We recently setup some new lighting/photo/video equipment at my home studio, so I thought I’d share the haul. Above is the light is suspended over the desk with a counterweighted boom arm to rain soft even light over the desk. A smaller light is acting as a fill, and with it I took this solder spool picture. I’m looking forward to exploring the possibilities with this versatile combination of equipment, and hope writing about it helps you take better photos and video too!
The light stand has locking casters, making it easy to wheel around the studio (instead of lifting it, oof), then lock it in position. The locks can be operated with a foot alone, which means I don’t have to bend down at all (a big plus for my sore knees). Avenger gear is built to last for generations.
The Manfrotto magic arm uses a single dial to tighten up all three of its joints. It uses a compatible quick release plate to my tripod head (thanks, Johngineer!), so I can move the camera between the two simply. My desk is super sturdy with no wobble, otherwise I’d clamp it to a shelving unit or something else nearby that won’t move as I work on the project at hand.
The setup can be configured for people shots easily– the soft box is set to rake across the subject’s face while the fill light is clamped up high to shine down as a hair light. We chose a constant light source (instead of strobes) so it can be used for video and photos. I can’t wait to make more videos to share with you! Tell us about your setups in the comments.
Kodak has announced that, as part of its “ongoing strategic review,” it will stop producing digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames, but will continue to invest in its film division
I don’t know about you, but I’m thrilled about this announcement. After their declaration of bankruptcy, there was some serious concern among film users that film products would be first on the chopping block. For many of the years that film photography existed, Kodak was the big dog. It was all things to all photographers, and provided a huge variety of reliable products to all segments of the photographic market. However, when consumer digital photography came along, Kodak floundered as it tried to remain “all things to all photographers”, and ended up being nothing to anybody.
The fundamental problem was (and is) that digital photography is much less about taking pictures than it is about consumer electronics, which is something Kodak knew nothing about. As a result, they ended up outsourcing their cameras and electronics, and lacked a focused, core line of high-quality professional products around which a user base could form. But all that’s in the past now, and hopefully they’re setting much more realistic goals for themselves.
Now, I’m certain that this post is going to provoke at least one response along the lines of “film is dead” — and in a way it is, but there are lots of people (including yours truly) who still use and love it. I don’t use it for my professional work, because the turnover and workflow are just too slow for that kind of thing, but I still use it in my personal work. And so do a lot of other people — it’s still incredibly popular for fine art work.
When people hear that I still shoot film, they feel compelled to lecture me about all the benefits of digital: it’s faster / you have instant feedback / you can share it easily. All of those are true, but also true are my counterarguments: I want to work slow / I don’t want instant feedback — I know my camera well enough to know if it’s going to work / I’m not ready to share it yet.
Often, I end up comparing the film vs. digital debate to the difference between oil paint and acrylics. Acrylics have many advantages over oils: they mix easier, clean up easier, dry faster and they are cheaper. But there are things you can do with oils that you can’t do with acrylics: namely, you can’t spend a week retouching a painting while it’s still wet, you can mix many more pigments with oil, and finally nothing else has the depth and richness of an oil painting. Likewise, nothing else looks like a silver print from film. A well-made silver print on high-quality fiber paper (with maybe a touch of selenium toning) is a rich and stunning thing to behold. On top of all that, the process of developing and printing film photographs is one of the most enjoyable experiences I can think of, and I never want it to go away.
So, I’m hoping this announcement means that Kodak will turn it’s attention to the only loyal market it really has: film photographers who love Kodak film and chemicals (I’m a Plus-X/X-Tol man myself), and reaffirm its dedication to making these great products.
Put a couple of the iron-on patches from the shop on my nerd bag. This is the bag I usually take with me to MakerFaire and other geek-tastic events. They look really nice against the black fabric background.
I need to get more hackerspace pins.
Quick tips for iron-on patches:
Make sure the fabric you’re applying the patch to is clean.
Use a high enough heat setting to melt the adhesive and let it permeate into the fabric below. I used a high “cotton” setting.
