photography – rgbFilter

Toronto, Then and Now: An exercise in photographic reverse-engineering

October 7, 2010October 12, 2010 Danny X photography, Photoshop, then and now, Toronto2 Comments

Came across this interesting experiment today by Damon Schreiber on the Electroblog. Spawned from a random Google search, Schreiber was inspired to take shots of Toronto from 1977 and recreate the same shots in 2007, being as painstakingly meticulous as one can to make sure the content, staging, positioning, depth-of-field, aperture, lighting, and even time of day are accurately reproduced. The origins of the idea, and indeed the source of the original shots of Toronto from 30 years ago, are all explained in great detail on the photoblogger’s site, and the story…

Arts Hardware

Fresh Look Through an 102 Year Old Lens

September 20, 2010September 21, 2010 Pete Chapman Canon 5DmkII, Cine-Velostigmat, Colt Rane, DSLR, lens, photography1 Comment

Photographic experiments can often yield some pretty interesting results, especially when you mix the old and the new. In a mashup of old and new camera tech, photographer Timur Civan put a 1908 (that’s the year , not the model number) Wollensak 35mm , F 5.0, Cine-Velostigmat lens on a Canon 5DmkII and walked out into the streets of Manhattan. The results are on view at Colt + Rane. Enjoy.

Sony NEX-5 camera review

September 16, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves bullpen, camera, camera review, DSLR, Kingpin Lei, laroquod, NEX-5, photography, point and shoot, review, sample pictures, Sony, thoughts16 Comments

We first got a quick peek at Sony’s NEX-5 at a Sony event a couple of months back, and were suitably impressed with the overall design. It’s not as bulky as a full on DSLR, while having more control, than your average point-n-shoot pocket camera. We finally got a review unit from Sony a couple of weeks back and have passed it around the bullpen. Click on past the break for our impressions, and some sample images from the NEX-5.

Nikon D3100 Officially Announced by Nikon

August 19, 2010August 20, 2010 kingpinlei 1080p, camera, canada, D3100, DSLR, Film, filmmaking, HD, indie, manual movie mode, Nikon, Nikon D3100, photography4 Comments

First reported by Nikonrumors.com and turning those very loud rumors into reality yesterday when Nikon officially announced their new D3100 DSLR along with their new batch of lenses. This is very cool as it becomes the first Nikon DSLR to be able to shoot HD in glorious 1080 @24p! The Nikon Canada website has the D3100 listed with a street price of $569.95 for the body only, and $699.95 for the D3100 Kit with AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G VR Lens. This is great news for indie filmmakers!

Nikon to Finally Show Some 1080p DSLR Love?

August 10, 2010August 17, 2010 kingpinlei 5D Mark II, A33, A55, A560, A580, Canon, D3000, D3100, D90, D95, DSLR, HD video, Nikon, photography, Sony Alpha1 Comment

UPDATE: Well, it looks like Best Buy has lent some credibility to the very loud rumors of the D3100. According to Nikonrumors.com, Best Buy has actually put the Nikon D3100 into it’s inventory system; the SKU is 1222817, “Nikon D3100 DSLR w/ 18-55mm v”, with availability: 9/18/2010. Hmmmm… ** DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER! RUMOURS AHEAD! PLEASE TAKE 100 µm (1×10^-4 m) OF SALT WHILE READING! ** Ever since Canon released their 5D MarkII, the smaller 7D and more recently the Rebel T2i — all with gobsmacking Full HD shooting capabilities —…

Panasonic’s New FZ100 Digital Compact Camera

July 22, 2010August 17, 2010 kingpinlei 60 FPS, FZ100, Lumix, Panasonic, photography, point and shoot3 Comments

Panasonic has just announced the release of some new fixed-lens point-and-shoot digital cameras (hmmm… we must be getting close to the Photokina trade show). With the exception of the new Lumix DMC-LX5, all their new cameras have been given the ability to shoot in full HD (1920×1080) using the AVCHD codec. Of particular interest is the FZ100 which has been given one very interesting feature…

Video games can’t be art? Why Ebert is wrong and should gamers care?

April 19, 2010April 19, 2010 Doug Groves AC II, art, Assassin's Creed II, critique, editorial, Kellee Santiago, Mass Effect II, photography, Roger Ebert, TED X, TEDx, Venice5 Comments

Back in 2005, famed film critic Roger Ebert posited that ‘video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful”, but “the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art’, or, as many online at the time boiled it down, ‘Roger Ebert hates video games’. Numerous video game fans replied to that column, and to this day I’ve seen references to his ‘hatred’ crop up from time to time. This is usually when he pans a movie that a gamer liked, with…

rgbFilter at Fan Expo: Good eyes, Murphy.

August 31, 2009August 31, 2009 Danny X event, Fan Expo 2009, photography0 comment

Throughout the weekend at Fan Expo we put rgbFilter’s FroggyBootKnocker and his Sony Alpha 700 DSLR through the paces. A huge thanks to him, and for these amazing shots. We have LOTS of content and lots of great interviews still to come! Keep checking! .

Toronto one of the top 10 most photographed cities on Earth

May 4, 2009July 25, 2009 Danny X photography, Toronto5 Comments

According to LIFE Magazine, Toronto has joined the ranks of Barcelona, New York City, Tokyo, and 6 other large cities as the most photographed in the world. LIFE’s process was not particularly scientific, but still telling, in that it appears that the stats come from casual or amateur photographers and not necessarily from any corporate-sponsored initiative: A glance at the list of Flickr’s all time most popular tags reveals that a handful of cities are consistantly photographed by the users of the popular photo hosting site. Check out the stream…