Need some inspiration? The "Endless Interestingness" page by designers Mark Barcinski and Adrien Jeanjean -- they have an awesome website, BTW -- shows thumbnails of interesting Flickr photographs, and extends endlessly in every direction. If you see a photo you like, simply click it to open up the original Flickr page.
Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli recently captured some amazing one-of-a-kind photographs of the Space Shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station from about 600 feet away using a Nikon D3x and 24-120mm lens.
Apple is looking to make an even bigger splash in the camera market with the photography-related features they've included in the upcoming iOS 5, with one of the huge ones being cloud connectivity. iPhones running iOS 5 will be connected to iCloud, Apple's online backup solution, and every photograph captured will be automatically and wirelessly copied to the cloud and into the user's "Photo Stream". The photos can then be accessed from other computers and devices, and are deleted after 30 days …
About a week ago, a Dutch woman uploaded a video to YouTube that appeared to show her getting a sleeve tattoo showing the Facebook profile photographs of 152 of her friends. The video spread like wildfire, and news outlets ranging from CNN to Forbes published the story. Now, she's admitting that it was actually a publicity stunt intended to get the tattoo shop some free publicity, and that the tattoo was actually a temporary one that washes off in a couple days.
Here's a crash course on getting started with using Photoshop Layers and Masks by Sean Armenta of Fstoppers. If you've been making edits on your photographs directly without creating new layers, watch this video to have your eyes opened to the power of layers.
An unfortunate photo-lover in Hong Kong recently got into a fight with his girlfriend, who proceeded to smash his beautiful collection of Nikon lenses. Among the casualties were a Nikkor 28-70 f2.8D, Tokina 28-70 F2.6-2.8, Nikkor 80-200 f2.8D, Nikkor 17-35 F2.8D, and a Nikon TC-20E teleconverter.
Need a break from work? Photographer Murray Fredericks created this beautiful 10-minute time-lapse video of clouds forming and dissipating over a body of water. Best when viewed in full screen and in HD.
After photographs of the cameras were leaked back in April 2011, Sony has now officially announced its A35 translucent mirror camera to replace the A33 and the NEX-C3. The A35 has the same resolution as the A55 -- 16.2 megapixels -- and can shoot 1080/60 video and 7 frames per second for stills (though resolution is reduced to 8.4MP at this rate. ISO goes up to 25600, and there's a large 3-inch touchscreen on the back. The A35 will be available in August for $600, or $700 if you want the …
Photographer Gary Cruz is one lucky dude -- not only did he get his hands on a Fujifilm X100, but he got what might be the world's first X100 cake as well! It was given to him by his talented wife Beverly.
Math major and photo enthusiast Kris Hollingsworth created this beautiful photograph in which he light-painted an entire poem! It took patience and perseverance: practicing the technique took 15 hours, while the actual light painting took another two hours. The image is actually 9 separate photographs in one -- eight lines of poetry and the self-portrait of Hollingsworth.
Confused about what a certain acronym means when it comes to Nikon's line of Nikkor lenses? There's a helpful Lens Glossary over on the company's website that provides a short explanation of each one.
On Memorial Day 2011, Narces Benoit witnessed and filmed a group of Miami police officers shooting and killing a suspect in a car chase and armed robbery. He was then confronted by officers who handcuffed him and smashed his cell phone, but Benoit was able to sneakily preserve the video with some quick thinking. The Miami Herald writes, …
Photographer Don Barnard made this video tutorial showing how to convert a styrofoam shipping box into a DIY softbox. The video is pretty in-depth and runs nearly 10 minutes, but the basic idea is to line the inside of the box with some reflective material, stick a strong light inside, and cover it with some cloth to soften the light. It's a neat way to make a useful lighting tool for under $20. Check out some sample photos taken with the softbox here.
Here's a good example of when HDR photography is useful: NASA created this image of the Space Shuttle Endeavour lifting off for the final time by combining six separate photographs.
When Eadweard Muybridge shot the first motion picture of a galloping horse back in 1878, he used 24 individual cameras placed 27 inches apart, using trip wires to fire off each camera one thousandth of a second after the previous one. With fancy high-speed camera rentals priced at thousands of dollars a day, YouTube member Destin came up with a Muybridge-esque technique for capturing a bullet flying through the air using an ordinary DSLR: he shoots a bullet for each frame and uses a fancy …
The next time you're planning a birthday party for someone who loves photography, try making a giant camera piñata using cardboard and paper-mache. You can fill it with candy and treats, or take your photo-geekness to the next level by filling it with photography-related gifts and accessories.