Apply firm, even pressure over the whole area of the patch for long enough to let the adhesive set (as above) — I ironed each patch for about 3 minutes each.
Use a handkerchief or thin cloth between the iron and the patch, or you risk damaging the threads on the patch.
The US space agency (Nasa) has released the sharpest ever elevation map of the Moon.
It will enable scientists to accurately portray the shape of the entire Moon at a higher resolution than ever before.
The map was produced using data sent back by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft, which was launched in June 2009.
It reveals troughs and bumps over nearly the entire Moon with a pixel scale close to 100m (328 ft).
A single measure of elevation (one pixel) on the map is roughly the size of two football pitches placed side-by-side.
“Our new topographic view of the Moon provides the dataset that lunar scientists have waited for since the Apollo era,” said Dr Mark Robinson, chief scientist on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), one of LRO’s instruments.
Dr Robinson, from Arizona State University in Tempe, added: “We can now determine slopes of all major geologic terrains on the Moon at 100m scale, determine how the crust has deformed, better understand impact crater mechanics, investigate the nature of volcanic features, and better plan future robotic and human missions to the Moon.”
Every Leica lens is hand-crafted and goes through meticulous manufacturing processes to uphold the quality and precision that Leica defines and customers have come to expect. In the age where technology almost inevitably means mass manufacturing, Leica products are still made with exacting precision by the hands of highly-trained technicians. This video gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the craftsmanship and making of Leica lenses in the production facilities of Leica Camera AG.
Thanks to a German research institute, in the very near future, we may not even see the cameras looking back at us at all.
It may not be news that camera technology is getting smaller, but it is newsworthy when an important milestone is reached. Take the announcement from the German Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration for example. They recently reported the development of a camera with a lens attached that is 1 x 1 x 1.5 millimeters in size, which is the size of a grain of salt. At about a cubic millimeter in size, this camera is right at the size limit that the human eye can see unaided. The camera not only produces decent images but it is also very cheap to manufacture…so cheap in fact that it is considered disposable.
This is my portrait of Steven Sasson, inventor of the digital camera. He was the 32nd inventor in my project. I shot him in October at Kodak’s headquarters in Rochester, just a couple weeks before President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Technology.
It looks like a giant potato in space. And yet, the information in this model is the sharpest view we have of how gravity varies across the Earth. The globe has been released by the team working on Europe’s Goce satellite. It is a highly exaggerated rendering, but it neatly illustrates how the tug we feel from the mass of rock under our feet is not the same in every location. Gravity is strongest in yellow areas; it is weakest in blue ones.
I know a lot of people who make lots of stuff. They even take the time to share as much as they can about their process. But documenting everything is a pain. It takes time away from the actual doing of the project. And even if you aren’t documenting to share with the world, documenting for yourself is incredibly valuable.
And let’s say you’re trying to show someone how to do something. Cook, solder, crochet, play chess… most anything with your hands. Wouldn’t it be handy to have a camera above your work, just like they have on those fancy TV shows? Yes, it turns out it would. And it also turns out to be pretty easy to make.
This overhead camera dolly holds a camera pointing straight down onto your work surface and it lets you easily move it both side-to-side and toward and away from you so it can focus on any part of your workspace.
Use it for instructional videos, live demos, time lapse videos or film your own cooking show!
It’s cheap—I built the whole thing for less than $30.
It’s simple to build. It only take a few common tools and a few hours.
It’s easily customizable to the size and needs of your workspace.
It’s versatile. It works with just about any kind of camera from a webcam or cameraphone up to a professional DSLR.
It’s modular and can be set up and torn down quickly and easily if you want to use it at an event.
A lot of folks have emailed us asking who the photographer was for the cover of the April WIRED – it was none other than one of our favorite photographers and we were thrilled to meet her – you can check out Jill Greenberg’s portfolio here and her works. If her work looks familiar, it should – you’ve likely seen her amazing photos in tons of places.
After reading about light stencils at DIY Photography I was sure I had to try that. In short, you use a flash to illuminate a printout while taking a long exposure picture.
Printable catalog (PDF) or (EPUB)
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