Multi-tools are pretty convenient when you’re wandering around the great outdoors, but they’ve never really been a friend specifically to photographers. That changes with Gerber’s new Steady multi-tool, which turns into a mini-tripod using fold-out legs on one side and a fold-out tripod screw on the other. It also has 11 other useful tools to help you get things done. The Steady will be available starting in Spring 2012 for $65.
This is the first color photograph ever taken underwater. It’s a hogfish captured off the Florida Keys in 1926 by National Geographic photographer Charles Martin and Dr. William Longley. In addition to some special waterproof camera housing, the duo used pounds of highly explosive magnesium flash powder to illuminate the scene. Read the rest of this entry »
Lyrebirds are ground-dwelling Australian birds that have the remarkable ability to mimic sounds, both natural and artificial. In addition to copying the calls of other birds, they imitate whatever they hear around them, including the sound of cameras if photographers are working nearby.
This short BBC clip features a Lyrebird that makes realistic camera shutter sounds (including the motordrive sound). It only runs 3 minutes, but if you want to skip to the camera-related part it’s at around 1m50s.
If you want to make your camera stealthy for whatever reason (maybe wildlife photography?), there’s special camouflage-patterned bags or cases you can buy to put your camera in. Those can be pricey though, and an easier do-it-yourself solution is to simply tape up your camera with some camouflage duct tape. Instructables member Nano_Burger posted a series of photos showing how he did this with a cheap film camera.
It’s always fun listening to photographers recount once-in-a-lifetime experiences that lead to once-in-a-lifetime photographs. In this short National Geographic video, photographer Brian Skerry describes what it was like to get up close and personal with a 45-foot-long whale. We only wish there was a little video to go along with his wonderful storytelling!
Think it’s difficult to muster up enough courage for street photography? At least strangers don’t eat you! This wildlife photographer got quite a scare while shooting a pride of lions when a lioness decides to investigate him. Luckily, he escapes without a scratch and now has a great story to tell his buddies.
Can anyone identify the camera and lens he’s clutching in his hand?
While watching a nature program on primates I was struck by their facial similarity to our own. Humans are clearly different to animals, but the great apes inhabit that grey area between man and animal. I thought it would be interesting to try to photograph gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans using the aesthetic of the passport photograph- its ubiquitous style inferring the idea of identity.
I decided against photographing in zoos or using ‘animal actors’ but traveled to Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia to meet orphans of the bush meat trade and live pet trade. [#]
For the BBC documentary “Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice”, special hidden cameras were designed with unobtrusiveness and durability in mind. They didn’t succeed very well in either, as the polar bears quickly detected and destroyed the pesky cameras intruding on their privacy. What they did accomplish was capturing footage showing what it looks like to have polar bears perform CPR on you. Luckily they didn’t have real photographers crouching in those domes!
Remember the controversy last year surrounding the use of a captive wolf in an award-winning wildlife photograph? Turns out this kind of deception might be common practice in the world of wildlife filmmaking.
Chris Palmer — the producer and director of quite a few notable wildlife films — has written a new book titled Shooting in the Wild in which he exposes many of the “dirty secrets” of nature documentaries.
The above video is an ABC Nightline segment in which Palmer discusses many of the tricks used in the business, including using trained animals, dragging dead animal carcasses to locations, digging fake dens, and even telling outright lies in the narration. One shocking example is found in the Academy Award winning documentary White Wilderness: a scene that seems to show lemming suicide was actually created by pushing lemmings off a cliff using a rotating platform.
Palmer also reflects on the question: does the positive good these faked scenes do justify the dishonest tricks used to create them? What do you think?
Update: Seems like the Hulu video above isn’t accessible to those outside the US. Here are a couple more links you can try: ABC News and Link TV.
Here’s an interesting gadget that can help you with wildlife photography, or can simply make you look beastly while doing street photography. This tactical sight can help you lock your camera onto a faraway animal, making finding it much easier to find when you start looking through your massive telephoto lens. With longer focal range lenses, it can be pretty easy to lose sight of where exactly your subject is, and finding it again might require pulling your eyes away from the viewfinder. This sight can help you more accurately lock onto the subject prior to using the viewfinder.
After poking around a bit, it looks like this is actually a Phantom Tactical Sight for rifles that has been rebranded and repurposed for photography:
The sight can project a point, circle point, circle cross, or cross onto the screen (it’s not a laser pointer), and has two colors (green or red) and three intensities. This gadget will set your back about $45. Happy shooting!
