Mit Anbruch des Oktobers neigt sich das Jahr 2012 herbstlich dem Ende zu. Und die ersten Fotografen scharren schon mit den Hufen, denn schon wieder steht die Überlegung ins Haus, ob ein Fotokalender für nächstes Jahr drin ist. Doch wie geht das eigentlich in gut?
Ich fotografiere nun seit sieben Jahren und habe in der kompletten Zeit nicht einen einzigen Fotokalender mit meinen Bildern erstellt. Und ich bin mir recht sicher, dass ich nicht der einzige bin, dem es so geht. Dabei würde so ein Kalenderchen garantiert ein gutes Weihnachtsgeschenk sein.
Doch der Krampf fängt viel früher an. Ich habe mir schon oft Softwares von Herstellern, die für „einfache Gestaltung und sauberen Druck“ werben auf den Mac gezogen bin dann schier an Hässlichkeit und Nicht-Bedienbarkeit derselben verzweifelt.
Denn was habe ich davon, wenn ich nach drei Stunden wildem Herumgeklicke einen Kalender am Bildschirm sehe, den ich ob seiner geschmacklichen Niederträchtigkeit keinem meiner Freunde – ohne rot zu werden – zeigen würde?
Am liebsten würde ich selbst am liebsten den Kalender erstellen, doch ich bin nicht mit gestalterischen Fähigkeiten gesegnet und müsste daher einen Designer engagieren, der mir zwar einen schicken Kalender gestalten würde, aber für mich nicht in erreichbaren finanziellen Bereichen liegt.
So überlege ich jedes Jahr von Neuem: Wo kann ich, wo will ich, wo soll ich einen Kalender erstellen und gleich drucken lassen? Und da, liebe Leser, kommt Ihr wieder ins Spiel.
Habt Ihr schon einmal einen Kalender erstellt und drucken lassen und wart von Anfang bis Ende zufrieden?
Erzählt doch mal, ich bin wirklich gespannt auf Eure Antworten. Beschreibt mal Eure Lieblingsanbieter, mich interessiert auch, ob der Druck so war, wie er sein sollte. Ich bin mir sicher, dass es noch viele andere Leser gibt, die auch an Euren Antworten interessiert sind und vor der gleichen Frage wie ich stehen.
Ich freue mich. Und vielleicht mache ich dann auch einen Kalender für 2013. Schön wär’s ja.
Sure, you could use your hands to hold your phone. But we’re living in the future, and it’s time we started acting like it!
Introducing the SlingShot, a stabilizer and tripod in one: it’s a steadying grip with folding kickstand legs and a ball-head mount that fits any phone (even the iPhone 5).
Take it with you for fantastic phone video and great shots at hard-to-get angles or low light!
The SlingShot
$ 20 at the Photojojo Store
PS … we’re giving away a SlingShot today on Facebook! Check it out here.
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Last week, 180,000 photo fans from all over the world came together in Cologne, Germany for Photokina.
What’s a Photokina? It’s Disneyland for photo nerds!
WEDONOTKID. We saw lenses the size of buildings, ladies swinging from the ceiling, zoetropes made of Legos and so much more.
It’s the world’s biggest photo conference that comes around only every two years. Along with the conference came camera announcements.
And with it, a flood of tech specs.
If it seems to have blurred into an indecipherable cloud of hyphenated terminology, allow us to translate!
A Guide to the Latest in Digital Cameras
p.s. Woot! We teamed up with our chums at Threadless to help you pack sweet threads + photo gear for your next trip. Enter here.
All New Instant Cameras
What’s new? The Impossible Project’s Instant Lab and 8×10 film, Polaroid’s Z2300, and the Instax Mini 8.
The Instant Lab
This is where it’s at when it comes to the future of phoneography. The innovators at the Impossible Project combined phoneography with analog and came up with this amazingness.
It’s a modified Polaroid-esque camera that fits a phone on top to expose your phone photos directly onto instant film.
That essentially means you’re turning your phoneography into instant prints, and that’s socool.
Dave Bias of Impossible demoed it for us!
The Polaroid Z2300
Digital analog mashups are the jam (we made a funny!).
The Polaroid Z2300 pretty much does everything a lover of digital and analog would want it to do. It shoots your photos at a decent 10MP and gives you instant prints at your behest.
Oh, and those prints come with sticky backs, so you can stick your photos on album pages, in notebooks, or a bathroom stall ’cause you’re a rebel like that.
