Homemade flash diffusor from take-away container

Homemade flash diffusor

Flickr member potatomato posted a photo set on how he made a flash diffusor from a plastic take-away container.

He writes:

The Gary Fong Lightsphere is a flash diffuser that is gaining popularity with wedding and portrait photograhers world wide. His product is selling at a pace that the manufacturer can’t keep up with. This Flickr photoset demonstrates the use of a to-go container to make your own.

View photo set on Flickr

Via MAKE Blog

OMFG! J and C Photo developing new film range!

As many of our customers know we have spent the last few months looking at how to best provide as many film choices as possible. We have looked at many ways to bring new films to the market. This includes plans going forward right now to operate our own coating facility and producing high quality films in various formulations.

Over the next 18-24 months we are planning on introducing the following films to the market. All films we produce will be available in 35mm roll and sheet film formats.

Continue reading at J and C Photo

Who said film was dead?

Via the always excellent Online Photographer

JPG Magazine issue #6 now available

Hot off the presses: JPG Magazine Issue 6: Oops!

There’s magic in mistakes. There’s something special in the spontaneous. Because it’s in those moments when photography becomes more than just a document. It becomes something real.

This issue of JPG is about your best "Oops!" photos. Whether it was faulty settings, old film, the random photo on the last frame of film, or the last photo a camera ever took, this issue features some of the finest slip-ups, freak-outs, and happy accidents ever captured on film or pixels.

We’re also joined by featured photographer Rion Nakaya, who shares some of her favorite serendipitous moments, and Ryan Gallagher, to talk about camera toss photography.

We photographers can’t help being detail-oriented. We notice things. Our eyes can’t help but frame reality. It’s what we do. But it’s always good to be reminded that control is an illusion, and sometimes the best photos are the ones that sneak up on you.

More info and order from JPGmag.com

Aerial pinhole photography!

This one’s via Dennis at Captured Starlight, who writes:

Daniel G’s work continues to amaze and surprise me. Daniel has long been into aerial photography using RC model planes (with small digital cameras controlled from the ground with servos). More recently, Daniel has taken up pinhole photography (some of his previous projects have been posted here previously). All along I’ve secretly been hoping that Daniel would combine his two hobbies and make an aerial pinhole camera. Well, Daniel took me up on my offer of a free pinhole and used it to make exactly that. The results are astonishing!

See the results and follow his progress at Photoplane Pinhole Blog!

Blueeyes Magazine: Shen Wei portfolio update

Blueeyes Magazine write:

I’m very happy to announce the publication of the latest installment of our Blueeyes Magazine portfolio feature with the launch of a new body of work by photographer Shen Wei. Shen’s work focuses on the exploration of emotional nakedness, and we are proud to present his terrific work and celebrate the way that his photographs push forward the documentary tradition in portraiture.

If you have missed our previous installments of the monthly portfolio series, please take the time to check our newly launched archives in order to see amazing portfolios from photographers Tomas Munita, Rich-Joseph Faun, and Ami Vitale.

Check it out at blueeyesmagazine.com

mooncruise* July 2006 issue 2.02 is up

Cover of mooncruise issue 2.02, July 2006

The July 2006 issue (Vol 2, Issue 2) of mooncruise*, an online magazine featuring photography and music by international artists, is now up and ready for viewing.

In this issue

PHOTOGRAPHY by: Andrea Ferrer, Adam Makarenko, Adelyn Leong, Andrea Ferrer, David Mitchell, Davide Bernardi, Elena Ciobanu, Eran Mahalu, Espen Aasheim, Julia Blank, Lesley Silvia, Matthew Moore, Peter Schmucki, Robert Jan Zuur, Roberto C. Madruga, Sazeli Jalal, Ted Kerr, Thomas Ekstrom, Tim Schroeder, Tod Seelie, Tomas Minambres Lara.

MUSIC by: Phowa

mooncruise.com (requires Flash 8)

The Monkey Arm: DIY flexible clamp tripod

I truly detest carrying around a tripod unless I know I’m going to need it. However, I do find myself needing an extra level of stability quite often. To solve the problem I threw together this, The Monkey Arm. The Monkey Arm consists of a length of Locline with a clamp epoxied on one end and a quarter twenty screw on the other. Locline is a modular hose system used predominantly in salt water aquarium tanks.

Read instructions at Munkey Film

Via MAKE Blog

Fujifilm Fine Art Museum inkjet paper

Fuji press release:

Fuji Hunt’s dedicated R&D division has long been developing methods to bring digital printing media to a par with traditional papers. Now, a new trio of especially smooth finishes have passed the quality barrier and represent the very best materials on which imagery of all types can be printed.

Fuji Hunt’s range of FUJIFILM Fine Art Museum inkjet media, which has already proven extremely popular with users seeking a higher than average result, especially when used for display and exhibition work in both black-and-white and colour, has been extended with three additional products: Fine Art Museum Baryt paper; Fine Art Museum Smooth RAG paper; and HD White Cotton Canvas.

Baryt, or baryta, photographic paper has long been recognised for its superior smooth finish. Traditionally, the baryta sizing used on this paper overcomes any fibrous effect by filling the pores of the paper via a barium sulphate suspension, the material then being calendered to produce an exceptionally smooth surface. This gives images printed on it a high level of sharpness, maximum tonal range and separation, while also avoiding contamination by any impurities in the paper base.

Creating baryt paper is an extremely specialist process, and it is usually only used for the best hand finished fine art printing. However, with FUJIFILM Fine Art Museum Baryt paper, Fuji Hunt has launched a unique inkjet 300gsm version which incorporates all the benefits of a silver halide baryt paper, and enables a superb level of reproduction or original imaging to be achieved across a wide range of applications.

In fact, the density rating (d-max) of the product is higher than that of traditional silver halide baryt paper, enabling images to be created which exhaustive testings and close examination have shown to be of a higher grade than pure silver halide.

Initially, FUJIFILM Fine Art Museum Baryt paper is being supplied in roll form in sizes to fit all the FUJIFILM/EPSON Stylus Pro printers, with cut sheet form in sizes up to A3+ (329x483mm, 13x19ins) due in the autumn.

The current Fujifilm Fine Art 300gsm Photo Rag paper is a mould-made fine art paper with special matt coating which has proven a leading medium for high quality fine art reproductions. Now, the company is introducing a unique smooth version called, appropriately, FUJIFILM Fine Art Museum Smooth RAG paper.

The unique structure of this material ensures not only that beautifully finished and highly contrasted images will result, but also that the material will stay flat, without the curling which often faces users of smooth heavyweight media.

Canvas materials have long been popular for printing reproductions of works of art and for showing fine art photographic work to its best. So it is that Fuji Hunt is completing the new smooth trio with a high-density 400gsm brilliant white canvas called FUJIFILM HD White Cotton Canvas.

This specially coated pure cotton canvas brings a vitality to images printed on it which was not previously possible on authentic canvas materials. Its brilliant white finish enables bright, vivid colours to be shown as fresh as newly painted. When used for black-and-white prints and reproductions, this product comes into its own as it produces maximum contrast images with the full gamut of subtle mid tones and shades.

Altogether, these new media take the field of inkjet printing to a new level of excellence and authenticity not previously possible, and are expected to make a strong impact on its markets.

For full details of the FUJIFILM Fine Art Museum media contact Greg Jackson at Fuji Hunt Digital Solutions by telephone: 02476 455 575, email: gjackson@fujhunt.com or visit www.fujihunt.com

Via PhotographyBLOG