Cameras

Moscow-based photographer Nikolay Tikhomirov describes the photographs he’s taken as “art inside me” — and that’s just what they are, art. One of his collections, dubbed ‘Zero Gravity‘ is series of images featuring women in Earthly environments floating as if they’ve escaped the confines of our planet’s gravity. Some appear to be well aware of their surroundings, whilst others are seemingly in the midst of a slumber, oblivious to their dream-like condition. Quite obviously, some level of manipulation is likely involved to achieve such remarkable creations, though it’s unclear just what Tikhomirov does specifically to achieve such effects. These images aren’t the first of their kind. Many photographers have created the illusion of floating subjects in their shots. Simply put, snapping this type of image involves the layering and masking of multiple photographs of the same scene and lighting in order to hide the support device that is propping up the picture’s subject. The complexity varies depending on the scene – but this at least gives you some indication as to how you yourself can try to replicate zero gravity. Here’s one of many tutorials available. For more of Tikhomirov’s inspiring work, you can view his 500px and 35Photo galleries. (via Laughing Squid) Image credits: Photographs by Nikolay Tikhomirov and used with permission

Canon has developed a new Picture Style for EOS HDSLRs called the Video Camera X Series Look. The Picture Style is designed to mimic Canon’s X-series camcorders and offers lower saturation and contrast for more latitude when grading footage from your Canon 5D Mark III, 7D, 1D X and other EOS cameras. This is an official Canon Picture Style, unlike the Technicolor CineStyle, which has otherwise met with Canon’s approval but is not an official Canon Picture Style. The Video Camera X Series Look Picture Style can be downloaded from Canon’s website and installs to your Canon DSLR via EOS Utility v. 2.6 or later. Related posts: Technicolor CineStyle Now Available No New Canon DSLRs This Week Canon DSLRs Get Technicolor ‘CineStyle’ Profile

Here are some tips on how you can control natural light in your photos.

If you like to buy or collect equipment used by famous digital-era photographers/hybridographers, Philip Bloom has a eBay sale on some of his camera equipment including the Leica X1, Noktor 50/.95, Nokia Pureview 808, Canon and Nikon DSLRs and lenses, Panasonic AF101/AF100 M43rds camcorder and 14-140 m43rds zoom, Nikon V1, and lots more. These are classic eBay auctions with bids. For the latest camera specials and in-stock alerts, check the Cameras Deals blog. Republication of this RSS feed on any website or blog or app is prohibited and violates the terms of use of this RSS feed. This text comes from the RSS feed of 1001noisycameras.com. This full-text RSS feed is provided as a service to our loyal readers for their personal use. Republication fees start at $1000 per month and will be billed to violating websites.

Here’s a tool you may not have heard about but may useful at some time in the future. It’s called Clipping Magic, and it’s designed to remove backgrounds from user-uploaded pictures. The concept is rather simple, you upload an image, mark the areas in the background you don’t want in red, and mark the areas in the foreground you do want in green. The website’s algorithm takes over and (hopefully) produces a background-free picture. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But how does it fare when used for an image with a background you actually want to remove? I tried it for myself with an picture I snapped of a friend in Los Angeles. At the advice of Clipping Magic, I marked some of the background in red and some of the foreground in green. I emphasize ’some’ because you needn’t go wild and blanket the background and foreground to get the desired result. While I found the tool to be reasonably accurate, it didn’t quite remove all the background from the three images I uploaded, even with fine tuning. That’s okay, too, because Clipping Magic is currently in alpha, and it’s very much a work in progress. The site’s designers note that faint and blurring edges will lead to “a bad result”, and the algorithm has trouble with partially transparent clothing. It also seems to have trouble with hair, but these issues are expected to be cleared up in further development. Give it a try and let us know what you think! ClippingMagic (via Reddit)

While there's no shortage of email providers, Gmail's simple design, ease of use and cool features continue to attract users. Whether you're sorting through hundreds of work emails a day or using the service to keep in touch with friends and family, keeping up to date on its latest features can help you get the most out of it. Here's a look at five of Gmail's newest features, including quickly adding appointments to your calendar, customizing your background image and using advanced search to find the email you're looking for. 1. How to add events to your calendar If you use Gmail to coordinate or schedule meetings, Google has made adding them to your Calendar—without leaving Gmail—easy. Beginning last week, all dates and times in emails appear underlined. Hover over them to preview your schedule for the day and change the title, date or time of the event. Click "Add to Calendar" will do just that. The entry in your calendar will also include a link back to the original email, making the details easy to reference. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

