Eclectic junk from the four corners of the ‘Net. And pictures too!
I love simple gadgets that for photography. With a simple a string and a wing nut that fits a tripod thread you can have yourself a quick way to stabilize your camera. By holding the string down with your foot and pulling up on the camera you create a ‘dynamic tension’ that dampens out small movements that can mess up your shots. Give it a try, I’m sure you will like the results
I just finished a little tutorial on how to take stereo photographs while your flying in a plane. It’s a great way to pass the time while your waiting to land plus it give you a wonderful chance to see clouds and mountains in a way that hardly anyone ever thinks of. I have a Flickr set with a few that I’ve taken on my last few flights. Enjoy and remember that there is always fun to be had if you have your camera handy.
Many years ago I was hanging out with some friends of mine when one of them produced some colored pencils and a pair of red/green anaglyph glasses. We then spent a fun filled evening trying to draw things in 3D. Had pretty good results. Anyway, I was bitten by the stereo image bug. Soon after that I bought a 1954 Kodak Stereo camera and stocks to make my own slides. Hundreds and hundreds of images later I now want to scan them into the computer and do more with them. For quite a while I was using Photoshop to align the images and tweak them until they looked good but that was taking hours. Then I happened on a bit of freeware called StereoPhoto Maker. It was exactly what I had been looking for. It allows me to make parallel pairs, cross eye pairs, color anaglyphs and other formats that I never thought I’d ever be able to make. The alignment system is simple to use yet powerful enough to fix just about any image you throw at it. I shoot a lot of stereo pairs using the ‘hip switch’ method (stand with your weight on one foot and take the shot, then while still looking through the viewfinder at the subject tranfer your weight to your other foot and take the second shot) because it saves on the cost of getting film processed. In doing this sometimes the images are not exactly on the right axis and need to me tweaked a bit. StereoPhoto Maker steps right up and hits a home run. I have a set of photos on both my TeamDroid gallery and my Flicker gallery that have been made using this program. You can even add a lower third credit to your images if you want. It’s an amazingly handy program, if your shooting 3D images you should take a look at it.
Baring the fact that there is no flash on this camera, this kit is quite cool. After you assemble it you will have a simple point and shoot fixed focus camera. Now, as your building it I don’t see any reason not to add a flash sync contact on the shutter (I did that with a 110 camera in my youth) and who knows what else. Hey, this may become a popular modding platform!
[via Red Ferret]
A few weeks ago I and my wife visited some of her friends in Los Angeles and while I was there I took way too many photos. If your wanting to burn some time go have a look at the slideshow. Seeing the shabby costumes worn by the street people in front of the Chinese theater is worth it.
Gahh! I’m drooling now… Seriously, I would like ot have one of these cameras. I’d also like to have a nice fish eye lens too but that costs as much as this body does! I guess I’ll just have to make do with my D70.
The Nikon D200 has finally been released. This 10.2 megapixel DSLR from Nikon has been rumoured to be coming for months – but it’s now arrived at last with official word from Nikon coming today. The Nikon D200 features a 10.2 megapixel CCD sensor, shoots at 5 frames per second and shoots up to 1800 images per battery charge. It has a nice large 2.5inch LCD display, 11 area Multi-CAM AF system, magnesium alloy body and 1005 pixel 3D matrix metoring. Expect to see the Nikon D200 in shops in the Spring of 2006 (northern hemisphere) with a recommended retail price of $1699 (USD).