Nikon officially announced their new D5100 DSLR today, replacing the D5000 in the entry-level category. The 16.2 megapixel camera with a 1.5x crop factor has a 3-inch swiveling LCD screen, 4fps continuous shooting, an ISO range from 100 to 6400 (which you can boost to 25600), 1080p video recording at 30fps, and built in sensor cleaning.
If you think the 5-megapixel sensor found on the iPhone 4 is good, wait till you see the camera found on the next iPhone -- it's reportedly going to be a 8-megapixel sensor made by Sony. The Street wrote back in 2010 that the next version of the iPhone to arrive in 2011 would pack an 8-megapixel Sony sensor rather than the 5-megapixel OmniVision one found in the current phone, and Sony's CEO Howard Stringer seems to have confirmed that today in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Nikon will reportedly announce the new D5100 DSLR tomorrow (late tonight for those in the US), and photographs of the camera were leaked onto the Interwebs today. We'll be reporting on the specs tomorrow, but an interesting rumor is that the camera will have a "Night Vision" option that boosts ISO up to a mind-blowing 102400, allowing you to shoot in near-darkness. Stay tuned for the official announcement!
Computer vision PhD student Zdenek Kalal developed a camera called "Predator" that learns from its mistakes while given difficult recognition and tracking tasks. It's a pretty interesting glimpse at how powerful the autofocus feature on consumer cameras might be in the future. Imagine being able to teach your camera to recognize a particular moving subject, then having all the photographs taken show that subject in perfect focus! Cameras already have simple facial recognition features built in …
Flash drives are a dime a dozen, but the Fuuvi Pick is a bit different -- it functions as a flash drive but doubles as a camera for both still photo and video! There a USB connector on one end, and microSD slot on the other. It shoots 1280 × 1024 (1.3 megapixel) photographs and 720 x 480 video at 30fps. To transfer photographs, simply plug the camera into your computer -- like you would with a flash drive or with a Flip camcorder -- and it will be recognized as a drive. You can pick one up …
Some friends of mine asked me to shoot a quick band photograph of them recently without any preparation or planning. Luckily, the location was pretty nice (we were at a hostel) and the weather was a bit cloudy so there wasn't harsh sunlight.
Did you know that flatbed scanners make fun portrait cameras as well? Just place your cat on the glass, do a quick scan, and you'll have a strange looking portrait shot from below! Apparently this is pretty popular among cat lovers -- a Flickr search for "cat scanner" returns thousands of results! This gives "cat scan" a whole new meaning!
When a fake camera technology is unveiled, it's normally called a "concept". When it's published on April 1st, however, it's called an April Fool's Joke (e.g. last Friday's Canon iPad monitor). The RE-35 is another fun idea that would be absolutely awesome if it actually existed -- it's a 35mm canister that transforms any 35mm film camera into a digital one using a flexible sensor. Simply load the canister into the camera as you would with film, shoot your photos, and download them by …
Photographer Denis Smith creates photos giant balls of light without any digital trickery, relying instead on light-painting. His technique is to spin a light around while slowly turning his body, creating spheres of light when seen in a long exposure photo.
Customer: I want to test this camera with my memory card so I can check the pictures at home on my computer.
Salesperson: That's very smart of you - of course I'll let you do that.
Customer: Can I try it with a background flash?
Salesperson: Normally I'd say no, but I'm not busy... so... sure, why not?
Customer: Can we shoot it on a white wall with even lighting?
Salesperson: Whatever you'd like.
Sure this might be an April Fool's joke, but it's also a pretty interesting concept demo. Perhaps this is a glimpse of how we might be operating cameras in the future.
Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner was randomly selected and announced below.
Editor's note: This is our first press release published in accordance with the terms of our acquisition by Eastman Kodak, which was announced earlier today. Rochester, NY, March 28 -- Kodak’s Russell Hunt has earned recognition as a 2011 Channel Chief by Everything Channel’s CRN for the second consecutive year. Notably, Hunt has led the successful channel integration of two existing channel communities within Kodak. Through Hunt’s leadership efforts, Kodak expands its channel …
New York Times photographer Lynsey Addario was recently released along with three male journalists after being taken captive in Libya. After details of her abuse was reported in the news, there were immediately reactions from those who believe that female journalists shouldn't be assigned to war zones because of the risks. Addario responded yesterday, saying: …
We're pleased to announced today that Eastman Kodak has agreed to acquire PetaPixel. Editorial control and content on this blog will not be affected, though, as part of the deal, Kodak-related press releases will be published along with our usual content. Kodak is attempting to diversify into photography markets outside the ones it has traditionally focused on, and we're honored to join them in boosting their share of the photography blog market. Terms of the deal will not be announced, but …
Hiding or censoring part of an image through obfuscation is as easy as selecting the area in Photoshop and applying the Pixelate->Mosaic filter, but what if you don't have an image editing program at your disposal? If you're seriously paranoid about your privacy on the Internet, there's a new service called PhotoHide that helps you quickly add these pixelated areas to any photo. Everything is done through the web browser, and you can download the final image once you're done.
