New media artist Kent Sheely took some of his old photographs and recreated them inside the sandbox physics game Garry’s Mod. Each “virtual photo” took about 2-3 hours to recreate: Sheely had to pick out models, set up objects, tweak details, and position everything while looking through the stationary camera view in the game.
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Leica Camera is now nearly half American-owned: the company announced yesterday that it has agreed to sell a 44% minority stake to US-based private equity firm Blackstone Group. Leica Chairman Andreas Kaufmann says the purpose is international expansion:

[...] we are concentrating on further developing the brand and its products as well as on entering new markets in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East

Leica has turned things around quite a bit in the past decade. Back in 2004, Kaufmann purchased 95% of the company for around $85 million. The company reported record sales last year, and although the financial details of yesterdays deal weren’t announced, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the 44% came at a price of $179 million. This would value the company at ~$407 million, meaning the company’s value has grown by a whopping 450% over the past 7-8 years!

(via WSJ via Leica Rumors)

“Exposing to the right” is a well-known rule of thumb for maximizing image quality by pushing exposure to avoid noise, but the equation is changing as the quality of image sensors continues to improve. Ctein over at The Online Photographer writes,

In theory, you can still use the dubious right-hand rule. Just be careful to never blow out any pixels.

[...] Unless you’re sure you’re dealing with a low contrast subject, pushing your exposure to the high side makes it likely you’ll blow highlights. If you’re trying to improve your odds of getting a good exposure, pulling away from the right is a much smarter thing to do. If you know your subject is really high in contrast, pull far, far away from the right. Keep those highlights under control and let the shadows go where they may.

[...] Just, whatever you do, don’t expose to the right unless you’re absolutely positive there are no highlights to get blown. It was a questionable rule to begin with; these days I call it downright dangerous.

‘Expose to the Right’ is a Bunch of Bull [The Online Photographer]

Image credit: Out and about again by c@rljones

Verena Lang of Ivy Design came up with this brilliant idea of a table that conveniently folds up into a giant picture frame when it isn’t needed. They’re built out of wood, plexiglass, and stainless steel, and cost about $2,200 on the Ivy Design site. Of course, you could always try your hand at building your own!

Picture Table (via DVICE via Make via Lifehacker)

Hands on videos and first-impression reviews of Lytro’s new revolutionary light field camera are starting to emerge. Engadget writes,

For now, it really is just a novel toy. A $399 toy that’s certainly within reach of the photography junky in your life, eager for a new twist on an old concept. That may or may not describe you, but mark our words — when Lytro integrates this kind of tech into a larger, more potent shooter: game over.

The extremely minimalistic flashlight-style design shows that the company is aiming at ordinary consumers rather than people who are more serious about photography. You can’t really get simpler than a tiny camera with three controls (on/off, zoom, shutter).

A week ago we shared a photo showing Nikon’s factory in Thailand submerged due to the catastrophic flooding happening there. The latest news is that both Nikon and Sony have had their camera factories severely damaged, which may have cause delays of at least 1-2 months. 90% of Nikon’s SLR cameras — the low to mid-range ones — are produced at the company’s Thailand plant, while 100% of Sony DSLRs are made at its now-damaged factory.

Nikon was expected to announce a new DSLR by the end of this year, but it seems like that may be postponed indefinitely at this point. Sony’s new NEX-7 and A65 cameras have been pulled from Amazon due to “manufacturing concerns”.

(via The Nation via 43 Rumors)

Two years ago, Flickr partnered up with Getty to allow Flickr users to sell photographs, and today Getty announced that its “Flickr Collection” has grown to over 250,000 images. Getty also revealed that the above image titled “Rock Concert” by Flickr user Michael Bodge is their best seller. No word on how many copies it has sold, though.

(via AllThingsD via Geeky Gadgets)

P.S. Brownie points to anyone who can find the original Flickr page for this photo.

Update: Michael Bodge himself wins the brownie points. Here’s the original Flickr photo.

Lytro has finally announced its revolutionary consumer light field camera. It’s a tiny camera with built-in storage, an 8x f/2 lens, and a design that looks more like a futuristic flashlight than a point-and-shoot camera. The camera captures “living pictures” that can be refocused by the photographer and the viewer, which means focusing is completely eliminated from the process of taking a picture. An 8GB that stores 350 pictures will be priced at $400, while a 16GB with a 750 image capacity will cost $500. The camera will start shipping in early 2012, but you can order one now over on the Lytro website.
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Daily photo projects have become quite popular as of late, and a number of viral time-lapse videos feature people who take one self-portrait a day over many years. However, if you think taking a photo every day requires a crazy amount of dedication, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

For an entire year, from April 11, 1980 through April 11, 1981, legendary performance artist Tehching Hsieh punched a time clock and took a self-portrait every hour (i.e. 24 times a day) on the hour. At the end of the year, he ended up with 8,760 photos and combined them into a time-lapse video showing the passing of a year (and the growth of his hair). Now that’s crazy!

Thanks for sending in the tip, Lloyd!

Adobe’s amazing Image Deblurring demo was the star of the Sneak Peeks event at Adobe MAX 2011, but it was just one of the many demos shown that night. Another interesting photography-related demo was for “Pixel Nuggets”: a feature that lets you search a large library of photos for features (e.g. people, landmarks, patterns, logos).
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