Canon has developed a CMOS camera sensor that records a 250-megapixel image. Not that this should kill your excitement about the 12 megapixels you’re going to get with the camera on the new iPhone 6s, but take a moment to consider the number.
How do we even fathom 250 megapixels? Canon, in its press release boasting of the pixel count (19,580 x 12,600), said engineers zoomed in on a photo taken of an airplane from 11 miles away and could distinguish the lettering on the side of the plane.
Dave Keene had colon cancer and wouldn’t be sure until after surgery whether it would kill him. What he did know for sure was if it did, his young son would eventually forget the sound of his voice.
Keene, a veteran engineer in the gaming industry, used his time before surgery to develop an iOS app that would change that. He created everyStory, a kind of digital photo album that includes audio attached to each photo.
I have three Holga cameras sitting in a box with at least one still loaded with film. Plastic and unpredictable, the low-fi aesthetic makes portraits and landscapes look dreamy and from another time.
But film isn’t as easy or as cheap to develop, scan and print as it once was, so many photographers like me have watched the dust build up on these cameras while hoping a digital alternative would come along so we could relive the surprise and magic in a Holga picture.
The Hong Kong company that has been making Holga cameras since 1981 now has a digital offspring available on Kickstarter.
David Tovey became homeless on the streets of London after a stroke and found salvation in an unlikely place – a disposable camera.
Tovey was invited to participate in an art project giving Londoners cameras to record life on the streets for a calendar now being sold on Kickstarter. He has had photos selected for the Cafe Art calendar project two years in a row.
You have a great picture of your kid on their first day of school and you would like to share it with just two people. You could post to Facebook or Instagram, but then everyone sees it. You could attach it to an email or text or you could just pass the phone over the next time you see them.
The company XY has another option. It has designed a Bluetooth device the size of a keychain that lets you share an album of pictures with select people.
Everyone’s a photographer these days, or at least that’s what people would have you believe. Making images that have impact takes more than a camera-phone — it takes special gear, knowledge, and skill with photographic hardware and software. We’ve got all those bases cover with these six deals, from lenses to lessons, cutting-edge cameras and powerful photo apps. Check them out now — these deals might disappear before you can say ‘cheese’.
There was no selfie stick, no hashtags and no sharing with his BFF. In fact, when Robert Cornelius took his historic selfie, he sat still as a stone for 15 minutes, then watched the photo slowly appear on a silver-plated sheet of copper as he breathed in dangerous mercury fumes.
That was instant gratification in 1839.
Cornelius, using a wooden box fitted with an opera glass, likely deserves credit for taking the world’s first selfie. He didn’t make the picture out of vanity, but as an experiment to test a silver-plating method for the daguerreotype photographic process, which had been introduced worldwide just three months before Cornelius’ self-portrait.
Legendary German camera maker Leica spent nearly 20 years patenting technology that would take focusing out of the hands of photographers. As with the 35 mm still camera the company created in 1925, Leica stood ready to once again revolutionize photography, this time with an autofocus system.
But after spending the last part of the 1970s working on prototypes, Leica dropped plans to bring autofocus to consumers. Leica figured its customers already knew how to focus their cameras.
“There’s an element of truth in that,” said Heinz Richter, who was a member of the Leica Historical Society of America when he held one of the first autofocus cameras at a meeting in Minneapolis in 1980. “Leica used to be an extremely conservative company. The autofocus mechanism as they were available then didn’t fit into the company’s ideal of precise focusing.”
The E1 camera is so small, there is barely any room on the body for its two-character name.
This is only a slight exaggeration for the slight camera with large ambitions and an impressive list of specs that could make it legitimate competition for GoPro, the reigning king of the Point of View camera market.
Startup camera company Z says its E1 is the world’s smallest Micro Four Thirds 4K video camera with interchangeable lenses.
Not long after debuting to a pretty successful launch, Filters for iPhone is up for sale. Developer Mike Rundle explains that he has a full-time job plus children to feed and his little side project of love deserves more attention than he can give. His asking price? $10,000.
I was shooting my son’s school play a couple of months ago with my iPhone, as I don’t have a dedicated video camera any more. Because I sat up close, I wasn’t really able to capture the whole stage in one shot.
What I needed was a wide-angle lens. That’s where these PhotoJojo magnetically attachable lenses come in.
When you’re shooting video with an iPhone, there are times when you want a bit more control over the image without having to resort to a confusing app.
The simplest way to get an altered image is an attachable lens, and these magnetically attached lenses from PhotoJojo do just the trick.
Taylor Swift’s bold rant against Apple over royalties continues to echo in the ears of photographers.
A quick recap . . . Swift used her Tumblr page to chide Apple for initially not paying musicians during the trial period of the new Apple Music. Then a music photographer in England called her a hypocrite because the contract her people force editorial photographers to sign before shows says Swift has the right to use those photos for free to promote her brand.
Apple backed down, but the good publicity-bad publicity for Swift has photographers and photo editors taking second looks at the contracts of other musical acts.
The elements and rugged terrain are hard enough for any nature photographer. Add heavy equipment around the neck, shoulders and back and a challenging shoot becomes a grueling journey.
The designers at MindShift Gear, photographers and outdoor adventurers themselves, have three new backpacks designed to carry “Big Glass” lenses with relative comfort.
One of Ireland’s largest newspapers told readers Tuesday morning not to expect any photos of Taylor Swift performing during her two sold-out concerts in Dublin.
The Irish Times passed on photographing her shows because of a restrictive contract Swift’s people ask shooters to sign. The contract gives the photographer a “one-time-only” use on the photos yet allows Swift unlimited rights to use the images for publicity and promotion.
Such contracts by entertainment figures are nothing new, except Swift famously called out Apple for initially withholding royalties to musicians during the free three-month trial period of the new Apple Music service.
