Are Liquid Lenses The Next Big Thing in Photography?
Major camera makers including Olympus, Samsung and Sony have all filed patents in recent days for liquid lens technology. Unlike traditional glass lenses, liquid lenses don’t have any moving parts. Instead, liquid is used to focus light, and different voltages are applied to the liquid to change the shape of the liquid, thereby controlling the...
Old School Flash Powder Compared to a Modern Day Flash
Maurice Ribble of Tech Photo Blog recently found the ingredients list for flash powder, which was used for state-of-the-art photographic lighting 150 years ago. After making some of the powder, he began to test it to see how it compares to modern day flashes (more specifically, a Canon 580EX II). One of the tests is...
A Striking Look at How Focal Length Affect Head Shots
You’ve probably heard before that focal lengths between 85mm and 135mm produce the best head shots because they provide a desirable perspective in head shots, but how much of a different does the focal length actually make? Photographer Stephen Eastwood decided to find out, shooting 10 portraits of the same subject with focal lengths ranging...
Gary Fong Lightsphere Versus a Piece of Tupperware
Jim Harmer of Improve Photography conducted an interesting experiment in which he stacked the Gary Fong Lightsphere up against an ordinary piece of tupperware: The Gary Fong Lightsphere costs $50. For a hunk of rubber that produces only marginal improvements over the on-camera flash in my opinion, that is just way too much money. The...
Crazy Rolling Shutter World Captured by Camera Attached to Helicopter Rotor
You’ve probably seen videos showing the rolling shutter effect turning airplane propellers into boomerangs, but what if the camera was attached to the spinning object rather than pointed at it? mguw of Helidigital decided to find out by attaching a small camera to the rotorhead of an RC helicopter, synchronizing the RPM of the rotor...
Pro DSLR with Cheapo Glass versus Cheapo DSLR with Pro Glass
It’s a pretty common question: if you had to choose, would you rather have a top-of-the-line DSLR with a cheap lens or an entry-level body with pro glass? Kai of DigitalRev attempts to answer the question through a hands on experiment in this humorous and educational video. His conclusion is that unless you need to...
Sony’s Translucent Mirror May Reduce Detail in Photos by up to 5%
You’ve probably read plenty of articles touting the benefits of Sony’s translucent mirror technology (e.g. high fps, AF for video, quietness, etc…), but what about the cons? One of the main downsides to having a translucent mirror is that the light hitting the sensor passes through an additional layer (the translucent mirror), which reduces the...
The Results of Printing 35mm Film onto Skin Using the Sun
Last week we published a post asking whether anyone had made a “print” on their skin by placing a negative on their skin under the sun. After seeing the post, videographer Jeremiah Warren decided to conduct the experiment for the benefit of all mankind. Taping four slides onto his forearm (he didn’t have any suitable...
Printing Negatives onto Skin with the Sun
Here’s really random/strange/stupid idea inspired by a comment left yesterday, but have you heard of anyone “printing” a photograph onto their skin using a negative under sunlight? Seems like it would produce a correct positive image of a negative. Next time you go to the beach, try sticking a negative onto your body and see...
MC Escher Painting Photographed in a Drop of Water
It took Steven Silton two hours and 150 tries to capture this amazing photograph of a water drop showing an MC Escher painting. The hardest part was focusing, in the set up picture I posted in the first comment you can see a piece of string above the eye dropper. I would let that hang...
