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3D Astro Images
Posted on 06.22.09 by John @ 6:24 pm

Imagine if you had a head as larger than a planet, OK good. Now imagine that you are looking up at the ’sky’ (with your head being larger than the planet you normally live on some would say that the sky is everywhere but I digress…)  and things that would normally appear flat begin to have depth. You can see that the moon is closer to you than the sun and that planets really do look like they are way out there. Astronomer JP Metsavainio has been taking wonderful photos of the night sky and then enhancing them to give you the illusion of what they would look like it you were of a galactic size. His estimates of depth are a best guess but I’m going to say that for the sake of argument that he is correct. Seeing these nebula and galaxies with stereo depth is just cool. 

Astroanarchy


Filed under: Cool and Photography and Space
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Blackbird Fly TLR Camera
Posted on 05.30.09 by John @ 8:59 am

blackbird-fly-camera-1Using traditional film has become the ‘hip cool thing’ for photographers these days. The heck with the instant gratification and low cost of use that digital gives you, shoot with a medium that you have to wait for the results until after you get it back from the expensive lab. Don’t worry if you think the only place you can find a film camera is at a thrift store or a collectible camera store, you can still buy them new. I happened across this fine example of a modern 35mm camera the other day. I give you the Blackbird Fly TLR (wiki: Twin-Lens Reflex). The camera sports a waist level viewfinder, two shutter speeds (bulb and 1/125) and two apature sizes (f-7 and f-11), three format (normal 24mm x 36mm, square 24mm x 24mm, and a full frame with sprocket holes) masks, a hot shoe for a flash, and a manual variable focus (.8 m to infinity). These specs won’t hold up next to a Rollei or a Seagull but then you aren’t paying for that. You get a cool yet functional retro looking (in three colors no less) camera that lets you get all creative with your snapshots. Plus as it uses standard 35mm film you can grab film for is just about anywhere (a little tip: get the out of date stuff, it’s cheap and if the colors are a bit off you can credit that to your artistic abilities).

[via Trends in Japan]

Blackbird Fly

Support my blog and pick up a Blackbird Fly in blue, black, or orange from my Amazon store.


Filed under: Cool and Japan and Photography
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Silicon Camera That Mimics Mammalian Vision
Posted on 10.05.08 by John @ 6:20 pm

Curved cameraThis is quite an impressive achievement if you ask me.

Conventional cameras use a curved lens to focus an image onto a flat surface where the light is captured either by film or by digital sensors. However, focusing light from a curved lens onto a flat surface distorts the image, necessitating a series of other lenses that reduce the distortion but tend to increase the bulk and cost of a device.

[via boingboing]
Curved electronic eye created


Filed under: Cool and Photography and Science and Technology
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$25 Head-Mounted Display
Posted on 03.11.08 by John @ 9:05 pm

This is a bit old news but if you act soon you can snatch one of these up before they are gone. This is a cool little hack to repurpose the head mounted display from a remote controlled car for better purposes. The procedure is simple, get a power supply (some batteries) pop the back off the display and move a shunt from one pad to another (switch form PAL to NTSC video standards) and you are set.
[via hackaday]
$25 Head-Mounted Display « Jake of All Trades


Filed under: Cool and DIY and Historic and Mad Science and Photography and To be used for Evil
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DORYU 2-16 Pistol Camera
Posted on 01.29.08 by John @ 8:45 pm

Oh yeah baby, you can be James Bond and Weegee all at the same time with this gem!
After a bit of digging I discovered it’s DORYU 2-16 with Cine-Nikkor 25mm F1.4 lens.

" This camera is a serious camera for the police, and not a toy. It is a pistol camera DORYU 2-16 famous as rare and valuable camera. The DORYU 2-16 has the same C mount as the 16mm movie camera. A Cine-Nikkor 25mm F1.4 lens was able to be mounted in the DORYU 2-16 pistol camera. You can find the small lens for GOLDECK 16 on the table."

This is something I’d buy if I had that chance.
The site has some impressive Nikon gear on it, I like those S Motor bodies a lot! I love Nikon cameras, go check it out.

