For those of you balking at the astronomical prices paid for photos in the art world, get this: Leica is releasing a special new white version of the M9-P digital rangefinder in Japan, and has given it a price tag of ¥2,620,000 (~$31,770). The regular version costs $7,995, so buyers will be paying an additional $23,705 for rarity (only 50 will be made), a slick kit lens (it comes with a 50mm f/0.95), and the color white.
Hamilton College assistant art professor Robert Knight has a project titled "Sleepless" that consists of ghostly long exposure photographs of people tossing and turning throughout the night.
The digital photography course offered by Stanford (CS 178, which we featured last year) has an awesome page filled with flash applets that can help you gain a better understanding of certain technical aspects of photography. These include understanding how various factors affect depth of field, a visual look at how phase detection autofocus works, and a simple introduction to color theory.
Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres recently sent one of her staff members named Amy to a JCPenny to pose as a studio portrait photographer. As clients came in, Ellen watched the scene through a hidden camera and gave Amy exact instructions for what to say and do through a hidden earpiece. The resulting interactions between photographer and portrait subject(s) were hilarious.
Samsung may not be the only camera company dabbling with the idea of a digital Hasselblad 500CM-style camera: Sony is reportedly working on a new SLT camera called the "A1S" that features a "full frame" square sensor. sonyalpharumors writes that the prototype camera in development has the following specs: compatibility with existing Alpha and Minolta lenses, a 36x36mm square sensor with 37-megapixel resolution, a large body (larger than the Sony A900), a square electronic viewfinder, and a …
Framed is a beautiful and creative short film about a photographer taking pictures in the woods when he encounters something unexpected. French filmmaker Mael Sevestre filmed the entire thing using an iPhone 4S and built a custom rig for recording footage through the old twin lens reflex camera seen in the film.
Raleigh, North Carolina-based artist Scott Hazard creates abstract images by tearing shapes into multiple prints of the same photograph, and then stacking the images on top of each other. He uses the technique to create things such as smoke, clouds, and portals in walls. He calls the project "Photo Constructs".
Turns out the 36.3 megapixel sensor inside the new Nikon D800 isn't just a megapixel war marketing tactic: the sensor has been given the highest score ever awarded by camera equipment rating service DxOMark. Calling it a "complete success in every sensor-related respect", the lab states that the D800's sensor has become the new sensor of reference by which all other camera sensors will be measured. Furthermore, it boasts an "unmatched quality-to-price ratio" by being the cheapest (by far) among …
For his project titled "Horror Vacui" (latin for "fear of empty space"), photographer Federico Chiesa imagines what the villains and creepy characters of '80s films would be like if they were "still alive" today.
London-based photographer David Wilman recently did some experiments in which he used a Canon 5D Mark II as a digital back for his MPP 4x5 large format camera. He placed his lens-less 5D at the back of the camera at the film plane and then placed a black cloth over the two cameras to prevent any light from spilling onto the sensor. Light from the Schneider Kreuznach Xenar 4.5/150mm lens entered straight into the open mirror box of the DSLR without any physical link between the two cameras.
A wonderful hour-long interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Olympus recently rebooted its OM line of film SLRs with the OM-D mirrorless camera, and many photographers are hoping that Canon will follow suit with one of its film bodies. Industrial designer and photographer David Riesenberg is among them, and recently decided turn what he wants to see into a concept drawing.
YouTube member Syejukoon mounted a GoPro camera to the back of his corgi named Riley using a customized backpack, and then went hiking with Riley in Los Angeles' Runyon Canyon Park.
Photographer Ilona Szwarc's project "http://www.ilonaszwarc.com/american-girls" is a series of portraits of girls in the United States posing with their avatars -- American Girl dolls that are customized to look exactly like their owners.
YouTube member eaglejm shot this video in downtown St. Louis to show the Canon 5D Mark III's high ISO video performance. Be sure to watch it full screen and in HD.
Adobe has launched the public beta version of Photoshop CS6, which features a completely redesigned user interface along with new saving features (auto and background), new content-aware features (move and patch), new blur filters, an updated Adobe Camera RAW, and improved video editing capability. There's a 62% increase in features, with 65 of them inspired by user feedback. ACR 7 also features the same new engine found in Lightroom 4 that improves the performance of sliders.
After photographer Bob Carey moved with his wife to the East Coast in 2003, he found that life suddenly flipped 180-degrees from what he was used to. He then did what every sane, middle-aged, male photographer would do: he began photographing himself in a pink tutu to express himself. However, the project wouldn't stay random for long.
Steven Alan and Ben Boutwell made this clever little short of themselves taking photos with a magical picture frame. It's titled "Frame of Mind".
