Boeing’s new and very shiny 737 MAX 9 is a pretty cool plane. And so is the equally new and equally shiny 787-10. And in Boeing’s latest promotional video you can see its two newest airliners flying together in close formation, ahead of the annual Paris Air Show.
Does this video have anything to do with photography? Absolutely not. But you should watch it anyway.
Read about our experience recently shooting the 737 MAX 9 first flight
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
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| Organic chips, but not the kind with sea salt. On the left the sensor is used in plain old visible light mode. By changing the electric charge applied to the chip, visible and near-infrared light are captured simultaneously, shown on the right. |
Panasonic has been developing organic sensors for a while now and has just announced a new breakthrough: an organic CMOS chip that can capture visible and near-infrared (NIR) light simultaneously without sacrificing resolution.
There are sensors available now that can image both near-infrared and visible light, but they sacrifice one out of every four pixels to NIR capture. As a result, resolution of the final image suffers. Panasonic’s new chip makes use of two organic layers: the top layer is sensitive to visible light and the bottom layer is sensitive to near-infrared light. By changing the voltage applied to the layers, it’s possible to choose whether the lower layer is active or not. This means it can switch between visible and visible+NIR imaging frame by frame, which is useful in machine vision applications where subjects may be moving quickly.
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| The image on the left is recorded with color imaging mode, the right shows the scene in NIR imaging mode. The new sensor could be used for night vision and surveillance. |
Alternatively, it allows for the creation of security cameras that capture visible light during the day then switch to visible+NIR for a full-resolution ‘night vision’ mode after dark.
It’s great news too if your job relies on checking things that aren’t visible to the human eye, like checking things on an assembly line that are out of sight, but this sensor is unlikely to ever be used in a consumer digital camera. Still, it’s promising to see that Panasonic’s experiments in creating chips made of something besides silicon are paying off.
If nothing else, separating the capture medium from the readout mechanism makes it easier to implement a global shutter design, since the light-sensitive layer can be switched on and off independently, rather than being constrained by the (sequential) read-out process.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]
Iranian architects have developed a Concave Roof system to collect rainwater in arid climates with low precipitation, helping cool buildings in hot and dry regions of the world. The water can in turn be filtered for drinking or integrated into interior graywater systems.
These systems help reduce reliance on artificial air conditioning (or work were it is unavailable). They could ultimately help keep people in their home regions who might otherwise have to move due to climactic changes.
BMDesign Studios’s addresses rapid evaporation with the bowl-shaped roof additions, designed to channel even the smallest amounts of accumulated rain, coalescing them into drops big enough to harvest before they evaporate.
These inverted shells also provide shade while allowing air to pass between upper and lower roofs, acting as a cooling system in the process.
Reservoirs tied into the system are situated between building walls to take advantage of the thermal capacity of the water to regular interior temperatures.
The courtyard and circulation spaces are also sunken to further cool the complex. Temperatures are higher and precipitation in parts of Iran is as much as 2/3 lower compared to global averages, so every drop counts.
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]
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Nothing gets me more excited creatively than coming up with different scenarios or ideas to further develop and hone my photography skills. For me, this is what makes photography so interesting and never dull. Yes, it can be frustrating and challenging. However, there are so many ways and endless possibilities for capturing images.
Bottled water in a refrigerator.
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the phrase goes. But I also like the story behind the photograph or image. Recently, I came across online the work of Mexican photographer, Felix Hernandez Rodriguez, who has a wonderful behind the scenes (BTS) video of his “The Love Car | The Making Of”.
I won’t spoil it for you by describing it in words. Instead, I feel It is best that you watch it for yourself at your leisure (see below).
Anyway, I had the misfortune back in July during a hot spell, of my refrigerator (or fridge is the term I use for this apparatus), deciding to just quit. I got a replacement and the first thing I noticed was the LED light inside. So it got me thinking, could I possibly use that one light source and produce decent enough shots with it?
