Free stuff is always nice, and free photo stuff is even nicer. Canon and Ilford have teamed up for a new promotion called Try My Photo through which anyone can upload a photograph and have an 8×10 print made and sent to their residence free of charge. The promo will last until the end of August 2011.
Update: This is only available to US residents, sorry.
Vodafone recently ran a pretty creative advertising campaign called “Pixel Hunt” for the purpose of illustrating how many pixels LG’s 5-megapixel Optimus phone packs. They published a 5-megapixel photograph (presumably taken with the phone) on a website and invited people to zoom in and click individual pixels, with 100 of the pixels “containing” a free Optimus phone. It took 300,000 visitors a whole month to click each of the 5 million pixels.
Now if only Canon or Nikon would do the same thing with their flagship DSLRs! I wonder how long it would take a 21-megapixel photo to be fully clicked by rabid Canonites/Nikonians. Any guesses?
(via Mashable)
Deal of the day website Groupon is the fastest growing companies in web history and a popular way for local businesses to generate some buzz in their areas, but some independent photographers are finding out the hard way that offering special deals through Groupon might be the worst marketing decision they ever made.
Read the rest of this entry »
Photographer Danny Cohen does things a little differently than most. Wanting to work for photographer David LaChapelle, Cohen eschewed all the boring old methods of self-promotion and opted to plaster a 43-foot sign on a bridge in Melbourne the night before LaChapelle was scheduled to shoot there. The banner read “ATTN: DAVID LACHAPELLE I WANT TO BE YOUR ASSISTANT .COM”.
Cohen received a call from LaChapelle within an hour of the renowned photographer seeing the banner.
Here’s a humorous introduction to the Arri Alexa digital motion picture camera by Inspiration Studios. Though they have the Canon 7D available for rent, they don’t seem to think too highly of it.
If only there were educational videos of this style for every camera on the market… That would make learning quite enjoyable.
Photographer Clint Davis was previously the Art Director at a national magazine, so he has first hand experience on the type of photographer promo that grabs the attention of clients. Recently he himself needed to do some self-promotion, so he decided to get creative and create promo mailers filled with awesomeness. He writes,
Most of the promo pieces [Davis used to receive] were 4×6″ postcards with a picture on one side, and printed addresses on the other side. Stale, non-personalized, and probably frayed at the edges, the postcards rarely made it from the mail room to my desk. But a box?!? A freakin’ box??? NOW you have my attention. Maybe it’s just me, but when I get a box in the mail with a hand-written address, a slow fuzzy feeling comes over me and my eyes open 43% more than usual. YOU good box are coming back to my desk for a thorough dissection.
Above all I wanted to make a self-promotion mailer that wouldn’t get tossed in the trash right away. Considering the caliber of ad agencies, magazine photography editors, athletic teams, and select others that will receive this mailer, that is a tall order to accomplish.
Amateur Photographer magazine is doing something about all the stories in the news of photographers being stopped and harassed by police in Britain. They’ve created a special lens cloth that has guidelines that were issued to Metropolitan police officers last year printed on. The lens cloth set will be bundled for free in the July 10th issue of the magazine, which hits newsstands on July 6 and lands in the hands of subscribers on July 3.
Now who’s going to step up and make one for photographers in the United States?
Image credit: Photograph by Amateur Photographer
This past month Canon Canada ran a promotion where each purchase over $200 CAD came with a free collectible Canon Lens Travel Mug.
Not to be outdone, Canon HongKong is now offering a special collectible of its own: the EOS Digital SLR 50th Anniversary Stamp Box Set. The value of these collectible items are roughly in the same range (~$37), but the printers this promotion applies to are far more expensive than $200 CAD, with the cheaper one being $565.
These stamps were released last year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Canon single lens reflex cameras, and contains 20 stamps that each display one of Canon’s 20 SLR cameras made since 1959.
Supposedly only 3,000 of the box sets will ever be made, but it looks like they’re having a hard time getting rid of them at HK$280 (~$36), since they’re being bundled with pro printers now. If you happen to live in Hong Kong or know someone there, you can still purchase the stamps by themselves.
Update: If you’re outside Hong Kong and dying to get your hands on one of these sets, you can currently find some being sold on eBay.
There’s a new video on YouTube showing a gigantic shipping container camera promoting a Samsung camera. In the video, bystanders can actually use the “camera” by inserting some money into a coin slot, and then having someone jump onto the massive shutter button on top of the shipping container. The resulting photograph is then displayed on a gigantic screen atop a nearby building.
It looks like this whole thing is simply a viral video created by Samsung. Here are some indicators:
Anyhow, fake or not, it’s a pretty fun idea. If only they actually created something like this (albeit safer) in some big city.
(via Trend Hunter)
Looks like the Canon 70-200mm might not be as “collectible” as we all previously thought. Perhaps after seeing how the mugs went viral online, for the next two weeks Canon will be including a collectors mug with any purchase in its Canada eStore over $200 CAD. In the promotion they state that the value of the Canon Lens Collectors Travel Mug is $39.99 CAD. If you’re in Canada and were planning on buying gear anyway, now might be a good time.
Thanks for the tip, jersel!
Update: Justin informs us that you can buy the mug directly for $29.99 CAD from Vistek.