Earlier this month the US Army published an article warning its soldiers that the ubiquitousness of geotagged photographs these days can present a serious security risk, citing a real-world example of something that happened back in 2007: …
German ad agency Jung von Matt created this brilliant series of photographs for a LEGO advertising campaign titled "Imagine". The images show famous characters from children's television shows in simplified LEGO form. Can you figure out each of the shows?
While a number of countries are taking steps to ban the unrealistic Photoshopping of models, Israel has gone a step further: the country has banned the use of underweight models themselves. Additionally, ads that are Photoshopped to make models look skinnier must also now carry a disclaimer. With the new law in place, all models appearing at photo shoots for ads geared toward the Israeli market must provide an up-to-date medical report proving that they aren't malnourished by the World Health …
I’ve always been fascinated by pancake lenses. It just amazes me that something that small can actually function. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve been taking things apart to determine where and how (and sometimes if) the lenses can be adjusted optically. So, I decided to do two pancake lenses for mirrorless cameras side-by-side to see how they differed (the Sony 16mm f/2.8 E mount and the Olympus 17mm f/2.8 micro 4/3 mount). I wasn’t sure there would be much we could do with …
YouTube user Roy Prol created this fascinating animation that imagines what Earth would be like if our planet had Saturn-like rings. In addition to views from space, he show us beautiful renderings of what the rings would look like in landscape photos captured at famous landmarks (e.g. the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro) around the world.
Singapore-based photographer Aw Zinkie's photo series "Republic of Pulau Semakau" explores the idea of a trash bin being an essential part of an individual's personal space, and a way of examining their identity. Her portraits show the subjects in their personal environments with their faced replaced by held up trash bins. The series also highlights issues of waste management in Singapore, and the fact that every individual's trash causes them to become a "founder" of the offshore Semakau …
Here's a fascinating video by NASA that explains what auroras are and what they look like from space. It's filled with beautiful photographs and time-lapse sequences captured by astronauts on the International Space Station. Astronaut photographer Don Pettit, who maintains a blog about his experiences, writes that taking pictures of Earth is harder than it looks.
Last week, a collection of 36 prints by William Eggleston was sold for $5.9 million at auction. The top ten list of most expensive photographs ever sold doesn't contain a single work worth less than a cool million. Just a few months ago, Andreas Gursky's 'Rhine II' became the world's most expensive photograph, selling for $4.3 million.
The Lost & Found Project is a volunteer effort that recovered three quarters of a million lost photographs after last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Each of the snapshots was washed, digitized, and numbered, and twenty thousand of them have since been reunited with their owners.
Back in 2010 we shared that MIT was developing a special camera that uses echoes of light to see around corners. Now, two years later, the researchers are finally showing off the camera in action. It works by firing 50 "femtosecond" (quadrillionth of a second) laser pulses 60 times at various spots at an angled wall. A special imaging sensor then collects the scattered light that's reflected back and uses complex algorithms to piece together the scene based on how long the photons take to …
After his Beijing studio was destroyed in 2005, artist Liu Bolin (AKA "The Invisible Man") began a project titled "Hiding in the City" that show him blending into various locations around Beijing. The photographs aren't Photoshopped -- Bolin carefully has his body painted to blend in with each landscape.
Photo enthusiast Chris Malcolm needed a better way to aim his 500mm lens at fast moving subjects (e.g. birds in flight), so he upgraded his lens with a DIY sighting aid by attaching a non-magnified red dot sight: …
Imagine a world in which cameras are as connected to the web as cell phones and purchased with contracts from wireless service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint. That world may not be too far off. Last week we reported that both Samsung and Panasonic are considering Android-powered cameras that would offer third-party apps and many of the same things offered by mobile phones.
After finding toys from his childhood in his grandparents' attic, photographer Julien Mauve decided to create a series of photographs that imagines what those toys would look like in our serious adult world. The series is titled "Back to Childhood".
Here's a simple tip by photographer Benjamin Von Wong for traveling abroad: you can make recharging your devices overseas a breeze by building a charging station using a single power adapter and your own power strip.
Here's what Henri Cartier-Bresson, the father of modern photojournalism, said about his concept of "The Decisive Moment" in an interview with The Washington Post in 1957.
Photographer Mario Zanaria created this contact sheet portrait of a model named Francesca by planning out each of the frames on a roll of film.
At CES 2012 back in January, Casio showed off a 2D to 3D conversion service that turns photos into sculptures. Now a new Portland, Oregon-based company called BumpyPhoto is bringing the technology to the masses. With prices starting at $59, BumpyPhoto will take your standard photograph, turn it into a 3D model using their special software, and then create a color 3D relief sculpture for you.
