Scientists in Florida wanted to measure X-rays coming off a lightning bolt so they decided to take an x-ray image of one. Now, I’ve seen experiments where they fire a rocket into the air; a wire trails from the rocket which produces a static charge and…ZAP!
That’s what they did here (I suspect that greenish trail in the image above is the rocket exhaust), but to photograph it, they had to build a camera. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“You can’t just go buy a camera and point it at lightning,” he said. “We had to make it.”
The resulting 1,500-pound camera consists of an x-ray detector housed in a box about the size and shape of a refrigerator. The box is lined with lead to shield the x-ray detector from stray radiation.
X-rays enter the box through a small hole that in turn focuses them, like an old-fashioned pinhole camera.
Because lightning moves blindingly fast, the camera was required to take ten million images per second. One challenge in taking such fast pictures is storing the data. To do so, the x-ray detector had to take pictures at a relatively low resolution of 30 pixels…
What is it about rainbows? This guy went nuts over one:
I’ve blogged about it before. Maybe it’s the challenge of actually capturing the vibrant colors AND creating an image that will move people. If you clicked the previous link, you saw my attempt. The story behind that is here. I only ever seem to see a rainbow when I’m in a car and that time I just happened to have a camera with me. Usually, you have to stop what you’re doing and race to get your camera before the fleeting moment disappears.
That’s what happened last week to Reg Garner when an awesome rainbow appeared over downtown Orlando.
Reg Garner
I was at my desk in downtown Orlando when the receptionist called and said “you must to come up front right now”. When I asked why, she said, “you HAVE to see this rainbow and take a picture”. Well, I’ve seen a lot of rainbows and truthfully was not all that interested but to appease her decided to she what all the fuss was about.
To my amazement, there was an incredible rainbow that seemed to span the whole city with both ends in full view. I scurried to get my camera gear as a cloud moved in and it to totally disappeared in front of my eyes.
Disappointedly, I went back to my windowless office and about 10 minutes later another employee, that knows I take a lot of pictures, came to tell me that it was BACK! This time I had my camera ready and quickly had him drive me a few blocks away to get a better vantage point.
I walked up and down Anderson Street in the rain trying to keep the rain drops off the lens. I knew from the first “click” that I had an amazing photo. I almost always have my camera with me and convinced that 80% of getting a good photo is just being there (with a camera).
Like they say, always have a camera with you! Anyone traveling on I-4 at the time saw it and more than a few people took pictures from wherever they were. The Orlando Sentinel asked for submissions. Reg, a recent president of the Orlando Camera Club, posted his pictures of the rainbow on Facebook. I saw them and let him know the Sentinel was looking for submissions. I felt his images were far superior, not only because of the contrast and saturation…but it was the composition.
Reg Garner
If you look at the other images on the Sentinel gallery, most of them lack that “wow” factor. Sure they captured the rainbow, but it doesn’t leave a mark. It doesn’t tell a story. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Scott Kelby’s advice to getting a really good rainbow is to shoot it in relation to something. In other words, compose it so that it’s not just about the rainbow, but the context of the surroundings. Reg could’ve taken the shot from the office window as someone else did, but instead, he hopped in a car to chase it down and frame it..compose it…you know, really make a picture.
Reg Garner
In case you think Reg is just lucky, one of his rainbow images is hanging in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
Reg Garner
Now that’s golden!
On a different note, if you’d like to add a little color to your photography, check out the limited edition Pentax-Kr.
Pentax K-r
Pentax is making 100 of the cameras and selling them with a 35mm f/2.4 for about $1200 beginning December 24th.
It won’t help you take better rainbow pictures, but it might add a little color to your photography!
If you’re still in the shopping spirit, Canon is offering rebates on the 7D, 60D and Rebel camera with certain lens combinations.
You might remember a past blog post about different services photographers can use to check if their images are being used without permission. Well, now there’s an extension in Mozilla that lets you search various reverse image engines with just a couple of clicks of your mouse.
You have got to check out thiscommercial by Vincent Laforet. He used 225,000 watts of light to shoot at 600 frames per second. Be sure to check out the behind the scenes video too. I wrote more about it on the PetaPixel blog.
I’ve been following the story of New York Times photographer Joao Silva since he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan. When the story first broke, reports said he kept shooting after the explosion. Now The Times has published the photos leading up to the explosion and the frames he shot just after. Amazing.
Lastly, I’ve mentioned The Still Image with Crash Taylor [WARNING: FIRST IMAGE NSFW] in a past blog post. I really like the images because the photographers describe the creative process including equipment, settings and post-process techniques.
Just wanted to share two quick links I found over the weekend.
The first shows images of Earth at night taken from the Space Station. If any of my fellow Floridians are reading this, don’t forget to shut off the lights!
I haven’t done a round-up in a little while. Not that I haven’t found anything interesting, just that I fall into the habit of posting items piecemeal on my Facebook Fan Page.
So let’s start with an amazing composite image of lightning strikes captured over the course of half-an-hour.
Chris Kotsiopoulos
You can see more of the photographer’s work here. He’s got some pretty cool galleries of celestial events.
You might also remember a past blog post where I mention a photographer who captured lightning hitting the Statue of Liberty.
Next, check out the “World’s Best Underwater Photographs of 2010″
Photograph: Alexander Safonov /Barcroft Media
Keeping with the theme, Reuters has a 55 photo slideshow of its best photos of 2010. What I really like about this gallery is that the photographers give extended descriptions in the captions along with the gear and settings they used. Warning: some of the photos are graphic.
