From Napkin Sketch to 41MP Phone: How the Nokia PureView 808 Came to Be
Nokia made quite a splash earlier this year by unveiling the PureView 808 — a smartphone with a large 41-megapixel sensor and a high quality Carl Zeiss lens. The 8-minute behind-the-scenes video above — filmed entirely with the phone, by the way — is the story of how this device was born, starting from a...
Tree Leaves as “Pinhole Cameras” During a Solar Eclipse
If you went outdoors to observe the solar eclipse yesterday, you might have noticed that the shadows cast by trees had suddenly become quite strange. The tiny gaps between leaves act as pinhole lenses, projecting crescent shaped images of the eclipsed sun onto the world below. Here are a couple videos showing the same thing:...
Time-Lapse of Yesterday’s Solar Eclipse
Photographer Cory Poole created this time-lapse video of yesterday’s solar eclipse using 700 photographs shot through a telescope that filters out the sun’s photosphere and captures its chromosphere. Wikipedia has some neat photos of the e...
The Economics of Leica Camera Pricing
Have you ever wondered how Leica chooses its pricing for its high-end cameras? J Shin has written up a great post over at Leica Rumors that offers a geeky and lengthy explanation of the economics behind the company’s pricing decisions: Every time there is any kind of a product-related announcement here and elsewhere, there are...
Man Chucking A $10,000 Canon Projectile
Reuters photographer Murad Sezer was shooting at an uber-important soccer final in Turkey last Saturday when he found himself in the midst of a massive clash between frenzied fans and police officers. In the chaos, fans started picking up everything they could get their hands on to use as projectiles, including camera lenses. Sezer writes,...
Nikon’s Articles of Incorporation May Be Updated to Include… Cosmetics?
Some strange news from Nikon today: the company published a press release detailing some decisions made at a meeting of the Board of Directors that was held today. The directors were discussing some proposed amendments to the company’s Articles of Incorporation that will be discussed at the general shareholders meeting on June 28th. Under the...
How to See and Harness the Four Main Types of Light
Here’s a 10 minute photography lesson by Karl Taylor on the four main types of light: transmitted, reflected, soft, and hard. Understanding these concepts can revolutionize the way you see and shoot scenes.
(via Silber Studios)
Trippy Mirror Photo Created Without the Help of Photoshop
You’ve probably seen photographs similar to the image above before, but this one is special in that it wasn’t created digitally. Photographer Matthew Spiegelman shot it with a 4×5 camera and 180mm lens using a two-way mirror. The photo is titled Portal {Matthew Spiegelman in his studio with mirror, two way mirror, c-stands, clamp with...
Fashion Photographs with Faces Pressed Against Glass
Fashion photographs are generally shot to make the clothing and the models look attractive, but British photographer Neil Bedford chose not to go that route when shooting a series for clothing label Neighborhood‘s lookbook. He had his models press their faces against invisible panes of glass, resulting in quirky and humorous fashion photos featuring smeared...
Photographs of the World’s Oldest Living Things
Here’s an interesting TED talk by photographer Rachel Sussman, who undertook an interesting photo project idea: photograph living organisms around the world that are 2,000 years old or older.
(via Feature Shoot)
Creative POV: A Skateboarding Shadow
Here’s a skateboarding video by Joe Pease that shows a creative point of view, riding along with the shadow rather than the skateboarder.
(via kottke.org)
The Earliest Surviving Photograph of an American City
The 120° panoramic image (and its crop) you see above is titled “Daguerreotype View of Cincinnati” and was captured in 1848 by Porter and Fontayne from Newport, Kentucky. It was created with eight full-plate daguerreotypes and shows a two mile stretch of the Cincinatti waterfront. Codex 99 writes, The panorama is not only the first...
