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Animation Arts Film Photography 

Timelapse Video on effects of aging reveals something unexpected

A video project called “Danielle”, released by filmmaker Anthony Cerniello attempts to portray the effects of aging on the face, and does so to good effect, but it also reveals something I personally found more interesting.  I’d recommend watching the video before reading the rest of this article, as there are some spoilers ahead. Danielle from Anthony Cerniello on Vimeo. First, a little background.  Last year, Cerniello went to his friend Danielle’s family reunion, and took photos of many of her extended family members.  From there, he selected the photos of members who had the most…

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Arts Computing Photography Production 

Canon 60D or Nikon D7000: A Filmmaker’s Decision Part 3

It’s been a while since I first embarked on this 3-part article. Since then, life happened as it always does and before I knew it, quite a bit of time has passed and the digital camera landscape has completely changed. But always for the better. Newer and more affordable video and cinema cameras have surfaced that surprised everybody. For the sake of completing this series, I will not discuss any of the new developments. That is best left for another article altogether.

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Arts Computing Featured Mobile Photography 

Nokia impresses at MWC with 41 megapixel PureView 808

Nokia, which has long held the crown as ‘best camera on a phone’ with their 12 megapixel N8 today upped the ante with the announcement of their PureView 808 phone. The phone will ship with a custom 1/1.2″ sensor, much larger than most smartphone cameras. While this leads to a noticable hump on the back, the results make up for it, as it sports a 41 megapixel sensor, enabling it to capture images up to 38 megapixels in size.

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Arts Film Hardware Photography Show video 

Filmmaking on a Lo-Fi Budget: The $4 Focus Lever

I first saw this while looking for some kitchen utensils at a home/kitchen store. It is a silicon jar opener. Composed of a rubbery silicon material with a hard plastic tightening collar, it is made to open the toughest of jars.

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Arts Featured Film Mobile Photography 

Splitscreen: A Love Story shot on Nokia N8

Winner of the recent Nokia Shorts 2011 filmmaking competition, Splitscreen: A Love Story is a short film shot entirely with Nokia’s N8 mobile phone (in 720P @ 25fps). The surprisingly watchable footage uses dual frames to represent two ‘days in the life’ — one set in Paris and one in New York — with the shots arranged to show the two lives proceeding in harmony, half a world apart. (They don’t stay apart, though. Watch and see.)

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Arts Featured Film Photography Science 

Lytro lets users focus on capturing the moment, not fiddling with auto focus.

The company Lytro uses a new light field sensor that allows digital cameras to record all the light that is moving in all directions in its field of view. The most obvious benefit is that there would be no need to focus before the pictures are shot. Once the image is captured, the user can select the focal point.

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Canon 60D or Nikon D7000: A Filmmaker’s Decision part 2

Nikon was the first camera company to enable HD video recording on their D90 DSLR in 2008 and thus ushered in the ensuing frenzy that took hold of the video world. For once in the history of video cameras, there was now a sub-$7000 camera that shot 720p 24fps HD video on a sensor that dwarfed even broadcast cameras, but as well allowed people to interchange and use the seemingly endless variety of DSLR lenses! It was the independent filmmaker’s dream come true. Thus the HD-DSLRs were born.

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Computing Featured Photography Production 

Adobe and the mobile revolution: tablets, napkins, and the creative process

It’s been a busy month for Adobe so far. Hot on the heels of the recent preview of Photoshop on the iPad, Adobe has today released the official Photoshop Touch SDK for tablet devices. The fact that Adobe has decided to release an SDK is exciting, since it strongly indicates that not only are we a step closer to a full-featured Photopshop app for tablets, but also full Photoshop integration into the core builds of third-party applications. From the press release: The Photoshop Touch SDK and a new scripting engine…

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Nikon announces the D5100 DSLR, coming late April

Today Nikon announced the newest addition to their line of DSLR cameras. Fitting in nicely between the entry level D3100 and high-end prosumer D7000, the D5100 replaces the D5000. Now Nikon has a complete range of 1080p video capable DSLRs to combat Canon in every price point. The D5100 is a substantial upgrade from its predecessor, and features many of the same spec’s as its bigger brother, the D7000. It has a 16.2 MP sensor, 3 inch 920,000 dot flip-out display, 11 AF points, and an IS0 range of 100-6400….

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A Filmmaker’s Decision: Canon 60D or Nikon D7000?

Part 1 Everyone around here knows I’ve been looking around for a new camera for a while.  Being an independent filmmaker who shoots primarily narrative-based (fictional) films, I have certain specific requirements that are very different to the requirements of a photographer.  Now that DSLRs have come into their own – especially with indie/low budget filmmakers – when the camera manufacturers enabled Full 1080p HD video recording capabilities on these DSLRs, it has opened a world of possibilities for the indie filmmaker.  Before, the choice was a bit clearer when…

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