You know who doesn’t look good in pictures? You, probably. Me. Most of us. Sure, sometimes you’re Gerard Butler, but most of the time you’re Gerard Depardieu. You know who does know how to look good? Supermodel Shalom Harlow. More »
Living in Barcelona Spain — one of the pickpocket capitals of the world — I’m completely paranoid whenever I leave the house. I’m also well-versed in most of the popular scams. But I have never seen or heard of this until today: a street thief stealing the lens right off the mark’s camera:
The video is a clip from the BBC show The Real Hustle, which is a “factual entertainment series about scams and cons” (and sounds pretty awesome). The perpetrator of the scam is Paul Wilson, a presenter of the show and scam expert.
Apparently this trick is one being used for real on city streets. It would work perfectly in Barcelona, which is full of camera and map-toting tourists. I wonder how you could defend against it?
My usual practice is to cover my bag with my hand whenever any stranger talks to me (I don’t really care if the honest ones are insulted). But perhaps a cleverer hack might work. Presumably thieves know that they’re targeting Nikons and Canons, and that the lenses mount in different directions (clockwise for Canon, counterclockwise for Nikon). Perhaps putting a Canon sticker on your Nikon and vice versa would do the trick?
Anyhow, watch out. The best way to avoid being a mark is to stay alert, and suspect everyone. Or carry a compact camera.
The Real Hustle [BBC]
Lens thieves ruin the day [Pixiq via PetaPixel]
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We think steel, glass and concrete will live forever. Then we look at the things we’ve built that don’t last. These 97 images from this week’s Shooting Challenge are deflating, haunting…and a bit reassuring. At least nature will go on. More »
The promo video for Xume’s quick-release camera filters starts off in typical infomercial style, with a klutz ham-fistedly trying to do something that’s actually pretty easy. But this doesn’t take away from the neatness of the product, a filter attachment that uses magnets — frikkin’ magnets! — to speed up an otherwise tedious task.
It’s ingeniously simple. A magnetic ring screws into the filter thread of your lens, and another screws into the thread of the filter. Now you just bring them close and the magnets grab each other, snapping together like an Apple employee’s lips when he realizes that you’re a tech blogger.
The downside is price, as to be effective you need to equip every filter and lens you own with its own ring. Lens rings (77mm) cost $33 each, filter rings $12. Kits are available which lower prices, but only slightly lower. However, these days the only filters you’re likely to need are polarizers and neutral density. Everything else can be done in post, unlike in film days (unless you still use starburst filters, in which case you’re dead to me. Dead).
The other thing to be aware of is that the extra thickness up front may cause vignetting on wide-angle lenses, but this, too, can usually be fixed later. The Xume adapters are available now.
Xume adapters product page [Xume via PetaPixel]
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I hate you I hate you I hate you. Fun and frolics with the Sling Shot camera
Here’s a great way to win friends and popularity. It’s called the Sling Shot, and it’s a camera designed to make subjects cower in fear as you photograph them. No longer will your (soon-to-be-ex) friends and coworkers crowd around a tiny LCD screen to see how good they look in your snaps. They’ll already know that you have caught them at their most vulnerable, and they will hate you for it.
The real purpose behind Sung Young Um and Jung Eun Yim’s concept design is to free people from their inhibitions and let them relax in front of the camera instead of presenting the usual lock-jawed grimace. Flip out the y-shaped arms and pull on the cord and the lucky subject will recoil, then realize what’s going on, and then slump in relief with a genuine smile on their face.
You get a great shot, at the expense of being a total douche. Keep going for long enough and you’ll become the Bruce Gilden of cubicles, or find that your packed lunch, which you foolishly left in the canteen refrigerator, has been tampered with.
Candid Camera with a Sling [Yanko]
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The Movie Maker’s Kit. Almost every Lensbaby, ever, in a plastic box
Lensbabys, with their dreamy blur, shifting sweet spots and weird out-of-focus highlights, would seem to be just about perfect for movie makers. The folks at Lensbaby seem to have thought the exact same thing, and have bundled just about everything they sell into a box and called it the Movie Maker’s Kit.
The kit has lenses for both Canon SLRs and for movie cameras using the Arri PL mount, and comes with a host of swap-in optics, including fisheye, soft focus, plastic (the original blurry Lensbaby) and pinhole. It also comes with wide and telephoto converters, aperture kits (the drop-in plates that change apertures) and a macro kit. Here are some samples:
All of this is stuffed into a Pelican case, rendering it practically bomb-proof.
The kit isn’t cheap. You get a lot for your money, but you’ll have to spend $2,900. Part of this is the cost of the PL-mount lens. The standard, entry-level Muse lens costs $150. For PL, it’s $400 (when bought separately). Then again, movie makers are used to spending a lot on their gear, so this might even be considered cheap.
Movie Maker’s Kit [Lensbaby. Thanks, Jessica!]
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Instead of just glancing backwards for free, you can glance downwards for $180
You know how you check what’s going on behind you when you ride a bike? You look over (or under) your shoulder, that’s how. And for the stiff-necked, a cheap mirror will do the job just fine. What you don’t need is a $180 camera and LCD screen.
