If you like the look of grainy retro style images, no digital filter can compare to good old analog film. This Lomography kit lets you snap a variety of neat analog effects and turn them into short movies.
The LomoKino shoots a film of 144 frames on a roll of standard 35mm film. It can create such effects as color negative, X-Pro, redscale & black-and-white movies – depending on the film you select. Here’s a sample of the kind of lo-fi movies you can capture with it:
Also included is the LomoKinoScope, which lets you play back and view your developed film. Just load up the film, look through the lens, and turn the crank and exclaim “Old school!”
The complete bundle is available at the Technabob Shop now for $59.99(USD) – a savings of 39% off the MSRP.
35mm slides are pretty much an outdated technology at this point. Nobody is longing for the days when you went over to a friends house and they closed the shades and whipped out the 35mm carousel player and projected their vacation slides onto the wall while you pretended to be interested. But if you have a closet full of 35mm slides you can still use them- as DIY curtains. What’s cool is that they still let the light in while giving you privacy. These 35mm Slide Curtains were made by connecting an impressive 1152 vintage film slides in mounts with about 7000 rings and 36 curtain rings to make the nearly 6 foot square curtains. They took 4 months to make, which coincidentally is about how long it felt like it took Uncle Georgie to go through his slides from his trip to the Grand Canyon. Oh wow Georgie, another shot of some rocks- so so so so interesting.
Curtains come in all shapes and sizes and colors. They even come in sheer fabrics to let a bit of light in. But maybe you want something a little more colorful, that will the light through while looking unique. These 35mm slide curtains will do nicely.
Scott Sherwood made this colorful set of slide curtains. Getting so many images was easy since he has amassed a huge collection of images from around the world by different photographers over the years. Naturally he made curtains from his selections in his 35mm film archive.
Scott arranged the 1,152 slides by dominant color, which flow from pink to red to orange to yellow to green to blue and to purple. The slides are inside slide mounts, which are connected to each other with 7,000 metal rings and held on to a curtain rod with 36 large rings. The 5’7” by 6’ curtain took four months of work, but it looks pretty awesome, so it was worth it.
Canon impressed us back in March when it unveiled its 35mm full frame CMOS sensor, which is capable of recording footage in extremely low-light situations. This time around, the company set its sights on the Yaeyama-hime fireflies on Ishigaki Island off the coast of Japan. Shortly after sundown, the Canon team managed to capture a forest full of lightning bugs in full HD in near-dark settings. To watch the video in all its bioluminescent glory, mosey on past the break.
It's easy to build your own camera if you're determined to capture images on the cheap; it's another matter if you want something just slightly more refined. If that's the case, Lomography has you covered with its new Konstruktor kit. The pack gives DIY types everything they need to build their own 35mm film SLR, including a removable 50mm f/10 lens and customizable panels. There's no control over aperture or shutter speed, but Lomography's retro-inclined crowd will like the quick toggle for long exposure shots. They'll also like the $35 price -- it's possible to buy 100 Konstructors before matching the cost of just one EOS 5D Mark III. Should that kind of math be too much to resist, you'll be glad to hear that the camera is already on sale at Lomography's shop.
Although there's undoubtedly been improvements to low light videography, it's still difficult or impossible for most cameras to record in near-total darkness. Canon has the solution with a video-only, 35mm CMOS sensor that can keep recording even when there's virtually no visible light at all. The prototype's pixels are about 7.5 times larger than in already light-sensitive DSLRs like the EOS-1D X, letting it get focus with as little as 0.03lux of illumination. The result is more than just the perfect camera for a horror movie -- the sensor can capture the Geminid meteor shower and other astronomical phenomena without special tricks. Canon hasn't said when it might ship a video camera toting the new imaging technology, but it's planning to show the sensor at a security expo this week; we may well see the sensor in the field, even if most of its work happens beyond the public eye.
When we first got our hands on Sony's full-frame compact camera, the Cyber-shot RX1, we were allowed to touch it, but we couldn't use it for its stated purpose. Today, however, we got to put its 35mm image sensor and Zeiss Sonnar T* 35mm f/2.0 fixed prime lens to the test at a Sony event in San Francisco. Join us after the break to see a bit more of the City by the Bay and learn how the RX1 performed shooting stills and video.
