Category Archives: Photography

A Fully Functional Nikon DSLR Costume

Photography

It’s from 2011, but it remains terrific:
Nikon Costume
PetaPixel writes,

For Halloween this year, photographer Tyler Card decided to made a giant Nikon DSLR costume. Not just any DSLR costume, mind you, but a fully functional one. The camera actually takes pictures when the shutter release button is pressed, and the photograph is displayed on the giant LCD screen on the back. The built-in flash also works, and the camera is even capable of triggering Alienbees strobes.
The giant camera body is made out of cardboard and a five gallon bucket. A Nikon DSLR was then placed into the camera and connected to the LCD screen and giant shutter button.

Check it out in action on Vimeo. [Sorry, the blog admins have screwed up my ability to embed vids for the moment.]

Would you do this? OKDOTHIS

Photography

Here’s an interesting app meant to provide inspiration/challenges and let you inspire/challenge others:

We call ideas “DOs.” Create your own DO and share it. Or, try someone else’s DO and see what happens… [A]ny photo you take can become an idea catalyst. And every idea can become an unlimited number of photos. 

Hmm—I’m intrigued. But will you actually do this? Will anyone? I can only guess (as can the creators, I’d imagine).

Last year I asked, “Would you go to the ‘design gym’ with me?,” proposing to challenge & reward people, helping them sharpen their skills. I still think there’s some promise there, but it’s easy to get quite wrong. It’ll be interesting to see how OKDOTHIS, well, does.

[Via Will Eisley]
[Update: Zero comments in 24 hours? I’m guessing that’s a “no.”]

Hoop dreams

Photography

I love the gorgeous, understated use of motion tracking (and nice titles & color grade too) in this piece:

A hula hoop floats amidst a stunning location of México city. As it moves, a dancer appears and plays with the hoop. Every movement creates lines, impressive shapes and lights that float in the space as if being drawn to gradually create an impressive sculpture in movement.

[Vimeo]

Time lapse: Mauna Kea Lasers

Photography

Beautiful work from Sean Goebel:

This montage was filmed on three nights in April (I was observing on one of the telescopes and would walk outside when things got boring) and four nights during summer 2013. More information (i.e. “What’s up with the lasers?” “What gear did you use?”) can be viewed here.

Colossal notes, “The lasers you see are called laser guide stars and they help astronomers correct the atmospheric distortion of light by creating an artificial “star” to use as a reference point. ” [Vimeo]

Demo: What's new in Camera Raw 8.2

Photography

Good stuff from Julieanne Kost: 

In this episode of The Complete Picture, Julieanne takes a close look at the feature enhancements and refinements made to the Crop tool, workflow settings, and batch saving capabilities in Adobe Camera Raw. In addition she also covers improvements made to the Spot Removal Tool, Noise Reduction, Local Adjustment Brush, and Histogram. Note: For more information about the Features in Camera Raw 8.0 including the new Upright perspective correction, Radial Filter, and Spot Removal features please see “Adobe Photoshop CC: Favorite Features for Photographers.”

Seene: a "3D instagram"?

3D, Instagram, Photography

It’s easier seen (heh) than described, so just check it out. The Verge writes,

With less than 30 seconds of setup after installing the app, you can record and manipulate an object in real-time, and in 3D. It’s like iOS 7 parallax gone wild…

Even with poorly done Seenes, the app’s 3D effect is breathtaking since it uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to alter the perspective of the image accordingly when you move your hand. On the web, moving your mouse on an image alters its perspective.

[Via Tomas Krcha]

An entire family time-lapsed as one individual

After Effects, Photography

Hasselblad portraits -> After Effects -> pixie dust: A “person” ages 65 years in 5 minutes.

Last Thanksgiving, Cerniello traveled to his friend Danielle’s family reunion and with still photographer Keith Sirchio shot portraits of her youngest cousins through to her oldest relatives with a Hasselblad medium format camera. Then began the process of scanning each photo with a drum scanner at the U.N. in New York, at which point he carefully edited the photos to select the family members that had the most similar bone structure. Next he brought on animators Nathan Meier and Edmund Earle who worked in After Effects and 3D Studio Max to morph and animate the still photos to make them lifelike as possible. Finally, Nuke (a kind of 3D visual effects software) artist George Cuddy was brought on to smooth out some small details like the eyes and hair.

[Vimeo] [Via]

Enfojer: A portable smartphone photographic enlarger

Instagram, Mobile, Photography

It’s sort of the anti-Instagram: Deliberately slow, old-school image-making, but augmented with one’s smartphone.