An LED light inside a refrigerator.
Taking photos inside a fridge sounds a bit daft, I hear you say. However, for this article I will show you that even a daft idea can be cool. (Pun intended)
I approached this project in five ways:
My fridge is relatively small in comparison to refrigerators in the US or Canada, so taking the food items out and storing them in a cooler bag for an hour or so wasn’t an arduous task. However, if you have a huge refrigerator, the next time time you do a clean out of your refrigerator may be the time to try out this project.
A packed refrigerator full of food items.
The space I was working with was really small, 19” x 19” x 33”, so I decided I would use my Sony RX100 which has a 35mm focal range equivalent of 28-100mm.
The inside of my fridge which is relatively small in comparison to refrigerators in the US and Canada.
My initial test shots were random, in order to test the lighting and to determine what camera settings I would end up using. Shooting in RAW, I settled on an aperture of f/2.8, ISO 400 and a shutter speed of 1/50 – 1/60 and handheld the camera. I didn’t want to go higher with the ISO, as to keep noise down to a minimum. A wide open aperture allowed for the background to remain out of focus.
I left everything in the fridge and took some random shots of food items.
Cherry tomatoes taken from underneath a glass shelf in the refrigerator.
Next was to take everything out of the fridge and start with just the top shelf left. It was nearest the light source and I wanted to see what type of shots I would get. From taking many shots at different angles, an idea sprung to mind. I wanted a slice of lemon shot from underneath the glass shelf. Later in post-production, I added in the frosted glass along with the broken glass effect to give it more zest! (Sorry pun intended again).
A red apple taken sitting on a shelf inside a refrigerator.
A test shot with Lucy and some turtle black beans.
A slice of lemon taken from underneath a glass shelf. This is straight out of the camera.
This is the same shot as above but I added a frosted glass and broken glass effect for impact in the editing process.
I also took a slice of cucumber. Notice how it appears to have a sad face?
A poor sad looking cucumber!
The next plan of attack was placing items on the bottom part of the fridge, as in the furthest point away from the light source. I wasn’t really expecting to get any decent shots. But I was pleasantly surprised. I felt the shots had an almost ethereal feeling to them.
A Jack Sparrow lego figure with a bunch of red grapes.
A fruit composition sprayed with a little water inside the refrigerator.
A yellow flower taken inside the refrigerator.
The sad looking slice of cucumber looked happier against the flower!
Unless you have a moderately small refrigerator, this project is most likely not for you. Was it worth doing? In my opinion, any excuse to take photographs is well worth doing.
I found it was better to take the shots over a few days. This allows for planning what type of shot and what food or other items to use. Plus you need the least amount of time to have the fridge door opened. Spray water on the food so that the light catches the water droplets to add depth to the shot.
Have you had a crazy idea for a personal project? If so please leave a comment or share your images and story below.
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The post How to Take Cool Food Photos in Your Refrigerator by Sarah Hipwell appeared first on Digital Photography School.
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Italian astrophotography equipment brand PrimaLuceLab is selling a version of the Nikon D5500 that it has adapted for long exposures using a custom cooling system that manages the temperature of the camera’s sensor. The PrimaLuceLab Nikon D5500a Cooled uses dual Peltier cells to create a thermoelectric cooling effect that allows users to maintain the temperature of the sensor and to cool it by as much as 27°C below the ambient air temperature.
Keeping the sensor cool allows long exposures to take place without the sensor heating up and creating image noise. This means very long shutter openings can be used to make images with very little additional noise. Just as importantly, the cooling system can keep the sensor at the same user-specified temperature throughout a shoot so that dark frames don’t have to be made directly after each image – they can be made at the end when the subject has passed.