This is a “first look” preview of a pre-production unit of the Ricoh GR, which I have been fortunate enough to get my hands on — for a day. My time with it is limited to the half-day of shooting I had, and I am only sharing my initial impressions of it. The images are selected to demonstrate the fast response of the Ricoh GR, and not the noise performance because it will not be fair to make any judgment based on a pre-production unit. Most of the images are in monochrome because I prefer black-and-white in street photography. None of the images have been cropped, to demonstrate the focal length effect of the Ricoh GR. I shall not be comparing it with the Nikon Coolpix A as there are detailed specs comparisons out there already, and without a production unit of each side-by-side, comparisons are frankly quite futile. As I was shooting with a pre-production unit, I would not like to go into too much detail about stuff like image quality, as quite understandably the final production unit will show improvements. You will however read about my impressions of it as a street camera in terms of usability and functionality. The Ricoh GR The Ricoh GR has an impressive lineage, starting from the film Ricoh GR1 introduced in 1996. The camera set the tone and direction for the GR series, focusing on delivering the best image quality with a fast 28mm prime lens in a compact chassis. The series ended on a high with the Ricoh GR1V, which was made famous by the legendary Japanese street photographer Daido Moriyama who used it for his grainy monochromic depiction of the streets of Japan. Nine years later, the series went digital with the Ricoh GR Digital, maintaining the GR-series’ trademark sleek body and 28mm prime lens. However, the sensors used were of the 1/1.7-1.8” variety and users clamoured for the day Ricoh will deliver a large sensor GR-series, and Ricoh responded in 2013 with the launch of the Ricoh GR… The Ricoh GR’s crowning achievement is squeezing in a 16MP APS-C sensor into that supermodel body, making it possibly the smallest APS-C sensor camera in the world. It retains the GR trademark 28mm focal length, although maximum aperture has been reduced slightly to f/2.8. Ricoh claims a maximum ISO rating of 25,600, which sounds groovy but I’ll believe it when I see the proof in the pudding. The Ricoh GR even pumps out 1080p movies at 24, 25 or 30fps, but I hardly think HD movies are the reason why anyone buys a Ricoh GR. Because at speculated USD800 retail price, you have to want this camera for its sole purpose in life – as a street photography camera. “Made for the Streets” Hold on to your horses, I am told. Who died and made you the God of Photography to pigeonhole the Ricoh GR as “street photography” tool? Seriously, an Apache is stealthy, silent, armor-plated, seats only two, and armed with 30mm cannon and Hellfire missiles. It is obvious that its only mission in life is to destroy and annihilate. A Ricoh GR is compact, matte black, silent and fast, and that makes it the weapon for hunting down street photos. Sure you can use a Ricoh GR for your holiday snaps, but that will be like buying your own fully loaded Apache to take you from one board meeting to the next. The Ricoh GR is impressively small. Small because it fits into your jeans pocket easily, and impressive because the engineers shoe-horned a APS-C sensor in that Kate Moss body. The dimensions of the Ricoh GR hardly budge compared to my classic film GR1V, which means it is very pocketable as a dinner or travel camera as well. With that size and weight, it’s perfect for prowling the streets the entire day and never feel fatigued. See the perfect shot? Run for it! Let’s see you try that with a DSLR. And by the way, the Ricoh GR should be bundled with great shoes, because you would need to run a lot, thanks to the 28mm lens. Robert Capa Shouldn’t be Taken Too Seriously The great photojournalist Robert Capa famously said, “if your photos ain’t good enough,

Amazon has a deal on the Nikon 1 J2 with up to 40% off retail. There are several kits and accessories available in the deals with the Nikon 1 J2 and 10-30mm lens kit for $359 being one of the deals. Check out all of the deals here at Amazon.com. Related posts: Nikon 1 V1 for $349 – Cyber Monday Deal Alert Nikon D600 w/ Free ME-1 Stereo Mic – Deal Alert Nikon 1 V1 with 10-30mm VR Lens for $369 – Deal Alert

With Bitcoin all the rage and startups popping up left and right, it's hard to know who's an expert in the virtual currency and who just has an opinion. Most people would put Jeff Garzik in the former camp.A Bitcoin core developer for three years, he left his job at Red Hat on Friday to start work at Bitpay, the biggest Bitcoin payment processing service. IDG News Service caught up with him at the Bitcoin 2013 conference in Silicon Valley, where he talked about the state of Bitcoin today, the parallels with open source, and Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto. Following is an edited transcript of the conversation.IDGNS: What's on people's minds at Bitcoin 2013? It feels like the Wild West right now -- the exchange rate's up and down, the government's starting to regulate, there are startups cropping up everywhere, where are we at?JG: Bitcoin's growing up. It's been a hobbyist-grown organic piece of software, an organic community. I was one of the hobbyists. It grew up slowly, slowly, slowly over time, and now VCs are all over the place trying to write checks. As a developer, I've told several people, I don't want your check. I just started work for a startup called Bitpay, my first day is today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

There’s a slew of super-large panorama pictures available on the web, but when was the last time you heard about a picture that spans well over half the diameter of Earth? That’s exactly what NASA’s Landsat Data Continuity Mission captured last month from a whopping 438 miles above the surface of our great blue marble. Measuring in at an impressive 6,000 miles in length and 120 miles wide, the panorama stretches from Northern South Africa to East Russia. NASA calls this work of art ‘The Long Swath’, and it comes in at 19.06 gigapixels. Fifty-six still images make this strip of gorgeous Earth scenery possible, and given that Landsat is orbiting the planet at about 17,000 miles per hour, it took only — wait for it — twenty minutes to capture. That’s impressive. What’s more interesting, however, are the variations on Earth’s surface. Flourishing forests to barren deserts, lakes, and everything in between – and the colors are amazing. So what makes this different than firing up Google Earth and viewing the whole world? With Google Earth, you’re looking at a bunch of different pictures shot at different times. The beauty here is that this one super-long picture was captured in one fell swoop. It’s certainly worth a look, even if you don’t have time to explore the picture in its entirety. You can view the full interactive version on Gigapan, watch the tour video, view the entire panorama in 15 minutes, or load it up on Google Earth. (via NASA Earth Observatory via PopPhoto)