Skins and cases that transform make the iPhone 4 look like a camera have become pretty popular in recent days, but this case by Etsy seller Signimade still manages to stand out. It's crafted out of Bamboo, Zebra wood, or Walnut wood, and is made by hand. Each one costs $35.
Adobe is working on a full version of Photoshop for the iPad for people who need more than the Photoshop Express app that's more designed for mobile phones. At Photoshop World, which kicked off earlier this week, Adobe gave a neat demo of the app in action, and Eric Reagan over at Photography Bay recorded the video above. It's a neat look at how they're trying to rethink the popular program for a different kind of computer.
We may soon see an unexpected player enter the mirrorless camera market: CNET Asia is reporting that GE will be introducing a mirrorless camera by the end of this year: …
Photographer Cary Norton built a working 4x5 large format camera using Lego bricks, a 127mm lens he purchased for $40 on eBay, and a film holder and ground glass in the back.
This Science Channel "How Its Made" segment shows the manufacturing process for CCD semiconductors, which are the sensors found in many digital cameras. For the difference between CCD and CMOS, check out this How Stuff Works article.
IT consultant and photo enthusiast Viktor Takacs didn't have much success when he tried capturing lightning on camera, so he decided to build this fancy do-it-yourself trigger (which he named "Zeus") that automatically snaps a photo whenever the photodiode detects a flash of lightning. He even built a knob into the device that can be used to adjust sensitivity. The demo above shows the trigger reacting to manually triggered flashes from a strobe.
You can now build you own version of the cardboard Hasselblad pinhole camera that we featured a couple days ago. Kelly Angood has released a PDF with the template and detailed instructions for putting the pieces together. The finished product is a working pinhole camera that takes 120 35mm film.
Ever wonder what actually happens between the time you press the shutter button on a DSLR and when the image shows up on the LCD screen? Canon made these two videos explaining how their DSLR cameras work and how they use CMOS sensors to turn photons into photos. You'll probably find this pretty interesting if you've never learned about CMOS sensors before. For a more in-depth lesson, check out the sensor tutorial over on Cambridge in Colour.
After a seven year journey that involved being slingshotted around the planets in our solar system, NASA's MESSENGER probe entered Mercury's orbit on March 17th, 2011. Yesterday the probe beamed back the first photograph ever taken of the planet from orbit (seen above).
Great photos come from happy cameras. Fabric artist Nicole Gastonguay crocheted this cute little Polaroid camera and picture duo. You can find a whole gallery of her wonderful creations here, though we think this photography-related one is the neatest of them all! …
Berlin-based photographer Stephan Tillmans shot a series of photographs titled "Luminant Point Arrays" that show old CRT televisions being switched off, capturing the strange and unique light patterns that appear for an instant but immediately vanish.
A movie about the Bang Bang Club isn't the only photography-related movie to grace theaters in recent days. Bill Cunningham New York, an acclaimed documentary film about the New York Times fashion photographer, is also arriving in theaters around the US. The film is 94% fresh on RottenTomatoes, and is said to be a beautiful and inspiring movie.
Photographer Jeffrey Martin, founder of 360cities, recently use a Canon 550D and 200mm lens to shoot the largest indoor photograph ever made: a ginormous 40 gigapixel photograph of a 18th-century baroque library in the Strahov Monastery in Prague, Czech Republic. Over 5 days of shooting with his robot control camera, Martin collected 2,947 separate photos that went into the resulting panorama. The RAW photos then took a day to batch process, 111 hours to stitch, and 20 hours to Photoshop, …
Have an older camera that doesn't have a built-in light meter? Instead of buying an expensive light meter, you can download the Pocket Light Meter app for free if you have an iPhone. What's more, you can even mount it to your camera's hot shoe if you don't mind looking uber-geeky while shooting. Nigel over at phototinker wrote a tutorial for creating the iPhone hot shoe holder shown above.
Rachel over at The Custom Cake Shop made this detailed birthday cake that looks like a limited edition Titanium Leica M7 with a Summilux lens attached. Looks like some photo-enthusiast had a memorable 56th birthday.
During the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, a number of images that became widely discussed were of 15-year-old Fabienne Cherisma, who was shot and killed by police after looting two plastic chairs and three framed pictures. One of these photographs (shown above), captured by photographer Paul Hansen, was recently chosen as the best International News Image at the Swedish Picture of the Year Awards. There was soon a good deal of discussion in the Swedish media over the ethics …
Photographer Thomas Hudson Reeve shoots pinhole photographs in a pretty interesting way -- rather than using photo-sensitive paper or film inside a separate camera, he creates the camera using photo paper itself. The resulting photograph is exposed onto the inside of the photo-sensitive camera (which he calls the "PaperCam"), and creates a pretty surreal look when opened up and developed.
