Erin Fong’s Nova DSLR

Left-handed folks have long been passed-over when it comes to converting everyday devices to suit their needs, especially when it comes to cameras. But with photographer Erin Fong’s new concept camera, the Nova DSLR, lefties and righties alike can snap great photos with ease.

Along with its creative design (it looks like some sort of TIE Fighter from Star Wars), the Nova may actually give photographers a unique angle when shooting. Fong, an Industrial Design student in California, came up with the design while contemplating the lack of versatility and flexibility in the current DSLR market.

Indeed, the camera itself has ergonomics in mind. With a Canon digital SLR as base, the camera’s arms are able to swing around to provide adjustable handles for users and giving the device what looks to be a periscope-feel. Also, the operation buttons are located on one of these arms, at the fingertips, allowing a photographer to easily locate the desired features.

Again, this is just a concept camera, so you probably won’t be seeing these manufactured anytime soon. Still, these are the sort of innovations that keep the world of photography and cameras constantly evolving and allowing you, the photographer, to capture those unique images. To see more pictures of Fong’s creation, check out his portfolio page.

Deer Isle Bridge, courtesy of KAP photographer “tocs” (Flickr)

Note - regulars to our blog at SilberStudios.com may find they have been directed to our sister site, SilberStudio.Tv, where we house our video shows. Not to worry — we only felt this was a better home for our blog. We hope you continue to stop by and learn of photography news from around the world. Also, stick around and check out our illuminating interviews with master photographers. - MS

If photography has ever been limited in its scope, it’s probably because of the artist’s inability to find the right position. But what if you were able to get your camera into completely unique spots, and effectively capture pictures from an angle and perspective you never thought possible?

That’s the idea behind Kite Aerial Photography (KAP), the latest trend in innovative picture-taking. Basically, it’s exactly what it sounds like — through the use of a special harness, some pulleys, a sturdy fly-line and a nice, high-flying kite, KAP photographers send their cameras soaring through the air to capture images previously unseen.

Take KAP veteran Scott Dunn for example. His incredible shots of the Manhattan skyline or landmarks like the Statue of Liberty reveal stunning facets and breathtaking views of subjects you’d thought couldn’t be captured with originality anymore. And he does it all with his feet planted firmly, safely, on the ground. To see Dunn’s shots of the New york City Liberty Island Swim Event, and to read about how he obtained permission from the U.S. National Park Service in order to get so close to Lady Liberty, check out his Flickr page.

But before you send your valuable camera hundreds of feet into the air, it’s probably best to get a sturdy set of equipment first. Most KAP photographers use something called a Picavet, an X-shaped cross with a set of pulleys that hangs down from the kite, serving as a sort of hammock for your camera. Read more about KAP rigs and accessories at Brooxes.com, an online store specializing in all your KAP needs.

Willard Boyle (left) and George Smith in 1974, testing their CCD equipment. Photo: Alcatel-Lucent/Bell Labs

Digital photos are pretty much the standard for images now, and you can thank American scientists Willard Boyle and George Smith for that. Back in 1969 the two inventors created the first successful Charge Coupled Device (CCD), a digital sensor that helped change the world of photography as we know it. And now, the two men will be sharing a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work.

Boyle and Smith were presented the award on Tuesday from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for their work at Bell Laboratories. For decades they worked with techniques of capturing light before finally designing a sensor that effectively turned light into electrical signals. The Academy called the men “masters of light,” and declared their work a key effort that “helped to shape the foundations of today’s networked societies.”

They’ll be splitting the Nobel prize money ($1.4 million) with Charles K. Kao, a British scientist whose work with transmitting light through long distances on thin fibers set the stage for modern fiber-optics.

The work done by Boyle and Smith revolutionized not only photography and video cameras, but also areas in science and medicine. Doctors use modern CCD technology in certain devices to see inside patients, and astronomers use it to clarify never-before-seen images of deep space.

