Update: Oldest & most expensive camera of all time...

Original Daguerreotype
SOLD
$792,000

VIENNA (AFP) - An 1839 daguerreotype camera, ancestor of modern photography, was sold at auction in Vienna Saturday for nearly 600,000 euros making it the world's oldest and most expensive commercial photographic apparatus.

An anonymous buyer paid 588,613 euros (792,000 dollars), bidding by Internet, said the Westlicht auction house.

Yahoo News Storry...

Original Post:
Oldest & most expensive camera of all time

Look out Barbie...

Super Airbrush Post-Processing Tutorial

Dan Chips aka: Munzo at POTN Forums has put together a fine tutorial on airbrushing portraits in Photoshop. It is easy to follow and reproduce and has become one of the most popular tutorials to come out of the POTN website.

"Hello everyone! I thought I would put this tutorial together, as it seems every time I post an image that I have processed in this way, everyone wants to know how I did it. Rather than explain every time, I thought I would give something back to the community and submit my own tutorial. I hope some of you out there find it useful." Dan Chips.

You can find the original posting here, along with 30+ pages of ongoing discussion about refinements and modifications to the original technique Dan offered. Well worth the read.
Mizuno's Super Airbrush PP Tutorial!

Also fellow POTN member David Pastern has compiled a PDF for easy reference or printing.
http://david.dia.net.au/potn/mizuno.pdf

Comics for Photographers

What The Duck

by Aaron Johnson

What the Duck is an online comic strip. Viewers are welcome to link, post, copy/paste, or save the strips to their own sites, blogs, forums, newsletters, etc.

Begun as a simple blog "What The Duck" has grown into a regular comic strip. Writer Aaron Johnson mainly tells the tales of a photographer duck as he experiences many of the same trials and frustrations as real photographers.

Photoshop Tube Part Deux

Nice work if you can get it

We forgot to mention that in addition to the vast post processing videos available on YouTube there is also something for the Photographer.

The most popular seem to involve swimsuit models, go figure. Sure you could learn something, but why risk it!

Enjoy

Petra Nemcova

小泉麻耶 Maya Koizumi Young Gangan Magazine

Part 2 of Swimsuit Secrets ADRIANA LIMA shooting victorias

Sexy Asian Model Photoshoot

These are behind the scenes stock footage of various videos end-runs of this sexy swimsuit girl model's various photo shoots.

PhotoShop Tube

Photoshop on YouTube, Fun and Educational too!

YouTube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips. The wide variety of site content includes movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos.

Although YouTube is most often associated with entertainment it has a vast collection of educational content as well. Photoshop is well represented with a wide variety of educational and entertaining videos available.

You can visit the YouTube homepage to search by key-word, or view some favorites I have listed below.

Don't miss these gems...

Dove Soap's "Evolution Makeup & Photoshop"
Watch a team of studio photographers and photoshop artists transform an ordinary girl into a supermodel!

Lose weight in Photoshop (makeover)

Makeover of a big lady. Just to show the power of Photoshop.

Extreme (Photoshop) Makeover

A photographer and designer shows the photo retouching process in detail.

HDR. Before and after.

Some of my works, before and after. Shows the effect after Tone Mapping.

Merge to HDR in Photoshop CS3 High Dynamic Range

HDR in Adobe photoshop

Curves :: Photoshop Tutorial Learn the Basics of Curves!

Learn the basics of curves in no time!

Original Daguerreotype for Sale

The first camera ever sold
1839 "Daguerreotype" by the Paris manufacturer Susse Frères

Oldest & most expensive camera of all time.
Up for auction on May 26th 2007, in Vienna, Austria. Certainly the most spectacular lot of the coming auction is a "Daguerreotype" by the Paris manufacturer Susse Frères. This very recently discovered camera throws new light on the history of photography: the attic find that is up for auction proved to be an example of a camera from September of 1839. up till now it had been thought to be a myth. In the meantime numerous experts attest it very likely might be the oldest commercially-produced camera in the world.

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) was the French artist and chemist who is recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography.