Photographer Andrey Pavlov's images of ants may look like they were computer-generated or created with dead insects, but they're actually real photographs of living ants. Pavlov spends hours setting up his fantasy scenes and then waits for his ant subjects to interact with his miniature props in just the right way.
Here's the first leaked photo of the upcoming Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF5. It was shared on Instagram (and quickly taken down) by Hong Kong-based model Angela Baby, who was likely working on a commercial for the new Micro Four Thirds camera when she decided to snap a photo using the iPhone app. 43 Rumors writes that the camera will have a 12 megapixel sensor, ISO 12800, snappy autofocus (0.09s), a revised touchscreen, and improved low-light performance.
If you go to Google Street View and type in "rue de londres, paris", you can visit the location where photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson captured his famous street photograph Behind the Gare St. Lazare in 1932. It's an ordinary location that became an iconic photograph through Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment" style of photography. Cartier-Bresson notes, …
Being able to concentrate is a great quality to have as a photographer, but make sure it doesn't make you tunnel vision and cause you to miss shots. Photographer Hans Kruse was photographing deer in a park outside Copenhagen, Denmark, when he spotted this wildlife photographer miss out on a close-up of a huge stag because he had his telephoto lens pointed in the wrong direction. He states, …
Trigger Happy is a new product that lets you use your iOS or Android smartphone as a fancy camera remote. It consists of an app and a one-meter-long cable that goes from your phone's audio jack to your camera. Besides acting as a simple remote shutter release for shake-free shots, the app offers bulb functionality for timing long exposures, an intervalometer for timelapse photography, HDR mode, and bramping. They're also working on lightning detection, audio waveform detection, face detection, …
If you were to lose your camera today, would anyone who found it be able to get in touch with you? If not, it might be a good idea to put a couple "digital dog tags" on your camera's memory card. First, add a photo with your contact information onto the card so that anyone looking through the photos on the camera will come across it. Next, add a series of text documents to the root directory of your memory card (the first directory that appears when you access the card on a computer). Give …
For this short titled "Full Circle", Callum Cooper attached a camera to the end of a jump rope and had a number of models use it. In addition to showing a unique point of view, the technique also provides for an interesting way to transition between shots.
Photographers are supposed to document news rather than make it, but a clumsy German photographer had the ill fortune of doing the latter in the most horrible way this past Wednesday. The photographer was shooting at a media event at the Limbach-Oderfrohna zoo in Eastern Germany when he stepped backward and onto a three-week-old earless bunny named Til, instantly killing the little guy.
Cesar Kuriyama spent a couple years saving enough money to take an entire year off from work -- his 30th year of life. He spent that year living frugally, doing all the things he never had enough time to do: travelling, personal creative projects, and spending time with family. He decided to document that special year by capturing 1 second of footage every single day and creating a short compilation video at the end, similar to Madeline's video that we shared back in January. After completing …
NASA has released a gigantic catalog of the night sky that contains more than 563 million stars, galaxies, asteroids, planets, and objects. The images were captured by the infrared cameras of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission, which has been collecting data for the past two years. After capturing more than 2.7 million images of the sky, NASA created an epic panorama showing the entire sky by stitching together 18,000 of those images. You can view the panorama in a zoomable …
Dutch website Focus Media has published several photographs of the upcoming Samsung NX20 mirrorless camera, along with a list of specs. The camera will be slightly larger than the NX11 (there a thicker grip), and will offer a 20.3MP sensor, built in Wi-Fi for uploading images to the web, 8fps continuous shooting, ISO 100-12800, i-Function 2.0, built-in flash, an electronic viewfinder, 1080p HD video recording (with a separate button), and a 3-inch tilting screen on the back.camera/#ixzz1pJPIu4K9
Next Media Animation is a Taiwanese company that regularly creates animations that report on news stories and current events (here's one they made after the death of Steve Jobs). Earlier this week they released the animation above that explains the rise of Instagram and it's impending arrival on Android. The style is very... unique.
Last month some retailers had short sales that heavily discounted Adobe Lightroom 3, selling it at $70 and $80. If you were one of the people who jumped on those deals, here's some even better news for you: you might qualify for a free upgrade to the newly launched Lightroom 4! Adobe's upgrade policy offers complimentary upgrades to people who purchase an old version shortly after a new one is announced, but it can also apply to you if you purchased shortly beforehand. Here are instructions on …
Director Jason Bognacki had a Contessa-Nettel Piccolette German folding camera from 1919 sitting around on his shelf for ages, and decided one day to bring it back to life by attaching it to his Canon 5D Mark II.