We've been watching out for the D600 since images leaked a couple of months ago, and today it's been made official: a full-frame DSLR that's priced ever-so-slightly closer to the reach of mortals (read: "high-end enthusiasts") who perhaps can't claim everything off their tax. At just shy of $2,100 (update: €2,150 in Europe), the 24-megapixel camera's US list price is significantly lower than that of the 36-megapixel D800, and undercuts Canon's rival EOS 5D Mark III and Sony's brand new full-frame Alpha A99.
What's more, aside from the resolution, you're getting something pretty close to the D800 -- including a weather- and dust-resistant magnesium alloy build, fast Exspeed III processor, and AF that works down to f/8 -- but here it's all contained in a body that sheds a full 15 percent off the D800's weight. It feels great to hold a full-frame DSLR like this, which is barely any heavier or more conspicuous than an APS-C shooter like the D7000.
Nikon is also making a big deal out of the fact that the D600 handles wireless transfers and triggers using the new WU-1b widget, which is identical to the familiar WU-1a we reviewed on the D3200 except that it plugs into the camera's USB port rather than the HDMI port. There's an Android app to allow your mobile device to communicate with the camera, and an iOS app is set to land by the end of September.
Read on a few more initial impressions and a quick look at the D600's high-ISO performance.
Last week, we came across a leaked image of Sony’s purported new high-end, full-frame camera, the Cyber-shot RX1. Well, Sony has confirmed the launch of the new camera, and it’s quite an impressive (if expensive) little bit of digital imaging technology.
Well it turns out that everything we knew about the camera at the time was correct, and now we have complete details and specs in hand from Sony themselves. Priced at $2799.99(USD), the RX1 is clearly targeted at serious digital photophiles. The palm-sized digicam offers a full-frame 35mm Exmor CMOS sensor, capturing still images at 24.3 megapixels. It can store images in full 14-bit RAW mode, and offers complete manual control. ISO range is rated from 100-25600, and it looks like it can capture awesome images in low light.
Perhaps the most controversial feature of the RX1 is its fixed lens. It’s got an f/2.0 Carl Zeiss Sonnar T lens with 9 aperture blades, and has a macro mode for amazing up-close images. A high-speed auto-focus system can get images in focus in as little as 0.13 seconds.
In addition to still image capture, the RX1 can shoot full 1920×1080 video in 60p, 50p or 24p frame rates, stored in AVCHD format. It also supports direct MP4 capture, but only at 1440×1080 at 30 or 25 fps. Here’s some sample footage from the RX1, but for some odd reason, they only uploaded it to YouTube in 720p resolution. It still looks great, but I’d like to see some full 1080/60p or 1080/24p footage.
The camera also has a built-in pop-up flash, and a hot-shoe for accessories like a full-size flash or external viewfinder. On the back is a 3″ LCD screen with a super-sharp 1.2 million pixel resolution, and optimized for daylight viewing. It’s also got a handy feature – a digital level – so you can make sure you’re getting perfectly level shots when you set up your tripod. In addition to the full manual control, the RX1 offers Intelligent Auto mode, SteadyShot image stabilization, face detection, auto HDR, effects and sweep panorama modes. Though if you’re resorting to such features, you’re probably not the target audience for this high-end camera.
The Cyber-shot RX1 will be released on or about 12/19/2012, and you can pre-order the camera over at the Sony Store now.
Would you believe us if we told you Sony packed a full-frame sensor in a Cyber-shot-branded camera? It's true! Say hello to the RX1, a "compact" digital camera for pros that's packing the same 24.3MP Exmor CMOS sensor introduced today with the A99. Calling the rangefinder-esque one-pound shooter small might seem off-base, especially considering the Zeiss Sonnar T* 35mm f/2.0 fixed prime lens protruding from its front, but it's not so huge (3-inches high by 4.5-inches wide) up against its tiny sibling, the RX100 -- taking into account how much larger the RX1's sensor is, well, that's when this editor's jaw basically dropped. While it's not a "pro-NEX" as many had hoped, Sony explained that it chose a fixed lens to avoid the bulk of a lens-mount. We were able to get some eyes-on time with an engineering prototype of the unit, so click past the break for more details, close-ups and a brief video overview.