The Twig Pod is a new lightweight aluminum monopod for compact cameras (not DSLRs) that collapses like a tent rod into four 8-inch segments. It has a pointy base that can be planted into the ground for hands free shooting. In addition to stabilizing your camera when propped up, the head also bends, allowing you to take self-portraits from further than an arm's length away (two similar products are the XShot and QuikPod). You can pick up a Twig Pod for $28 over on Photojojo.
DEAR PHOTOGRAPH is a neat photo project by Taylor Jones that collects pictures of pictures from the past in the present. These are images that show old photos held up and aligned to the present day location, offering a glimpse into what once was.
Photographer Ian Richardson made this paper camera out of the novel Hard Times by Charles Dickens, with a small glass pot serving as the lens.
Here's a neat photo project for you to try: find a friend who loves photography just as much as you do, and share a roll of film. After one person finishes using up a roll, rewind it and send it to the other person. That's what photographers Lexi and Natalie did with their project Exposed Far Away.
Here's how Chuck Norris might wash a dirty Nikon D300S. Too bad his never gets dirty...
Apple unveiled its new iOS 5 at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2011 today, which includes some notable upgrades to the camera functionality on the iPhone. First off, the volume up button now doubles as a shutter button, allowing the phone to be used more easily in a camera orientation. There's also a new camera button on the phone's unlock screen, letting you quickly switch to the app before a precious moment slips away. Finally, a AE/AF lock feature will allow you to tap any area on the …
With HD video cameras getting smaller and smaller, people are constantly attaching them to random things to give us bizarre perspectives that weren't very easy to capture before, whether it's the end of a broadsword or the tip of an arrow. In the video above, some friends decided to attach a GoPro camera to the end of a stick and throw it back and forth while running around. At 6 minutes, it runs a bit long, but who knew the simple idea could create such awesome results? …
We've seen quite a few solutions for storing lens caps when they're not in use, ranging from velcro attachments to small lens cap pouches. The Camera Lens Cap Holder is a new patent-pending holder by mechanical engineer Mark Stevenson that lets you attach your lens caps to your strap in the way they're designed to be attached -- they simply snap onto it in the same way they snap onto lenses. Stevenson is currently funding the project through Kickstarter, and a $15 contribution will pre-order …
Swedish Alex Breton spent 11 years and and $10 million developing the PrintBrush, a printer that lets you print onto paper by simply rubbing the handheld device across the surface. While traditional printers must move paper through a machine in order to accurately track the position of the page, the PrintBrush works more like an optical mouse, tracking the paper underneath with lasers. A camera-equipped PaintBrush is set to hit the market in early 2012, letting people everywhere print photos …
The lens mug craze seems to be cooling down, but now there's another product on the market that can help you stay cool (literally): the Canon lens cooling fan. They're powered by two AAA batteries and somewhat resemble the same Canon 70-200mm lens that the original mugs were based on. You can buy one for $5.60 with free shipping from DealExtreme.
Here's another video tutorial teaching how to give your bokeh custom shapes.
"Tombstoning" is what people in the UK call jumping into water from a cliff upright and feet first, like a tombstone. If you have a friend gutsy enough to do this, try shooting multiple exposures as they're falling and combine them into a single image. Photographer Alastair Sopp captured the beautiful image above of a nameless daredevil jumping from a 100 foot cliff into 20 feet of water (yikes!).
Designer Chris Abbas took a large number of black and white photographs captured on NASA's Cassini Mission to Saturn and created this strange and hypnotic video that provides a pretty unique way of looking at space.
In the market for a cheap compact camera? Amazon's Gold Box deal of the day today is a Canon A490 for $50. Be sure to also grab the free Lowepro case if you decide to buy.
Here's a photograph we've all taken... only in our bathroom mirror. NASA astronaut Michael Fincke shot this photograph with what looks like one of the Nikon DSLRs on board using a reflective-portion of the International Space Station. This means he shot a self-portrait roughly 200 miles above the ground while zipping around the planet at 17,000 mph.
Apple recently filed a patent having to do with baking infrared communication capabilities into the iPhone. Although there are certainly useful applications for the technology (e.g. a museum beaming information to the phone at different exhibitions), what's troubling is that the feature may also allow the camera to be remotely disabled by those who wish to prevent photography.
Photographer Matthew Nicholson created this paper Leica M3 that's a working pinhole camera. It's loaded with 35mm film, and even the strap is realistic and made with paper!
