Update: According to collectSPACE, this might not have been the only camera brought back from the moon. Check out the update at the bottom for details.
A total of fourteen Hasselblad cameras made it to the moon on the Apollo missions; but of those 14, only one ever made it back. And now, that one camera is going to go home with a lucky (and rich) collector pending an auction at WestLicht in Vienna on March 21st.
It's a good day at the World Wildlife Fund when one of your camera traps captures a photo so rare, you won't find another like it taken in the last 15 years. The photograph shows a "saola," an animal so rare it is more commonly known as the 'Asian Unicorn' and hasn't been photographed in the wild since 1998.
The last time we wrote about the Nikkor 2000mm f/11 C Reflex lens was in 2010 when a working version of the behemoth was up on eBay for the not-so-affordable price of $19,950. Given that information, how much would you pay for a broken, beat-up version of the same lens 3 years later? Well, someone on eBay thinks it's worth $25K.
Two days ago, the late great Robert Capa would have turned 100 years old. There was quite a bit of revelry surrounding what would have been the iconic photographer's centennial, but even though gallery openings and the like all paid homage to the great conflict photographer, one particular release is perhaps most special of all.
Thanks to an incredibly fortuitous set of circumstances, the International Center of Photography has managed to get its hands on and release a copy of an incredibly rare interview Mr. Capa gave back in October of 1947 -- affording anyone who didn't know him the first ever opportunity to hear his voice.
Iconic artist Andy Warhol is a legend in the arts community. The Andy Warhol Museum -- which contains a massive archive of his creations -- is actually the largest US museum dedicated to a single artist.
But one thing the museum doesn't have that you could -- assuming you have about $50K in spare change hidden under you couch cushions -- is Andy Warhol's personal SX-70 Polaroid Land Camera.
Want to capture images of a scene that's lit purely with candlelight? You can now rent a pair of Zeiss f/0.7 lenses -- two of the largest aperture lenses ever seen in the history of photography.
Check out this aurora photograph captured last Friday night by photographer Mike Hollingshead. See those small red squiggly lines in the sky? That's an extremely rare form of lightning called a sprite. This photograph is one of the only times a sprite and an aurora have been captured in the same frame.
At a public lecture in Pittsburgh in 1934, four hundred lucky students were privy to a lecture by Albert Einstein, in which the great man mathematically derived his famous mass-energy equivalence equation: E=mc2. What you see above is a photo from that lecture, and what is thought to be the only surviving photo that shows Einstein working on that derivation.
Edith Widder is one of the three scientists that managed to capture the first high-resolution video footage of an actual giant squid. And about a month ago, her TED talk describing how she and her team did it (embedded above) was finally posted online.
Almost 2 stories tall, you would think that something that massive would have already been photographed or video taped. But it was Widder's common-sense approach that would yield the groundbreaking footage. So, how did scientists manage to finally catch a giant squid on camera? One word: quietly.
Photographer Shannon Bileski of Signature Exposures captured this beautiful photograph last Friday at Patricia Beach in Canada. It shows a bright meteor streaking through a sky filled with the green glow of the aurora borealis.
Photographer Bertrand Kulik was standing at his window in Paris last week when he noticed something peculiar about the horizon. Although his view is ordinarily quite beautiful because of the Eiffel Tower dominating the cityscape, this time it had something he was treated with a bright and colorful horizon rainbow painted across the sky in the distance.
This past Sunday, there was a 2-hour-long police chase in Inglewood, California. A man named Jason Lee was watching …
Behold: a box set of Nikon prime lenses. This unique kit is a limited-edition item currently being sold by Nikon exclusively in certain European countries (it's available in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK). Inside the Nikon-branded aluminum case are three f/1.8 lenses: the 28mm, 50mm, and 85mm. Oh, and you get the manuals, lens hoods, and soft cases as well.
On the night of April 14th, 1912, the Titanic collided with a massive iceberg and sank, ending the lives of more than 1,000 people and becoming one of the deadliest maritime disasters in history. Now, one hundred years later, a photo that may the only surviving print showing that infamous chunk of ice is going up for auction. It's expected to fetch up to $10,000.
Back in May, a 1923 Leica O-Series camera became the most expensive camera on the planet after being sold for roughly $2.79 million at a WestLicht auction. That camera was a prototype camera, and just one of 25 made (only 12 of them exist today). If you're wondering what the most expensive non-prototype camera is, look no further than the latest WestLicht auction that was held earlier today. The Leica M3D seen above fetched a staggering €1.68 million, or roughly $2.18 million, becoming "the most expensive camera from a serial production ever."
A blacked-out New York City wasn't the only rare photo op that Hurricane Sandy left in her wake. NASA solar physicist David Hathaway captured the above photo in Huntsville, Alabama two days ago after seeing the strange rings surrounding the afternoon sun.
The Canon 50mm f/1.0 was the fastest SLR lens in production before it was discontinued in 2000 and replaced with the f/1.2. There aren't too many copies of this lens floating around on the used market, so photographers who want to use the ridiculous aperture it offers must pay a hefty premium in order to purchase one; the lenses commonly sell for two or three times the original retail value.
