We’ve come to expect loads of camera features from Samsung’s high end smartphones and the Galaxy S5 does not come up short. The S5 offers a 16MP BSI CMOS sensor, F2.2 lens and 4K video recording. With claims of improved AF speeds and the addition of features like real-time HDR processing and Selective Focus, Samsung’s flagship device has a lot of potential as a photographic tool. Does its performance live up to its specs? Read review
Month: July 2014
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Preview of the Slide and Clutch Camera Carrying System from Peak Design
With Peak Design launching another set of products via Kickstarter, we’re very fortunate to get our hands on the new, as yet unreleased, Slide and Clutch camera carrying system prior to launch for a little dPS preview!
You can see the Kickstarter here and pre-order if that’s your thing!
As a Peak Design pro, I’ve been using “Capture” since it was released along with Leash and Cuff. The video below of Pete and Adam will give you a great idea of what the team at Peak Design are doing with this new gear and why they’re passionate about what they do – they love this stuff we do called photography.
The Kickstarter is already funded, 450% funded, which says a lot about what they’ve built and the products they’ve created in the past. The new strap, Slide, is building on that, and after using it for a week (no, they don’t pay me to say this) it really is worth picking up now via the Kickstarter campaign. If you don’t, and you see it afterwards for more money, you will think to yourself “you know, Simon was right”. The strap sits really comfortably on my shoulder, it allows quick attachment to my camera through Peak Design’s unique anchor system, it literally slides around to where you want it and is so super easy when you’re wearing it, to make the strap shorter or longer as you can see in the video.
I’ve also been using Clutch, a hand strap system that keeps your camera firmly in your big greasy paw when you’re out and about shooting. I have used it with a gripped Canon 5DMK3 and without the grip – it’s quick to attach, quick to tighten and very quick to loosen off, too. When shooting portrait, I’d slide my hand out of Clutch and shoot my portrait photographs and then slide my hand back in. I didn’t really notice any loss of speed and after a few goes I was a veritable wild west camera slinger. I used Clutch on the weekend for a cycling event and loved the flexibility of being able to not worry about dropping my camera in the rain, and boy did it rain! It stayed firmly in my hand and allowed me to drop the camera into Capture to use the other body with my long lens and Slide attached – once done, I could let the long lens slide around to my hip / back and grab body number one back to continue shooting. Lots of bodies, no time to stop (over a thousand cyclists to grab a portrait of while they cycled past) and it worked perfectly (aside from when I tried to drink soup and shoot at the same time, but that’s another story).
Back in my office now and this is what the Slide strap looks like attached to a Sony A7, (granted, at f/1.4 which doesn’t show you much A7 at all, but you get the picture) to give you a vague idea of scale.
In conclusion, I’m super impressed with this, the next iteration of the Peak Design strap – Slide. (Leash being my first Peak Design strap) and from me, it’s highly recommended! I give it a healthy FIVE stars.
That said, I’m sure you have questions! So, as I have the Slide with me, and I’m taking it on a quick trip to China tomorrow, please feel free to ask any questions in the comments section below, I will answer as best I can. Another great product from Peak Design. Well done guys.
–Sime
The post Preview of the Slide and Clutch Camera Carrying System from Peak Design by Sime appeared first on Digital Photography School.
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Surreal World: 14 Reality-Bending Mirror Art Installations
[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
Cabins vanish into the landscape like a mirage, tiny rooms filled with stars somehow go on forever and treetops float in mid-air in these reality-distorting illusions made using mirrors. With these art installations and sculptures, nothing is quite what it seems, requiring the viewer to closely examine where the real world begins and ends.
Infinity Mirrored Rooms by Yayoi Kusama
Visitors waited up to three hours for their turn inside Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama‘s exhibit ‘Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away.’ One hundred multicolored LED lights pulsate at various speeds and patterns inside an entirely reflective room to give it the feel of outer space.
Reflective Illusions by Jonty Hurwitz
Strange, abstracted objects appear to have no particular form when you gaze upon them directly, but place them in front of a mirror at just the right angle, and you’ll see what they really are. Artist Jonty Hurwitz scans animals and human body parts, distorts them digitally and fabricates them so that the original object is revealed when they’re placed in front of a cylindrical mirror.
Ghost Figures in the Woods by Rob Mulholland
Translucent ghostly figures seem to lurk in the Scottish woods in this reflective illusion by artist Rob Mulholland. The fitters are actually silhouettes made of plexiglas, reflecting and distorting their surroundings so that they appear almost extra-dimensional.
Half-Invisible Desert Cabin by Phillip K Smith III
A wooden cabin in the desert seems to half-disappear into the sky and sand in this project by Phillip K Smith III. The abandoned structure was modified with mirrored panels that reflect the surroundings for a partial vanishing effect. The framed faux windows slowly light up at night, so the cabin alternately appears to be “like a mirage or a hallucination” depending on the time of day.
Shattered Sunsets: Broken Mirror Photos of Evening Skies
Look at the sunset in an entirely new way, through the shards of a broken mirror. The ‘Broken Mirror/Evening Sky‘ photo series by Bing Wright breaks the sky into fragments, making each image like a puzzle.
Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Surreal World 14 Reality Bending Mirror Art Installations
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[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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How to Become a Photography Icon: Inspired by Henri-Cartier Bresson
On the 30th of January in 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was killed by three bullets fired at close range. And while the world lost one of its greatest men (arguably), one man gained even more status as one of the most important photographers in the world. Henri-Cartier Bresson had photographed Gandhi just about an hour before his tragic death. He also Continue Reading
The post How to Become a Photography Icon: Inspired by Henri-Cartier Bresson appeared first on Photodoto.
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Smart Bricks: Life-Size LEGO-Style Blocks for Human Habitats
[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]
Aiming to revolutionize the most basic material units of construction, these building blocks snap together like LEGO bricks while leaving space for insulation and infrastructure inside and between them.
Designed by Kite Bricks, a startup company with lofty aspirations, these Smart Bricks offer “high thermal control, full passage of pipes, wires, cables and the like, finishes for both indoors and outdoors, extraordinary tensile strength, ease of construction, safety of materials, and total application throughout a structure—floors, ceilings, and walls.”
Among other ecological and cost advantages, a core idea is to reduce the difficulty of construction and the equipment and debris associated with the building process. The bricks can be stacked by hand and are self-supporting from the start – no scaffolding needed.
As for applications: “The brick is amenable for building houses, buildings, bridges and more.. The block is constructed of high-strength concrete with unique properties that allow for … large savings in electricity expenses associated with seasonal heating and cooling. The block allows for faster, cheaper, more precise, and stronger building than is available through traditional building methods.”
Whether this approach will replace bricks as we know them remains to be seen, but the next step will certainly involve full-scale prototypes, albeit hopefully ones more creative and attractive than the rough-and-ready examples shown in the video above.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]
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Android L to feature Raw shooting and added manual camera controls
Details were thin from Google I/O last week about Android’s plans for camera updates in its next OS release. Now with a developer preview of the new OS available, more information has emerged about what we can expect from Android’s camera capabilities. Raw image capture is on the way, along with additional manual exposure controls. Read more
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Canon and Microsoft sign patent agreement
It appears we can expect an increased interchange of technologies between imaging giant Canon and software maker Microsoft in the near future, thanks to to a patent agreement that was signed by the two parties on Wednesday. Though the brief statement issued by Microsoft doesn’t reveal much, it appears that Canon imaging technology may be used in future Lumia smartphones made by Nokia. Learn more
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Unversöhnliche Landschaften
Ein Beitrag von: Ibán Ramón
Bäume und das Land an sich sind immer wiederkehrende Themen meiner fotografischen Arbeit. Sie repräsentieren die Natur, die schon vor dem Menschen da war. Die Zäune, eingezäunte Gebiete, Bauten und Straßenschilder wiederum sind Zeichen des menschlichen Eingreifens in die Natur.
Ebenso häufig fotografiere ich auch die Rastplätze und Restaurants an Autobahnen, ich interessiere mich für menschliche Isolation und die Straßen, die ebenfalls die Landschaft verändern. Das Verstreichen der Zeit und das natürliche Verhalten des Menschen werden vom Gebiet, das er bewohnt, reflektiert.
Die Natur wiederum hat auch ihre Mechanismen, das Territorium zurückzuerobern und die vom Menschen veränderten Landschaften wiederum umzuformen. Ich interessiere mich für diesen zweiten Schritt der Veränderung und fotografiere verlassene Straßen, Werbetafeln, mit Gras überwachsene, vergessene Dinge.
Mein Ansatz ist eher dokumentarisch, obwohl ich natürlich eine bestimmte Sicht auf die Dinge vorgebe, in die wiederum Veränderung mit hineinspielt. Aber ich rufe nicht zu Veränderungen auf. Eigentlich habe ich keine Lust, genau zu definieren, was ich tue. Ich lasse das lieber andere Leute in Worte fassen.
Ich war schon immer ein rastloser Mensch. Ich wurde in eine Familie geboren, in der sich viele Familienmitglieder künstlerisch betätigten, sei es professionell oder als Amateure. Ich war also schon von jungen Jahren an an allem interessiert, das mit künstlerischem Schaffen und Kommunikation zu tun hatte.
Also habe ich sehr viele Dinge ausprobiert und immer versucht, Spaß bei dem zu haben, was ich mache. Schlussendlich wurde ich dann Grafikdesigner und Besitzer eines professionellen Studios in Valencia, Spanien. Parallel dazu arbeite in an persönlichen Projekten wie meinen Fotoserien.
Meine Serien, die unter dem Titel „Resistance Activities“ zusammengefasst sind, zeigen Landschaften, in denen Ausdauer und Beharrlichkeit sichtbar werden: Bäume beugen sich langsam dem unnachgiebigem Wind, narbiges Gelände stößt zurück und Menschen krümmen ihre Schultern gegen die unversöhnliche Landschaft.
Indem ich diese Haltung des passiven Widerstand festhalte, zeige ich auch meinen eigenen Prozess des Überlebens. Manchmal reise ich in weit entfernte Gegenden, um in einer fremdartigen Landschaft etwas zu finden, das schon sehr lange in mir selbst verborgen lag.
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Canon introduces mobile print solution for Android 4.4.2 and HP Slate
Canon’s printer division has announced Canon Print Service, a software plug-in for your mobile device that allows you to print to compatible Canon printers via a Wi-Fi connection. The service is available for Android devices running version 4.4.2 or newer and select HP Slate devices. Read more
