Will we be using contact lens cameras in future?

A future contact lens camera – from a patent by Sony

A few decades ago I taught photography to night classes. We had no idea then that it would not be long before almost everyone would be carrying around a small camera in the form of a mobile phone. I couldn’t even get students interested in the concept of digitising their photos and processing or storing them on their computers.

It’s hard to predict the paths of new technology or its uptake by industry and the population. But I wonder if this new patent by Sony might give some insight to how we well take photographs in a few decades time. Just imagine – all it may take is to blink!

This article from Digital Photography Review, Sony patents contact lens camera with blink-triggered shutter, predicts privacy problems if the technology goes ahead.

The patented contact lens:

“comes with an integrated miniature camera module and all its components, such as image sensor, lens, processor, storage and even a wireless module to transfer images to a smartphone or other connected device. The camera is triggered by a “conscious” eyelid aperture and closure. A sensor measures the pressure of your eyelid, and other settings such as aperture and zoom can be controlled via eyelid movement as well. A display unit allows you to view captured images directly on the lens.”

So not any old blink will fire the shutter. Even so, I imagine there will be lots of accidental shots. And I have a picture of newbies pulling all sorts of facial expressions as they learn to apply just the right sort of pressure via their eyelid. Then there will be subjects who interpret the “conscious” blink as a wink!

As the article says:

“It’s impossible to know if a product like this will ever hit the market but if it does, it’s certain to raise even more privacy concerns than Google Glass at the time.”

The patent document is available here for anyone who enjoys torturing themselves with the convoluted language which seems unique to patents.

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Our beautiful planet: Astronaut art works

This photo is a real work of art – the sort of thing I would love to have displayed on my wall.

But there is plenty where that came from. It is one of the photo’s taken by astronaut Scott Kelly from the International Space Station. He lifted off from Kazakhstan on March 27 and is scheduled to return to Earth on March 3, 2016, after spending a total of 522 days in space, according to NASA (this is his 4th mission).

Scott Kelly aboard the ISS

The photos here are from a series Scott took of the Sahara desert. Really beautiful works of art.

These photos are from: Earth Art: NASA ‘artist’ stuns Twitter with Sahara Desert pics taken from space (PHOTOS) — RT News

Follow Scott Kelly on Twitter (@StationCDRKelly) for more of his brilliant photography from space.

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Accidental Renaissance – or intuition?

Saw this photo on the Guardian – see Accidental Renaissance: the photos that look like Italian paintings. The author says:

“Currently doing the rounds on Twitter is the image below, taken from Facebook by artist James Harvey, whose tweet has been shared thousands of times. It depicts one of the fairly frequent brawls in Ukrainian parliament which, while undoubtedly ugly to fans of democracy and national stability, is beautiful on a purely aesthetic level.”

I can appreciate the good composition in the photo even without the description of it’s adherence to the Fibonacci spiral. But I am happy with the description if this sort of photo as a happy accident:

“A court photographer obviously didn’t have the kind of time Michelangelo did to compose his image, but its serendipity makes it even more magical. The hands that swarm in at the edges of the photograph give it a weirdly Renaissance quality too: in those paintings, hands do so much of the emotional heavy lifting – they supplicate, pray, and constantly reach for the divine.”

I think that composition comes naturally to an experienced and good photographer. They might not be consciously thinking about Fionacci spirals or the golden ratio but years of practice helps them recognise good composition and the “right moment” to push the shutter.

Let’s give the photographer some credit and attribute the results to intuition based on years of experience rather than a happy accident or serendipity.

Not your usual rocket launch

This isn’t your usual rocket lauch.

The viewpoint is unusual – it’s from above. The rocket doesn’t reach great heights but it lands perfectly

via Grasshopper 325m Test | Single Camera (Hexacopter).

Making giant flowers out of fireworks

MailOnline has some amazing time exposure photographs. (See Unusual long exposure photographs of fireworks look like giant flowers in the night sky for more photos)

Photographer David Johnson has achieved these results by using exposure lengths of a second or more and changing the focus during exposure.

And there’s more at Davey J Photography.

Another lousy photo of the sun?

As a photo of the sun this doesn’t look very impressive – until you realise it was taken using neutrinos!

And also that it was taken through the earth – when the sun was on the other side of the earth!

An exposure of 503 day was used and neutrinos detected using a 50 000-ton water pool located 1 km underground. Neutrinos have an extremely weak interaction with other matter. Most of them pass through the earth without interaction and the detection relies on Cherenkov radiation emitted during a rare interaction with an electron in the water.

Thanks to: The Sun seen through the Earth in “neutrino light”