Get that career started as a paparazzi with the new Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8 APO EX DG Ultra-Telephoto zoom lens ($26,000). Is Emma Stone too far away on her balcony to be photographed? Not anymore. Carrying this around in LA might take some getting used to, but you’ll never miss a shot again.
Bad lighting can ruin even the best Instagram photos. Now, Nova ($60) helps you out with a wireless camera flash. The wireless flash beams 40 LEDs to wash your scenes of revelry in soft, natural light. You thought your photos were amazing before? Think again. No really…think again. Done? Ok.
If you could learn writing from Hemingway, Steinbeck or Salinger, you would. If you could learn photography from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Fay Godwin, and Martin Parr, then you must. Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs ($13) by Henry Carroll collects advice and tips using photos from those renowned photographers, among others, as examples and gives you a wealth of information to taking better photographs.
The book is divided into 5 sections: composition, exposure, light, lenses, and seeing. It leaves out the techie mumbo-jumbo and tells you simply, how to take great photographs. This will help kickstart that home garage studio for bikini models you’ve been planning.
Star Wars boldly goes where no man has gone before in these photos by Zahir Batin. The Malaysian photographer sets Star Wars figures far beyond the galaxy in humorous and dramatic new environments. He achieves this with super-close shots and unique poses by the action figures. It’s magnificent what he does and each shot captures a unique moment.
Vesa Lehtimäki aka Avanaut photographed these Star Wars toys and along with a few photography tricks, brought the world of Star Wars to life. Imagine a galaxy where inhabitants can find the Y-Wing parked in a lot with minivans and hatchbacks. Lehtimäki also snapped a few action figures in the snow. Even C3PO has to deal with the polar vortex.
Source: Avanaut Flickr
Already a hit for iOS users, the VSCO Cam photography app is now ready for Android peeps to get creative with. (Note: Flexing in the bathroom remains uncreative.) Photo editing isn’t always an easy task, so it’s no wonder that VSCO’s user-friendly interface has been a hit, even if it belies the depth of the processing power under the hood. It’s free, available for most devices running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or higher, and includes 10 presets and some editing tools, while more are available to purchase.
Ever think Peter Parker might’ve passed on crime-fighting had he been a good enough photographer? Things might have been different if Peter had a solid DSLR, an iPhone, and Lumu ($99), a digital light meter for shooters with manual ISO, aperture and shutter speed settings. Just plug Lumu into the iPhone’s headphone jack and you’re ready to set the proper lighting for any shot, like say, the Green Goblin terrorizing an ATM. Don’t worry about it Peter, Iron Man will probably get that one.
If the women in Playboy are a little too safe for you (and um, unattainable), maybe it’s time to move on to something more edgy, like the beauties in SuicideGirls: Hard Girls, Soft Light ($24). Ogle more than 2,500 pictures of pin-ups who want to rearrange the accepted standards of beauty. Will their mission to empower themselves in a feminist way detract from your viewing please? Your one-word answer: boobs.
