Instagram’s filters are meant to mimic the look of vintage and toy cameras, but have you ever wondered which cameras and films you’d need to make analog photos with the same look? The folks over at 1000memories decided to tackle this question and, after a good amount of research, came up with a neat infographic showing the different camera and film combinations you can use to recreate popular Instagram filters.
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Instagram’s popular filters have spent the last year permeating into every corner of the photographic world, but for every one that was included in the app, thousands are left on the cutting room floor. Blake Williams over at Keepsy was given a behind-the-scenes peek into some of the filters that didn’t make the cut. The one above was named “Dirty Bird”.
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What would famous photographs look like if the photographers who created them had been using Instagram? That’s a question that’s answered by Mastergram, a site that takes the work of renowned photographers and passes them through Instagram filters.
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Photo filters that turn ordinary pictures into vintage ones are becoming mainstream. How mainstream, you ask? Well, Facebook is reportedly planning hop onto the bandwagon, adding them to its mobile apps to compete against Instagram. The New York Times writes,

The new feature has been ready for some time, according to two engineers who work at Facebook, but Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, hopes his engineers and artists create more filters before releasing the new product. Both Facebook engineers asked not to be named as they are not allowed to speak publicly for the company about unannounced products.

The engineers said Facebook will introduce almost a dozen photo filters, including some that are similar to Instagram like old-style camera lenses and grainy film. Facebook will also try to introduce new styles of filters with the hopes of drawing users away from other photo apps.

The article also states that Facebook tried to acquire Instagram this past summer, but failed. Brace yourselves — the photo world’s about to become a whole lot more faux-retro.

Facebook Targets Instagram With Photo Filters [NYTimes]

Image credit: Instagram collage by ragesoss

Apple’s upcoming iOS 5 will offer a number of welcome photography-related upgrades for iPhone shooters, but here’s one that will surely cause a love/hate response: filters. The following functions will be available to app developers once the OS is released:

CIAdditionCompositing, CIAffineTransform, CICheckerboardGenerator, CIColorBlendMode, CIColorBurnBlendMode, CIColorControls, CIColorCube, CIColorDodgeBlendMode, CIColorInvert,CIColorMatrix, CIColorMonochrome, CIConstantColorGenerator, CICrop, CIDarkenBlendMode, CIDifferenceBlendMode, CIExclusionBlendMode, CIExposureAdjust, CIFalseColor, CIGammaAdjust, CIGaussianGradient, CIHardLightBlendMode, CIHighlightShadowAdjust, CIHueAdjust, CIHueBlendMode, CILightenBlendMode, CILinearGradient, CILuminosityBlendMode,CIMaximumCompositing, CIMinimumCompositing, CIMultiplyBlendMode, CIMultiplyCompositing, CIOverlayBlendMode, CIRadialGradient, CISaturationBlendMode, CIScreenBlendMode,CISepiaTone, CISoftLightBlendMode, CISourceAtopCompositing, CISourceInCompositing, CISourceOutCompositing, CISourceOverCompositing, CIStraightenFilter, CIStripesGenerator,CITemperatureAndTint, CIToneCurve, CIVibrance, CIVignette, and CIWhitePointAdjust.

Looks like Apple is embracing the idea of vintage filters for iPhone photos and is making it extremely easy to make your own. What this probably means is that we’ll be seeing a huge explosion of bad filters very soon.

(via TechCrunch via PopPhoto)

Image credit: iPhone Filters by adamwilcox

Want to use Instagram filters without using Instagram? Creative director Daniel Box carefully recreated a number of filters from the popular iPhone app as Photoshop actions, providing a quick and simple way to retrofy your digital photos. Download the actions file to get started.

Instagram Filters as Photoshop Actions [dbox.tumblr.com]

One of the benefits of running a gear rental business is that you have a ton of equipment you can use for random experiments. That’s exactly what Roger Cicala, the owner of LensRentals, did with the UV filters he had on hand. One-upping the 19 filter stack we shared a while back, he mounted 50 different UV filters to a Canon 5D Mark II and 300 f/4 lens to see what the resulting images would look like.
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Here’s an educational video that provides a helpful visual demonstration of what a polarizing filter can do for your photographs.

(via Photoxels)

A brief explanation (and examples) of what circular polarizers do and how they’re used in photography.

How far can you go in protecting your gear before people start thinking you have serious issues? We’re not exactly sure, but the guy in the photo above probably crossed that line quite a few filters ago. Thankfully (or sadly, depending on how you see it) the guy isn’t actually an uber-paranoid photographer, but just someone from the BorrowLenses team having a little fun.
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