A little update to the recent brouhaha over Google+'s Terms of Service: Tom W of Getty Images posted the above message to fellow Getty members on Flickr informing them that Getty's lawyers have no problems with the ToS. He writes, …
If you've ever wondered how an art gallery would display the world's largest photo taken by the world's largest camera (and aircraft hangar), check out the above artist render of an exhibition that's opening tomorrow at UC Riverside. The 32x111 foot photo will be wrapped around a two story atrium at the Culver Center of the Arts.
Here's a helpful tutorial by Tutvid that teaches how to give your photographs dramatic colors using only Adobe Camera Raw. If you've started shooting RAW but haven't played around too much with ACR, this video is also a great primer for becoming familiar with the different panels and sliders.
If ordinary citizens have the right to photograph police in public places, what about the other way around? That's a question that's sure to be asked often in the coming days, as 40 law enforcement agencies across the US are planning to use iPhones to photograph civilians for the purpose of identifying wanted perps. The system, called Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS), costs $3,000 apiece and will be able to do facial recognition searches on a database of known …
Here's a concept for you to play around with over the weekend: give your shadow a real camera to shoot with!
If you've tried to scan film using an ordinary flatbed scanner as you would a piece of paper, you've probably discovered that it didn't turn out very well. The reason is because film needs to be illuminated from behind, while conventional scanners capture light that's reflected off what they're scanning. Before you give up hope and shell out money for a film scanner, here's some good news: you can build a cheap and simple cardboard adapter that turns any scanner into a film scanner!
Did you know that earlier this year YouTube added a free image stabilization tool to its video editor? It lets you smooth out the jitter in your videos without having to shell out dough for an expensive rig or software solution. The downside is that the stabilization makes your video look like it was shot by a robot.
There's plenty of tutorials online teaching you the "proper" techniques for photographing fireworks, but have you ever tried shooting them "incorrectly" on purpose? When photography enthusiast Pete Rogina took his Canon 5D Mark II out to capture fireworks this past Independence Day, he decided to try "light painting" with the fireworks by shooting them at long exposures without a tripod, waving the camera so that the streaks of light would take on abstract shapes.
Pose is a camera case that doubles as a simple stand. Designed to replace the little bean bags or mini-tripods that many people carry around separately, Pose has an attachment mount built in, and can either be propped up by itself on flat surfaces or wrapped around poles and curved surfaces. The $24 accessory is available for pre-order over at quirky, and will be manufactured if at least 1,000 people join in.
Photographer Mark Matthews of Sydney, Australia spotted the above plaque on a sidewalk that reads, …
At what point does inspiration turn into plagiarism? That's the question that popped up last year when Rhianna was sued by David LaChapelle over scenes found in one of her music videos, and it's the same issue with a lawsuit recently filed by photographer Janine Gordon against photographer Ryan McGinley. Gordon claims that 150 of McGinley's images -- including some used for a Levi's ad campaign -- are "substantially based" on her photos. In the three pairs of disputed images shown above, the …
File this under "awesome ways to show off your photos". Lomographer zakguy had a year's worth of Instax Mini instant photos on his hands and no way to display them, so he created a custom coffee table using his favorite shots! …
Kyle Jones wanted to see what it was like to film from inside a guitar, so he stuck his iPhone inside and started recording. The resulting footage shows the strings vibrating in wacky wave patterns thanks to the rolling shutter effect, which we also saw in the Canon 5D Mark II footage of a bass player shared earlier this year.
sonyalpharumors published the above image today showing what appears to be a pre-production render of an upcoming Sony NEX camera (reportedly the NEX-7). If the image is to be believed, then it looks like Sony is gunning for the customers Fujifilm is trying to capture with its popular X100 -- people who want a retro, rangefinder-style camera with a viewfinder and large sensor. The camera is rumored to have a 24MP APS-C sensor, an electronic viewfinder, manual aperture and shutter speed controls …
Now here's an interesting way to capture the passing of an entire day in a single photograph. It's composed of 24 shots -- one per hour -- with no photo manipulation needed!
Just as the monkey photography story was dying down, a new twist emerges: on Monday tech blog TechDirt received an email from Caters News, the agency representing wildlife photographer David Slater, whose camera was hijacked by a monkey and used to shoot a number of self-portraits.
While on vacation in Ohio, Flickr user Greg Smith spotted and photographed something neat: the water, rust and grime had created an accidental Western scene on the side of the pier! It's a cowboy on a horse, in a field, at sunset, with tree silhouettes in the horizon and wispy clouds in the sky.