When reader Bryan Soderlind switched from film to digital a while back, he decided to splurge and go "all the way" by buying a 50mm f/1.0 for a little over $3,000 -- a relative bargain. The lens was in "impeccable shape" and was in focus even when using the razor sharp depth of field at f/1.0. Here are some of his thoughts on what it's like to use the lens, and some sample photos from his shoots.
Usain Bolt ran beyond the boundaries of sports and made headlines in the world of photography earlier this year at the London Olympics. After winning yet another gold in his 200m race, he ran over to Scandinavian newspaper photographer Jimmy Wixtröm, grabbed his Nikon D4, and began shooting some awesome photographs of what he was experiencing.
Wixtröm just sent us an email with some neat news: the famous D4 is now being auctioned with the proceeds going to charity.
Behold: one of the rarest photobooks in the world. What you're looking at is an exceedingly rare complete set of American photographer Edward S. Curtis' book The North American Indian. It contains 772 large-format photogravures on Japanese tissue, 111 signed plates, and 20 extra text volumes that contain an additional 1,505 photogravures, 4 maps, and 2 diagrams.
Swann Galleries will be auctioning it off on October 4, 2012 with an estimated price of $1,250,000 - $1,750,000. This figure, however, may end up being much lower than the actual price it'll sell for. A similar set of this photobook was auctioned by Christie's back in April. After giving that set an estimated price of $1,000,000 - $1,500,000, it ended up selling for a whopping $2,882,500.
Do you love the design of Apple products? Do you have infinitely deep pockets? If you said yes to both questions, then I have some good news for you.
At Leica's special event last night, after the new Leica M was announced, company owner Dr. Andreas Kaufmann revealed that they've got a very special limited edition version of the camera planned -- one that's designed by legendary Apple designer Sir Jonathan Ive.
Over the past 4 years the New York City Department of Records has been compiling an online database made up of rare photographs of "the greatest city on earth," and now that database is available to the public. The compilation consists of over 870,000 photos ranging in subject matter from landmarks to crime scenes put together from a Municipal Archives collection of over 2.2 million photos.
Two years ago, we reported that an extremely rare Nikkor 6mm f/2.8 fisheye lens had been put …
For those of you balking at the astronomical prices paid for photos in the art world, get …
Last year Levi's teamed up with Hong Kong magazine New Monday on an exclusive denim camera strap that was included for free with an issue of the magazine. The strap was produced with the same materials used to manufacture Levi's jeans and came in both red and black. You can find the straps for sale on eBay for around $20-$30.
During a 2001 launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, NASA photographer Pat McCracken captured this amazing photograph of the …
How’s this for a unique pet photograph? Angelo DeSantis of Berkeley, CA was …
Behind the Gare St. Lazare is one of French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson‘s best …
The 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic will come in April of next year, and auction houses are already seeing a spike in the number of artifacts from the disaster being put up for sale. Among them are a set of previously unseen photographs made the morning after the sinking, which show the rescue ships, lifeboats, and an icy Atlantic ocean.
The Nikon Lens Scope Converter is a rare accessory that attaches to the back of Nikon lenses, turning them …
Here’s a strange (and extremely rare) piece of camera gear: the Leica Telephoto …
Want a wooden DSLR? If you have extremely deep pockets, nows your chance: Sigma has announced a special wood …
Seeing a double rainbow is a relatively rare treat, but how about three or four rainbows? Scientists have only reported seeing triple rainbows five times over the past 250 years, but German photographer Michael Theusner was recently able to capture this first ever photograph of a fourth-order rainbow. Ordinary rainbows (first and second order) appear in the area of the sky opposite the sun (and aren't seen in his shot), but when higher order rainbows appear, they show up on the sunward side.
Canon has long offered its telephoto L lenses in white in order to keep the lens cooler under sunlight, …
While Nikon Corporation was established in 1917 (as Nippon Kōgaku Tōkyō K.K.), the company was a lens manufacturing company …
A huge story last year was when a painter named Rick Norsigian came across 65 glass negatives at a garage sale, purchasing them for $45. He then had them examined by experts, who told him that they were previously undiscovered Ansel Adams photographs worth at least $200 million. Just as the find was being heralded as one of the greatest in art history, Ansel Adams' relatives and Publishing Rights Trust expressed skepticism that they were in fact Adams'. It then came to light that the photos might actually belong to a man named Earl Brooks who once lived in the same city as Norsigian (Fresno, California).
A Polish collector claims he's found an extremely rare daguerrotype of composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin, taken in his final repose in 1849.
If the image is authentic, it would be one of only three photographs of the composer, including the image of him alive in 1846, above. And it would be the only known original daguerrotype in existence -- all other images are duplicates.
With a suggested retail price of £19,800 (currently about $32,000) and only 500 units in existence, Leica's limited edition M9 Titanium probably isn't a camera you're ever going to lay eyes on in real life. When it was announced back in September of last year, we predicted that most of them wouldn't see the light of day and would be placed immediately into collectors' vaults. Luckily for us, someone decided to actually unbox (gasp!) one of these babies (camera #164), allowing us to see what it's like to receive such an absurdly expensive camera.
Apparently this is what Pentax considers “legendary collaboration”: a Korejanai robot edition (Korejanairobomoderu) …
The Canon 1200mm f/5.6 L lens is a legendary optic that B&H calls “ …
Randomly came across this camera today on Wikipedia in the article on Stasi, …