Check out this $100,000 bad boy. PopPhoto writes,

They are looking to create a one-off version of the 1110 series, a black and white only camera with a 95x95mm sensor (medium format sensors are typically 48x36mm). That massive sensor is cooled down to -100 degrees Celsius, which means it can take exposures that last for hours without overheating, which can lead to noise. The 112-megapixel CCD has no Bayer mask or AA fliter so the images will come out super sharp.

Yeah, but does it work with Instagram?

Cue up the “How Bizarre” :

 [Via]

Alan Taylor has selected some terrific images from NYC’s history & shared them at high res on In Focus.  The images are drawn from more than 870,000 pictures recently put online by the city’s Department of Records. [Via]

Frustrated by a growing lack of respect in the ad world for original work, Brazilian photographer Fernando Martins of the Câmera Clara Photography Studio travels to Copenhagen to meet with the World’s Most Downloaded Man: A handsome, 6’3″ Danish stock photography model named Jesper Bruun who has been seen “in more places than the Olympic torch.” [Via]

It’s more interesting in concept than in execution, maybe, but I love that it actually happened.

[Via Zorana Gee]

I cannot wait to show this to our tiny sons–which probably puts me on a path to being this guy.

[Via]

About five seconds into this clip, I have to repeat: There’s no other time in history when I’d rather live.

[Via]

Erlend Lavik explores the show’s subtle, nuanced photography, making me miss it all the more. Even if you don’t have the full 30 minutes to spend, I think you’ll enjoy the piece:

[Via]

Crazy-lovely French Argentine (?) stop-motion:

The Vimeo page claims “Only available for 2 days,” so you might not want to wait to watch. [Via Matthew Connell]

Lovely: Marina Kanno & Giacomo Bevilaqua from Staatsballett Berlin fly in ultra slow-mo, captured at 1000 frames per second.

[Via]

[Filed under “The Farthest Possible Thing From What I’m Doing While Watching Saturday Morning Vids with Kids”]

[Via ]

“What could make the view from the infinity pool atop the Marina Bay Sands casino, soaring some 55 stories above Singapore, even more surreal?,” asks Core77. “Human bodies jumping off of the roof behind you.”

Oddly fascinating (and non-sickness-inducing):

[Via]

The Big Picture features a striking set of images comparing the tsunami/earthquake/nuclear zone exactly one year after the disaster. Click on each image to see the scene today compared with the moments of chaos. [Via John Dowdell]

“Just when you think tilt shift may be overdone,” Todd Dominey writes, “this comes along. Glorious.” If nothing else make sure to see the Carnival section that starts around 2:20.

I really can’t overstate the pleasure our lads have taken in watching these clips. Props & thanks to Michael Hickox.


(It probably shouldn’t have been a “teachable moment” for learning the term coldcock–but c’est la guerre.)

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the most fun:

• In The Flying Series Rachel Hulin makes kids levitate. [Via]
• Maddie the Coonhound is “a super serious project about dogs and physics.” [Via Jeff Tranberry]

Well, that’s just not hard on the eyes (or ears), then. More info on the project is here.

[Via]

I’ve recently returned from my Guatemala trip, on which I carried a Nikon V1 borrowed from the Photoshop team.  If you want a long & crazy-detailed overview, check out Rob Galbraith’s review. What follows is explicitly not that. Rather, it’s off-the-cuff impressions from a guy who normally carries a 5D and who didn’t have the new cam’s manual to consult.

On the whole it’s a camera I quite like.  With a few improvements it could be one I love.

Highlights: Quality, silence, size.

• I found image quality to be excellent. (Here’s a totally untouched shot taken from a very bumpy van.) Granted, I was looking at reduced-res images on my iPad (making it harder to judge noise & sharpness), and I was relying on Apple’s built-in raw conversion (making it harder to judge flexibility of dynamic range), but still I was quite pleased. Even photos taken in a dark museums & caves came out well when using Auto ISO (a feature my 5D lacks) and the 10mm f/2.8 lens.
• I loved the cam’s total silence.  People couldn’t tell that it was on or firing, making it great for candid shots. At one point a colleague asked me, “Are you actually going to take any photos?,” as she didn’t realize I’d been snapping away.
• The presence of a dedicated video start/stop button alongside the shutter release is a cool idea, making it easy to unambiguously capture video (i.e. no need to check or switch shooting mode first).  Overall video quality is great.

Lowlights: Battery, lags.

• I found battery life on the whole to be somewhere between mediocre and awful.  Even with the rear display turned off, I’d knock a fully charged battery down to 1 bar in maybe 150 shots.  Unlike an SLR, you can’t just leave the cam on & ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. There’s no way to just leave it on (max setting is 10 min), meaning you can’t just raise the cam to your eye & know it’ll be ready to go. Weirdly, I found that when left on, the body grew quite warm to the touch. Even with access to my recharger every night, I stressed about battery life; without it (e.g. if backpacking), I’d have had to carry at least one or two spares.
• When you raise the cam to your eye, there’s a very slight delay before the digital viewfinder comes to life–nothing outrageous, but annoying for street photography.  One can hack this by taping over the proximity sensor, but presumably that would just exacerbate the battery life issue.
• As noted in the Galbraith review, the camera insists on briefly showing the last-taken photo in the viewfinder. Again, it’s not horrible, but I often want to keep concentrating on what I’m shooting, not chimp at the shot I just took.
• Minor: I found it a bit too easy to turn the shooting mode wheel by accident.  Suddenly I’d find myself in some odd burst mode, having nudged the wheel with my right hand.

