Photographer and designer Helen Sham of Taiwan has constructed a Hasselblad 503CX film camera with LEGO blocks. As if that wasn't impressive enough, it's functional. No, it doesn't take actual photos but watch this video to see what pieces move just like the real thing.

She writes:

I made this in about 2 hours, consisting of 1120 parts. It includes a mirror, a spring-loaded shutter button and a running counter had the camera have actual film.

The build is an entry in LEGO Ideas contest, which means, with enough supporters, it could become a real product in the future. The project currently has 700 supporters and needs 10,000 to be considered for review by LEGO.

Previous LEGO Ideas' builds on BB

(PetaPixel) Read the rest

Ricardo Palacios, a 74-year old rancher, had gotten used to Customs and Border Protection officials tromping across his south Texas ranch lands without permission over the years. But finding a wireless surveillance camera set up in one of his trees? Not OK. Upon discovering the device, Palacios removed it immediately. It wasn't long after that he started receiving calls from CBP and the Texas Rangers demanding that he turn the camera over to them or face charges.

Having taken enough of their shit, instead of turning the camera over, Palacios gave the feds something else instead: a lawsuit.

According to Ars Technica, Palacios, who's been a lawyer for 50 years,  named the two agencies and a CBP agent in a lawsuit that accuses them of violating his constitutional rights, by trespassing on his land, and setting up cameras where ever they damn well please. It's an important case: CBP claims it has a right, within a 100-mile radius of the American border, to stop people (including U.S. citizens, which flies in the face of the Fourth Amendment,) search cars and personal belongings in the name of border security, without a warrant. But this doesn't allow them to go traipsing on to private property in the name of their duties without permission. They're only allowed to  do that within 25 miles of the border.

Palacios' ranch? It's 35 miles away from the edge of the U.S./Mexican border. This alone would be enough to warrant a suit against the government. But there's more:

As Palacios alleges in the civil complaint, his interactions with CBP began in April 2010 when his two sons were stopped at a checkpoint along I-35.

Chris Fay captured this cool shot of a helicopter ascent where the rotors are in perfect synch with his camera shutter, creating a delightful and unintentional effect. Read the rest

Push your monitor, processing speed, and internet connection to the limit all at once with this remarkable 8K timelapse of Iceland. Read the rest

Korean artist Ji-Hee Lee makes all sorts of classic cameras as paper models, like this 1989 Rolleiflex. Here's a photo of the actual camera: Read the rest

One of the products that Snapchat owner Snap Inc. is developing as “a modern-day camera company” is a drone, reports the New York Times today.

Sources for this bold claim are “three people briefed on the project who asked to remain anonymous because the details are confidential.”

The drone would help users take videos and photographs from overhead, then share that visual data with Snap, and presumably, other users of the service.

Snap is scheduled to go public later this week in a long-anticipated IPO. Read the rest

Remember the Lily Drone that automatically follows you while filming? After generating almost $50 million in funding and pre-sales, Lily is shutting down in wake of litigation that concluded their too-good-to-be-true demo video was not shot on the Lily. Read the rest

I have a Fuji Instax instant camera and it's a lot of fun to be able to spit out and share prints in the age of Instagram. But it's also an ugly soulless blob of a gadget that seems optimized to be the least carryable or volume-efficient possible. The Polaroid Snap series seems to fix that problem, but the prints look like wafer-thin inkjet slips rather than the meaty, OG polaroid slabs I want. Lomography has its own model out, the Lomo Instant camera: it uses the Instax system and I'm furiously curious about how convincing the retro styling is outside of the product photography studio.

Advanced Lens System: One built-in wide angle lens included, plus additional Fisheye, Portrait and Close-Up lens attachments available

Three Stunning Editions: Choose from three different stylish editions of the Lomo’Instant!

3 Shooting Modes: Shoot photos with auto-flash on for immediate great results, or take direct control with the creative shooting modes (with flash and without flash)

Unlimited Multiple Exposures: Combine multiple shots on one frame for amazing experimental instants

Infinite Long Exposures: Perfect for low light, dawn/dusk and nighttime shooting. Get artistic with light painting and create beautiful light streaked instants!