Now retired, Boyle, 85, is still amazed at how his work has become part of people’s everyday lives. He is reminded of his work with Smith “when I go around these days and see everybody using our little digital cameras, everywhere.”

Smith, 79, is just happy for the recognition. “It does do wonders for one’s ego,” he said. “People obviously like taking pictures. Look at all the cell phone cameras and cameras in your computer. That’s using this technology.”

The Samsung DualView TL225

With users eager to snap images of themselves for social networking profiles, cameras nowadays need to be able to take self-portraits just as easily as regular ones. So with this in mind, Samsung has released its latest digital camera with a display on both sides of the device.

The DualView TL225, which retails for about $350, has a 12 megapixel sensor, touchscreen, dual image stabilization, 720p HD movies as well as the dual screen. The frontal screen lets your subjects see what their mug looks like while their picture is being snapped. One of the cooler features is Child Mode, seen in the picture above. When activated, the frontal display shows a goofy animation, such as a clown, that is designed to get your smaller subjects smiling just long enough for you to snap their photograph.

Also new on the market is something called The Punch Camera. Brought to you by designer Matty Martin, the device is exactly what it sounds like — you take your digital picture, smack the camera like a hole-puncher, and the camera then physically punches out a rasterized image of your photo. Think of it like a Polaroid, except full of little holes.

The idea behind the camera was to bring back a hard copy of your snapshots. “This is a camera which was inspired by the loss of tangible memories. It is meant to connect both physical and digital while minimizing excess materials and the hardships in sharing images.”

Michael Nichols and crew prepare for their redwood photo-shoot.

How do you take a close-up photograph of an object as tall as a 35-story skyscraper? Slowly, surely, and with a really fancy camera.

According to the National Park Service, California’s redwood trees can grow up to 350 feet tall and 22 feet wide at their base. Many are hundreds, even thousands, of years old and rank as some of the largest, oldest living organisms on the planet. Anyone who has stood in the presence of these ancient giants knows how truly magnificent they are.

One such admirer is Michael Nichols. As a photographer for National Geographic, Nichols has traveled to exotic locales and done photo shoots in the deepest jungles. But recently, Nichols attempted to do something completely unique. He and a team of researchers and technicians photographed a giant redwood. Whole. In effect, they created “a seamless image of an entire redwood tree, from top to bottom.”

To tackle the job, Nichols’ team designed an amazing multi-camera rig capable of capturing the tree in sections. As you can see in the picture above, three cameras were tied together (one focused on the right, one on the center and one on the left), with gyroscopes attached to keep them steady. The rig was then lowered from the top of the tree to the bottom, capturing a total of 84 pictures which they later assembled into one amazing shot.

The finalized shot effectively captures something of the ancient redwood’s grandeur, a feeling Nichols wants to convey to those who may not know about the trees.

“I’ve worked in tropical forests my whole life,” he said, “and I’ve never made good pictures of trees. They’re hard to photograph. To capture a tree is a very complicated… that’s why we’re doing this picture which shows the whole thing, and hopefully people will feel the way they should feel about the tree when they look at the photograph.”

To see the picture in it’s entirety you can either grab the October edition of National Geographic or check out the magazine’s website. Along with dozens of other incredible pictures, facts and games, you can see the photograph at the end of a cool video that shows the photo process Michael Nichols went through to get it.

 Last year’s overall winner, “Fun Bathing” by Tan Choon Wee of Singapore

Photography competitions have stepped up in the last few years. No longer are they relegated to the select few, to the professionals with expensive equipment and years of framing, lighting and editing experience. Now they’re open to anyone with a digital camera and a knack for being in the right place and the right time.

