In 1998, this US Navy photo was published, showing a Nikonos camera no one recognized from the IPTC caption:

NAVAL AIR BASE CORONADO, California (June 8, 1998) — Navy SEALs attached to SEAL Team One, Naval Air Base Coronado, CA, conducts training using the Nikon/Kodak DCS 425 underwater digital camera which can sends real time digital images to decision makers, and an LPI LPD tracking device uses brevity codes to send both mission status and precise longitude/latitude. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Ted Banks. (RELEASED)

The enigmatic photo and description sparked much interest — this is a digital SLR that requires no underwater casing, and was far advanced for its time with its built-in tracking, real-time uploading, GPS, and communications. The underwater film Nikonos RS camera existed on the market already, but this futuristic iteration was unheard of in 1998.

What’s more, Kodak denied existence of the camera altogether. When Jarle Aasland of NikonWeb did some research into the matter in 2005, Kodak told him:

“I’m sorry but those cameras never existed here at Eastman Kodak. We never made cameras for that specific use. The information you have is incorrect.”

Another Kodak source told him:

“I think the issue is who they were made for.”

After further investigation into the mythical camera, Aasland finally found photos of the camera listed on eBay, hard evidence of the cameras existence. He published a story on his findings.

Days after Aasland published his article, he was contacted by Kodak’s lead engineer for the DCS cameras, Jim McGarvey. As it turns out, the camera was not quite top secret, but it was so low-profile that few knew about it, including Kodak Professional, McGarvey said. Quite simply, the specialized cameras were not advertised on a consumer level, since they were designed for government use, McGarvey wrote:

“The Nikonos body cameras were made by Kodak’s Commercial & Government Systems division. Through most of the DCS years, that group would take our commercial camera designs and adapt them for government and other special needs. Some of that work was secret, but most of the products were simply only marketed in limited venues and didn’t appear on the commer[c]ical photography radar screens. I don’t think the Nikonos cameras were ever actually secret.

…I have no idea how many Nikonos units were built, but I doubt the total would be over 100. They had no super secret special communications stuff, just standard DCS420 features.”

While it’s still highly unlikely that we’ll see such a formidable does-it-all camera on the mainstream market anytime soon, it’s pretty fascinating to see how today’s consumer products are taking a step in that direction. Some 12 years after the legendary digital Nikonos, we’ve got cameras equipped with GPS, wi-fi enabled cards for real-time uploading, and a plethora of hardy, underwater point-and-shoots on the market.

(via Nikon Rumors)

Animated films have had enjoyed increased exposure on the big screen this year. Films like Pixar’s Up, Miyazaki’s Ponyo, and Ari Folman’s animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir,  have received widespread critical acclaim, demonstrating that while animated films can be family-friendly, they are at their core a dynamic and imaginative medium with impressive potential.

Two major animated films this year, Henry Selick’s 3D film, Coraline, and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, utilize an old animating technique that has been used for nearly a century: stop-motion.

According to the IMDB websites of both films, the individual frames of Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox were captured with Nikon DSLRs: the Nikon D80 and D3, respectively, along with a variety of other lenses, bodies, and equipment. Additionally, several Canon bodies can be spotted in a Wired.com video feature on Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Producer Jeremy Dawson notes how differently the film was produced because it was on a digital medium: instead of director Wes Anderson being present during the entire filming process, captured photographs could be remotely accessed and viewed for his approval, no matter where he was physically. The final film consists of 5,229 shots, 621,450 frames, an average of 120 gigabytes of data was captured per day, and the total storage for the images took up 18.5 terabytes of space.

Coraline also seems to have its share of behind-the-scenes camera aficionados; the titular character can be seen in one scene using a Leica camera.

Both films are visually captivating. Coraline director Selick does not stray far from the styles of his previous animated masterpieces, James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Director Wes Anderson’s trademark vintage color palette also stays consistently impressive.

The behind the scenes featurettes of the films are worth a watch as well, and provide some interesting insight into the tedious effort and tremendous amount of time put into making these gorgeous motion pictures.

The Making of Coraline

Behind the Scenes of Fantastic Mr. Fox

As I stated last week, the poll I posted was based on an article I came across on CNN that said money was the world’s greatest cause of stress. I wanted to see if this was also true for PetaPixel readers, and included other causes of stress listed in decreasing order of stressfulness. Here are the results:

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Interesting. CNN was right.

Anyhow, back to photography. I received an email last week from Toby L. suggesting that I ask our readers what you do with your photographs, so here goes:

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If you do something with your photographs that wasn’t listed as an option here, please do share it with us by leaving a comment. Has anyone done anything super creative with their photographs?

As a side note, I haven’t done a giveaway in quite some time, but will be posting one in the next day or two, so stay tuned!