Amazon reviews are mixed. Anyone tried it? Read the rest

The Camera Collector tells the story of a vintage camera collector who fell in love with cameras in the 1960s, against the wishes of his father. After saving all summer for his first Leica, his father was waiting when he returned home. "When he saw it was a camera, he started punching me." Read the rest

These work.

I like center-pinch lens caps as they try to hold themselves on. I don't bother with the leashes, they get in my way. I just buy more caps when I lose them.

I lose a lot of them. Sometimes I wonder if there is a section of the Pacific gyre dedicated to my missing lens caps.

The link is for 52mm caps, but you can adjust the size on the Amazon page and buy whichever you're currently losing. The only lens cap I've held on to (thus far) is the weirdly unique one for my Nikon 14-24 F2.8

5 Center Pinch Lens Cap (52mm) and 5 Cap Keeper Leash"5 Center Pinch Lens Cap (52mm) and 5 Cap Keeper Leash via Amazon Read the rest

Dino Everett of USC's Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive shows off a nifty little gadget: a working 3mm movie camera developed by Eric Berndt in 1960 for NASA's Mercury missions. Read the rest

University of Stuttgart researchers used 3D printing to fabricate a tiny three-lens camera that fits on the end of an optical fiber no wider than two human hairs. Eventually, the technology could lead to a new kind of very thin endoscope for looking inside the human body. According to the researchers, the camera delivered "high optical performances and tremendous compactness." From Phys.org:

(The camera) can focus on images from a distance of 3.0 mm, and relay them over the length of a 1.7-metre (5.6-foot) optical fibre to which it is attached.

The "imaging system" fits comfortably inside a standard syringe needle, said the team, allowing for delivery into a human organ, or even the brain.

"Endoscopic applications will allow for non-invasive and non-destructive examination of small objects in the medical as well as the industrial sector," they wrote (in their scientific paper).

Below, the lens (blue) was fabricated directly on the optical fiber (red). The fiber and camera are emerging from a hollow, 27 gauge syringe needle:

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If you've gone to great lengths, spending big bucks to get a new digital camera that looks like an old film slr, you might as well have the ugly camera strap to match!

This $6 strap from Meco is perfect. These are sturdy, but gaudy, masterpieces of a certainly-not-forgotten-age. That age was documented in Kodak Gold by your Mom or Dad, with a Nikon FMNT or Nikkormat that dangled from a Joseph and the Technicolor Coat-styled camera strap just like this one!

Heck they even call it a "neck belt."

Vintage Soft Multi-Color Universal Camcorder Camera Shoulder Strap Neck Belt via Amazon Read the rest

Infrared photography (see Fortherock's hummingbird above) is beautiful. Read the rest

The low-light footage above is about 400,000 ISO. Imagine 4 million ISO, and you'll have a good idea of the newly-announced Canon ME20F-SH that indie filmmakers, wildlife documentarians, and investigative journalists are all discussing this week. Read the rest

Cooperative of Photography released a great video with 8 DIY tips to improve your smartphone shots, ranging from super-simple and cheap to fairly simple and maybe cheap. Read the rest

Over the past decade I've been annoyed with traditional camera straps that go around your neck or diagonally across the body. I've tried retro looking 70s camera straps, sling straps, and eventually just carried my camera in a bag and didn't use anything to secure the camera. I found this to be a surprisingly good solution, but I still wanted some safety measure in case the camera got knocked out of my hand.

I got the Gordy Lug-Mount Wrist Strap for Christmas as a gift along with the optional wrist pad, and it's proven extremely secure, non-restrictive, and also doesn't look like a disposable nylon cargo strap. This camera strap is guaranteed to increase sexual potency by 7%. Also it will most likely keep your camera on your wrist and off the ground.

Gordy's Wrist Strap ($18, $31 with optional Wrist pad) Read the rest