You can actually find this one in the Photojojo Store!
8X10 Impossible Film
This is hands down the most analog newbie you’ll find at Photokina.
The Impossible Project are magicians, we say. They snatched up the last known 8×10 Polaroid machine in 2009 and have successfully made 8×10 integral film — meaning the film contains the chemicals needed to make a photo, good ‘ol Polaroid style.
See the 8×10 prints they had at their booth!
The Instax Mini 8
The Instax Mini 8 is a slimmer Mini with a new “high-key” mode for getting brighter prints.
What’s most exciting is that it comes in a bunch of rad pastel colors, like this sunny yellow one we played with here.
Camera + Smartphone Hybrids
What’s new? Nikon’s Coolpix S800C and the Samsung Galaxy.
Walking Photokina, you’ll notice most new cameras have added Wi-Fi, Instagram-ish filters, or Android!
You might be wondering what the difference between a phone with a camera in it and a camera with a phone in it is? And whatever happened to shoes with phones in them?
We were wondering, too, and here’s what we found.
Nikon’s Coolpix S800C
The main difference between this camera and your smartphone is that it shoots photos on a higher-res 16MP sensor and has a 10X optical zoom (to compare, the iPhone 5 gives you 8MP & 3x digital* zoom).
So, it leans a little more towards camera than phone, and lets you do all your favorite Android stuff via WiFi like geotag photos and upload to Instagram or Facebook.
One tidbit: the camera runs separately from the older Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) that it runs on, so the camera can open faster without having to wait for Android to load.
Samsung’s Galaxy Camera
Samsung’s played a competitive match in the smartphone game with their Galaxy S III rivaling the iPhone 5. Now they’ve taken that over into point-and-shoots.
This camera runs on Android’s latest version, Jelly Bean, and shoots with 16MP sensor and 21x optical zoom.
It can also connect to 3G, 4G, and WiFi, which is pretty rad since it means you can upload your photos from anywhere — instead of being dependent on WiFi as is with most digital cameras right now.
*Why does optical vs. digital zoom matter? Digital zoom is like enlarging your photo and cropping it around your subject. Your photo ends up losing resolution and looking all pixelated, which is sad pandas if you ask us.
Optical zoom means your optics do the work, so you get to keep your image nice and high-res. This is more of a happy pandas situation.
See our photos of the Samsung and the Nikon.
Über-Fancy Mirrorless Cameras
What’s new? Hasselblad’s Lunar Camera and the Leica M (and the ME & Monochrom).
Hasselblad’s Lunar Camera
Hasselblad was the first camera on the moon, and their new mirrorless camera won’t let you forget it … which may be in part because it costs a fraction of what it does to get to the moon ($ 6K!).
It does all the good stuff a mirrorless will buy you, like a 24.3MP sensor, up to 16000 ISO and can 10 frames per second when in burst mode. Plus, it has a handsome Don-Draper-esque design that doubles as an ergonomic extra.
One thing folks have pointed out is that this camera is awfully similar to Sony’s NEX-7 ($ 1K), which would make sense considering the two companies have partnered and this camera is compatible with Sony lenses.
Check out our photos of the Lunar up close!
The Leica-M
Leica had us at hello, and then it wooed us with its lustrous magnesium alloy body.
After you’re blinded by its good looks, you remember that it’s a camera and that you can shoot with it.
So here’s what you need to know about that: a 24MP full-frame sensor, an upgrade from the M9′s 18MP not-full-frame sensor, a faster Maestro processor (their speediest processor yet which also allows for a longer battery life because it’s just that efficient), and Live View, which includes an electronic viewfinder.
Why would you get this pricey camera instead of a cheaper DSLR? A few reasons. Maybe you’re a big Leica fan, maybe you’re looking for a smaller-bodied camera that can deliver images comparable to a DSLR’s (you can thank the full-frame sensor for that), or maybe you just fancy.
See our photos from the rad Leica booth.
Nikon & Canon’s All New DSLRs
What’s new? The Nikon D600 and the Canon 6D.
Nikon’s D600
Someone needs to drop balloons from the ceiling because this camera’s one to have a party about.
It’s the cheapest full-frame sensor Nikon DSLR! Ever! Its specs place it a notch above entry-level DSLRs but at a level that’s more affordable than say, a Nikon D800 ($ 2000 vs $ 3000).
This is awesome because that makes it available to serious photographers who don’t necessarily need all the trims.