One of the most well-known of these contests, the Digital Camera Photographer of the Year competition, sponsored by the U.K.’s Telegraph and the Royal Photographic Society, is currently underway and is expected to receive more than 120, 000 entries. Categories include World in Motion (”images that capture the moment and have a sense of drama”),  Black & White, Fashion, Man-Made (”aspects of our world that have been shaped by the hand of man”), People & Portraits, Planet Earth and the “anything goes” category, Digital Vision.

Organized by Britain’s largest photography magazine, Digital, the 2009 competition is free and open to photographers of any nationality. After today’s submission deadline (5pm GMT!), a team of judges will pick from the enormous amount of entries in all ten categories and will then tag an overall winner to receive the top prize of £10,000 ($16,000). The winning artist will also be declared Digital Photographer of the Year 2009.

Judges for the competition include such experts and luminaries as award-winning wildlife photographer Steve Bloom, the director of photography for news for Getty Images, Hugh Pinney, plus numerous editors and artists from major world-wide photography magazines.

So whether it’s that stunning portrait of Aunt Gracie everyone’s been complimenting you for, that fleeting snapshot you took of the falling leaf in Central Park or your brilliantly Photoshopped picture of the surf at daybreak, go and dig up your best shots and send them in to the planet’s biggest digital photography competition. Who knows, maybe you’ve got that one incredible image the world has been looking for.

Brian May can do a whole lot more than just play the guitar. The 62 year-old British musician is most famously known for playing lead axe in the rock band Queen for almost 30 years, yet lately he’s been gaining a name for himself in other pursuits. Last year he earned a Ph.D in astrophysics, and now he’s co-authoring a book about 19th century photographer T.R. Williams, whom May believes is “the master” of the daguerreotype.

Entitled A Village Lost and Found, the book brings together the work of T.R. Williams’ pastoral photographs from the 1850s, originally collected in his Our Village series. The photos included in the book give a unique perspective into the lives of villagers at the time — a blacksmith at his forge, workers out in the field gathering harvest, men sharpening tools at the grindstone.

What makes the book especially interesting is that it includes a focusing stereoscope, an instrument designed by May himself which brings every picture into 3-D. Along with his co-author, photohistorian Elena Vidal, May also provides annotation and footnotes that help provide meaning to the individual stories depicted in each photograph. This creates a “powerfully atmospheric and touching set of photographs,” and brings the work of a true pioneer of photography to a contemporary audience.

A Village Lost and Found, published by Frances Lincoln, is set to hit bookshelves on October 22nd. To place pre-orders or read some reviews, check out the publisher’s website here.

 We’ve all seen the photo-booths at malls, where couples and teenagers give their best mugshots and walk away with a strip of pictures right on the spot. Well, what if you could take one of those booths home with you? That’s the idea behind Australia-based Photobooth, an innovative company that’s currently marketing an inflatable, portable photography booth.

According to their website, Photobooth is “the world’s first fully portable, high resolution, digital, architecturally designed, part inflatable photo-booth. Developed by two commercial photographers from Melbourne, the concept was stumbled upon when we turned a tiny room into a digital photo-booth for a studio launch party. It was an instant hit, with queues of people and around 800 shots taken by the end of the night.”

Inside the booths are an 11-mega pixel camera that captures your best moments in color or black-and-white, plus an option that lets you choose the quality of your images. All photos will then be stored online, with only subscribers to the site able to view and order prints. Images can be supplied as 72dpi web ready files, 150dpi desktop ready files or 300dpi A3+ print ready files.

Photobooth also offers a unique service for companies renting its services: branding. Each image can be tagged as it’s shot with your company’s logo, slogan or message, so that your brand is highly visible on each photograph. Or, as they put it, “so everyone knows who’s picking up the bill.” After the party’s over and all the photos have been taken, you can then keep track of who’s been viewing your pictures, the number of visits to your gallery as well as details of your subscribers.

Unfortunately Photobooth is only in Australia at the moment. So unless you’re Down Under, or until Photobooth finds a way to cross the pond, it looks like the fax machine will remain the highlight at your company parties.

