RED is finally bringing a prosumer class camera to bear and it looks like the release is imminent. While certainly not cheap at nearly $5,000 for the “lens and brain kit”, it certainly makes for a compelling alternative to the Canon 5D MK2. The aesthetics on the RED cameras (founded by Oakley’s Jim Jannard) are a little to reminiscent of those MP3 goggles Dog The Bounty Hunter wears but there’s no denying the quality of the output.
All the of RED stuff might as well be vaporware to me, I know it must exist somewhere but I’ve never seen it in person or even heard of anyone owning or using one of their cameras. Here’s a video of someone actually holding (apparently not using though) a Scarlet. I really like the screen configuration. Does anyone around here own or use a RED? Does it live up to the hype? Do you get free MP3 goggles with it?
Tatiana Plakhova has some beautifully complex work at her Behance page. Loving the complexity and color scheme of these, very dark but still a lot of life.
This is the S1, Leica’s first digital camera. Introduced in 1996, it was a digital scanning back that could work with various lenses. Each exposure took 185 seconds to complete so had to be shot using continuous light. You might think that such an old digicam would produce inferior results, but apparently it was quite the opposite:
“Though slow, the S1 yielded 76Mb @ 24-bit (151Mb @ 48-bit), 5140 x 5140, 12-bit RGB image files that contained little if any of the artifacting, blooming, and fringing that continue to plague us to this very day” – B&H
And it operated at ISO 50! (the film speed) Pretty good for ’96, and it would only set you back $21,500… I’m loving the look of this thing which stands in stark contrast to the subsequent and far more familiar looking Leica S2 model. The second to last (with the rackmount processor) apparently depicts the “Highspeed Kit” which dramatically reduced the scanning time per image.
Here are some pages from the original brochure featuring some example output from the S1: Page 1 . Page 3 . Page 5 . Page 7 . Page 8
This is the David Ericsson designed VOID V02 watch. I’ve seen a lot of watches in this retro/modern vein (most notably by Diesel and Nixon) but I’ve never really seen anyone nail it to the point where I think I’d actually wear the thing. It’s usually just a sort of passing fascination with the object, I don’t see it as something I would want on me. But I’m pretty sure I would rock this one until the band fell off (still nursing a decade old Diesel — from when they hadn’t yet plunged into the abyss of Fossil-like robotechery (btw, Fossil makes Diesel watches) — probably time for an upgrade). This thing is clean all around and while the gold is a bit much for me, the color combo is really nice to look at. At £125 it won’t completely annihilate your bank account, like say, this.
Polaroid hinted at a potential rebirth for instant photography today with this teaser sent to Engadget. Looks intriguing; the slot at the front is just enough to get me lusting after this. Will be really interesting to see if they can recapture some of their former glory with a new instant camera. But in this day and age of 8MP camera phones I wonder if the thrill of the instant physical copy might be lost on most. How ever would you Facebook it!!?
I’m personally hoping for some nice balance of tempered throw-back aesthetics with a healthy dose of new features. From the vague image they’ve provided, it’s looking pretty clean. But knowing how they roll now, I’d be surprised if they really pull it off.
Architectural photographer (sounds like a pretty good gig right?) Benny Chan’s Traffic! series depicts aerial views of rush hour traffic around Los Angeles, a place that’s no stranger to the phenomenon. Beautifully shot, I’d love to have one of these huge on a wall somewhere to remind me of how we — sort of — have it better here in SF. Click the images for (very) large versions.