For a quickie comparison, it has a full-frame 24MP sensor, while the D800 has a full-frame 36.6MP and the entry-level D3200 has a 24.2 DX sensor, which is quite a bit smaller in size (about 2.3x smaller).
AND it’s lighter and smaller than most pro-cameras, and we think that merits confetti cannons.
Nikon had a Lego zoetrope at their booth among other things! Check out our photos.
Canon’s 6D
It’s like Canon read Nikon’s mind … or vice versa!
The 6D is the most affordable full-frame Canon DSLR yet! Balloon drops all around!
It’s also priced at $ 2000, making it almost $ 1500 cheaper than a 5D MarkIII, Canon’s benchmark pro camera.
Since you might be wondering about how the sensor compares, here it is: the 6D has a 20.2MP full-frame sensor, the 5D MarkIII a 23.4MP full-frame sensor.
Two things that are making some photographer’s ears perk up:
Built-in WiFi and GPS. (Other Canon DSLRs need extra gizmos in order to use WiFi or GPS.)
The same video modes as the 5D MarkIII, meaning you can make some pretty mean video.
Here’s what Canon’s booth was like. Pretty epic.
Cameras That Surprised Us!
Which ones? The Fuji XF1 and the Casio Exilim EX-ZR100..
I know, right?
The Fuji XF1
With DSLRs and shiny mirrorless cameras everywhere in sight, little did we expect a point-and-shoot to catch our eye.
Lately, Fuji’s been all about retro bodies and outfitting their cameras in dapper leather wrappings.
And that’s what we like about the XF1! It has a super slim (1.2″) rangefinder-esque body that comes in a several faux-leather colors.
What we found especially fun when we played with it is that it comes with a manual focus lens, which zooms in and out from 25-100mm. It’s 500 bucks, but sometimes you just need things.
This is what it looks like in real life! Cute, eh?
The Casio Exilim EX-ZR100
You know that part in the Exorcist, when her head rotates in ways it just really shouldn’t?
That’s kinda like the Casio’s Exilim EX-ZR100! Except less scary and more handy.
The ZR100 rotating screen is totally optimized for the most convenient selfies (kewl new slang for self-portraits). It rotates to face you, so you can see what you’ll look like in the photo. The screen simultaneously acts as a stand, so you can prop your camera without having to set up a tripod! Smart.
Camera Style at Photokina
So who goes to Photokina? You’ll find a mix of dealers, distributors, and companies having to do with any kind of camera-related gizmo you can think of.
Then, there are simply photo fans who come to see what’s up.
We picked some especially stylish Photokina attendees to feature in a fashion roundup for a better idea of who you might find there!
See all of their photos on our Tumblr post!
The 10 Craziest Things We Saw at Photokina
Pretty much any camera-related company that you can think of has a booth at Photokina. Each one shows off their best, and if you look closely, you’ll find some really unusual stuff.
A Zeiss lens as big as a house.
A gang of birds of prey for all to photograph (including this tiny angry owl)
A Hasselblad clock.
All kinds of gold cameras and lenses, including this 24 Karat gold Minox.
Waterproof photo frames?
Sony straight up had a rainforest in their booth.
A croc-cage for crocodile photography.
A Lego zoetrope.
Half-off Olympus cameras.
An Olympus OMD pretty much mounted to a lightsaber.
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Regular tripods are great, but what if you had one that would charge your phone and bend any way you wanted?
Meet the Bobine, a super flexible phone charging cable that can be bent into any shape for use as a tripod! Even better, it’s available in Android and iPhone versions.
Coil it up and tuck it into your bag: any time your phone needs some power or you just want to get a great self-portrait, the Bobine’s there!
