A woman who calls herself “Missy” has launched a new channel on YouTube dedicated to tongue-in-cheek videos on how easy being a professional photographer is. It’s pretty funny how much bad advice she can give while staying in character and keeping a straight face. The informative first video above is on using the professional mode (“P”) on your camera to take advantage of your professional DSLR.

Family Posing That’s Real

The Importance of Accessories in Professional Photography

To Print or NOT to Print

Market Yourself

If you think about it, the videos are actually quite informative… just as long as you do the opposite of everything she teaches!

‘Life In A Day‘ is a historic crowdsourced documentary film that shows what the world was like on a single day: July 24, 2010. People in 140 countries around the world captured snippets from their lives on that day and submitted 80,000 video clips to YouTube. Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald and executive producer Ridley Scott then edited those 4,500 hours of footage into a 95 minute long feature film. After debuting at Sundance and being streamed on YouTube earlier this year, the film is now free to watch. Enjoy.

(via YouTube via PhotoWeeklyOnline)

Last month, Sony’s not-yet-announced A77 DSLR was revealed in leaked photographs, and now there’s a video that gives us a another sneak peek at what the 24-megapixel camera will look like. The short 30 second video was uploaded to YouTube yesterday with the title “sony alpha A77 ?” and description “Taiwan”. Rumor has it that the camera will become official later this month.

(via sonyalpharumors via Engadget)

Did you know that earlier this year YouTube added a free image stabilization tool to its video editor? It lets you smooth out the jitter in your videos without having to shell out dough for an expensive rig or software solution. The downside is that the stabilization makes your video look like it was shot by a robot.

Here’s the non-stabilized version of the above clip:

Another example of a stabilized clip:

The original non-stabilized version:

To have your own video stabilized, visit the YouTube Video Editor, drag your clip onto the timeline, then click the magic wand icon over your clip.

(via NYTimes via John Nack)

The concept of hyperfocal distance is used in landscape photography to achieve the greatest depth of field and acceptable sharpness for both near and far objects. In the two minute tutorial above, wildlife photographer Chris Weston walks through some hyperfocal distance focusing techniques. You can also find a couple informative tutorials at DOFMaster and Cambridge in Colour.

“Oops”, created by Chris Beckman, is a 10 minute art video composed entirely of appropriated YouTube videos in which the camera is accidentally dropped. What’s amazing is how seamlessly the clips are stitched together, making it difficult to discern where one clip ends and the next begins. The result is mesmerizing.

The film won first prize in the “Experimental” category at this year’s Vimeo Festival + Awards.

Terrorists aren’t the only people photographers are being mistaken for in the UK — upscale shopping area Multrees Walk in Edinburgh has begun targeting photographers after a string of thefts by ram raiders, or burglars who drive large vehicles through the front of stores and then loot them. The above video shows a confrontation with security that occurred after a guy and his friend snapped a photo of a shop window.

Amateur Photographer reports,

Though the street is privately-owned, stopping photographers in such areas often sparks outrage, as these locations are considered by many as public spaces.

AP understands that retailers were concerned that photographs could be used to identify security-sensitive information, such as the location of CCTV cameras or the type and make of shutter used to protect a shop front.

The spokesman confirmed that there are no signs at Multrees Walk to warn photographers against picture-taking.

Too bad there’s no wait to prove you’re not a photographer by day and ram raider by night.

(via Amateur Photographer)

Here are two videos shot with DSLR cameras that show a laser briefly passing over the camera and damaging the sensor permanently. Both were shot with Canon 5D Mark II cameras:

See the white line that appears immediately after the laser sweeps across?

It’s interesting how similar the two lines are, especially given that both people were using the same camera. Hopefully none of us ever see the “white line of death” suddenly appear on our LCDs.

(via Laughing Squid)

The Royal Family is really getting into social media: in addition to their YouTube channel, Twitter, and series of iTunes podcasts, the Family now has a Flickr account which went live to the public this morning. Currently, the British Monarchy’s photostream contains 683 uploads of both recent and older historical photographs. According to an announcement from the Royal Collection, photos will be continually added to the account. The Flickr account launch was scheduled to coincide with the summer opening of Buckingham Palace. Some of the images featured on the photo-sharing site are to be featured in the exhibit, The Queen’s Year, which opens tomorrow at the Palace.

This beautiful video shows world champion freediver Guillaume Néry plunging into Dean’s Blue Hole, the world’s second deepest underwater sinkhole. It was filmed by Julie Gautier, a French freediving champion, using a Canon 5D Mark II. Gautier filmed the video while freediving herself, and the stunts were filmed over four afternoons.

Though the video is an artistic project and doesn’t show a single dive (reaching the bottom is likely impossible), it’s a beautiful film and one of the more unique uses of the 5D Mark II that we’ve seen.

(via Gizmodo)

Thanks for the tip Pelle!