Lastly, is this 360-degree, 80 gigapixel (that’s 80 billion pixels) panoramic image of London. The page is a little slow to load, so be patient. Then click “cancel” on the window that explains how to pan and zoom. I love how you can zoom in to see people on the street and inside buildings. In fact, this article gives you more details behind the work and says the photographer had to censor some naughty activity.
If you like gigapixel images, I posted this 1.2 gigapixel image a month ago from game one of the National League Series. Again, use the tools to pan and zoom. If you see yourself or someone you know in the stands, you can actually tag them!
In mylast post, I mentioned a relatively inexpensive program to produce slow motion DSLR videos.
Well, let’s speed things up a bit.
Andrew Reese took 1400 shots in 2.5 second intervals then converted each pair into black and white HDR shots for a total of about 700 images. Then he made this video at 12 frames per second:
Over at PetaPixel.com, I discovered more time-lapse videos taken with Canon DSLRs. The first is of San Francisco taken with a Canon 40D. Here’s the description from the PetaPixel site:
“Photographer Simon Christen shot the various clips using a Canon 40D (10-22mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm) around the San Francisco Bay Area over the course of a year. His camera was always in manual mode, and he adjusted the settings as the light changed due to things like fog and clouds.”
I’ll share one more from Tokyo shot with a Canon 7D by Stefan Werc. I love the shots from the moving train!
On the PetaPixel site, under related posts, you can find many more time-lapse videos. If you’re really into it, then you’ll also love these over at TimeScapes.org.
Personally, I think these time-lapse videos are works of art. Interestingly, though, some people who commented on the PetaPixel site, feel that they lack originality; that they’re just pretty pictures with no story. What do you think?
The second shot is from a photographer who’s taken a picture looking out from his office every day for the last seven years! Not a bad view.
Kind of makes my attempt look lame:
Click for Larger Image
Yeah, ok, it’s not a double rainbow. I seem to remember from my meteorology 101 class that all rainbows are double rainbows, but we can’t always see the second one. So just cross your eyes when looking at mine.
I took that picture last October for Central Florida Lifestyle Magazine. The story, with a different picture, ran in an article a few months later:
click for larger image
A month or so ago, the editor contacted me and wanted additional photos from the shoot. I sent her the picture above (the first one). Well, on Tuesday I noticed the magazine’s Facebook profile picture was from one of their edition’s cover*:
Look familiar? It’s the same picture I took, only the subject has been cut out and placed on a different background. At first, I was excited to see one of my pictures on the cover. But my heart sank when I saw the photo credit was given to another photographer. I contacted the editor and the Facebook image was corrected immediately; but the printed issue went out with the other photographer’s name. Apparently the other photographer took the image of the background. The editor said she would print a correction in the next issue.
On the same day, she asked if I wanted to take on another assignment. Here’s where I need your opinion. My gut says “no”. I’m still a little hurt and peeved by the mistake. A tiny correction inside the magazine which most people won’t read or care about does not compare to the COVER of a magazine which another photographer got credit for. So, right now, I’m inclined to not take any more assignments from them. What do you think? Should I burn that bridge? Or am I overreacting? I understand it was an honest mistake (read below), but it deprived me of a lot of exposure.
I should note that I don’t get paid, per say, for the assignments. Each hour is worth a certain amount of ad space in the magazine.
I’d love to hear your thoughts….
*the magazine has several editions targeting different areas in Central Florida. Each edition is very similar but has a different cover image. So I understand how the mistake was made. They just replace the image and the accompanying headline, but leave everything else, including the photographer’s credit, the same.
Silly restraining order keeping you away from Angelina Jolie? Pfft. Meaningless when put up against the “Mother of All Telephoto lenses. To quote Petapixel.com: “The Canon 1200mm f/5.6 L lens is a legendary optic that B&H calls “The Mother of all Telephotos“. It’s a 36 pound behemoth that costs $120,000 if you can find one for sale — only a handful of them were made at a rate of 2 per year (delivery time was 18 months). When coupled with a crop factor body (e.g. the Canon 7D) and a 2x extender, the lens is the equivalent of a 3840mm f/11.”
See it in action here:
And now baseball fans….check out this image from Game 1 of the National League Series. It’s a panoramic made up of 280 images and totalling 1,242 megapixels…that’s 1.2 gigapixels! What’s really cool is that if you use the tool to zoom in, you can actually see people in the stands! I see you picking your nose!
Here’s one that I didn’t believe at first. New York photographer Jay Fine captured lightning hitting the Statue of Liberty. The first thumbnail in the article clearly shows lightning “near” the statute. The last picture, blown up, actually shows what appears to be a lightning bolt hitting Lady Liberty. I was still skeptical, but then thought, “well, it is a huge lightning rod out in the middle of the water.”
Next up, 10 War Photographs that Changed the World. Number 3 on that list is the one of “napalm girl”, the 9-year old who was burned in a napalm attack on her village in Vietnam. Joe McNally took her portrait in 1995 holding her son. In the portrait you can see the scars on her back.
The Canon 1DMkIV was used for a live Al-Jazeera news broadcast. Find out why the cameraman chose a DSLR instead of a high-end video camera. Judging by the image quality, it’s not hard to see why!
Finally, my jaw dropped when I saw this. Then again, I’m a gadget freak. Canon has a device that looks like a scanner. You rest your DSLR or video camera on top of it and it starts to charge the battery. But wait, there’s more! It will, at the same time, retrieve the images from your memory card! The whole thing is hooked up to a flat screen TV where you can sort the files and even email them to someone! I’m still stuck on the “charge-your-battery-and-download-your-images-while-your-camera-sits-on-the-gadget” part. Dang, my Christmas list keeps getting longer!