Editor's note: This is the second interview we've done with Haje. The first was back in 2010 regarding his blog Photocritic.org …
Nikon has a support page for people who wonder why the company hasn't added sensor-shift image stabilization to its DSLRs. The first point is that stabilizing the image before it enters the camera allows the user to see exactly what the sensor "sees" through the viewfinder, and allows the autofocus and metering sensors to take advantage of this stabilized image as well. Secondly, they state that they can optimize the system for each lens to achieve finely tuned stabilization that gains extra …
Back in 2006, Flickr user André Rabelo submitted the above photograph to the group pool of DeleteMe!, a group whose members vote on photos to weed out any photos that aren't "incredible pictures, amazing, astonishing, perfect". Sadly, the photograph was very quickly removed by popular vote.
Here's a short video that gives a small glimpse into how Google's stealthy Photovine photo-sharing app works. Like we reported yesterday, it's an app that's focused around sharing photos based on a theme with both friends and strangers.
If you're a professional photographer taking your camera into extreme environments, the cheap plastic body cap that comes with your DSLR might not cut it. That's where LockCircle comes in -- it's a solid billett aluminum body cap designed to seal your camera from the elements while providing a special grip for removal even if you're wearing thick gloves. They're available for Canon EF mount cameras in silver, titanium, and black, and will soon be available for Nikon's F mount as well.
Government officials have been caught in a number of Photoshop flubs recently, from the Egyptian president being edited to be walking at the head of a pack of world leaders to a badly Photoshopped photo of Chinese officials that went recently went viral. Now the Syrian government may be the latest culprit -- the country just released an image of its president swearing in a newly appointed governor, and something doesn't quite look right...
Tina Roth Eisenberg, AKA swissmiss, has just launched an online temporary tattoo store called Tattly. Of the small selection currently offered, two of them are designed for photo geeks: Aperture and Instant Camera. You can pick up a pair of either tatt for $5 with free shipping in the US. Hopefully the prices will come down a bit if the store becomes popular.
San Franciscan Tanya Vlach lost her left eye in a car accident back in 2005. Dissatisfied with her prosthetic eye, she's trying to raise money to develop an in-eye camera that captures blink-activated still photos and 720p HD video. Her wish list of features include geotagging, IR/UV capture, facial recognition, and sensor activated zoom, focus, and on/off. Vlach's Kickstarter project is titled "Grow a new eye", and has a set goal of reaching $15,000 in funding by August 3rd, 2011.
If you're not convinced that Google is jumping into the photo-sharing pool head first, get this: the company has not one, but two stealthy photo sharing apps in private beta. Besides the Pool Party app that came to light at the beginning of the month, the rumored Photovine service has now materialized into a website -- well, a landing page, at least.
French design duo Zim & Zou (Thibault Zimmerman and Lucie Thomas) these papercraft versions of Polaroid and Leica cameras -- they're super realistic, except the colors are quite trippy!
A student in Germany created this fake Canon 5D Mark III commercial for a school project, and fooled quite a few people online.
Last year Scott Bourne caused some commotion among photo-enthusiasts by claiming that Twitter's ToS forced photographers to give up rights to photos shared through the service. After Google launched their new Google+ social network, Bourne again wrote a very similar post warning his readers about the ToS. We weren't planning on weighing in, but seeing that the FUD has spread to our comments and even The Washington Post, we'd like to clear some of it away for our readers.
Last year map geek Eric Fischer created heat maps showing where Flickr photos are taken in large cities and comparing tourist vs. local hotspots. Now he's back again with beautiful maps showing geotagged Flickr photos and Twitter Tweets, and the maps aren't limited to cities -- there's maps for continents (see North America above) and even the whole world! The orange dots show photos, the blue ones indicate Tweets, and a white one means both were found in that location.
Nikon has just announced the new AF-S DX Micro NIKKOR 40mm f/2.8G lens, which has a FoV equivalent to a 60mm on a full frame body. It boasts a minimum focusing distance of just 6.4 inches, and has a reproduction ratio of 1:1.
The AP has sacked photographer Miguel Tovar for "deliberate and misleading photo manipulation" after Tovar cloned out his own shadow from a feature photograph. The Photoshopping came to light after an alert photo editor spotted a strange looking dust pattern in a photo of Argentinian children playing soccer.
You might have heard about Leica's legendary manufacturing quality, but have you seen it? The company released this promotional video a couple days ago providing a behind-the-scenes peek into its production facilities.
Remember that super realistic Leica M3 paper pinhole camera we featured back in June? You can now print and make your own! Photographer Matt Nicholson has created a 10-page PDF with the printable template and detailed instructions, and is selling it for £1.50 (~$2.5) in his online store.