For pop-up street photography, I found the Nikon 1 a good camera–just not quite a great one. Cutting out the lags, letting me leave it on, and adding a flip-out screen (so that I could compose & fire from waist height) would make it nearly ideal for the kind of work I was doing.  As it was, I learned to work around the camera’s limitations, and I’m very happy with what it let me capture.

A few galleries, in case you’re interested:

• A trip to waterfalls & caves (many taken on the move or in the dark)
• Street life parts one and two
• Cemetery & vultures

Of all these, I think this is my favorite.

Our globetrotting photo evangelist has created a slideshow of images taken during her travels.

I would not expect the images to hold the same significance to you, the viewer, as they did for me. But that is not the point.

I am sharing this slideshow to encourage every image-maker to begin a visual journal for themselves – as a personal project. I am a firm believer that you have to exercise your creativity and you have to practice in order to improve.  So when I found myself in a rut last year, I started capturing images that were meaningful to me –  purely because I wanted to, for my own reasons – not because I think someone else is going to “like” it. And I had a delightful time.

[Via]

Russell speaks highly of Jim Goldstein’s work:

The next next thing is going to be Long Exposure Night Photography! I recently attended one of Jim Goldstein’s night photography workshops and I was influenced to take the path to the DARK SIDE. Night photography is really amazing and Jim’s latest book lays out all the details for the beginner, to the advanced geek, who hangs around large telescope arrays. I’m not a super techno nerd, and I love a book that show you how to do something without a lot of magic incantations that make your brain explode. I highly recommend Jim’s latest digital book.

Clever:

The creator writes,

“After Muybridge” is a loop made from 12 stock photographs that are sequenced to re-create the locomotion of a galloping horse. The animation was modeled after one of Eadweard Muybridge’s most famous motion studies called “Daisy”. I sifted through over 5,000 digital images to find 12 that matched his original photos.

The Internet allows me to access the over-abundance of everyday photographs, taken of everyday things, in every possible position. By collecting enough images of any one thing, including a running horse, I can place them in an order to re-invent or re-animate life.

[Via Jim Heid]

Ostensible bonus, sort of conceptually similar:

[Via]

One of the great pleasures of my job is getting to meet kickass artists of all stripes. This past summer I got to visit SWAT-cop-turned-photojournalist Bruce Haley at his home at the bottom of Big Sur’s Bixby Canyon. When I asked his advice about photographing people during my upcoming trip, he pointed me to an interview in which he provides some solid perspective. I’ve bolded a line that distills some of my hopes.

BH:  We spoke earlier about doing projects on my own dime…  what this buys me, in addition to the aforementioned freedom and independence, is time  –  the time I need to make people comfortable with my presence…

I don’t sneak any of my images, I never use a telephoto, I don’t do the “spray and pray” thing…  I spend time with the people I photograph, I hang out with them, get drunk with them, they invite me to their weddings, to funerals, whatever…  in extreme cases, like working in very closed societies like the most marginalized of the Roma, it took even more of that luxury of time…

First of all, I had to locate the camps or settlements that I wanted to shoot…  then I had to approach the camp, as a most unwelcome outsider, and not only try to convince them to allow me to shoot there, but to be relaxed enough with my presence that I could be that proverbial fly-on-the-wall that I aspire to be when I’m working…  and with the Roma especially, all of this was difficult, and I had some failures, but in the end I found some places where it all clicked…

Once I had the initial permission, I would ease into the situation very slowly, hoping to raise the comfort bar as high as possible..  I would show up without a single camera and just hang out…  maybe come back the next day with my camera bag, but never take a camera out…  next time come back and wear a camera around my neck, but not shoot anything… and all the while learning about the people, as individuals, so that my images would hopefully depict them as individuals, and not just as symbols of some sort of marginalized group…  then, finally, after all of this, beginning to shoot…  this easing in, getting extremely wary people accustomed to my presence prior to my making a single image, is a luxury of time, certainly, but better to have this level of trust and comfort as opposed to just walking into a situation, motor drive blazing, then beating a hasty retreat and hoping you got something…

Here Andrei Codrescu & Bruce speak about Bruce’s Sunder project:

I usually shoot with a Canon 5D plus a 24-70mm lens. Given the size & weight of that setup, I’m looking for an alternative. I also have a Canon S95, but I don’t love its shutter lag, and I wish I could get closer to the quality offered by a large sensor. Considerations:

• I don’t want to look like an ostentatious jerk.
• I don’t want to hang a “rob me” sign around my neck.
• I’d like great low-light performance for shooting people indoors.
• Zoom is fairly unimportant.

The Photoshop QE team has quite a few cameras to choose from, including a new Nikon 1. A friend seems quite enamored of his Fuji X100, and the local camera store guys like the Lumix DMC-GX1. I’m open to suggestions, especially if there’s something really solid I should consider renting. Thanks in advance for any ideas.