Turn Your Non-Video Canon DSLR into an HD Video Camera The newest DSLRs on the market are sporting some pretty fancy HD movie features. If you have an older Canon DSLR, however, you can use a bit of software to turn it into an HD video camera. The video above was filmed with a Canon 40D. It's a great camera but notable, in this case, for its lack of native video capture. UK-based photographer Peter Arboine stumbled upon a way to use his Canon 40D—it will work with any Canon DSLR that has LiveView—to capture video, however, using a clever bit of software and a tether cable. This is where EOS Camera Movie Record comes in. EOS_movrec (which stands for EOS Camera Movie Record) was a program I stumbled upon when I searched on YouTube for Canon 40D video hacks, as I had heard of this being done before. I found this as a great little hack that allows me to shoot HD quality video without using a 5 or 7D, however your camera needs to have the LiveView function built-in. What this software does, is use the camera's LiveView mode to capture what the camera sees. In order to use it, the camera must be tethered to a computer (I used a Mac in this case, but mov rec also supports Windows), and you must have the EOS utility previously installed. Visit the link below to check out some tips and tricks for using EOS Camera Movie Record and then grab a copy of it here. Have a clever camera-related hack to share? Let's hear about it in the comments. from: (1)http://lifehacker.com/5595455/turn-your-non+video-canon-dslr-into-an-hd-video-camera (2)http://www.diyphotography.net/capture-720p-hd-with-any-liveview-capabale-canon-camera

How Kodak Built a FrankenCamera to Take Digital Photos in 1975

During the frigid Rochester winter of 1975, researchers at Kodak pieced together the future a quarter of a century early. Built from scavenged parts, the team had created their first "film-less" camera—an idea far ahead of its time.

Kodak's Steve Sasson recounts the effort with joy. The strange looking device was built with spare parts from a Super 8 camera, an experimental CCD sensor, and a cassette recorder. Yes, a cassette recorder—taking 23 seconds to record a single image composed of only 100 lines of resolution. To view each image, the tape had to be popped into a special reader, where it could be upscaled and viewed on a black and white television set.

No film, no ink. And a lot of discomfort when shown to test audiences. When demoed to those outside of Kodak, Sasson remembers hearing a lot of uneasy questions: "Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV? How would you store these images? What does an electronic photo album look like? When would this type of approach be available to the consumer?"

The prototype stayed with Sasson as a personal prize, but not before being patented and receiving a thorough internal writeup on the bizarre device's potential. It what did Kodak conclude?

"The camera described in this report represents a first attempt demonstrating a photographic system which may, with improvements in technology, substantially impact the way pictures will be taken in the future."

To say the least. [Kodak via NY Times]

(gizmodo)