Musician Chris Bray was 13-years-old when he and his father attended the first ever launch of NASA's Space Shuttle program on April 12th, 1981. His mother snapped a photograph of the two standing ready with binoculars and a Super 8 camera. Last Friday, Bray (now 44) and his father (now nearly 70) were also in attendance at the final launch of the Shuttle program, and decided to recreate the photo they had taken together 30 years earlier.
On Saturday, the Leica store in Moscow was targeted by two masked men who used a sledgehammer to break through the door and shatter all the windows. Apparently the thieves didn't know too much about Leica gear: they stole a $300 flash unit but left a $23,000 Leica S2 medium format camera sitting on the shelf. Leica has published a list of stolen items and their serial numbers here, and is asking customers to compare serial numbers when buying gear from unauthorized sources.
San Diego-based wedding photographer Aaron Willcox won 1st place in an engagement photo contest with this shot showing a feat of incredible strength. No Photoshop trickery or invisible wires were used in making this image (nor does the guy have Superman-esque strength). Can you figure out how it was done? …
Last Thursday, three Georgian photographers including Irakli Gedenidze, the personal photographer of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, were arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia by taking photos of secret documents. On Saturday, Georgian TV aired a clip of Gedenidze confessing to selling the information to someone he thought was a Russian agent, but claimed to be the victim of blackmail. The Moscow Times suggests that this may simply be an attempt by Georgia to "chill the media".
Want to see how instant film for Polaroid cameras is made? How It's Made recently paid a visit to The Impossible Project's factory in the Netherlands (purchased from Polaroid a few years ago) to give us a neat behind-the-scenes look at the processes that go into making the popular film.
The New York Times has a powerful piece about photographer Giles Duley. Duley was covering a patrol in Afghanistan back in February when he stepped on a bomb and lost an arm and both legs: …
Did you know that the original Star Wars lightsaber was made using antique camera parts? If you have an old Speed Graphic press camera, you may even have a replica lightsaber sitting on your shelf without knowing it.
Let's start off this week with something lighthearted and awesome. The folks at 2D Photography spent nearly six months working on building a giant Rube Goldberg machine using photo gear. Like the epic Battle at F-Stop Ridge video, it seems pretty likely that this video will soon be going viral.
Update on 12/18/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
Thought the grain-of-salt-sized camera announced in Germany earlier this year was small? Well, researchers at Cornell have created a camera just 1/100th of a millimeter thick and 1mm on each size that has no lens or moving parts. The Planar Fourier Capture Array (PFCA) is simply a flat piece of doped silicon that cost just a few cents each. After light information is gathered, some fancy mathematical magic (i.e. the Fourier transform) turns the information into a 20x20 pixel "photo". The fuzzy …
For photo enthusiasts, Google's new Google+ social network is something like Flickr mixed with Facebook. It has the social sharing power of Facebook while providing features and tools Flickr users would appreciate thanks to the fact that Google runs a full-fledged photo-sharing service in Picasa (soon to be brought into the Google+ fold and renamed Google Photos). One such feature is the EXIF data section, easily accessed for each photo by Action->Photo Details. Most Facebook users would likely …
We've seen all kinds of ideas for keeping track of your camera's lens cap when it's not being used, including velcro, special mounts, fashionable pouches, and even a retractable cap, but Nikon has come up with the best idea yet: a lens cap that attaches to camera straps! A patent filed by the company in 2009 and published yesterday shows a lens cap that can easily clip onto a strap when not in use -- a simple solution to a small problem that apparently many entrepreneurs have been interested in …
Space Shuttle Atlantis blasted off for the last time today, the final launch ever for NASA's Space Shuttle program. 18-year-old Ryan Graff was lucky enough to be flying to Miami as the Shuttle launched, and captured this awesome photograph of Atlantis' smoke trail using his iPhone.
"The Untitled Project" by photographer Matt Siber features urban scenes with all traces of text stripped away and reconstructed in a separate frame. Siber shot the original images in North America, Europe, and China over the past nine years.
Street photographer Eric Kim generated some buzz last month by recording himself shooting on the street with a GoPro mounted to his Leica M9. Now, he's back again with an even cooler point of view: through the Leica M9's viewfinder itself. This 10 minute video of Kim doing street photography in Santa Monica was recorded using a HTC EVO 4G smartphone stuck to the back of his camera.
Robots might not be able to convey emotions or tell stories through photographs, but one thing they're theoretically better than humans at is calculating proportions in a scene, and that's exactly what one robot at India's IIT Hydrabad has been taught to do. Computer scientist Raghudeep Gadde programmed a humanoid robot with a head-mounted camera to perfectly obey the rule of thirds and the golden ratio. New Scientist writes, …
