Mike Johnston on the camera he would like to own, a decisive moment digital (DMD) camera.
So there you have it: a small, light, unobtrusive carry-around camera with great handling and world-class responsiveness, capable of being used in all manner of lighting conditions and yielding DSLR-quality results on the gallery wall. The 21st-century equivalent of Henri Cartier-Bresson's stealthy street-shootin' Leica.
Demo film of the Polaroid SX-70 made by Charles and Ray Eames but set to a soundtrack of The Cramps performing Garbageman. Wot? (via spurgeonblog)
When you take a picture with an S.L.R., there is a distinctive sound, somewhere between a clatter and a thump; I worship my beat-up Nikon FE, but there is no denying that every snap reminds me of a cow kicking over a milk pail. With a Leica, all you hear is the shutter, which is the quietest on the market. The result -- and this may be the most seductive reason for the Leica cult -- is that a photograph sounds like a kiss.
That's Anthony Lane in the New Yorker.
Leica is offering a "perpetual update program" for its M8 digital camera.
In keeping with these proud traditions, but now in the age of digital technology, Leica introduces it's perpetual update program which makes the LEICA M8 a digital camera in which, uniquely, owners will be able to incorporate the latest refinements and developments in technology. While other digital cameras quickly become outdated and are replaced by new models, Leica's new concept allows it's customers to invest in the photographic equipment they need sure in the knowledge that they will not miss out on improvements and technological developments in the future.
The first upgrade adds a hard-to-scratch sapphire glass LCD screen cover and a quieter shutter.
Update: Just to be clear, the upgrade program costs money. According to Gizmodo, the first upgrade is $1800. On the plus side, each time you upgrade, they extend the warranty on the whole camera for two years.
An examination and celebration of the Leica by Anthony Lane in this week's New Yorker.
Asked how he thought of the Leica, Cartier-Bresson said that it felt like "a big warm kiss, like a shot from a revolver, and like the psychoanalyst's couch." At this point, five thousand dollars begins to look like a bargain.
Exploring the Leica web site after reading the article, I was intrigued to learn of Leica's á la carte program for customizing an MP or M7. Tempted... There's also a limited edition titanium M7 that retailed for ~10,000 euros.
Instead of megapixels-worth of light sensors, a new experimental camera uses a series of mirrors to focus all the light on just one sensor. Somewhat related question that I've been wondering about for awhile: why do digital cameras need shutters? Why can't you just turn the sensors on and off electronically? Seems like you could then use many more arbitrary "shutter" speeds, like 5 seconds or 1/50000 of a second.
Nikon recently sent a bunch of new D80s to some Flickr photographers and are now using some of the shots those photographers took in an ad campaign. "Nikon did what every major brand should be doing...it got out of its own way and let the real people that counted do the talking: their own consumers." PDF of the ad spread.
LifePixel will modify your digital camera (Nikons or Canons, mostly) to shoot in infrared. "Camera manufacturers stop infrared light from contaminating the images by placing a hot mirror filter in front of the sensor which effectively blocks the infrared part of the spectrum while still allowing the visible light to pass. We remove this hot mirror filter and replace it with a custom manufactured infrared filter."
New Yorker piece on Clifford Ross' new camera, a "high-resolution digital video camera that shoots in three hundred and sixty degrees". Ross is one of my favorite contemporary photographers.
Cripes, Hasselblad makes a 39 megapixel digital camera. Cost: around $30,000. (via yp)
Quick review of the Nikon D80, the successor to the popular prosumer D70 SLR. 10 megapixel, but still no wifi.
Advice for cleaning the CCD image sensor on Nikon digital SLR cameras. Doesn't look that scary....does anyone have any experience doing this? My D70 needs a little TLC in this area.
Clever photography technique: using a SLR camera to shoot through the viewfinder of a twin lens camera, which are typically older cameras with large viewfinders. Mr. E is an early practitioner of the technique.
A group of photographers are planning to turn a giant abandoned airplane hangar into the world's largest camera (a pinhole camera to be precise). Reminds me of the Cameratruck.
Satugo is a fun little camera that you can throw in the air or bounce to get some unusual photos. Love the pull-string for the quick but steady shots.
Nikon has issued a recall for certain batteries used in the D100, D70, and D50...the battery has a flaw that may cause it to overheat and melt. Check the site for your battery's lot number to see if you're affected.
Several companies who manufacture digital cameras have issued "silent recalls" due to a faulty chip distorts photos when it fails. Sony, Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and others are affected. Digital Photography Review has more; here's the Nikon D2H & D70 advisory. (A "silent recall" isn't an official recall...the companies are only repairing items in which the faulty chips fail.)
Update: Eliot sez: That's the wrong service advisory for Nikon...it's an unrelated problem. Here's the related advisory...doesn't affect any of their dSLRs.
Neat visual history of Nikon SLR cameras. It would be neat to make an animation of how the cameras changed through time.
Story of how Kodak developed the first digital camera in 1975 and then sat on the technology for years and years until they finally entered the market and, luckily for them, were able to grab the top stop from Sony and Canon.
Nikon is releasing a pair of digital cameras with built-in wifi. The cameras will only send photos via wifi to a designated Nikon application, but I wonder how long it will be before someone hacks the firmware to send those photos anywhere...like to Flickr on the fly.
Barcode tattoos + mobile phones with cameras = business card (or, say, a list of your sexual preferences) on your arm.
A contemporary photo taken with a circa-1914 Kodak. For some reason I always thought old photos looked old because they were old. But really it's mostly the camera's doing.
Getting nostalgic: the Nikon Coolpix 300 was my first digital camera. Eight years later, my phone takes much better photos than this thing does.
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