The Bobine
$ 30 at the Photojojo Store
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Landscape photographers are often striving to photograph new places, but imagine being the first person to ever photograph an alien environment. Some time ago I wrote about his in relation to the landing on the moon in my blog post Isolation and Discovery. My day dreams of photographing landscapes of distant, if not alien environments, has been revived by the recent stream of images from the Mars Curiosity Rover. The rover is equipped with 17 cameras so there will be plenty of photos to come over the next year. The main Mast camera (MastCam) has begun snapping a series of lower resolution (by consumer dSLR standards) images that can be stitched together to create larger high resolution images. Neat, but what is really cool is NASA is making all the images from the rover available on their web site in high resolution (see the Curiosity Rover Multimedia page). If you have the inclination you can stitch and process the images yourself. I had a few minutes the other day to do this and here are the results:
Mars Curiosity Rover Pano Color Corrected Comparison (Top RAW from NASA & Botom My Version)
View the large color corrected pano comparison (2954 x 1000)
View the large color corrected pano (2954 x 500)
Mars Curiosity Rover Pano Color Corrected Comparison Zoom
View the large corrected version of the pano with the uncorrected section (2975 x 500)
I thought it would be interesting to take the RAW uncorrected images from NASA and color correct them as I do with my landscape photos. I have my very own recipe of edits that expand on the basics of finding a black, grey and white point in a scene including mid-tone contrast adjustments, edge masks and more. Relying on the “auto” curves or levels feature in Photoshop may be good for a quick fix, but it’s not always an accurate correction. The biggest challenge obviously in color correcting NASA’s images is that I don’t have a firsthand experience of seeing the scene with my naked eye and the lighting scenario/time is unknown to me. I can only make educated guesses and fly blind by referencing the data in the RAW file. While my effort to color correct these images is not perfect it’s easy to see the difference.
Mars Curiosity Rover Pano Color Corrected (NASA vs Mine) Comparison Zoom
Above is the color corrected version from NASA placed atop my version of the scene. I have to trust NASA on this one, but it still seems like it has room for improvement. It would be interesting to learn more from NASA what the Earth equivalent “time of day” these photos were taken on Mars and possibly get a better understanding of the air quality & atmospheric differences. With this additional knowledge Earth-bound landscape photographers who have a great feel for the quality of light at different times of day on Earth might be able to help create a more accurate rendition of what these scenes actually look like.
For now I’ll be waiting patiently for the next batch of images to be downloaded from Mars. The images above are part of a larger panoramic. It should be pretty amazing to see what it looks like as a whole not to mention see what other amazing images make their way back to NASA.
Additional Info on Mars Color Correction
On this trip NASA included a color calibration target . This is great, BUT it’s only going to help for situations when there isn’t a natural tint of color in the atmosphere (sunset, sunrise, impact from particulate matter, etc.). Here on Earth if you if you use such a color calibration target at sunset or sunrise the golden hour light is completely neutralized even though it’s a naturally occurring color phenomenon. Unfortunately on Mars it may not be known what the naturally occurring hue in the atmosphere is in general or at different times of the day. I’m hoping that NASA is able to provide information about the angle of the sun in the sky in relation to the photos relayed from the rover. While it may be impossible to know what the average natural hue of the sky is (less a spectrophotometer focused on the sky) it might allow for some modeling to make an educated guess. For purposes of geological study the neutral coloring will likely help study rocks better, but in giving the average person a view of what Mars actually looks like the color calibration target on the rover may not help that much.
Mars Curiosity Rover Color Correction Scale Target
Technorati Tags: Mars, Curiosity Rover, Photo, Landscape, Astrophotography, Color Correction
Copyright Jim M. Goldstein, All Rights Reserved
Curiosity Rover Photos, A Landscape Photographers Perspective
If you could make your own photo hack, what would it be? Personally, we’d figure out a way to make CatPaint real life.
Over a hundred developers dreamed even bigger at Photo Hack Day Berlin last week!
With judges from Facebook, Getty Images, and EyeEm and participants like the Loopcam & InstaCRT team, competition was fierce and yielded some amazing apps that we actually wish we had on our phone right now.
These were the top three winners!
1.Helmut: The fastest scanner in the world! A simple box in which you place a film negative. The accompanying app shoots a photo of the film & inverts it into a positive image. We watched them scan a frame in under 5 seconds.
2. Tourist Eraser: Kinda like Photoshop’s Content-Aware Fill for your phone. It detects tourists in your photo and erases them without you having to do any work.
3. Visual Weather: Pulls together Flickr photos of what the weather looked like on a day similar to today’s. (To figure out what to wear & such!)
EXTRA COOL THING! We helped celebrate with an online photo challenge with EyeEm. See the winners’ photos, which were actually shown at Photo Hack Day!
The Best Photo Hacks from Photo Hack Day Berlin
p.s. Looking for even more of the best DIY photo ideas on the interwebs? Follow us on Pinterest!
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The reflector is one of our favorite tools; simple, easy to use, and *shiny*.
This DIY has those same great features, with added sparkle!
We’re going to show you how to make your own disco-ball-esque reflector using mirrors. You can use this DIY reflector to make a cool grid of light to shine on your subjects or to ward off vampires.
