Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
It keeps fascinating me how much we don’t know about the underwater world and how many remarkable species are still being discovered. One of them is a new species of jellyfish that MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) recently discovered.
Found in the depths of Monterey Bay, California, the team scientifically described the new species of crown jellyfish. But they also caught it on camera so all of us can enjoy seeing it (and perhaps be slightly terrified by it).
If Instagram’s recent incentive had you to get off TikTok and post Reels instead, TikTok now has a counteroffer. Its new program, TikTok Pulse, is created to share ad revenue with creators. And we’re speaking of a fair split: 50 percent of earnings will go to the platform, and the creators will get to keep the other 50 percent.
Total lunar eclipse is a great source of inspiration for astrophotographers and an opportunity to take some amazing photos. And this year’s first lunar eclipse is just around the corner, bringing along some extra treats.
On the night of 15 and 16 May 2022, astronomy and astrophotography enthusiasts across the world will be treated to a total lunar eclipse. It’s also dubbed “Blood Moon” as the moon turns red when it reaches totality. The event coincides with a supermoon, as well as the full moon, so we’re in for quite a spectacle.
I think somebody’s probably going to get into trouble over this for breaking an embargo, but a YouTuber by the name of DM Productions has posted a complete unboxing video of the DJI Mini 3 Pro as well as a first flight and first impressions of the drone in use. The DJI Mini 3 Pro has been rumoured for quite a while with DJI finally posting a cryptic teaser on their website on Thursday.
The official announcement is expected on Tuesday, May 10th but it looks like somebody jumped the gun a little early so that they could get all of the YouTube traffic before all of the other websites and YouTubers who are sticking to the embargoes and NDAs they agreed to. I expect they’re all going to be a little pissed off right now.
Qualcomm has posted a video showing what they say is “Professional-quality” 8K HDR footage from the Xiaomi 12 smartphone. It’s the world’s first phone that offers 8K HDR video capture and features the new flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. It all sounds very impressive until you actually look at the footage to see that, honestly, it kinda just looks like somebody took 1080p footage and scaled it up.
In fairness, all tech has to start somewhere and this is the first smartphone to incorporate 10-bit 8K HDR using Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor – although it’s not the only device out there using this chip – so it’s going to take a little work. But right now, it kinda looks like somebody just took 1080p footage and scaled it up.
A Pennsylvania bride was shocked to receive her wedding images to find that “crazy eyes” had been photoshopped onto anyone who was blinking. Anaya Ramos-Bridgeford had been excited about viewing the images from her wedding but was left in hysterics when she spotted the error.
Anaya subsequently posted the offending photos to Facebook giving pretty much the entire world a good laugh. It turned out, however, that the fault wasn’t that of her wedding photographer, but of the editing company he had outsourced the retouching to.
Could this be the latest death knell for Instagram for still photographers? The social media giant Meta is reportedly testing a new feature of Instagram that makes users’ feeds full screen, in a bid to compete more directly with rival TikTok.
Its desire is to “bring video more front and centre” on the platform, however, in doing so, it makes video even more of a central feature over that of its traditional still photos-based format.
An 83 megapixel image of the sun has been captured by the Solar Obiter in a joint project by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The images were taken in March when the when the spacecraft was crossing directly between the Earth and Sun and show unprecedented detail.
The image was taken by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) and is the highest resolution image ever taken of the Sun’s full disc and outer atmosphere, the corona.
It appears that Canon is set to discontinue the Canon EOS M6 Mark II. There’s been no official announcement, of course, although there never really is when Canon discontinues a product. They only make a big song and dance when new products are announced. But Canon Rumors says they’ve received reports from two different countries that the Canon EOS M6 Mark II, released in 2019, has been discontinued.
If true, and with no Mark III successor announced, this is possibly the strongest signal so far that Canon does indeed intend to kill off the EOS M line and create an APS-C version of their RF mount mirrorless system. Rumours of a high-end APS-C EOS R7 have been surfacing again lately, and it’s not the only APS-C RF mount camera rumoured to be announced this year, either. Canon is usually pretty good about announcing successors before camera models are discontinued. So, the fact that an EOS M6 Mark III has not been announced is quite telling.
Sigma opened up its new headquarters in the Kanagawa prefecture of Japan last month. It’s a pretty fancy looking building and while it looks like something of a tourist attraction, it’s not open to the general public. Luckily for us, YouTube channel Gizmomo Freaks had the opportunity to get a look inside the company’s new building for the grand tour of the facility and was able to shoot some video.
The building features some interesting areas, from the photo book library that’s built into the walls around the main staircase, the rooftop garden and even a “lens cellar”; a climate controlled room that showcases all of the cameras and lenses Sigma makes. It also has interesting open plan office areas, a very traditional office design in Japan.
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