From the Kickstarter Indiegogo page:

Enfojer bridges almost 200 years of photographic history, from the first camera to the most recent hybrid camera phones that made photography ubiquitous. It is our hope and desire that with this little gadget we preserve the old art of photo development and help you, and you, and you rediscover the magic that happens in a darkroom.

[Vimeo]

Why don't more camera companies license this tech?

Photography

I just bought a Canon 70D largely on the promise of finally capturing good-looking video thanks to its new autofocus prowess. Unfortunately noise from the lens (a 24-70mm L series) is very audible (here’s a bit I just recorded). I suspect the problem is common to other cameras/lenses, though I’d welcome suggestions about quieter glass.
In the course of researching how I might nuke this crap via Adobe Audition, I stumbled upon the oddly named VideoZizzle, technology that profiles lens noise & scrubs it from recordings. Here’s an unglamorous but effective little demo:

It seems the tech has been around for a while, and while I’m disappointed that it apparently isn’t integrated into my camera, hope springs eternal that it or something similar will proliferate.

Thomas Knoll talks Photoshop & Creative Cloud

CC, Photography

From Luminous Landscape: 

In early June 2013, Michael Reichmann & Kevin Raber sat down with Thomas Knoll, co-inventor with his brother John, of Adobe Photoshop. Thomas tells the story of two young brothers and the beginnings of Photoshop.

Later in the video, Thomas talks about the controversy surrounding Adobe’s Creative Cloud and the solution he proposed for photographers.

I can’t embed the clip, so check it out on Vimeo.

New Sony QX cams: Possibly brilliant (?)

Mobile, Photography

I’m deeply intrigued by the new Sony QX10 & QX100 cameras, which use your smartphone as a viewfinder:

[YouTube]
Big zoom plus real bokeh from an iPhone, especially during video? You have my strict attention.
DPReview finds the cams “a bit underwhelming,” and a bunch of questions remain unanswered for me (e.g. can one transfer video wirelessly? how long does it take to transfer stills?). Even so, I’m optimistic, and I’ve asked Photojojo to let me know when they’re ready to order.
In other Franken-phone news, “Hasselnuts is an Adapter that Turns Your iPhone into a Medium Format Digital Back.”

Photographers: A great new deal on Photoshop CC + Lightroom

CC, Photography

I’m pleased to say that if you own Photoshop CS3 or higher, you’ll be able to get Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5, and more for $9.99 per month.

Photoshop VP Winston Hendrickson writes, “One common request was a solution specifically tailored for photographers. We listened, and at Photoshop World we’re announcing a special offer for our loyal Photoshop customers.” The new package includes:

  • Photoshop CC
  • Lightroom 5
  • 20 GB of online storage
  • Behance ProSite (custom site/portfolio hosting)
  • Access to the online video tutorials in Creative Cloud

The Photoshop team provides some details: 

To be clear, $9.99 is not an introductory price. It is the price for those of you who sign up by December 31, 2013. This offer will be available at the same time we introduce the new version of Lightroom 5.2 in a couple weeks.  Visit the FAQ to learn more and follow Photoshop on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to find out when the offer goes live.

To reiterate: the intention is not to get you in at $9.99/mo., then crank up the price after a year. $9.99 is the expected ongoing price.

I know that this change won’t address every concern, but I’m happy that the offer makes it much easier for photographers who want just two Adobe apps to get the benefits of Photoshop CC & the Creative Cloud. As time goes by the cloud component will grow more & more valuable, and I’m excited that more people will be able to get new capabilities the moment they’re available.

The sleeper hit in iOS7 (?)

Lightroom, Mobile, Photography

[Update: I’m not taking about making it possible to transfer photos wirelessly to iPads/iPhones. That kind of works today, but it’s laborious. I’m talking about making it Just Work.]

For the last 3+ years, customers have clubbed me over the head with the following request:

I want to go on a hike, vacation, etc. and toss my iPad in my bag. I want to pair my nice camera (SLR, Micro 4/3rds, etc.) with the iPad just as easily as I could any Bluetooth device. As I shoot (or later), I want to beam my raw files right into the iPad. I want to review those images on a 10″ rather than a 2″ screen. I want to swipe through to pick the good ones & hide the crap. I might want to apply some edits & share the output directly, but when I get home, I want all the images & their edits appear in Lightroom, ready for any further work.

I want that, too. Everyone wants that. Could we finally be getting there?

AirDrop in iOS7 makes it easy to have nearby iOS devices share photos and videos. Will this extend to pairing cameras with iPhones & iPads, particularly if the former support Wi-Fi Direct? I don’t know—but man, my fingers are going blue from being crossed so long. (Meanwhile we’re not just sitting around, either.)

