dominique Vankan wanted to play around with the old Autochrome Lumière process from the early 1900s, so he built himself a custom large format camera using LEGO pieces, cardboard, and duct tape.
Back in September, we shared the first photos snapped by the world's largest and most powerful digital camera: the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera located on a mountaintop in Chile. Reuters recently paid a visit to the massive astro-camera and the scientists behind it, and created the short 2-minute piece above that offers a closer look at the unique piece of camera equipment.
Sean O'Hagan over at The Observer has published an interesting profile of famed NYC street photographer Joel Meyerowitz, who had some pretty harsh things to say about his fellow NYC street shooter, Bruce Gilden.
Samsung's smartphone-esque Galaxy Camera finally has a definite price and launch date. AT&T announced today that it will begin selling the Android-powered camera on November 16, 2012 for $500. The camera comes with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and can be connected to the Internet via the carrier's 4G mobile network.
Ireland-based portrait photographer Mark Nixon has an interesting project titled "MuchLoved" that features 30 portraits of teddy bears that have been disfigured from years and years of love. The well-worn toys show battle scars of being the prized possessions of children -- cherished companions that have seen many a repair as different parts start wearing down. They may look hideous to our eyes, but each one is beloved by its owner.
Leave it up to Samsung to hold crazy promotions for its mirrorless cameras -- at least in the UK. The company recently offered to give a NX1000 mirrorless camera to anyone named David Bailey; 142 David Baileys came forward to claim their camera. Now the camera maker is doing another unique promo, and this time it's open to the general public: it's giving away tablet computers with its mirrorless cameras.
Photographer Stephen Wilkes has become well-known for his project titled "Day to Night," which features single images of various locations that capture the passing of a day. CBS News recently caught up with Wilkes and aired the feature above. In it, the photographer talks about how the project began and walks through how the composite images are shot and created.
What is street photography? The question is controversial, that's for sure. The first problem arises when trying to define it. According to Wikipedia: …
About a year ago, we shared a neat DIY method of transferring black-and-white photos onto blocks of wood. A very similar technique can be used for displaying your photos on glass. Inspired Ideas writes that all you need are a toner-based print of your photo (e.g. using a copier or laser printer) and some clear contact paper.
In 2009, NYC-based headshot photographer Jordan Matter began photographing professional dancers performing moves in and around New York City for a project titled "Dancers Among Us". When the photographs went viral online, Matter began taking similar photographs in major cities around the world. The photographs show dancers leaping and holding poses in all kinds of environments and situations, from a picnic in the park to workers shoveling snow.
Here's a dissection video for those of you who like photography better than biology. It's a Khan Academy lesson that offers a glimpse into how digital cameras work on the inside. The camera being dissected is a Vivitar V25, a 2.1 megapixel camera that you can pick up for around $18 from places like Walmart. Although it's basically the digital equivalent of a disposable camera, the camera still shares some things in common with higher-end digital cameras. You might be able to learn an …
MyShoebox is a new photo storage and sharing service that has been making a splash after launching a little over a week ago. Its offering is easy to describe: free and unlimited cloud storage for photos that can then be viewed from anywhere. Think of it as a Dropbox dedicated to preserving and enjoying photos.
Zack Arias is a professional photographer based in Atlanta who runs a popular personal blog with a sizable following. He's also runs the photography equivalent of Dear Abby.
The Internet often has a mind of its own when it comes to viral photos, the spread of which is virtually impossible to stop. Safeway, the second largest supermarket chain in North America, found this truth out recently after photos of badly designed cakes made their way online. The company is doing its best to quell the mockery, though: apparently at least one local Safeway bakery has gone so far as to ban photos entirely.
Finland-based photographer Tommy Vikars won this year's GDT European Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest with the above photograph, titled "The Stargazer." Vikars writes, …
Subscription-based photo-sharing service SmugMug caused a lot of grumbling back in August by effectively raising raising prices by 67% for Pro members who wanted to retain all of their existing features. Members who didn't want to pay double their membership costs could stay at the same rate but lose their ability to price and sell prints. The story and reaction was strikingly similar to Netflix's poorly-received pricing change enacted earlier this year.
Stacking long-exposure photos of stars leads to some pretty neat photos and time-lapse videos, but what happens if you use a similar technique for clouds? That's what photographer Matt Molloy does. His "photo stack" images of landscapes show clouds that look like smears and brush strokes across the sky.
Flickr has quietly rolled out a great incremental update to its photo-sharing service. Individual photo pages now display a number of EXIF details under a new section labeled "Additional Info", found in the column to the right. With a quick glance, you'll be able to see the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and focal length that a photographer was using when he or she snapped any photo.
Oliver Monroe is a Los Angeles-based photographer who has photographed some of the world's most famous bands and music artists in concert. Visit his website here.
Photographer Patrick Ng has an obsession with natural materials such as wood and leather. Recently, he decided to "woodenize" his beloved Canon F-1n SLR (a professional film SLR released back in 1976). He didn't use a pre-made kit for the conversion, though... Instead, he simply ripped off the faux-leather and replaced it with faux-wood wallpaper.
This past Thursday, a spectacular three-alarm fire consumed the upper floors of a 6-story building in Old Montreal. Photographer Evan Kitaljevich found himself in the right place at the right time, and documented the blaze unintentionally in an uncommon way: through time-lapse photos.
This photo is the greatest sports photo of all time -- at least according to Sports Illustrated. The magazine has published a gallery containing 100 of the greatest images (from an American's perspective), and the #1 image is the above shot of Michael Jordan hitting the game-winning shot to help the Chicago Bulls beat the Utah Jazz and win the 1998 NBA Finals in 6 games.
If you're planning to pick up a $6,500 Hasselblad Lunar mirrorless camera and need a matching USB flash drive to store your photos, you should definitely take a look at the Apophis. It's a high-end flash drive by Polish firm Zana Design that, like the Lunar, is crafted out of rare materials. How rare? Well, one of the ingredients is meteorite.
Belgian-based photographer Frieke Janssens received quite a bit of attention last year for her portrait series showing young children smoking (don't worry, they were faked), and now he's back with another unsettling photography project. This latest one is titled, "Your Last Shot," and consists of portraits of people that will one day be used on their tombstones. Each one is captioned with a name, a birth date, and a dash leading to an unknown date. The photo above is captioned, "Marcia …
