This 1923 Leica O-series prototype is one of only 12 remaining in the world. It was built to test the market for 35mm cameras prior to full production in 1925. When this series was first auctioned back in 2007 it fetched a ‘mere’ $336,000 euro.

Last week though at Vienna’s WestLicht Photographica auctions, this rare O-series, thanks to an anonymous bidder, ridiculed the price of the world’s previous ‘most expensive camera’ by over $800,000.

This camera really does mark the beginning of consumer photography, but is it really worth $2.8 million? Our basic maths tells us that the buyer spent close to $400,000 in tax for this purchase!

Check out the video below to see the action. I’m pretty sure the girl holding the camera at the end has the world’s scariest job!

I recently attended the FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley, London to support my team (which is Everton if anyone asks) and after the disappointing result all was forgotten for another trip to the London stadium. However, something caught my eye a couple of weeks later. A company, 360 Cities, had been commissioned to take a ‘Gigapixel Panorama’ of the stadium when in full swing.

I decided to visit the website and peruse the image that had been taken. There were some inconsistencies with the stitching and blending of the hundreds and thousands of images but all in all, the overall result was nothing short of mind-blowing. An image had been previously created for the 2011 FA Cup Final and it held the unofficial record for “the world’s largest sports photo” however the team at 360 Cities wanted to achieve a greater, better image.

360 Cities used a Digital SLR and had to borrow a workstation capable of 16 core processing and 256GB of RAM. The final image for the 2012 Final came out at an impressive 25 gigapixels. Let’s bear in mind that 1 Gigapixel is 1000 times more than 1 Megapixel, it puts into perspective the scale of that job.

With the ever present use of Social Media, 360 Cities allowed people to tag themselves who attended the final, the previous total of 24,000 was the target to beat and they are hoping to achieve the accolade of ‘most tagged photo of all time.

The concept of gigapixel panoramas isn’t just restricted to stadia, many world cities have had panaroma created which allow people to view in amazing detail the streets and architecture of buildings. Companies are also commissioning them so they can engage potential customers by hiding products in them.

Gone are the days where I can remember flicking through old 6” by 4” prints that I used to get and thinking to myself ‘I only have 36 shots in this film, I need to be careful what I take photos of.’ I never would have dreamt there would have been images created that can show so much detail.

More information on the Wembley Panorama.

360 Cities site can be found here.

View on YouTube

It was a technique that originated with film photography and added a unique element of surprise that many photographers craved within the dark room.  It is also a technique that is still use to this day among many hobbyists.

I want you to follow my steps in the video to understand the complete process, but I also encourage you to experiment with the steps that I show you and create imagery that is fun for you!

You can find downloads for tons of free gradients like the ones I used in the tutorial here.

Follow me on twitter: @kineticbear

The satellite captured the photo from 22,369 miles away at 121 megapixels, ‘eclipsing’ NASA’s high res image, the Blue Marble, which was made up of multiple images of the earth and was a mere 8000x8000px in resolution.

In addition to taking the photograph, the satellite also captured a mind-blowing time-lapse video of the northern hemisphere. In the video below you can see the sun sweeping across the earth over the course of a day with the clouds floating through the sky. Look closely and you can see the incredible shadows cast by the mountains as the sun creeps across the horizon.

The colours of the new photograph are notably different to the Blue Marble. Elektro-L captured both visible wavelengths and the infrared wavelengths emitted by plants which results in the rusty brown in place of the regular green.

You can find the new zoomable earth photograph here.

What do you think of the new photo of earth? Be sure to watch the time-lapse video below too. If anything it’s even more incredible than the photo!

The LEDs were said to give a ‘sapphire radiance’ against the night sky. Here are eight gorgeous photographs of the festival showing the colours and the vibrance of the spectacular event.

The LEDs, supplied by Panasonic, were designed to illuminate when they came in contact with water. For those concerned, don’t worry, they were all collected with large nets shortly after the event.

One of the challenges in making this video, was trying to get good storm with stars shots. The opportunity doesn’t come along very often, the storm has to be moving the right speed and the lightning can overexpose the long exposures.

Randy shot his film using a Canon 5d MkII using 30 second shutter speeds and an ISO of 1600-3200. Check out his vimeo page for some more details, pictures of the setup and a few things to look out for.

Enjoy!

Creative Suite 6

With the latest release of the Creative Suite, CS6, Adobe is looking now towards a world driven by mobile influence. With a large majority of the programs having some aspect of mobile driven production in it, Adobe still haven’t forgotten their roots in print production.

Illustrator

Starting with Illustrator CS6, the first thing you’ll notice is that the application window is a dark grey colour – this is commonplace with all new CS6 products, but can be changed. The main improvement will be one that you won’t actually find in a menu – it’s the Adobe Mercury Performance System. It allows native 64-bit support on Mac and Windows and you can access all the RAM on your computer to easily open, save and export large files. The overall improvement is that the whole thing feels faster and more responsive.

Pattern Creation is another big selling point for Illustrator CS6. Allowing you to create a sample area for a pattern, it will then repeat this the way that you need. A more efficient interface allows for a quicker and more improved workflow, with things like precise colour sampling and inline editing of layer names. Another big feature is gradients on strokes, whether it’s across the width or along the length of the stroke, this is a new feature that wasn’t available in CS5.