Since the first time a photographer decided to compliment one of his pictures by adding a border, the art of photo-framing has come a long way. Now, with the release of Hewlett-Packard’s revolutionary DreamScreen, the next generation of photo frames has finally arrived.

Gone are the days when your family snapshots were relegated to dark corners of your home. In fact, with all of its multimedia ad-ons, the DreamScreen 100 ($249) puts your photos right alongside your flashy home entertainment system. It offers a 10.2 inch monitor (or a 13 inch monitor from the 300 model) that can stream photos from your home computer, display photos from a photo sharing account and show updates from all your friends on Facebook. It can even play music, either from Pandora Internet radio or your pick of 10,000 other radio stations.

The device runs with two gigabytes of memory, plus is able to accommodate standard flash memory cards or USB drives in case you want to increase its capacity. This also allows you to do a quick photo show directly from your digital camera. The controls are located on the lower right (the part that used to be called the frame).

Though the number of websites available will be quite limited at first, the DreamScreen marks HP’s efforts to bring back the idea of placing smartscreens throughout households. “What we’re really trying to do is bring a simple, user-intuitive device that’s always on, always connected to the Internet, to bring Web applications that don’t require PCs,” said Ameer Karim, director of worldwide marketing with HP’s futures and innovations group.

As for the device’s impact on photography itself, one can only imagine it will be yet another encouragement for consumers to bring their cameras everywhere with them. After all, when you can display all your favorite photos around the house, and access them with such ease, why not snap as many pictures as you can?

Whoever said the sky’s the limit obviously didn’t go to MIT.

For about the cost of an iPod, two MIT students have sent a camera into near-space and snapped beautiful million-dollar shots of our planet. Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh spent a measly $148 on their contraption, which consisted of a Canon PowerShot A470 point-and-shoot camera, a styrofoam cooler and a weather balloon filled with helium. Their experiment, nicknamed Project Icarus, proves how a little ingenuity and careful planning can overcome even the tightest budgets.

The two students first had to figure out how to find the ingredients for their project through consumer-ready retailers. As they discovered, durable weather balloons (which can float as high as 20 miles up) are available on the internet and can be filled with helium at a party-supplies store for a total of $50. To solve the problem of low temperature in the stratosphere (-55 C), they wrapped the camera in hand-warmers and placed it inside a styrofoam beer cooler.

Then, rather than spend thousands of dollars on a state-of-the-art radio modem tracker, Lee and Yeh purchased a cheap $50 cell phone equipped with GPS technology. They attached it to the camera, and it updated them on its location via text messages.

Before the launch, on September 2nd, they also hacked the camera’s hardware and set up an intervalometer, a device which programmed the camera to snap photos every five seconds. The picture seen above was taken at 93,000 feet (18miles), the likely spot where the balloon popped and sent the contraption plummeting for 40 minutes back to Earth.

The resulting images, ranging from snapshots of cloud-specked land formations on Earth’s surface to hazy blue, sun-glazed pictures of Earth’s curvature, bridge the gap between science and art.

“This could be something big,” said Lee. “Imagine if the art kids and the science kids in high school got together to do something like [a space launch]. The fact that we were able to accomplish space photography on such a low budget and with minimal electronic modifications proves that it’s really possible for anyone, anyone at all, to do.”

So if you always thought it took a lot of money to capture great shots and be an innovative photographer, take Lee’s advice and just find an easier way. The world is out there — and anyone can discover it.

Here’s an example of the right shot, one of Marc’s school portaits.

School has started anew, and pretty soon kids everywhere are going to be sitting in front of a camera and immortalizing their faces for their school portraits in the yearbook. This is understandably a tense moment. After all, this photograph will be seen by everyone else and will be how all their crushes remember them in the years to come. So to prepare your young subject for everything from kindergarten pictures to senior portraits, follow these quick tips to ensure everything turns out flawless.

