Weekly Digest - IKEA Camera, Trashcam Pinhole Camera, Kite Photography and More

I’ve been a little lazy with posting links as I wasn’t overly sure if it was the direction I wanted to take the blog in and more importantly if people were even reading them. In an effort to rekindle my link love, here’s some of my photography (mostly) related links that have caught my eye the last fortnight.

 IKEA Releases Awful Cardboard Camera Known as KNÄPPA

So it appears IKEA has gone ahead and released a cardboard camera known as KNÄPPA. An interesting development that prides itself on its simplistic design of one piece of cardboard, a camera sensor, USB connection and a circuit board.

Some are getting a little too excited and already calling it a game changer/revolutionary but whatever. How is this any better than a mobile phone camera? It’s not. Instagram is a game changer. This is nothing more than a crappy little cardboard camera that is 5 years too late and the hype this is receiving on some websites is ridiculous. Maybe I’m just bitter that it won’t be good for long exposure photography

72 Hours in Shanghai

72 Hours in Shanghai is a stunning documentary/timelapse by Carlos Barria, a talented Reuters photographer situated in Shanghai (oh the envy!). He recently shared the timelapse over at Reuters and also included some interesting behind the scenes information and photos. An interesting read and inspiring at the same time.

 The Trashcam Project

The trashcam project was founded by Christoph Blaschke, Mirko Derpmann, Scholz & Friends Berlin and the Hamburg sanitation department to transform 1.100 litre trash cans into pinhole cameras. Some of the results they’ve captured are intriguing and well worth a look.

Camera – A Short Film

Kite Photography by Martin Pot

Martin Pot recently shared an interesting series of pictures captured with his Gopro camera and a kite (setup picture is included in his post). The results are beautiful and slightly similar to a project I’d love to take on board (but lack the funds) which is purchasing a decent RC helicopter and fixing my 5D Mark II to it. I’ve seen it done with amazing results but the $ involved slightly dampened those plans…

Also Google mentioned this week they will be adding user created kite/balloon photography to Google Maps. Neat hey?

Digital Camera Sensors Explained with… Beer?!

Let’s be honest that camera sensors are confusing. For those of us that have a very basic understanding, Joachim Linkemann has put together a rather interesting pdf document that explains digital camera sensors in a way in which we can all understand by illustrating his points through… beer! What a great idea.

 Ink Riders

Love this series of lego men riding ink waves by Alberto Seveso. Be sure to see the rest of his gallery too. Amazing stuff.

Microsoft Releases App to Create Your Own Cinemagraphs

Want to create your own cinemagraphs easily? Now you can with Microsoft’s newest app Cliplets. It seems pretty useful but for something even more simple I’m really liking the cinemagram app for iPhone. I’m signed up under ‘alexwise’ and have been putting up some pretty average attempts. It’s fun though.

Pentax Fanboys

Not overly sure what to say about this one… Pentax users taking fanboy to a new level? Pretty cool though.

Simulate Studio Lighting with This Useful App

Helpful little web based app that lets you play with different studio light setups to see the effect it has.

$60m of Smuggled Camera Gear Found

Authorities in China recently uncovered a rather lucrative camera smuggling ring with some $60m of camera gear stored. Drool. Apparently camera gear is much cheaper in Hong Kong which created a rather nice market for bringing goods back to mainland China for resale and avoiding taxes. Nice.