Here's a fun bit of photo history: did you know that back in 1982, Kodak attempted to introduce a cartridge film format that resembled a floppy disk? Each rectangular cartridge contained a circular film disc with 15 exposures, and the disc was rotated 24 degrees after each exposure to line up the next frame.
29-year-old student and avid photographer Christopher Fussell was taking photographs of trains at a Baltimore station back in March when he was confronted by Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) officers. He was able to record the conversation, which shows the officers having a complete lack of understanding of laws and photographers' rights. Fussell writes, …
Husband and wife photography duo Davide Luciano and Claudia Ficca have a project called "Potholes" in which they stage unusual scenes around giant potholes found in large cities (e.g. Montreal, NYC, LA, and Toronto). The project started after they collided with one such pothole and needed a way to channel their frustration into a positive project, transforming something useless into something humorous and creative.
Here's a story that was shared over on the Photo.net forums recently: …
Now here's something we haven't seen before: Flickr user Damon Hair made this cheap DIY color checker using mat board, foam core, and paint swatches matched with pantone colors from a local paint/hardware store.
After sticking too long to film technology, it looks like Leica is finally getting the digital game figured out. Yesterday it announced a record profit of €248.9 million for the latest fiscal year, a significant increase from the €158.2 million it earned the previous year.
Etsy seller Mariko Carandang sells handmade jewelry, and one of her products is this small treasure locket that's meant to look a little like the Polaroid SX-70.
Nikon is running a new "Man of Action" commercial starring Ashton Kutcher in the US that features the same "twist" as the Olympus PEN commercial we shared in the middle of 2010. Sorry for the out-of-sync audio (let's just pretend it's dubbed).
How do camera makers describe their cameras? To answer this question, we took the press releases of some popular cameras and made word clouds with them that are based on the number of occurrences of non-common words. The above word cloud is for the Canon 5D Mark I.
The White House announced last month that it would be ending the long-running practice of reenacting Presidential speeches for photographs, but stated that they were still working out how the new system would work. Last week it reached an agreement with the White House Correspondents’ Association -- rather than reenacting photos for a larger group of photographers, a single photojournalist will be given permission to shoot future speeches as they happen: …
Twitter has just announced that they will be launching their own photo-sharing service that will let you attach photographs directly to Tweets, competing with services like TwitPic. Rather than host the images themselves using their own servers or Amazon's S3 storage, they've decided to partner with photo-sharing giant Photobucket. It'll be interesting to see whether photographers feel more comfortable sharing their images on Twitter now that the functionality will be baked into the service …
Photographer Ben Canales created this great video tutorial teaching the basics of shooting the night sky. He goes over how to shoot quick test shots to set up your composition before discussing more in-depth tips and tricks for capturing the final shot, including the "Rule of 600".
If you need a cheap way to bounce some light, don't want to spend a wad of cash on a real reflector from a camera shop, and don't want to take the time to make a cardboard and aluminum foil reflector, you can buy a cheap car sun shade (less than $10 at Walmart) as a cheap reflector. They're lightweight, foldable, and reflect light well -- just make sure the reflective surface is white or silver.
Photographer Adrian Onsen wanted to use the AI Servo autofocus mode on his Canon 40D in low-light situations, but found that the AF assist beam is only emitted once until focus is achieved rather than every time the camera needs to refocus. He then purchased a laser pointer from a dollar store, disassembled it to obtain a defocused beam of light, and attached it to the top of his camera. The hacked-together AF assist tool ended up working pretty well -- Onsen was able to shoot sharper photos at …
There's a well known photography joke that goes, "If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event, which lens would you use?" While it's certainly morbid and pretty absurd, there's plenty of examples of photographers having a "shoot first" mentality in a time of crisis. The rally racing photographer seen in this video provides one such example.
Flickr user Robert Hodgin purchased a cheap RC helicopter and shot these 30 second exposure photographs of him attempting to keep the helicopter from crashing. If you have RC helicopter skills, you might be able to create pretty neat light-painting photographs using this idea.
The iPhone 4 has become the primary camera for many of its owners, but it lacks many of the useful features found on actual compact cameras. iShuttr is a hard case that makes your iPhone operate more like a compact camera by adding a grip, a shutter button, zoom buttons, a larger flash, an external battery pack, and a tripod mount. The people behind the case are currently raising money for the project through Kickstarter: a $50 contribution will pre-order an iShuttr, which is set to retail for …