[via Ektopia]
DORYU Pistol Camera


Filed under: Cool and Historic and Japan and Photography and To be used for Evil
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CK Pinhole Photography Resources
Posted on 09.14.07 by John @ 7:03 pm

CK Pinhole Photography ResourcesI ran across this a few days ago:

Being a photographer who is passionate about pinhole photography, I wanted to create a complete all-in-one internet resource that offers information for the beginner, amateur and professional pinhole photographer. I hope you find this information helpful whatever your pinhole interests are.

Maybe one day a few of my pinhole projects will end up on this fine list.

[ CK ] Pinhole Photography Resources


Filed under: Artistic and DIY and Photography
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DIY Canon Camera Firmware Enhancements
Posted on 09.14.07 by John @ 6:56 pm

One of the greatest things about technology isn’t what it does, but it’s what it can do. This is a shining example of this very concept:

If you have a point-and-click digital camera made by Canon, you may be able to turn on all sorts of features usually reserved for more expensive SLRs. That includes live histograms, depth-of-field calculation, under and overexposure highlighting, and — best of all — shooting your pictures in RAW. The secret is CHDK, an enhanced, free software replacement firmware.

I’m going to have to disagree that the best part of this is being able to shoot in RAW mode. Don’t get me wrong, I love using RAW (or NEF as it’s called on my Nikon) but the best part of this enhancement is that fact that you can do scripting in a BASIC like language in the camera. Wow… This is like getting a computer that has predefined programs on it and then discovering the programming tools for it. With these scripts you can do such amazing things as automatically create a series of photos for HDR stacking that can later be run through software to extend the dynamic range of the images. You can run an interactive interval timer to take X number of photos ever X seconds, minutes, or even hours so you could do a time laps study of ice melting or a building being built. Those are just two examples of what can be done with the powerful feature.
One clever thing is that if you make a mistake and screw something up that chance of you ‘bricking’ your camera is quite low. To remove the firmware enhancement you simply remove the CD card and power up the camera. Bingo, everything is back to normal. I for one will be on the lookout for a camera that this will work on.

[via MAKE]
Linux.com :: How to give your low-end Canon digital camera RAW support


Filed under: DIY and Hacked and Mods and Photography and Technology
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MAKE Halloween Something Special
Posted on 09.06.07 by John @ 10:20 pm

I don’t usually toot my own horn but this time I’m going to. I was recently asked if MAKE magazine could use a few of my photos of a Halloween display that I had made a few years ago. I agreed to it of course, I mean who wouldn’t want to see their photos in a national magazine? So I signed some paperwork and waited for the issue to hit the stands. All my waiting paid off when I saw the issue on Saturday and saw my photos printed up in glorious color. My photos of glow sticks, black light, and electric arcs fit right in with the other amazing projects that are being showcased in the Halloween issue. If your looking for a way to add a little something to your garage turned haunted house or  even if your just  wanting to  scare the crap out of a coworkers with some automated nasty in the cube farm this is the magazine to buy!


Filed under: Cool and DIY and Mad Science and Photography and Technology
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Amazing Music Video Animated With Dice!
Posted on 08.04.07 by John @ 8:10 am

Least anyone even dare to think that traditional animation is dead…

This is a neat music video, called Ankle Injuries, from the English band Fujiya & Miyagi, where the "ASCII"-styled animation was done with hundreds and hundreds of dice.

This animation must have taken forever to finish! I wonder if they shot the bottom of the dice through a sheet of glass to make it easier to keep things clean and to move the dice around. The tune is darn catchy too, I’m going to have to get some of their music.
Fujiya & Miyagi official website, wikipedia entry
[via neatorama]


Filed under: Artistic and Cool and Photography
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Comic Con 2007 Photo Safari
Posted on 08.04.07 by John @ 7:51 am

Comic Con 2007 - Cylons!
Last week I attended what was arguably the largest gathering of fans of any sort I had ever been part of. Over 140,000 people from all over the world descended upon the San Diego convention center for four days of total nerd nirvana. Comics, movies, toys, collectibles, TV stars… For me the best parts were getting to meet Syd Mead and seeing Ray Bradbury again.