Taylor Swift is a shrewd business woman and thought she was speaking for all the little artists when she told Apple to kiss off when it comes to featuring her album 1989 on its new music streaming service.
To not pay artists during Apple Music’s free three-month trial period is exploitive, the singer-songwriter suggested, not to mention “shocking” and “disappointing.”
So forgive music photographer Jason Sheldon if he is unable to Shake It Off and is bothered by the hypocrisy of her stance. Editorial photographers assigned to shoot her shows must sign away rights to their photos, preventing them from being paid while giving Swift unlimited use of the pictures for publicity and promotion.
We rely on our iPhone for so many facets of our life, but as a camera it has become a disruptive force in the photography world. The “Shot with an iPhone 6” advertising campaign is likely making traditional camera companies shutter – pun intended – as sales of consumer cameras continue to fall.
It’s a go-to tool for professional photographers, who have done everything from publish books with iPhone photography to shoot commercials for corporate clients. But there are limitations and sometimes it would be nice to supplement a smartphone’s camera with the punch of a DSLR camera.
DxO, the makers of sophisticated imaging software, may have the ONE camera to do this. The ONE is a palm-sized camera that plugs into your iPhone with functions and optics that have the potential to deliver greater image quality.
So your iPhone has you convinced you’re a pretty good photographer and it’s time to raise your game with a dedicated camera and all sorts of lenses. You are going to need something to sling your gear.
There are so many types of camera bags – shoulder, belt packs, roller cases – with designs tailored for various kinds of photography, shooting environments and individual preferences. The bag type that is arguably the most versatile is the camera backpack.
Backpacks are ideal when you are in transit with a lot of gear, whether you’re flying or hiking. They are also versatile to comfortably carry as you shoot, especially if you have to bring with you a laptop or change of clothes.
Three respected manufacturers have new bags to meet a spectrum of needs and demands. Think Tank, Lowepro and long-time Apple product vendor, InCase, bring to their latest lines rugged construction and intelligent storage options. Camera backpacks are one of the more pricey accessories, but it’s money well spent to protect your investment in bodies, lights and lenses.
I’ve been loving Apple’s “Shot on iPhone 6” ad campaign, if for no other reason than it gives me hope that one day, I too will be able to capture crazy beautiful images with my smartphone’s camera.
Apple has pushed the campaign with tons of billboards, posters and videos, all shot by various iPhone 6 users around the world. The latest group of short videos features breathtaking shots of the Netherlands, Norway, Oregon and Australia, accompanied by sweet indie jams like “Murakami” by Made in Heights.
Watch all four videos below:
Thanks to its constant improvements and the fact that we carry it around virtually everywhere we go, the iPhone has become our de facto camera over the past few years.
But while most of us use our iOS devices for little more than taking Facebook snaps, the annual IPP (iPhone Photography) Awards are a reminder of just how gorgeous our mobile pics can look.
Simply put, there’s no excuse!
Your iPhone makes a compelling case to never buy another camera. But Sony seems to understand that the better you get with your photography, the more you will learn that the camera in a smartphone has limitations.
So when you are ready to try a more sophisticated tool, Sony will be waiting with its new RX100 IV.
Don’t let the size, weight and look fool you into thinking this is just another point-and-shoot. Some of the specs in this tiny box rival those of a professional-grade DSLR.
You don’t need a formal photography education to make a pretty good snap. But sometimes, it would be nice to have a simple fix for a technical challenge without requiring a textbook or expensive software.
Take noise. In non-scientific terms, it’s the appearance that your pictures were taken in a sandstorm. It generally happens when you are shooting in low light. Lots of microscopic bits of colorful grain across your images.
The team at Macphun has created new software for Mac users with a series of simple sliders that let you take noise out of your photos. The aptly named Noiseless can have photos looking better with just a couple of intuitive steps.
When a camera bag claims to be water resistant, it feels a little like the brand is hedging its bets. It will protect your gear up to a point.
But the designers at miggo have a bag they declare confidently is storm-proof and all-weather. They even say with certainty the ironically named Agua will remain protective for five minutes in rain falling at 10 liters a minute with up to 22,000 pounds of force.
If you’re in a Biblical hard rain, you may have bigger problems then keeping your camera dry. miggo just wants you to feel comfortable with Agua if you’re out on a typical rainy day.
The potato is one of the least colorful of the good Lord’s creations. But somehow, two French inventors figured out how the dud spud could help put color in our photographs using a process they called Autochrome.
Before brothers Louis and Auguste Lumiere tinkered with taters, photographers were shooting three different pictures of the same scene through colored filters — red, blue and green — and then sandwiching the images for projection.
In 1904, the Lumieres pulverized potatoes into a starchy powder, which they then divided into three separate batches for dying violet-blue, green and orange-red. When mixed together and applied to a glass plate, the microscopic grains of potato filtered the light, creating a negative that could produce a color photo. That was Autochrome.
You can spend $90,000 on a Richard Prince “piece of art.” Or you can get the same thing from the original source he ripped off at a 99 percent discount.
Prince used screenshots of people he followed on Instagram and converted them into a large inkjet paintings he then sold for thousands of dollars. Prince did not alert the subjects their Instagram shares were being displayed and sold.
Some of the images were from the popular trend-setting SuicideGirls, whose founder has offered the same pictures printed in the same way for sale for $90 on its website.
Instagram users, adjust your privacy setting and remember the name Richard Prince.
Should he request to follow you, he could one day “appropriate” your pictures and make thousands of dollars off you.
Prince featured 38 screenshots from his Instagram feed in a show in New York City last fall and at the Frieze Art Fair earlier this month, and some of the people featured are just now finding out about their pictures appearing in giant form on gallery walls.