It looks like somebody forgot to tell the Owl 360 people that nobody needs their product, so they went ahead and made it anyway. The camera mounts on your seat post, and is surrounded by LEDs which come on in the dark to save you buying a separate bicycle lamp, and the 3.5-inch LCD screen attaches to your handlebars so you can shoot a glance straight down instead of backwards, as God intended when he invented the bike.
Think about it. In low light, the camera will be all but useless. In bright sunlight, the screen will be invisible, which somewhat reduces its utility.
Add to this the fact that you’ll have to take the thing off every time you lock the bike up and it starts to seem rather tiresome. And don’t even get me started on charging the thing after every five hours of use.
Should you decide you have to have a rear-view camera, you can order one right now from Owl 360, for the aforementioned sum of $180.
Owl 360 product page [Owl 360 via Oh Gizmo!]
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Remember the Spider Holster? Sure you do, but let me remind you anyway. The Spider Holster is a belt-mount for your camera, letting you hang even the heaviest SLR on your belt securely using a pin screwed into the tripod socket of the camera’s body and a bracket on your belt.
It works great, but the The Capture Camera Clip from Photojojo does the same thing with less weight and without a pin sticking out the bottom of the camera. This makes it ideal for smaller cameras — my Panasonic GF1 looks quite ridiculous with the Spider pin on it, for example.
The Capture Camera Clip comes in two parts. A clip which threads onto your belt (or the strap of a backpack) and a plate which mounts onto your camera. This plate screws into the tripod socket and sits fairly flush — if you have aver used a tripod quick-release plate you’ll see the similarity right away.
Unlike the Spider Holster, which has a V-shaped slot which grips the round head of the pin, the Capture Camera Clip’s plate slides into a matching socket and clips into place. Hit the button to release it and pull the camera out.
It looks ideal for a small camera, and as the weight is down on your hip, you won’t crunch your shoulders carrying a camera with you all day long. And because the camera is held steady and doesn’t swing around, you can even change lenses without juggling everything around.
The Capture Camera Clip is available now, for $80.
Capture Camera Clip product page [Photojojo]
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With their tiny sensors and slow lenses, it’s hard to see the appeal of Nikon’s new ‘1’ range
Nikon has at last gotten in on the mirrorless camera game with the launch of the “Nikon 1″ range. Currently consisting of two bodies and three lenses, the system will soon include an adapter to allow the use of Nikon F-mount SLR lenses.
First, the most important part: The sensor. Nikon has put a small 10.1MP one-inch sensor into the cameras. It is half the size of a Micro Four Thirds sensor, and roughly four times the size of a regular compact camera sensor. And this is where things start to go wrong. One of the best features of large sensors is that they allow photos with a shallow depth of field — pictures where the subject is sharp and the background blurred, for example. Coupled with the rather slow new lenses, you’re not going to be able to get much separation.
There are two bodies, the smaller J1 and the fancier V1. The J1 is a tiny thing, barely bigger than a decent compact, and shoots stills at 10fps, video at 1080p, and has a maximum ISO of 3,200.
The V1 is a lot more interesting. It adds a 1.4 million dot viewfinder, an accessory shoe which works with an optional flash, microphone or GPS unit. The V1 also has a hybrid AF mode which uses both phase and contrast detection for high speed and good low-light accuracy.
The V1 will also shoot a still photo while you record video, which leads to the rather gimmicky Motion Snapshot feature, which I like to call the Harry Potter mode. This “unites a frozen still image with a slow-motion movement set to a built-in audio soundtrack.” Tacky, right?
On to those lenses. The lineup consist of a 10mm (27mm equivalent) ƒ2.8 pancake, a 10-30mm (27-81mm equivalent) ƒ3.5-5.6 and a 30-100mm (81-297mm equivalent) ƒ3.8-5.6. These are sloooow. Even when the F-mount adapter arrives, you might not want to use your super-fast SLR lenses — with a crop factor of 2.7x, that nifty 50mm ƒ1.4 lens you own will turn into an almost useless 135mm ƒ1.4.
Lastly, prices. With the 10-30mm lens the J1 will cost $650 and the V1 $900.
Who will buy these cameras? I would seem to be the perfect target. I own a Nikon SLR and a clutch of great Nikon lenses, and I already use a Micro Four Thirds Panasonic GF1. But these Nikon 1 cameras don’t interest me at all. My lenses already work great on the GF1, and would be useless on these small-sensor bodies (the 85mm ƒ1.8 particularly so, turning into a 255mm monster), especially as the shake reduction is in the lenses, not the bodies.
Sure, these are a step up from the Nikon P7100, the Canon G12 and the Lumix LX5, but if you have to buy a whole new range of lenses anyway, why not go for the already established Micro Four Thirds system, or the giant APS-C sensor Sony NEX cameras? I think Nikon may have screwed this one up.
Available end of October.
Nikon J1 product page [Nikon]
Nikon V1 product page [Nikon]
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
