Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
The Pinsta Instant Camera is an interesting new pinhole camera that lets you develop and even enlarge prints using the camera as its own darkroom.
The project is currently on Kickstarter and was created by Oliver New, who believes that analogue photography is for everyone. He grew up watching his dad developing his photographs in their darkroom and wanted to share that magic with others in this digital age.
I am notoriously difficult to find backpacks for, as I’ve mentioned on here before. I picked up a Tamrac Cyberpack 6 quite a while ago and it took 16 years to finally find another bag that felt as nice to wear. Now, I’ve found one that blows both of them away in the comfort stakes. Completely. That bag is the Cosyspeed PhotoHiker 44, which was recently launched on Kickstarter (and hasn’t quite ended yet).
What makes it so special? Well, unlike most camera backpacks, it’s a hiking bag that you can carry camera gear in. Rather than a camera gear bag that you can put on your back. This means it’s designed specifically for all-day carrying comfort while still being able to hold a lot of gear. Allow me to explain…
I’ve used light meters for as long as I can remember in my photography. While many don’t believe they’re still required with digital photography, I still always have my trusty Sekonic in my bag. They are very popular with film shooters, though. Light meter design hasn’t really changed all that much over the years, but one company believes they don’t really fit the aesthetic of modern film shooters.
Negative Supply (you might remember their film scanning holder from a couple of years ago) believes most people are shooting old metal cameras and so they should have a metal light meter to go with it. So, they’ve released the Negative Supply LM1, an all-metal, pocket-sized light meter that measures both ambient light and flash, as well as colour temperature, via Kickstarter.
All too often these days, photography backpacks seem to simply be based around “How much gear can we shove into it?” with things like comfort and actual usability brought on as an afterthought. This is fine if you’re just shifting gear between your car and a client’s location, but what if you’re carrying it all day on a hike?
Well, Cosyspeed’s new Photohiker backpack, made in collaboration with outdoor equipment specialist Vaude, is built specifically for that kind of use. It takes its carrying system design straight from high-end hiking and trekking packs to make carrying a heavy load all day as comfortable as possible while also keeping your camera gear safe and easy for you to access.
This is an interesting piece of kit. It’s not the first product of its kind (nor the cheapest), but it does offer a couple of unique advantages. It’s called the BAD Wrap and they’re wraps for your camera gear. But these ones are padded, waterproof and hold their shape without velcro. BAD Wrap currently funding through Kickstarter, with pledges starting at $18 for the smallest one.
It’s a neat idea and I’ve used microfibre cloths and velcro straps for similar uses in the past – usually to stop lenses from banging together inside my camera bag. And if it’s going inside a camera bag, I’m not sure what extra protection it needs. But for covering up gear that’s not being stored in a bag, it could potentially be quite handy!
Lav mics have been around for years. Virtually all of us who shoot video have used them at some point or another. But they’re annoying. You have to deal with clips that often puncture or scrunch up your clothes – which isn’t a great look for the camera. But the CharisMic thinks it’s solved the solution through the use of magnets.
It’ a neat solution that allows you to clip a microphone either on top of underneath your clothing, and when it’s underneath the magnet is hidden under one of several cute little badges. It’s already up on Kickstarter, where it’s already gone way past its goal with two weeks still to go and pledges starting at $77.
These days, there are a lot of modifiers out there for speedlights, but this is certainly amongst the more unusual ones I’ve seen. It’s the “Dualflash” and it’s about to launch on Kickstarter. What it essentially does is turn your single speedlight into two. Kind of. It splits the output into two separate sections, but its practical uses seem fairly limited.
Like most speedlight modifiers, it slots over the head of the flash and then holds on with a velcro strap. It sits directly across the centre of the Fresnel lens splitting its output into two distinct areas, allowing you to then gel and alter them independently. At least, that’s the theory. How well it’ll do in reality… I’m not convinced.
Sliders and monopods, what do they have in common? Absolutely nothing. Until now… In fact, they’re kind of meant for the opposite things, but the folks over at Moza have a really clever take on this, and they joined the two together. Now, we have the Slypod Pro, a brand-new slider/monopod combo that packs a serious list of things it can do.
Well, this is pretty unique. A motion-controlled motorised orbiting camera rig. Developed by Josh Yeo of MAKE. ART. NOW. along with Axibo, the Marbl Orbit is a motion control rig that gets suspended from your ceiling to… well, spin a camera around you or whatever your subject is. And it can do it in realtime, slow motion or even timelapse.
The video above explains the goals of the product, who it’s targeted towards and what it attempts to achieve for them. Essentially, it’s a way to let you film yourself or a subject in a new and interesting way that doesn’t require a film crew. And it’s fairly affordable, too. It’s currently running on Kickstarter, with super early bird pledges starting at $799.
The initial launch of the first NONS SL42 was about this time last year. It was an M42 SLR that uses Fuji Instax Mini instant film to let you make instant prints with your interchangeable M42 lenses, and you were actually able to see what the lens sees through the viewfinder so that you know exactly what you were going to get in your shot
Well, there’s a new NONS SL42 Mark II version that’s popped up on Kickstarter. The M42 mount has been replaced by a passive EF mount, letting you mount pretty much whatever you want to it (M42, Nikon F, etc) through the use of adapters. But what’s really interesting is that this one comes with a “NONS Format Extender” (NFE), making your 135 format full-frame lens fill that 62x46mm medium format frame.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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