It's that day of the year again on which fake news is not only acceptable but expected across the world and Web. We've rounded up some of the most humorous April Fools' Day jokes from the world of photography for your enjoyment.
While browsing a flea market, photographer Mathieu Stern came across an old slide projector and managed to buy the Rollei 90mm f/2.4 MC lens mounted to it for just €5 (~$5.70). With a little bit of ingenuity and effort, Stern converted it into a camera lens and found that it's a terrific lens for shooting portraits.
Camera lens cleaning pens use fine carbon particles to help cleanly remove smudges from your glass. Do you know what else has carbon particles? Soot. Here's a short 2.5-minute video in which photographer Mathieu Stern shows how you can use ordinary candle soot to get the same cleaning power as popular lens pens.
Photographer Mathieu Stern is a fan of creating strange lenses, but his latest creation is quite unusual, even by his standards. Stern visited Iceland and created a working lens out of ice from an iceberg.
How does a vintage $80 f/1.2 prime lens stack up against a modern $1,500 f/1.2 lens? Photographer Mathieu Stern recently decided to do a shootout to find out, and he shares his results in this 2.5-minute video.
Photographer Mathieu Stern loves experimenting with very old and/or strange camera lenses, but his latest project is quite strange, even by his standards. He used a 3D printer and created a lens that looks like a giant eyeball.
The Carl Zeiss Kipronar 120mm f/1.9 is a vintage cinema projector lens that was designed to beam images rather than capture photos, but you can mount it to modern cameras using adapters. Photographer Mathieu Stern created a homemade adapter after buying the lens for $70 and has been delighted by the "insane swirly bokeh" that the lens produces.
How does a 140-year-old lens perform on a modern $15,000 cinema camera? Photographer and filmmaker Mathieu Stern wanted to find out, so he paired his ancient (by photography standards) lens with a 5K RED camera to see what would result.
April Fools' Day rolled through on a Sunday this year, but there was no shortage of tongue-in-cheek stories published in the world of photography. Here's a roundup of some of the best jokes put out by companies and publications.
If your dream as a photographer has always been to have your work exhibited in a big city gallery, you might want to be aware of "vanity galleries." Here's a 6-minute video in which photographer Mathieu Stern warns this type of gallery, which he calls a "scam."
Getting someone to smile naturally on camera can sometimes be a difficult task. Here's a 2-minute video by photographer Mathieu Stern in which he shares 7 techniques for getting your subject to grin from ear to ear in seconds.
Photographer Mathieu Stern has been doing shootout comparisons showing how the same models look when captured through different vintage lenses. For this 5.5-minute video, Stern used the Konika Hexanon 28mm f/3.5, the Minolta 100mm f/2.5, and the Industar 50mm f/3.5.
Photographer Mathieu Stern recently put 3 vintage lenses to the test in a portrait shootout at 4 different locations. The 5-minute video above compares the Soligor 21mm f/3.8, Canon FD S.S.C. 50mm f/1.4, and Helios 103 53mm f/1.8 with a tilt adapter.
Now here's a lens you probably don't want to be seen with in populated areas these days: it's a Novoflex 600mm lens with a pistol grip, introduced in 1955 and manufactured in West Germany.
The folks at Fotodiox found one of the weirdest, most threatening lenses you'll ever see at an antique store recently. Totally homemade—the thing doesn't even include an aperture—this rifle stock lens is one we do NOT suggest you travel with... unless you really want to freak out the TSA.
Want to make your portraits look like they were taken in some weird Minecraft universe full of squares? Weird lens expert Mathieu Stern can help. He found a cheap, strange little lens that produces square bokeh that immediately makes photos and videos stand out.
Photo lens experimenter and prolific YouTube filmmaker Mathieu Stern is at it again. This time, he took one of his old, cheap (do we even have to mention that?) Russian lenses and made one small modification to create what he calls a 'bokeh explosion.'
Give weird lens lover and filmmaker Mathieu Stern some credit: he can pretty much make any lens you put in front of him work... including one made from a discarded lens tube he found in a 'trash' box at a flea market.
There's a simple way to make your subject's eyes pop in a portrait, and it doesn't involve touching vibrance, saturation, luminosity, or any other color-based edit. In fact, you can make the full edit in 30 seconds.