In tangentially related news, it’s rumored that Sony is about to announce “lens cameras” that connect to & augment smartphones, communicating via Wi-Fi. They promise to combine more powerful optics with immediate access to processing & sharing.

It’ll be fascinating to see how all this plays out. Here’s hoping Apple is working to extend the connective tissue & help make things seamless.

Neat event photography idea: A slow-mo photo booth

Photography

What a cool concept from Seattle’s excellently named Super Frog Saves Tokyo: a photo booth set up at a wedding featuring a RED Epic camera capable of shooting at 160fps.

As PetaPixel reports, the creators had this to say:

We just made sure the look was clean in camera and then did color correcting afterwards. Blaine Ludy (Director/Editor of this project) is just really great at getting people to do stuff. In the beginning, people were timid, but as he showed them takes they began to understand what we were doing. Also, it was a wedding with an open bar. The video is edited (mostly) chronologically so you can see people get progressively less inhibited as the night went on.

Super cool. Here’s hoping the necessary camera tech keeps coming down in price, putting this kind of production into more people’s reach.

Should I abandon DSLRs entirely?

Photography

Answer: No. (Not yet.)

I tried, man—especially after lugging my 5D & big lens around Legoland (and, through constant effort, somehow not accidentally braining my young sons with it). I tried a whole pile of Micro Four Thirds cameras & talked to all the brainiac shooters who build Camera Raw & Lightroom. In short these new small cams, while impressive overall, are just not DSLR-quick at focusing & firing the shutter, meaning I’d inevitably miss shots of the kids & curse every time. Getting there? Absolutely. There yet? Not for me.

Meanwhile autofocus during video on the Canon 70D worked pretty darn well in my limited tests, and AF for still work at least matched the 5D. Video AF is the big draw for me: I struck out completely trying to shoot video with a (manually focusing) 5D Mk. II & Rebel I’ve borrowed, but object-tracking AF Servo promises to make all the difference—and it works with my existing lens. Verdict: 70D is better for stills, and at least as good for video.

Thus a 70D is winging its way from B&H to me. God-willing Wi-Fi connections between cams & phones/tablets will only improve (I’m looking at & pulling for you, AirDrop in iOS7!), so I can start spamming your Instagram feeds with bokeh-rich kid-vids. (You may commence holding your breath in 3, 2…)

"shoot NYC" scheduled for October 24th & 25th

Photography

I know it’s a ways off, but if you’ll be in New York in October, check out free photography seminars from Photoshop PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes and many others:

One-time opportunity to see FREE seminars at shoot nyc with the following industry professionals: Beth Taubner. Brian Smale. Jodi Jones. Roberto Valenzuela. Skip Cohen. Lindsay Adler. Peter Hurley. Rick Friedman. Michael Grecco. Rafael “RC” Concepcion. Andre Rowe. Lara Jade. Catherine Asanov. Matt Karas. Paul Mobley. R Lee Morris. Erik Valind. Bryan O’Neil Hughes. Scott Markewitz. Adam Sherwin. Alexandra Niki. Clay Patrick McBride.

Short film: "Experiments in Speed"

Photography

“Inspired by those great men of the salt flats, those men that in the 60s pushed the Land Speed Record from the 300s up towards the 600mph mark in jet-propelled cars built in their sheds,” write the creators of this beautifully shot piece, “we decided to do what we do: build a bicycle, but this time, in the spirit of those pioneers of speed, build it to see how fast we could go…”

[Vimeo] [Via]

An artist's trippy 3D painting technique

3D, Photography

I’ve heard Photoshop layers referred to as “sheets of acetate,” but Juan Miguel Palacios’s work takes that literally:

A recent transplant to Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, Spanish artist Juan Miguel Palacios is making a splash in the New York art scene with a series of work focusing on the human form. Palacios uses a unique technique which involves layering a series of paintings on top of each other to create stunning three-dimensional pieces. We spent some time with Palacios in his studio to discuss his influences, his background and the complexities of his creative process.

[Vimeo] [Via Bryan O’Neil Hughes]

Let Russell Brown help you make gorgeous aerial videos, like this one

Photography

This is nice, right?

 

If you like that, check this out: Russell will be teaching a pre-Photoshop World workshop in Las Vegas on Sept. 3:

If you’ve always wanted to learn how to fly the remote quad-copter and take aerial photography then this is the class for you. With advances in helicopter technology combined with small lightweight cameras, the age of aerial photography is easy to learn, and at reasonable prices. With the help of some expert flight instructors you will learn the basics of flight and some of the techniques for capturing images with the DJI Phantom. Representatives from DJI Innovations and GoPro will also be available for questions, answers and advanced tips and techniques.

After landing the unit safely back on the ground, Russell Brown and his team of experts will discuss some of the best ways to work with your still, and video images from the GoPro cameras.