Rest

- A well-rested, fresh-faced subject will always take a better picture than someone with bags under their eyes. Plenty of sleep will also make them more comfortable and relaxed in front of a camera.

Hair Cut

-A recent trimming usually leaves hard lines, so tell them not to get a hair cut right before the shoot. This will also leave ample time to grow a more natural look.

Makeup

- It’s called Cake-face and it has ruined more photos than you can imagine. If you can’t tell when to say when, test it out on a close friend or loved-one. If they can’t tell who you are anymore, you’ve got too much make-up on.

Clothing

- Everyone remembers the goofy kid who wore the tight leather shirt and a clock around his neck. Don’t let them be that kid.

Background

- Some school photographers will let you choose a background color. If possible, pick something that contrasts with their outfit or matches their eyes.

Hat Hair

- Boys like to wear caps, but many are unaware of the mess that’s left when they take them off. Make sure to keep the hats at home before unveiling your child to the world.

Practice

- Before the shoot,  have your kids practice sitting, posing and smiling in front of the mirror. This way they know what expression looks best and what to ask of you, the photographer. If your child is having his or her portrait taken, practicing a smile beforehand will make it look more fluid and natural sitting for a picture.

Images from 50 Photographs by Jessica Lange - Courtesy of Lange/Powerhouse Books

Jessica Lange knows a little something about being captured. The Academy Award-winning actress rose to fame in 1976’s King Kong when she played a damsel abducted by a giant ape. Since then she’s been captured on film in such notable movies as Frances, Tootsie and the recent Emmy-nominated HBO film, Grey Gardens.

But in Jessica Lange’s latest role, it will be her turn to do the capturing. In her new book,”50 Photographs by Jessica Lange,” the actress chronicles over 15 years of photos taken during her travels in North America, Africa and Europe. She is currently showcasing a select few from her work, including a special presentation in New Orleans on October 3rd.

Lange actually developed a love of photography when she enrolled in an intro class at the University of Minnesota in 1969. But, as apparently was common in the summer of love, she dropped out to wander the world and never gave the art of light-writing a second thought.

Until 15 years ago.  One evening her longtime partner, actor Sam Shepherd, came home from a movie set with a Leica, and Lange was immediately hooked. At first she just took pictures of the kids, but soon it became an artistic passion. “I’d go down into the basement after the kids were in bed,” she said, “put on some Al Green and Sam Cooke, and develop pictures.”

Now Lange is showing her work at exhibits. For her, as with many other artists of multiple mediums,  she is drawn to the simplicity of black-and-white images. “I can describe acting in much more concrete terms than I can photography,” she says. “But there’s something about presenting an image in black-and-white that’s so reductive in a way. It sort of eliminates all extraneous information.”

A preview of Lange’s book, “50 Photographs,” can be seen at the website for New Orlean’s A Gallery for Fine Photography.

Yep, I’m hooked on my iPhone, love to take shots with it and love to hike with it and soften the miles with all those tunes (my wife rolled her eyes last weekend when she heard I was listening to Jimi Hendrix The Wind Cries Mary–ah well the ’60s-’70s gap!)

This is a long ways from the the serious in-the-darkroom–having shot with my Leica M2 or my medium format Rollie, never would have dreamed that there would be a time I’d get a shot with my phone  and actually like it.

There are some very good tips, which my friend Chase Jarvis published recently read and use they really help.

I think the cool part is being able to get those shots otherwise missed (I know I’ve told you to always carry a camera, but, dang there are those times..)  Here’s a few… memories captured along the way… See more on my FaceBook

Thomas Hawk, getting his shot of the Golden Gate bridge, cold December day

Hiking above Silicon Valley

Feng Shui waiting for my Sponsor meeting

It may not be sexy, but there is no short cut for making friends with your camera and getting to know it. Marc Silber gives you tips, with advice straight from the man himself, Ansel Adams. Improve your shots with this easy to follow advice. Tune in to SilberStudios.Tv for more tips.