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The camera is also fitted with a system that prevents air moisture from condensing on the surface of the cooled sensor. The Anti-Dewing system heats the front filter over the sensor but not the sensor itself. Presenting a warm surface to the air means no moisture gathers. The infrared-cut filter of the Nikon D5500 has been removed and replaced by a filter that allows longer red wave lengths, specifically those beyond the H-alpha line, to pass and be recorded.
Touch sensitive buttons on the rear of the cooling block allow users to control the shutter opening and shutter time as well as set up sequences of different exposures with brackets of up to 900 seconds.
The PrimaLuceLabs Nikon D5500a, which comes with a 4-year warranty, is available now and costs €2190 (about $ 2420).
For more information visit the PrimaLuceLab website.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Different colors evoke different emotions and have a different feeling to them. Warm colors like red, orange and yellow feel alive and vibrant. Cool colors like purple, green and blue feel calming and relaxing.
Here is an image collection of various different photographers use of the color blue. View each and see how they make you feel. Do these blue images have a calming effect on you? I feel more relaxed just looking them.
I’ll start off with three of my images from the “blue” city of Chefchaouen in Morocco.
By Andy
By Nick Klein
By Matt Bradley
By Xavier
By Pablo Fernández
By Maarten Takens
By alain tremblay
By Julian E…
By Martin Fisch
By geir tønnessen
By Modes Rodríguez
By Mirai Takahashi
By Genji Arakaki
By Hansel and Regrettal
By Davide D’Amico
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The post 18 Tranquil Images of Blue to Cool Your Thoughts by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
[ By Steve in Art. ]
Due to their sizes and shapes, water tanks and towers lend themselves to artistic embellishment as these dozen creative examples refreshingly illustrate.
A waterpark? In the middle of MY Mojave Desert? It’s more likely than you think… or at least it was, before the Lake Dolores Waterpark (later the Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark and then the Discovery Waterpark) circled the drain for the final time in 2004. The water used to “power” the park(s) came from underground springs fed by the Mojave Aquifer and was stored in an enormous water tower shaped like – and painted to resemble – a Coca-Cola can.
While much of the park has been vandalized and scavenged for metal, the water tank can blame its current tattered & faded state on the Mojave’s blistering desert sun. Kudos to Flickr user Hans Proppe (shadowplay) and Imgur user loganbush for snapping the eerie and evocative images above.
The circa-1927 New England Confectionery Company (NECCO, for short) building in Cambridge, MA is now occupied by offices of Swiss-based pharmaceutical firm Novartis, who graciously repainted the iconic Necco-wafer water tower in 1997. Flickr user Jill Robidoux (jylcat) snapped the tank on January 1st of 2003 and it’s a good thing she did: Novartis de-necco’d the tank in 2004 by painting it over in a boring-by-comparison pharma theme.
The giant 8-ball water tower in Tipton, Missouri came and went like a Fast Eddie Felson pool shot in the dark… and then it came back again, this time to stay. According to the Jefferson City News Tribune, in 1968 the water tower was creatively dressed in a billiard-ball theme by its owners, the Fischer Pool Table company. The water tower was ceded to the city and painted all-white after Fischer closed in 1977 but Tiptonians wanted their landmark back so in 1999, the tower was restored to its previous 8-ball livery. Minnesota Fats is likely looking down and smiling.
The only paint on the Grand Central Water Tower in Johannesburg, South Africa, is the aqua blue corporate corporate logo near the top… anything else would be superfluous. The curious conical tower was built in 1997 and stands 40m (131.2 ft) tall, assuming it hasn’t already tipped over.
[ By Steve in Art. ]
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[ By Steve in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]
Out to impress the neighbors in Punjab, India? Try topping your humble abode with a cool water tank rendered as a jet, blossom, or bodybuilder.
Keeping up with the Joneses (or their Punjabi equivalent) just got a lot tougher thanks to Santokh Singh Uppal, a successful entrepreneur who, in 1959 and at the age of 17, left his native village of Uppal Bhupa to make his fortune in the United Kingdom. “To me,” explained Santokh, “this Air India plane symbolizes the hopes and dreams of all those enterprising Punjab residents for whom going abroad is like the first step towards shaping their destiny.” Ajay Verma snapped the above shots of Santokh’s house-topper, completed in 2004 after five years of construction.
