In the digital era, I always find it impressive when I see photographers who still use wet plate collodion process. And it’s especially impressive to see all the fun projects and DIY stuff they make. Photographer Michaël Tirat has built his own DIY portable wet plate darkroom and he put it on a tricycle. It contains everything he needs so he can cycle around Bordeaux, France with it, take photos and develop them on the spot....
The world is full of emerging artists, and today we want to shine a spotlight on somebody we recently found. Paul Kober (instagram) is a 60-year-old wildlife photographer from Holland, MI, USA, with a knack for anima photography. He’s also a musician, and he combined his two passions to create some very unique photos right in his backyard. I asked him for a closer look at his images and how he makes them....
Non-photographic lenses such as projector or spy lenses can be used for taking some stunning photos. But have you considered using a medical lens? Mathieu Stern got to test an Elicar 90mm f2.5 Macro Medical V-HQ, a relatively rare lens that was used by medical professionals in the ‘80s. And it turns out that it’s super sharp and great for close-up shots. The Elicar 90mm f2.5 Macro Medical V-HQ was aimed exclusively at the science and medical industries in the early ’80s....
We’ve seen our fair share of LEGO gear, both working and just for playing and decoration. But if you’re into instant cameras, you’ll absolutely love this one! LEGO enthusiast Minibrick has built a super-realistic Polaroid OneStep SX-70 out of everyone’s favorite bricks. He paid so much attention to detail that the camera even has a viewfinder and a functional film tray. The LEGO Polaroid is nearly to-scale and made up of 538 pieces....
If you are on the creative side, it’s hard to stay at home without any humans to shoot. If you are not familiar with Set.A.Light 3d, it’s a piece of software that creates realistic studio setups, including pretty realistic models. So if you are stuck at home, and can’t transform it into a studio, or if you have no one to shoot, this can be a perfect way to feed your creative needs....
When compositing, saturation is one of the more difficult things to really judge with the naked eye. It can be difficult to get things just right, and we can waste hours tweaking things until we get something we’re happy with. Sometimes, we just need a little assistance. That’s where this quick Photoshop tip from digital artist Antti Karppinen comes in. With the two images on your canvas, all you need is a single adjustment layer to show you the saturation levels throughout your image....
Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) has announced a list of the best photo gear items of 2019. It contains top 40 products from the photo industry, including cameras, lenses, and all kinds of accessories. TIPA was founded in 1991 and it’s composed of many member publications in the photo and imaging field, published both in print and online. According to TIPA, these publications “cover the full range of the industry, including consumer, professional, business-to-business, and fine art photography and imaging....
The timelapse movies don’t seem to have come as thick and fast as they did last year. There’s been a few good ones, showing rare events and unusual techniques. But still not in the quantities that 2016 brought. One person we can always rely on to give us some timelapse and hyperlapse eye-candy, though, is Kirill Neiezhmakov. In the film, White nights in Saint Petersburg, we’re taken on a tour of St Petersburg, Russia....
I’ve always found it oddly calming to watch timelapse videos of blooming flowers. With a very basic setup, over 40,000 shots and nine months of shooting, Majo Chudý has created a timelapse of blooming flowers that you’ll certainly enjoy. Majo is a Slovakian timelapse artist and photographer. As he explains, it took him a serious amount of time to capture all the shots that were included in the timelapse. Over the course of nine months, he took more than 40,000 photos....
There is something enchanting and mystical about the moon. But photographing the moon is a challenge which requires special gear, preparation, technique and right time. In this great animated tutorial from Apalapse, you’ll learn everything you need to start taking stunning photos of the moon. And it all fits in only two minutes. Gear If you want to photograph the moon that doesn’t look like an overexposed white blob in the sky, you should start with the right gear....
If you’re new to photography, there can be many concepts that still seem overwhelming and confusing. In this video, Aaron Nace of Phlearn explains the basics of aperture to help you grasp the concept and see what the change of aperture does for your shots. But the fun part is: he uses Star Wars Lego (and even Master Yoda’s voice occasionally) to guide you through the theory. I think that it hardly gets more amusing than that....
Perhaps you remember these gorgeous lens-inspired watches from TACS. The Japanese brand has done it again, this time creating Automatic Twin Lens. It’s an elegant TLR-inspired watch for all you vintage camera enthusiasts. I find this one the most beautiful so far, so let’s take a peek at the story behind it. I love it that TACS shares the story behind TLR cameras, introducing them to those who may not be into vintage gear....
Portrait photographers pay a lot of attention to their subjects, but sometimes they don’t pay so much attention to the background. In this video, Jeff Rojas will show you three key ways to make the best out of your studio background and make your photos even better. 1. Depth of field The depth of field has a huge role in the look of your background. If you’re using a beautiful canvas backdrop and want to have it in focus, shoot at smaller apertures like f/8 or f/11....
Tokina’s line of 11-16mm f/2.8 lenses for APS-C DSLRs have been pretty regularly recommended for years. They weren’t perfect, but they were rather good for what they cost. Tokina has now announced an update to this lens, in the form of the new Tokina atx-i 11-16mm f/2.8 CF for both Nikon and Canon. The new lens promises increased clarity and sharpness as well as greater contrast, coatings to prevent flaring and ghosting and aspherical and low dispersion elements to combat chromatic and other aberrations....
High Roller Observation Wheel is one of Las Vegas’ attractions many tourists want to visit and photograph. And a California tourist Reuben Burciaga probably took the most expensive picture of it ever. While he was flying his DJI Phantom 3 over the Ferris wheel, he lost control over the drone. The aircraft eventually landed on McCarran International Airport, so Burciaga was slapped with a fine of $20,000. The incident occurred in June 2018, while Burciaga was flying over the Las Vegas strip....
There are so many different ways to mount a camera for overhead shots. But it always surprises me both how many people don’t know how they can do it, and whenever a video shows another method. We’ve posted about plenty of DIY options in the past for building fancy rigs, but this one utilises gear you probably already have. Peter McKinnon’s recent video taking apart his Canon 1DX Mark II required an overhead shot....
Adobe Photoshop introduced the Subject Select feature in a 2018 update, but it’s more useful to us as photographers than we may have first thought. The ability to select a subject on command is a great feature that can help us with our creative vision, too. The subject of a photograph is the most important feature. The subject guides our composition, exposure, lighting, and all other creative decisions. Our subject is the main focus of our scene, both figuratively and literally....
Wacom has announced $649 Cintiq 16, their most affordable pen display yet. At the price of $650, it’s aimed at aspiring creatives and hobbyists who want to make a transition to more professional devices. Wacom Cintiq 16 shares some features with the $1,500 Cintiq Pro 16. These include approximately the same active area, 8192 levels of pen pressure sensitivity and electromagnetic resonance technology, which means that the tablet never needs to be charged....
The development of a new organism from a cell is a fascinating process. Dutch filmmaker and photographer Jan van IJken has recently put this miracle of life in a stunning timelapse. His short film BECOMING shows a newt forming, from a single cell to birth, in only six minutes. As a photographer, Jan leans towards using natural light and pays a lot of attention to composition and detail. He explains that he has lately become interested in human-animal relationships, nature, and microscopy....
Landscape photography is something that most of us do at some point. Even if we’re not particularly interested in landscape as a topic, we often take our cameras with us when we go on vacation and want to be able to capture that beautiful scene that’s laid before us. Newer photographers can often feel quite disappointed if they leave their cameras to figure things out for themselves in automatic modes and manual mode can seem overwhelming, but it’s really not that difficult to get to grips with, as Mads Peter Iversen demonstrates in his latest video....