The Daguerreotype was the first successful photographic process, the discovery being announced on 7 January 1839. The process consisted of:
- Exposing copper plates to iodine, the fumes forming light-sensitive silver iodide. The plate would have to be used within an hour.
- Exposing to light - between 10 and 20 minutes, depending upon the light available.
- Developing the plate over mercury heated to 75 degrees Centigrade. This caused the mercury to amalgamate with the silver.
- Fixing the image in a warm solution of common salt (later sodium sulphite was used.
- Rinsing the plate in hot distilled water.

A site dedicated exclusively to Daguerre is http://www.daguerre.org
Interestingly enough, there are enthusiasts who still produce dagerreotypes. See here.

The origins of commercial photography, previously no camera by this manufacturer was known to even exist!

Up till the present "The Daguerreotype" produced (also in 1839) by Daguerre’ s brother-in-law, Giroux had been regarded as the origins of commercial photography. There are around ten of these in existence in various large museums. But even earlier, on the 5th September 1839, a small Susse Frères advertisement appeared in the French newspaper “La Quotidienne” though except for a few instructions (e.g. in the George Eastman House in Rochester) no camera by this manufacturer was known to exist. This world sensation is now being exhibited in WestLicht and bids will be invited at the commencement of the 11th Photographica Auction on May 26, 2007 at the symbolic starting price of 100,000 Euros. Experts assume that during the course of the auction it will become not only the oldest but the most expensive camera of all time. The camera with the original lens by Chevallier is in wonderful original condition and has never been restored or modified.

UPDATE:

Original Daguerreotype
SOLD
$792,000

Free Lens Hoods...

Printable PDF documents to make your own lens hoods, Calculate your own hood in the field! & Plastic Bottle hoods too!

Lets face it many of us go without lens hoods when in fact they are one of the most important ways we can go about improving our photographs. The purpose of a lens hood is to prevent flare, which can seriously degrade the image quality of photographic lenses. This being said it is often the case that we do not get a lens hood when we purchase the lens, or often in my particular case, the size of the lens hood means it often gets left at home rather than on the camera.

Cut along the dotted line...

The folks at www.lenshoods.co.uk have completly and utterly obliterated any more lame excuses why the rest of us don't use a lens hood. First off they offer them for free! You hear that Canon & Nikon, and anyone else who charges upwards of $100 for a piece of round plastic. Second they are made from paper so size is no longer an issue, they will simply fold right up. These guys provide hoods in Adobe PDF files for most major manufactures (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax) and third party lens companies (Sigma, Tamron, Tokina) too. They also provide a service that lets you design your own. These guys even go farther than your manafactur often does, and offer conventional round hoods as well as tulip petal-shaped lens hoods with curved cutout notches. This tulip petal design maximizes the amount of hood coverage for the minimum amount of weight and hood area. Tulip-shaped hoods cannot be used on lenses with rotating ends though, because perfect hoods must be aligned to the sensor frame dimensions.

RegularJen blogged about how she was able to use the PDF lenshoods as templates to cut ones from black art foam: lens hoods on the cheap with bonus conversation.

Don't forget to Recycle...

Another great source for lens hoods is found in every day items around the house, namely plastic bottles.

About all it takes is some time and care and careful, slow going to cut the material appropriately and such that it fits properly. In this instance, the 40.5mm diameter of a typical Russky normal lens did not translate out perfectly to the diameter of the plastic bottle, and thus it was necessary to make the cut such that its slightly concave (as seen in the accompanying photo).

When fitted onto the lens, the plastic flexes slightly and exerts a bit more holding pressure than would naturally occur in a straightforward ‘press on’ fitting.

The now finished hood is painted a flat or matte black, and the job is complete. I consider this the “perfect” lens hood for one main reason: it didn’t cost anything but the few minutes work it took to make it.

To really finish it off you could use your PDF printout of a tulip petal-shaped hood to trim the front of the plastic bottle hood.

You do the math...

Finally thanks to The Great Pyramids, Igor Yefremov, and a little math, we can now easily make our own lens hoods from scratch, on the go and in the field. Read his article How to make a simple lens hood, Recalling ancient pyramids.

One of the most important ways we can go about improving our photographs...

So still not convinced a lens hood is the thing for you? Then you must read Lens Hoods, over at vanwalree.com. It is an expert text on lens flare and the effects of different style hoods to combat it. It is simple to read and has lots of good visuals, don't miss it.

If you are still in the mood for some photographic arts and crafts try these:

The Domokon Cardboard SLR
&
The Dirkon Paper Camera