If you <3 shiny things as much as we do, then you'll love this DIY that will turn your plain old silver and white reflectors green with envy.
Make Your Own Reflector
p.s. Follow us on Twitter today! We’re letting you guys take over our stream today!! We’ll re-tweet the best photo stories you send us.
Why it’s cool:
One of our favorite parts of photography is experimenting and finding new inspiration.
This is a DIY double whammy; we were inspired by a glamorous sequined party dress, and we get to experiment with new photo techniques. Sweet!
This reflector uses mirror pieces arranged in a grid to reflect the pattern back onto the subject. Think concentrated disco ball awesomeness.
Ingredients:
A piece of foam-core board
Mirrored tiles*
Glass cutter
Gloves
Super glue or other effective adhesive
A ruler or straight edge
*Note:We found 12″x12″ tiles locally. Feel free to go on a scavenger hunt for smaller tiles so there’s less cutting involved!
SAFETY REQUIREMENT: The mirror pieces are capital “s” Sharp! It’s important to wear gloves while handling the glass at all times. We used rubber kitchen gloves, but anything other than soft cotton should work well.
STEP 1: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
The tiles are a little big, so let’s make them smaller.
The glass cutter works by scoring the glass and then applying pressure so that it cracks along the scored line.
We’re going to cut the first tile in half, so score a line down the center.
TIP: The glass cutter can have a mind of it’s own at times. Don’t worry if your lines aren’t perfectly spaced or perfectly straight!
Step 2: Do a Split: Snap the Big Tile in Half
This is the fun part!
Hold the tile with two hands, one on the edge on either side of the scored line.
Then, apply firm, even pressure to the back side of the tile until it snaps in half. Continue to do this until you have strips that are about one inch wide.
Step 3: New High Score: Make 1×1 Tiles
Take your mirror strips and score across them so that you’re left with about a 1″x1″ square.
Feel free to go bigger or smaller as you see fit.
Step 4: Glue Time
Now, take your small tiles and glue them onto the foam-core.
We’re using a grid pattern, but we use that term lightly. Eyeball it and feel free to get a little reckless!
Step 5: Sparkle Time
You’re done!
Find the nearest person and add some sparkle to their life!
Tips for Use: In order to get the best effect from the reflector, use a large, hard light source to reflect back on your subject. Thankfully, us Earthlings have the big, beautiful sun to work with!
Get a Little More Glam (We Don’t Blame You)
Go outside the lines: use a funky pattern like a spiral for you reflector.
Tempt fate: smash the mirror tiles to get crazy shapes.
Spruce it up: use colored foam-core to make it unique
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The cooler air, colorful leaves, and pumpkin-spiced latte photos?
Yup! That’s right.
This tutorial will show you how to turn your photographs into tasty candied treats in any flavor you like for Halloween or for general eating pleasure.
In under an hour, your images will taste as good as they look.
Now isn’t that sweet?!
How to Make Photo Lollipops
p.s. In the spirit of Halloween, we’re giving away a Light Paint Can today! Give us a Like on Facebook to see how to enter. (…) Read the rest of DIY: How to Make Photo Lollipops (132 words)
Just when you thought it was safe to turn away, those empty film rolls are back. Back from the dead!
You can put your shotgun away, though: these Recycled Film Roll Magnets don’t want to eat your brains, they want to hang your prints!
Handmade right here in America, these upcycled empty film canisters conceal powerful neodymium magnets that’ll stick with determination. Put those prints up with pride, you green genius, you.
Recycled Film Roll Magnets
Three for $ 15 at the Photojojo Store
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What’s new? The Impossible Project’s Instant Lab and 8×10 film, Polaroid’s Z2300, and the Instax Mini 8.
What’s new? Nikon’s Coolpix S800C and the Samsung Galaxy. 
What’s new? Hasselblad’s Lunar Camera and the Leica M (and the ME & Monochrom).
What’s new? The Nikon D600 and the Canon 6D. 
Which ones? The Fuji XF1 and the Casio Exilim EX-ZR100..
So who goes to Photokina? You’ll find a mix of dealers, distributors, and companies having to do with any kind of camera-related gizmo you can think of. 
.gif)
One of our favorite parts of photography is experimenting and finding new inspiration.
The tiles are a little big, so let’s make them smaller.
This is the fun part!
Take your mirror strips and score across them so that you’re left with about a 1″x1″ square.
Now, take your small tiles and glue them onto the foam-core.
You’re done!
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