The Roman philosopher Seneca once said, "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." This clip from the BBC documentary "South Pacific" shows Rudi Diesel capturing a once in a lifetime shot of surfer Dylan Longbottom in a massive 12-foot wave using a Typhoon HD4 high speed camera. It's the first shot of its kind ever recorded, and one of the most amazing surfing shots you'll ever see.
Here's an idea: find a bunch of photography-lovin' friends, borrow their DSLR cameras, and shoot your own Matrix-style bullet time videos from home! The above video shows a workshop where they were able to bring together 24 cameras for this awesome purpose.
Lomography just announced this new Diana Deluxe Kit, which allows you to buy a complete collection of Diana toy camera goodies for a discounted price. Like many of the things we feature here on this blog, we think this looks a little too nice to use. You should just keep it framed and hang it up on your wall!
One of the big advantages of digital photography is that EXIF data is embedded into your images, allowing you to easily learn when and how (and more recently where) a particular photograph was captured. If you still enjoy shooting film, then a solution is to jot down notes about your photography while you're shooting.
Those epic photographs of stars and galaxies that you see on sites like NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day don't actually look like that straight out of the camera. Instead, a good deal of post-processing magic goes into each photograph. How much magic? Countless black and white photographs shot with different cameras are carefully weaved together, and color is added to enhance the final image. The video above gives a quick and interesting two minute tour of how they post-processed one …
Designer Kelly Angood created this cardboard pinhole camera that looks exactly like a Hasselblad medium format camera. The design is screen printed onto the cardboard, and the camera accepts 120 film. See sample photographs shot with this camera over on Angood's website.
So we know DSLR cameras can survive plunges down cliffs (but not being trapped in a burning car), but what about being dropped onto pavement while traveling at high speeds? Shahrizan Jeffri Aziz was covering the Tour de Langkawi on a motorcycle when the unthinkable happened: his Nikon D3S and 300mm f/2.8 lens flew out of his hands and "spread all over the road".
There are plenty of iPhone apps that mimic the look of vintage analog photography, but what about retro video game photography? "8-Bit Pocket Camera" is a new app that is designed to mimic the style of the Game Boy Camera, which became pretty popular on playgrounds in the late 90s. In addition to the 8-bit photos, the user interface will surely cause some serious nostalgia. You can pick up the app for $1 over in the iTunes App Store.
Devin Graham shot this beautiful surfing footage using a Canon 7D and a couple lenses (70-200mm and 100-400mm) with a 2x teleconverter, so much of the footage was shot at 800mm. The slow motion is actually "faked" (here's another faked 7D video) using software: …
Customer: Why are my 8x10 prints being cut off? Salesperson: Well, your camera shoots in 2:3 aspect ratio which is a different proportion of rectangle. The 8x10 print is 4:5. Customer: I want my prints in full size. Salesperson: You have three options. A) We stretch the image. B) We crop the image, or C) we can put white strips on the sides but that won't be very pleasing. Customer: Can't I just put what I have on my camera on the paper? Salesperson: You know how when you watch a HD video and …
YouTube user haakvi was taking pictures of a small lake near Oslo, Norway with his Nikon D90 when he noticed something interesting about the lake's reflections. This video shows an interesting way to shoot the reflections -- you could do the same thing with photographs, but then you wouldn't have the "twist".
With its photography-related businesses struggling and no end in sight to its stock's free fall, Kodak is turning to patent infringement lawsuits as a way to generate revenue. The company is currently in a patent dispute with Apple (iPhone) and RIM (Blackberry) over a patent it holds for previewing image on camera phones, and hopes to generate over $1 billion in royalty revenues if it comes out victorious. Previously Kodak had used this same patent to win nearly $1 billion from Samsung and LG.
Who says you need uber-expensive lighting equipment to shoot nice-looking studio portraits? In this video, photographer Bert Stephani shows us what you can do with cheap halogen work lights (you can find them for about $30-$50) and a couple shower curtains.
This cute little vintage twin-lens reflex camera by Chinese stationary company deli is actually a pencil sharpener in disguise. Instead of loading it with film, simply stick a pencil into the top "lens" and turn the handle on the back to sharpen it. It has an adjustable sharpness knob, and the top half pulls out when you need to dump the pencil shavings.
"The Bang Bang Club" is an upcoming movie about -- you guessed it -- the Bang-Bang Club: photographers Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek, and Joao Silva.
You've all seen multi-photo picture frames before, but the "Comic Strip Picture Frame" goes a step further by providing 45 speech bubble stickers (and a pen) that allow you to turn the frame into a comic strip. You can buy one for $18 over on Perpetual Kid -- or you can just take this idea and create your own speech/thought bubbles.
Update on 12/18/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