I’ve noticed that the subject of lenses often has a sort of mystery surrounding it. Newer photographers (and some not so new) often don’t know all of the information that is available on their lens—yes if you know what your lens is saying, it’s amazing how much it will tell you!

Photodo.com  has posted a cool resource for getting to know about your  lenses. Go to their site and you can put your mouse over any of these terms above and you’ll get a handy description of each.

Each of these parts represents a tool to help you capture the image the way you visualized it. Get to know their functions and take shots using each and you will expand your range, and get that much closer to your vision.
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Robert Scoble and I met with Steven Heiner, Nikon’s Senior Technical Manager

today to test drive the new D3, I won’t bore you with its details, but suffice it to say this is

the Ferrari of digital cameras. I had my “old” Nikon D2X and we wandered around getting a few shots:

The Ferry Building: “A famous city’s most famous landmark.” Herb Caen

This has been the jumping off spot for over 100 years (built in 1888)

t

irresistible…

We bump into Mark Anders, Adobe’s “Sr. Principal Scientist”

Robert does a Scoble Show on the spot

7 reasons why I favor love black and white photography:

1. I grew up with it, and it feels natural.

2. Doing color darkroom work was too expensive and too much hassle so I decided to master B&W in the darkroom and gain control over my final prints.

3. Playing with the zones from pure white (zone X) to pure black (zone 0) or as close as you can get, is fun and causes me to look at life differently. Funny how taking color out makes more of a shot.

4. It’s just cool.

5. I have to have a good reason to shoot color anymore. I love the “raw” look of B&W.

6. Taking equipment that is capable of the most amazing specturm of color and limiting it to B&W focuses all that power on the simplicities of the image.

7. Did I mention that it’s cool?

What are your thoughts?

This is the begining of what will become its own site of resources from the masters of photography. I’m putting up putting a few of my favorites to begin with. Please let me know if you have suggestions for content, we’re particularly interested in video or audio of masters talking about their work, or methods, giving classes, etc. ) Each of the masters contributed major advancements to photography and over the next few months we’ll be cover them in detail. Let’s start with…

Ansel Adams: “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”

Listen to these great interviews with Ansel (real player is needed which you can download free)

Also watch this very informative multimedia presentation of Ansel from SFMOMA Ansel Adams at 100

Here’s my first shots taking a 1 mile (70 laps) at the MA pool: I’m happy with the resolution of this little camera: (see the video Scoble shot.)

underwater blue

My coach –the best in the biz, Tom McRae

A bit too serious, but getting in my 70 laps

Yipes!

Beautiful Shepard waiting at Peet’s

I’ve been out surfing so many times and seen the most amazing shots…but no camera! What to do? I can’t lug out a big, expensive DSLR in a housing, no way to have fun surfing lugging that anchor around. I researched and found that Olympus makes a 7.1 MP Stylus that is waterproof to 16′ (I hope I’m not under deeper than that!) and shockproof for a drop of 5′. Makes it great for snowboarding, climbing, backpacking and the other adventures we find ourselves doing as often as we can.

So I added this to my wish list and Santa (aka my wife Jan) brought it to me!

Today Robert Scoble (#9 on The Web Celeb 25) and I were at Peet’s and he caught me on his videophone and his blog.

Last Sunday I was surfing in Santa Cruz, a dolphin and seal went by, then the sun was setting on the water with the moon rising in the east–aesthetically painful not to have a camera…that’s the last time I miss those shots!

I’ve owned my Leica M2 since about 1969 when I bought it from a teacher for $200. This camera has seen a lot of travel and helped me capture numerous shots in all sorts of wild and wonderful places. This week’s New Yorker has a wonderful article on the history of this amazing light writing tool, voted the top gadget of all time –ahead of the iPod and Gameboy! Also covered in this article is Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the major influences up my style. Let me know what you think.