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It’s not often you get to take a family portrait just before the baby decides to be born. But above all, it is not often that you are photographed with a camera of more than one square meter.
We work in a very large format. The camera is called Bertha, and it has a bellows reach of around four meters. It’s also capable of reaching a magnification of up to 3:1.
Medium-format digital photography is expensive. There’s no two ways around it. Digital large format isn’t even really a thing outside of scanning backs, either. But we are able to emulate the look with smaller sensor cameras.
For large format, we’ve got the “Brenizer Method“. For medium format, we’ve got the Fotodiox RhinoCam Vertex (buy here). This adapter lets you mount your old medium format lenses onto mirrorless bodies to shoot larger than full-frame images.
A decade ago, I stumbled upon a page where someone detailed their process for crafting their own instant film, something similar to Polaroid Type55 or the New55. At that time, the instructions seemed too complex for me to tackle, and I never ventured into the world of instant film creation.
Fast forward ten years, and I’m now prepared to give it a shot. The reason? There’s now a lot more information and instructions shared by others who have explored this fascinating process.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured yet another exquisite and scientifically important image. This time, it’s the “antics” of a pair of actively forming young stars known as Herbig-Haro 46/47. Webb used its near-infrared light instrument to get the shot, and this is the most detailed shot of these stars we’ve seen so far.
Well, I think this has to be the dumbest snake oil nonsense product I’ve seen so far this year. Being sold by the “Ding ding dong crazybtplay Store” on AliExpress, these masks claim to turn your Ricoh GR into a Hasselblad XPan.
Of course, the claim is ridiculous. But, the product aims to let you see and shoot ultra-wide format panoramic images with your Ricoh GR, GR II or GR III. It does this by placing a mask over your lens, essentially cropping at the point of capture.
If you ever needed proof that the universe loves cats, this might be it. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) just unveiled a stunning new image of a nebula that resembles a grinning cat in the night sky.
The image showcases the Sh2-284 nebula, a vast stellar nursery located approximately 15,000 light-years from Earth in the Monoceros constellation. If you look carefully and sort of half close your eyes, you can see a large mouth, nose, eyes and even whiskers.
Large format cameras seem to be popping up all over the place at the moment, particularly on crowdfunding sites. The ONDU Eikan (buy here) seems to be a little bit different, though. As well as being available in the standard 4×5 large format sheet film, it also comes in a 4×10 panoramic variety. It’s currently running on Kickstarter, where it’s already more than doubled its goal.
The Eikan’s creator, Elvis Halilović – shown above with the 4×10 panoramic version of the camera – says that it’s been in the making for ten years. But he says he wasn’t ready to bring this particular one to market until he felt he had something new to offer. Now, he feels that he does with the ONDU Eikan’s modular design.
Phase One has announced its new 150-megapixel Phase One XC (buy here). As medium format cameras go, it’s pretty compact, and Phase One says it’s targeted specifically towards travel photographers. With a price tag of $62,490, though, it’s well outside the budgets of most travel photographers.
Obviously, Phase One doesn’t expect to sell this one in huge volumes. But its compact design, which Phase One says is its “most compact digitally integrated camera to date”, does lend itself well to such work.
While uncommon, DIY medium-format digital cameras aren’t really a new thing. They’ve been around for years, with photographers hacking apart flatbed scanners for parts. Then they rebuild them inside something that vaguely looks like a camera, complete with a slide mechanism for the linear scanning sensor. That’s how this camera from Yunus Zenichowski works, too, but it looks a lot more finished than most.
Yunus has taken a lot of time and consideration into the design of his scanning camera to get things just right. And they’re still not perfect. Yes, it shoots massive 489 megapixels, but he says that it’s by no means a final design and that it would be difficult for anybody to replicate at the moment. A final version is on the way, but he has released the files for the camera in its current state.
The humble Kodak Brownie is one of the most loved and classic cameras ever made. While film has seen a big resurgence over the last few years, the Brownie and many other box cameras like it are still out of commission. We’ve seen new film stocks, sure, but we haven’t seen all of the old formats come back. The Kodak Brownie, in particular, used 117 format film. You can reroll and repurpose 120 format film, but it can be a pain.
So how can you take advantage of Brownie and similar cameras today? Well, you can make them digital, of course. That’s the project that JGJMatt took on with his Kodak Brownie digital conversion. And unlike most DIY camera projects, this one doesn’t use a Raspberry Pi. Instead, it uses the inexpensive (and easily available!) ESP32.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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