Lensbaby's creative selective focus lenses like the Composer Pro will run you around $400; even the relatively affordable Spark costs $90. If all of that sounds too expensive for your taste, you should definitely check out this hacked version Mathieu Stern created for just 30 bucks!
Using a modified DSLR, ultraviolet light bulbs, and a custom-built massive UV ring flash, Mathieu Stern teamed up with UV photographer Pierre-Louis Ferrer to capture some fascinating portraits and side-by-side video.
Photographer Mathieu Stern made this 2-minute video walkthrough on how you can remove fungus on the glass elements of a camera lens.
Usually, getting some beautiful swirly bokeh on the cheap means looking to used Russian lenses like the Helios 44-2. But if you're determined to get more creative, weird lens hunter Mathieu Stern has an idea for you: try a military grade night vision lens.
The first autofocusing camera was invented 40 years ago, so how did weird lens lover Mathieu Stern manage to 'hack' AF capability into a 120-year-old lens from a folding camera? Well, it turns out there's an adaptor that will let you do just that.
Photographer, weird lens expert, and friend of PetaPixel Mathieu Stern created this very simple and straightforward Photoshop tutorial for anybody out there who wishes they were a Jedi and wants to impress their friends.
Photographer Mathieu Stern has based his YouTube channel on reviewing cheap and unusual lenses, but for his latest experiment he went a different direction. Stern created his own lens using 3D printing to see what results he could achieve.
Everyone's digging that "faded" film look nowadays, but here's a secret: you don't have to have a VSCO preset pack to get it. In this short tutorial, Mathieu Stern will show you three very quick and very effective ways to "crush the blacks" and get that popular look using just Photoshop.
If you think a 50mm f/1.2 lens that captures sharp portraits with gorgeous bokeh is hundreds or even thousands of dollars away, think again. If you're willing to get creative, you can have one for just 20 bucks.
If anybody knows how to mount a weird lens, it's got to be the creator of "Weird Lens Reviews" Mathieu Stern. And now, he's sharing one of the super simple tricks he uses to find the working distance of any lens so he can create or buy the right adapter for it.
Accurately colorizing a photo usually takes hours upon hours of research followed by the same in Photoshop. But now, thanks to fancy new neural network technology, you can do an amazing job in no time.
The enlarger lenses used by film photographers to create prints from developed negatives are not meant to be used on a camera. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't use one... or that you shouldn't try.
Want to shoot long exposure photos in bright daylight without having to shell out big bucks on a neutral density (ND) filter? Try using a piece of welder's glass -- the kind that protects your eyes while welding. The 13-minute video above by photographer Mathieu Stern provides a nice overview of this photo hack.
The Jupiter 21M is the real deal... assuming you have the biceps to wield it. A 200mm f/4 lens from the Soviet era, it captures exquisite details and will only set you back between $30 and $100 on eBay.
It may not be the first place that comes to mind, but the Soviet Union is a great place to start if you're looking for a good quality piece of glass on the cheap.... well, what's left of the Soviet Union anyway.
Want to mix things up a bit, gear-wise, without breaking the bank? Photographer Mathieu Stern has an idea for you. In this short video he shares four cheap toy camera lenses that he thinks are worth your time.
Ever since his video Alone in Paris got massively popular, people have been asking photographer and filmmaker Mathieu Stern to share some behind the scenes tidbits. Today, he obliged those requests.
It took 2 months for photographer and filmmaker Mathieu Stern to create his haunting short film "Alone in Paris." That's because it wasn't shot at odd hours when Paris' streets were empty... every scene was shot at 2pm on a weekday and then painstakingly cleaned up in Photoshop!
Shooting stereoscopic 3D images usually means breaking out a cool old film camera like the one used here, but this $30 eBay find from 1950 can make shooting 3D images on your DSLR as easy as shooting a regular 2D still.
Here's a short 2.5-minute video in which photographer Mathieu Stern reviews the Lomo T43 40mm f/4, a cheap $5 manual Russian lens that has surprisingly good image quality (given its cost).
If you want to pick up an interesting lens for your camera, check out the Angenieux 25mm f/0.95. It's a somewhat hard-to-find lens that was once used by NASA to photograph the moon with a lunar probe.