Category: Photography

Blackbird Fly TLR Camera

New reto 35mm camera from Japan, Blackbird Fly twin-lens reflex.

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 Plus as it uses standard 35mm film you can grab film for is just about anywhere (a little tip: get the out of date stuff, it’s cheap and if the colors are a bit off you can credit that to your artistic abilities).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.

Silicon Camera That Mimics Mammalian Vision

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

$25 Head-Mounted Display

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

DORYU 2-16 Pistol Camera

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

CK Pinhole Photography Resources

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

DIY Canon Camera Firmware Enhancements

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