Photoshop

Over in Photoshop this is where we see some mighty improvements. Yet again we see the Mecury Graphics Engine come into play. We see almost instant results when using tools such as Liquify. When using most layer styles we see almost instant results which are always going to be a huge bonus for time-dependant designers. CS5 seen the Content-Aware Fill tool really take off, in CS6 it’s vastly improved allowing you to choose the area that Content-Aware will use to create your patch. There are also new design tools, allowing for dashed lines to be created easily, quick search layers, formatting with type styles. One of the new tools that will have photographers drooling is the new Crop tool. You can crop images a lot quicker and with far greater precision, including a non-destructive crop tool. You can level your wonky horizons as well with ease.

InDesign

Over in InDesign we see a lot more influence on digital output, although its roots are still well cemented in print. Liquid layouts allow us to apply rules to automatically adapt content when creating an alternate layout with a different size or orientation.  You can instantly create various outputs for web, print, mobile all within the one InDesign file. There is also more language support including Middle Eastern language and a lot more Preflight options. One of our favourites is the Greyscale Preview, allowing you to see how it will look in black and white, also allowing for Greyscale PDF export.

Dreamweaver

Finally in Dreamweaver we see again Fluid Grid Layouts being the main selling point. It uses the new CSS3-based Fluid Grid System. This is a clever tool for quickly changing between screen, tablet, smartphone screen widths. Enhanced jQuery support is also included which allows you to build mobile apps for iOS and Android using updated support for jQuery Mobile. CSS3 transitions are also a big plus in DW CS6, allowing really cool transitions to be applied to the CSS side of your site without the need for jQuery.

So there we have it, a brief overview of the new features in CS6. Thankfully Adobe are allowing us to have the Suite for a very reasonable £45 per month, and this includes a lot of nice extras such as a visual web design tool called Adobe Muse and document sync on the Creative Cloud. Adobe really are pushing themselves in terms of making their products accessible and useable for every occasion. What will happen in CS7?

Who knows…

Tyler says his motivations for the shoot were to create the most powerful and emotionally compelling images as he could. Through photographing the planes, the pilots and even the military pilots at home with their families, Tyler has really portrayed the exciting but emotionally intensive world of being a fighter pilot.

You can see some of his collection over at 5280.

What do you think of the collection? Which photo’s your favourite?

1. The Migrant Mother, taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936

The picture above was taken in 1936 by photographer Dorothea Lange. It was a famous picture depicting the Great Depression.

This picture was taken during the Great Depression just outside of Los Angeles in 1936 on a farm. The picture shows a mother with her two children leaning on her and an infant in her lap. The photographer, Dorothea Lange, went to California for a month-long photographic assignment to record everything on the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl that had happened during this time. This picture shaped the world because it showed what people were going through during that time. I have always liked this picture because of the emotion shown by the mother as she tries to figure out what she must do next to help her children stay alive.

2. Raising of the Flag on Iwo Jima, taken by Joe Rosenthal in 1945

Joe Rosenthal’s picture of the Raising of the Flag in Iwo Jima. The photo is the most iconic picture of World War II.

Another picture that changed the world would have to be the one taken during World War II during the Battle of Iwo Jima by photographer, Joe Rosenthal in 1945 on Mount Suribach. This photograph portrays six soldiers raising the American flag during the battle. It was awarded with a Pulitzer Prize and is one of the most notable in American History; many statues have been made as a re-creation of the photograph, such as the one in Virginia.

3. Elizabeth Eckford and Central High School in 1957

The picture is of Elizabeth Eckford as she tries to walk to school. The photo was taken by Will Counts, he wanted to show the way even students were mad that the school had blacks.

The next photograph I have chosen is one of my favorites from history because I have always been for equal rights for all. It shows, Elizabeth Eckford, a black student walking towards Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. The picture shows Eckford straight-faced as she walks past and away from white parents angered and held back by soldiers, angered by the schools decision to admit black students into the institution. This picture shows the great courage it took for this young woman to go to an all-white school and not react as the parents scream at her, most likely racial slurs.

4. “Tear down this wall”, taken in 1987

This picture is of President Ronald Reagan as he makes his most iconic speech “Tear down this wall” in 1987. The Berlin wall was taken down in 1989 with the help of Reagan’s speech.

The fourth picture is of President Ronald Reagan in front of the Brandenburg Gate, a part of the Berlin Wall. He is pictured giving one of his most famous speeches, “Tear down this wall” in 1987. This speech was just the start of a great end for the German people because only two years after this historic speech, the wall did come down. This picture shows Reagan as he talks to the German people, it shows a part of history that many people all over the world recognize; Reagan is most known for this in his history of being President.

5. September 11^th, 2001, taken in New York City

The final photo was taken on September 11th, 2001 in New York City after the Twin Towers had been attacked. Any and all of the photos from that day or of that week are very powerful, from the ones of people running from the buildings-all brown from dirt and soot-to the firefighters days after helping put New York back together. I picked one of the most prominent photos as the second tower gets hit. Personally I will never forget when the second tower was hit, and neither will millions of Americans and those around the world.

These are just some of the photos that have changed the world in Photography and have been widely known throughout the world. Which do you find most powerful?

Sadly this is just a parody video. But it’s still cool! TheVerge have put together a fake teaser for a new Instagram camera, showing off its sharing features and new creative filters. With the Instagram ‘snap’ you can add real effects by using sunlight, dirt and cocaine (yes, really), and share these photos with anyone in the world!

It’s all a mockery, but the tragic part is it makes me want an old polaroid camera. Really badly.