More than a few Punjabis share Santokh’s sentiments and show it by mounting similarly artistic water tanks on the roofs of their homes. Most of these home-owners are NRIs – Non-Resident Indians – who have achieved success abroad yet still maintain their home base in their homeland. Mounting a decorative water tank symbolic of their personal odyssey, main interest or both serves to signal their family’s prosperity while spurring their village neighbors to top – no pun intended – their folk art braggadocio.
When, where and how did this weird water tank oneupmanship get started? “In Nawanshahr,” states photographer Rajesh Vora, “the proud owner of a restaurant in New Zealand celebrated his success as a chef with a pressure cooker-shaped water tank back home. Soon, villagers in neighboring villages started to copy it.” Not everyone is a successful restaurant owner, however, nor is constructing a rooftop water tank an endeavor anyone can engage in. True to their entrepreneurial spirit, enterprising Punjabis have opened off-the-rack water tank shops and will perform custom on-site installations upon request.
[ By Steve in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]
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[ By Steve in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
The legendary Cadillac Ranch can’t be beat but it CAN be copied! These 12 tinny tributes to Amarillo’s angled auto art shift flattery into high gear.
Cadillacs may be iconic symbols of those Fabulous Fifties but by the time the Space Age was in full flight, pop culture had ditched finned land barges in favor of “lowly” but well-loved VW Beetles. A half-century later, classic Bugs are a rare sight on America’s roads though you’ll find plenty at the Slug Bug Ranch in Conway, Texas! Kudos to Flickr users Jenny McG (thedefiningmoment), Kent Kanouse (Snap Man) and The Atomic Kid 1959 for bringing out the best in the Bug Ranch’s buried but be-dazzled Beetles!
Lumping Ron Lessman’s varied automotive artworks into a “truckhenge” is rather all-inclusive – the Shawnee County, Kansas denizen has deployed a host of land and water craft in several distinct henges.
According to The Vagabond Glovers’ Meanderings, “Shawnee County health and zoning officials got after him to clean up his yard, and when they told him to pick up his trucks, he decided to take their orders literally, and pick them up, then plant them back down in the ground the way he saw it done in Texas at Cadillac Ranch.” That’s tellin’ ’em, Ron!
Old and busted: car smashups. New hotness: Toy Mashups, which just happens to be where photographers Josh Cornish and Kyle Hillery snapped the above installation and its inspiration in May of 2012. Unlike the original Cadillac Ranch created by art collective Ant Farm (Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels) and eclectic landowner Stanley Marsh 3 back in 1974, no backhoes were required to set the miniatures in place. Well, maybe a teeny tiny toy backhoe.
Nice that both Miniatur Wunderland (c/o Knitrageous) in Hamburg, Germany and Un Petit Monde saw fit to apply graffiti to their scaled-down Cadillac Ranch tributes. It’s doubtful visitors to these installations will be allowed to personalize them, though.
Wow, Christine has really let herself go! Actually this is/was a 1960 Plymouth Fury while King’s krazed killer kar was a ’58 model. We’re not certain whether the vehicle’s owner had Cadillac Ranch in mind when he tilted this seemingly sharp Oldie But Goodie into its diagonal semi-grave but the finned beauty sure could use some company.
Who’s your Caddy? The 10 graffiti-encrusted Cadillacs at Cadillac Ranch, just outside Amarillo, Texas, have left their highway cruising days far behind.
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Railings, shutters, sun shades and other surfaces with separate-but-repeating elements are all potential canvasses for this unique semi-secretive approach to …
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Compact and portable, this crafty collaborative design-build project is part art installation and part impromptu gathering space. This student-built platform …
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[ By Steve in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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