Comic Con 2007 photo set on Flickr


Filed under: Artistic and Cool and Photography
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LOMO Meccano Erector Set
Posted on 07.13.07 by John @ 6:12 am

LOMO multisetFrom the makers of fine photographic equipment (that’s a joke folks):

Your days of mindless play and whimsical fancy have come to a close. Now that you have arrived at this important growth stage, your further development requires true inspiration – not the blithe bouncing of a rubber ball or cradling of a lifeless doll. Peel open your assigned LOMO Meccano Erector Set and prepare to greatly advance your powers of critical thought and mechanical prowess. Using this collection of precise modular instruments, you can erect the following five creations…

Alas, there looks to be only 100 available. However, for your $125US you do get one heck of a cool kit. With this set up you cam make an enlarger, a slide projector, a camera, a negative viewer, and a magnifying glass. If you ask me it’s worth the price. Little known fact, pretty much any camera that has a bulb setting and a back that opens can be used as a photographic enlarger. I used to use a medium format twin lens reflex camera as an enlarger when I didn’t have a proper darkroom. The results were not perfect but it did get the job done. I think I see a future DIY project here…
[via MAKE]
LOMO Meccano Erector Set


Filed under: DIY and Photography
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AutoStitch
Posted on 07.12.07 by John @ 8:13 pm

Niagara Falls

 If your into panoramic images like I am your always on the look out for software to help you stitch images together. This is a fine choice.

Autostitch™ is the world’s first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, Autostitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical).

Oh yeah, it’s free!

[via Make

AutoStitch


Filed under: Photography
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New ‘Spin’ On Pinhole Photography
Posted on 06.18.07 by John @ 9:10 pm

8 Banners Turret multi pinhole plateThis is cool! Up and coming pinhole camera manufacturer 8 Banners has come out with their latest offering, a multi pinhole turret with built in shutter.

This turret can be mounted as an accessory on the various models of pinhole camera made by 8banners with the exception of Ma.
It replaces the normal shutter assembly by having instead of the choice of 1 pinhole plates but 6 pinhole plates.
For the 4×5 model, if u dun put in a plate for one of the hole, it can become a view finder that cast an image in the ground glass back behind the cam.

The idea of using an empty space as a viewfinder is beautiful. The greatest thing about 8 Banners, other than the cameras, is that they are very DIY friendly. You can but pinholes viewfinders, and shutters there at quite reasonable prices. The turret is lists as being $85US. Quite affordable if you ask me.
See more:
Turret Set on Flickr – Photo Sharing!


Filed under: DIY and Photography
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Apple IIe Animation from 1985
Posted on 06.15.07 by John @ 10:40 pm

 


As seen on MAKE today:

Phil, you should check out this cool Apple II stop motion rig one of my commenters made in the 80’s, I think it’s right up your alley. He had the computer control the camera and a spinning wheel of color filters. The computer rendered one frame in monochrome for each color of each frame.

Years ago some of my friends were starting up a computer animation company, this was around 1990 or so. The computer they had was a 486DX that had MS DOS as it’s OS and was running a 3D program called Topaz. The computer had two special cards in it, one would act as the controller for a Sony Beta deck VTR and the other would display an image onto a NTSC video display. The animations were rendered to the video display one line at a time, sometimes taking hours for a single frame to render.  When the frame was finished the Beta deck would spring to life and make all sorts of mechanical sounds as the tape was brought to the record head and a single frame of video was recorded. This would repeat over and over again until the segment had been recorded. I’m very glad the good old days of computing are long gone.

Flickr – Cinimagic 1985


Filed under: Cool and Photography
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Your Photos in a Museum?
Posted on 06.12.07 by John @ 4:15 pm

Most photographers can only dream of having their works seen by countless numbers of patrons ‘de arts who mill through the galleries munching on crackers and brie while making casual remarks on the expressionistic realization of the artists as if they have a clue. Well, tough. Chances are that you won’t be seeing your photos on any ones walls other than your own and maybe the Post Office. But you can have some imaginative play time fun and make like the big time cam a knockin.
Upload your photo (or send it a URL) and choose the setting and the Museumr will do the heavy lifting for you. All you have to do is to sit back and have a sip of vino and bask in the radiance of pseudo artistic achievement.

[via photojojo]
Present your photos in museums on dumpr.net


Filed under: Artistic and Cool and Photography
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