The Black Magic Cinema Camera, if you remember from its surprise announcement this spring, is a $3000 video camera that shoots 12-bit RAW 2.5k video files. No other camera on the market offers this capability at such a low price. More »
There’s a big frame in Polaroid’s Photokina booth — a giant, blown up version of the iconic white border that graced the company’s instant photos for so many decades, beckoning passersby to stand behind it and pose, like muscle man cutouts at a traveling carnival. Directly to its right, attendees stand around a row of product from the company aimed at recapturing some of the nostalgia inherent in the Polaroid name. It’s nothing compared to the gathering at a booth 20-or-so feet across the room, where international guests stand fascinated by the Instant Lab, an accordion-style gizmo that transforms iPhone images into instant photos, utilizing film produced at the last remaining Polaroid factory, since purchased by a company fittingly named “Impossible.”
The early 21st century is a strange time to be the head of a company like Polaroid, standing at a bit of a crossroads between new and old technologies, attempting to harness the cache (and nostalgia) that comes with 75 years of history, while keeping up with the latest trends in digital imaging and slates. We sat down with the company’s CEO Scott Hardy to discuss precisely what it means to be Polaroid in 2012, where the company goes from here and how much looking back is necessary to keep it moving ahead.
Continue reading The Engadget Interview: Polaroid CEO Scott Hardy (video)
The Engadget Interview: Polaroid CEO Scott Hardy (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 13:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Since your average talkie is now recorded onto SD card and SSDs, companies that produce old-timey film are feeling the squeeze. As such, and despite its own efforts, Fujifilm is shuttering a large part of its cinema business by March 2013. While it’ll continue to produce stills film (for the time being, at least) and archival material similar to Kodak’s Asset Protection film, moves are under way to redirect its focus toward digital tools that won’t be left behind as people start to make movies on their smartphones.
Continue reading Fujifilm sees which way wind is blowing, ends production of cinema film
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Fujifilm sees which way wind is blowing, ends production of cinema film originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Sep 2012 16:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The oldest known color film footage has long been traced to a reel from 1909. But that was before Michael Harvey, the curator of cinematography at the National Media Museum in England, discovered an old forgotten tin in the museum’s archives. After examining the stock, Harvey discovered it was actually color test footage dating all the way back to 1902. That makes it officially the oldest color footage in the world—or, at least, the oldest that anyone in the world knows about. More »
Cached away for over a century, the world’s first color moving pictures have been shown for the first time yesterday, according to the National Media Museum in the UK. The celluloid, shot by inventor Edward Raymond Turner in 1899, was actually in black and white and it was only through a curator’s research that its colorful significance was also unearthed.
When the footage was first shot, each frame was run consecutively through red, green or blue gels, and the process needed to be reversed during projection to reveal the color. Fortunately, a blueprint by the inventor of how to do just that was also found, allowing the institution’s team to replicate the process digitally to produce the final footage.
This type of color gel processing didn’t take off in the early 20th century due to the mechanical complexity, and it would have been inferior to a chemical process since each frame carried only one-third of the full color information. Still, it required a clever mind to dream it up, with an equally big brain to uncover it and finally give Turner his due. See the video below the break for the stunning un-retouched, non-hand-colored results.
[Image Credit: National Media Museum]
Continue reading World’s oldest color film footage discovered in museum archive (video)
World’s oldest color film footage discovered in museum archive (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Now here is a Kickstarter project that would definitely appeal to many folks, especially when you consider how it is capable of transforming your iPhone photos into instant film. Basically, the Instant Lab from Impossible Project lives up to its name, and according to the Impossible Project co-founder Florian Kaps, “Digital images look great, but there is one big disappointment: They don’t exist in reality, they are not real.” Do you agree with that particular statement, or otherwise?
We do know that Impossible Project was reborn a couple of years ago, where the instant film churned out by it would work with existing Polaroid cameras back then, including the iconic Polaroid 600 and the SX-70. Based in the Netherlands, all of Impossible Project’s products are churned out from an old Polaroid factory. At time of publishing, Instant Lab will play nice only with the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S, but needless to say, the iPhone 5 is definitely in the company’s sights for sure.
To use Instant Lab, just open the app, select the photo that you want to project, and the app will get about using its own algorithms to set the brightness levels as well as time the phone’s display will be on to make sure that the film is properly exposed. You follow that up by setting a timer while placing the phone into a cradle on top of a set of “bellows,” opening up the shutter above the film. Should the timer go off, it will trigger the camera to expose the film and the user then closes the shutter, ejecting the film just like you do with an old Polaroid camera.
Instant Lab is said to come with a $299 price tag, although Kickstarter backers can get theirs for $189. As at press time, it seems that the Instant Lab is on track to arrive in February next year for a truly vintage Valentine’s Day.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Openfilm brings indie movies to Verizon FiOS TV, Convert your negatives and slides into digital photographs with the iConvert,
The New York Times is reporting that 20th Cenutry Fox is going to offer high-quality movie downloads weeks ahead of Blu-ray release using the DRM locker service UltraViolet. Costing around $15 a pop, it’s planning to start with the upcoming release of Prometheus. More »
What’s there not to love about Lomography and their various low-fi cameras. Sure, your smartphone probably has nicer resolution, but the analog flavor of these little cameras is hard to beat, even with Instagram’s retro effect filters.
The new Diana Baby 110 is Lomography’s newest tiny camera. The miniscule camera fits in the palm of your hand and produces technically flawed photos that lomographers will adore. The camera is compatible with a wide-angle 12mm lens or a 24mm standard lens, which are made out of plastic, hopefully not the cheap kind.
The Diana Baby 110 uses 110 film that’s available in color or black and white directly from the Lomography website. The socket on top will accept a flash, if you’ve got a PC Flash Adapter. The camera sells for $49 (USD) from Lomography, but for $59 you’ll get the kit with both lenses.
[via NOTCOT]
Kodak may not be beloved by digital filmmakers, but it’s not fallen out of love with the talkies. It’s new “asset protection” cinema film is designed to save motion pictures from being lost if your digital-storage-medium-of-choice is rendered obsolete. It’s designed for long-term archive storage, with your Hollywood blockbuster stored in a “human-readable” format that’ll remain usable “well into the future.” As such, the reels are loaded with dyes that will reportedly remain stable for “decades,” but the company thinks will remain viable for over a century — in stark contrast with the short life of your average hard-drive. It’ll add a monochrome offering to the range later in the year, but if you want the color version now, your people will have to talk to Kodak’s people, Mr. Producer.
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Kodak announces ‘asset protection’ cinema film, thumbs nose at your digital movie collection originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Kodak is really closing out its era as a photographic monolith, opting to sell off its film business entirely. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Kodak will not only sell its print film production, but also its digital imaging kiosks, and the printers and scanners that go with them. More »
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