Ricoh GRm: My Custom ‘Monochrom’ Camera
For a long time now, I've been looking a little enviously in the direction of Leica because of the monochrome versions of the M and Q models.
For a long time now, I've been looking a little enviously in the direction of Leica because of the monochrome versions of the M and Q models.
In January, photographer Jay P. Morgan shared a video where he took portraits with what at the time he called an IMAX lens on a Canon EOS R. In part two of that series, he takes it one step further and mounts the medium format GFX 100 to it.
In an endeavor that seems to be driven only by curiosity, Photographer Jay P. Morgan modded an old IMAX lens to allow it to work with his Canon EOS R. But just getting the lens to work wasn't enough, as Morgan decided to take the lens way out of its element: street portraiture.
The Canon R5's overheating time limit has been the subject of much discussion and controversy. Regardless of how or why the overheating happens, Matthew Perks over at DIY Perks has come up with an unusual mod that actually works to fix it: he watercooled his camera.
As a landscape and travel photographer, I consider my camera gear the most important tool of my trade. I have been traveling for photography for so many years and have conducted several workshops in that span. This involved traveling to remote areas off the beaten track chasing the perfect shots.
Polaroid cameras are fun to use, but shooting high numbers of instant photos can get very expensive very quickly. Tim Alex Jacobs, known as mitxela online, recently solved this problem by modifying a standard Polaroid camera into an instant camera that prints photos on thermal paper (the kind used for receipts).
Photographer Cole Rise has a deep obsession with space cameras. So deep, that he just spent over two years creating a 100% accurate replica of the first Hasselblad medium format camera used by NASA in space.
Here's one of the more unusual camera modifications we've seen: a Chinese photographer over in the Xitek forums posted photos showing how he removed the electronic viewfinder from his Sony a7 full frame mirrorless camera. As you can see, his camera now looks more like a Sony a6500.
The Leica M Monochrom is special in the Leica lineup due to the fact that it lacks a color filter, which improves image quality and restricts the camera to shooting black and white. If you'd like a monochrome-only camera but don't want to shell out $7,450 for the latest Leica M Monochrom, there are now converted Fujifilm cameras for a cheaper alternative.
An Italian astrophotography company called PrismaLuceLab has launched a modded version of the Nikon D5500 DSLR. Called the "D5500a Cooled," the camera uses a special cooling system mounted on the back to chill the sensor and reduce noise during long-exposure photos.
The new music video for the song "Sunday Morning" by musician Ryan-O'Neil was shot in infrared with a DIY modified entry-level DSLR.
"Las Vegas In Infrared" is a new 4-minute short film by Philip Bloom, who visited Las Vegas with a Sony RX100 IV that had been modified for infrared photography through having its filter removed. Most of what you see was shot from a moving vehicle with 2 second bursts at 250fps through a 665nm filter.
Over in Europe, Ford has created special 'Camera Tracking Unit' cars for photographers to shoot publicity photos from. The cars are standard Ford cars that have been modified -- the back has been chopped off and turned into a rear-facing seat specifically for a photographer.
Taylor Swift's concert photography contract recently came under fire for being overreaching and for threatening to destroy photographers' equipment, leading some publications to boycott the contract and obtain photos by other means.
It looks like change has resulted from the controversy: Taylor Swift's concert photo agreement has been revised to address concerns that were raised and to be friendlier toward photographers.
Did you know that a Nikon F3 still photography film SLR was used to shoot the 1984 movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? The mine cart chase scene in the film would have been too expensive if the track were built to scale, so George Lucas and Steve Spielberg turned to the special effects team at Industrial Light and Magic. They modified a Nikon F3 to shoot the chase scene in miniature using stop motion.
Sigma's DP1, DP2, and DP3 cameras are known for the fact that they're compact cameras with beastly APS-C Foveon sensors inside. With such novel sensor technology at their core, comparatively less is said about the f/2.8 lenses on the front of each camera.
Some folks over in China decided that they wanted the glass of the camera to be just as hardcore as the sensor within, so they figured out how to modify DP cameras to offer an Leica M mount, turning the bodies into interchangeable cameras (and proper mirrorless cameras).
San Diego-based photographer Robert Benson had a curious problem a while back. He had a $6,500 Leica Noctilux 50mm f/1 lens, but no camera to use it on. Not being able to afford the Leica M9 at the time (and unsure if he wanted to ever buy one), he decided to make massive modifications to his Canon 5D Mark II so that it would accept any Leica M lens without needing an adapter. The frankencamera above is what emerged from the brand-change operation.
Slit-scan cameras are used to shoot finish line photos due to the fact that recording a moving subject along a strip of film makes it impossible to miss any frames. Engineer and photographer James Guerin was interested in the distinctive look, so he went about building his own slit-scan film camera using an old Pentax SLR.
He ended up with the heavily modified camera seen above: a Pentax ME Super SLR that's equipped with a special winding system that automatically moves film across a narrow slit as the photos are being exposed.
These bizarre looking images are what you get when you "modify" chromogenic prints with chlorine bleach. Flickr user Sarah Palmer has done a number of experiments with these technique, and the results are pretty abstract.
This crazy self-portrait was taken using the tiny reflection in the tip of a ballpoint pen. Russian photographer …
Self-described creative technologist Thiago Avancini hacked this Atari 2600 joystick into a shutter release cable -- complete with an autofocus control for his Canon T2i. The controller is considerably larger than the average cable release or remote control, but it's a pretty nifty.