mathieustern

Mathieu Stern Camera Obscura

Photographer Turns a Paris Apartment into a Giant Camera

French photographer Mathieu Stern is no stranger to taking photos with unusual cameras. However, his latest camera is perhaps his oddest as he turned Paris apartment into a giant camera obscura and captured a beautiful photo of one of the world's most famous sights, the Eiffel Tower.

Photographer Creates the World’s Darkest Photo Backdrop

Black holes. They’re an astronomical phenomenon that sucks in all available light with no escape. So what if you could create a photo backdrop that could mimic that kind of light absorption without reflecting? A photographer recently used an ultra-black fabric to make the darkest photo backdrop in the world.

Unusual Adapter Places a Polarizing Filter Between Lens and Sensor

While originally launched in 2017, Fotodiox created a line of lens adapters for modern and vintage SLR lenses it calls Polar Throttle adapters that have a built-in polarizing filter. The design allows multiple lenses to be adapted to a single mirrorless camera without needing different sized filters.

Full-Frame to Medium Format Adapter Produces Astounding Results

Photographer and YouTuber Mathieu Stern recently tested the Fotodiox Rhinocam Vertex, an adapter that claims to allow photographers to easily capture medium format images with a full-frame camera. Not only does it appear to work, but it is also more than that. It is, as he says, "a revolution."

Hands-On with the Weird Fotosnaiper Soviet Sniper Camera

Photographer Mathieu Stern was browsing a flea market when he came across a Zenit Fotosnaiper, a Soviet-era camera rig that looks and feels more like a rifle. Stern jumped at the opportunity to have a copy of his own and to go hands-on with the camera.

This Photographer Made a Working Camera Lens Out of LEGO

Weird lens enthusiast and YouTuber Mathieu Stern has created another fun stay-at-home DIY lens while stuck in quarantine. This time it's a functional camera lens, complete with focusing mechanism, made almost entirely out of LEGO bricks.

Shooting Portraits with a Rare Canon 50mm f/0.95 ‘Dream Lens’

While in Finland visiting The Camera Rescue Project, YouTuber and vintage lens enthusiast Mathieu Stern got to try out a rare Canon "dream lens": the Canon 50mm f/0.95. And like any good camera nerd, Stern immediately set it to f/0.95 and tried to shoot some portraits.

This Rare 75mm f/1.9 Cinema Projector Lens is the King of Swirly Bokeh

YouTuber Mathieu Stern is a weird lens expert, but even he didn't realize the gem he'd uncovered when someone sold him an old cinema projector lens for 2 Euros at a flea market. It turns out this rare 75mm f/1.9 lens produces some of the most intense swirly bokeh Stern has ever seen.

This $6 Flea Market Projector Lens is Surprisingly Great for Portraits

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.

How to Clean Your Camera Lens with Candle Soot

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.

This $70 Old Projector Lens Captures Intense Swirly Bokeh

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.

Using a 140-Year-Old Lens on a $15,000 RED Camera

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.

7 Tips for Getting Natural Smiles in Photos

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.

Using 3 Vintage Lenses to Shoot the Same Model

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.