The early bird price is $89 (regular price $99), and participation is limited to 65 students.

Camera Raw 8.2 RC adds features, new camera & lens support

Photography

A preview (release candidate) version of ACR is now available on Adobe Labs for Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CC.

In addition to supporting 10 new cameras (including the new Canon 70D) and adding several lens profiles (including for the GoPro Hero 3), Camera Raw 8.2 makes a bunch of welcome nips & tucks: The Spot Healing tool gets feathering control; the histogram is now interactive; the Detail panel gets a color smoothness slider; workflow presets are now available; and the Local Adjustment brush has been refined. Check out the Lightroom Journal’s post for full details.

As a reminder, compatibility updates come to both CS and CC, but new features show up only in CC. (That’s the promise of Creative Cloud: New features roll out all the time.)

DSLR footage for the rest of us?

Photography

“Encourage [your kids] to play somewhere well-lit,” they say. Riiight… and the rest of the time, a big aperture (with corresponding shallow depth of field) is your friend. This has meant, unfortunately, that on the relatively few occasions I’ve tried it, I’ve gotten pretty miserable results shooting video with a DSLR: kids run in & out of focus with abandon, and without any sort of autofocus, I’m lost.

Now, however, the Canon 70D promises great things in that regard:

At present I’m shooting with an original 5D (passed on to me by Bryan O’Neil Hughes when he upgraded to the 5D Mark II, and still one of the nicest gifts I’ve ever gotten), but I’m starting to feel sorely tempted to upgrade, even sight-unseen. Any reason I shouldn’t? Yeah yeah, there’s the whole not-full-frame thing, but I think people get a little irrationally fetishistic about that one, and I doubt I’ll die as my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens ends up effectively zooming in a bit. (By the way, it’s the investment in that thing that’s keeping me in the Canon camp, but I’m open to hearing ideas from Nikon & other shooters.)

In any case, I’m excited that the technology is evolving to this point, and at a fairly attainable price point to boot. Viva competition.

Instagram video -> Legos

Instagram, Photography

Zorana Gee talks about writing a coffee table book called “…For San Jose,” which would bestow the left-handed compliment of saying, for example, “Yeah, that’s a great restaurant… for San Jose.”

I’ve wondered this about Instagram videos (and Vine, for that matter): Good, or just hard? Is this stuff worthwhile, or only “good” if you lower your expectations?

I realized, though, it’s like people building with Legos*: It is cool to see what people can do within certain constraints. One doesn’t judge a watercolor using the same criteria as for an oil painting. Different media, differently beautiful. Hey, I didn’t say it was a profound insight, but it’s made me feel better about these ultra-short-form videos as their own genre—and at last I’ve captured one I quite like.

By the way, I’m curious: Do people actually watch videos, and do they capital-L Like them? I’m finding that the vids I’ve posted draw only about one half to one third the likes of a typical photo of mine. Hopefully the companies will someday reveal numbers on actual consumption (and not just sharing) of these vids. I’d love to see whether it increases or decreases over time.

*fine, “LEGO,” pedants

Shake Reduction vs. Smart Sharpen in Photoshop CC

CC, Photography

How do the various improvements to sharpening in Photoshop CC relate to each other? PM Zorana Gee posted a blurb I found helpful:

Shake Reduction is to remove blur caused by subtle shaking of your camera. Smart Sharpen is about sharpening the existing pixels (2D blurs) – no analysis of image or how the blur happened. They do actually work quite well together. Start with Shake Reduction as it requires the most original data in order to find the blur trace and then use Smart Sharpen.

Update: Zorana points out a detailed article on shake reduction (showing numerous before/after examples) from Andy Trice.

Warm photos, warm hearts

Instagram, Photography

I’ve always said that Instagram isn’t about photography, but rather about making people feel loved & validated. Perhaps the warmth of “vintage” effects is more than figurative. The NYT, writing about the benefits of nostalgia:

It has been shown to counteract loneliness, boredom and anxiety. It makes people more generous to strangers and more tolerant of outsiders. Couples feel closer and look happier when they’re sharing nostalgic memories. On cold days, or in cold rooms, people use nostalgia to literally feel warmer.

Alternatively, guzzle sepia-hued video clips until your phone toasts your palms. [Via]

"Duct Tape Surfing"

Photography

Hey, mind if I duct-tape your mom to my back and go surfing? Crazy, inspiring, beautiful stuff. Via Kottke:

Pascale Honore enjoyed watching her sons surf but couldn’t participate because she’s been a paraplegic for the past 18 years. But then Tyron Swan, a friend of her sons, duct taped her to his back and took her out on his board.

[Vimeo]