Single-Serving Photo

Fashion. It is not the subject of this blog. Nevertheless, those of you out there who have not been living beneath a heavy boulder, sheltered from the comings and goings of the world around you, have very likely picked up on this silicone bracelet trend.

Perhaps calling it a “trend” at this stage is an embarrassing betrayal of my actual disinterest in fashion when you consider that the silicone (or “gel”) bracelet was popularized in 2004 by Lance Armstrong’s “LIVESTRONG” campaign, for which Nike produced tens of thousands of the yellow wristbands. Still, I keep seeing new ones turn up so let’s just pretend it’s still trending.

Either way, these colorful, flexible, waterproof bands have been co-opted by countless campaigns, companies, and movements since Lance popularized them. They are inexpensive to make, comfortable to wear, and you don’t even have to take them off since they will survive just about anything your body will, which puts them high in the running for what I would consider the ideal fashion accessory, not that I’m keeping score or anything.

Finally, photographers can join the throngs of people wearing silicone bracelets and make a clever fashion statement while doing it thanks to Adam Elmakias, creator of the simply and accurately named Lens Bracelet (a stack of his bracelets is pictured above).

Show your true colors (whether they be Canon “L” red or Nikon Nikkor gold) and wear your favorite focal lengths, literally, on your sleeve with one of a variety of Lens Bracelet designs suitable for both the Canon and Nikon crowds. Sorry, no Olympus, Sony, Panasonic, or Leica Lens Bracelets yet.

Compared to bracelets made of similar material on offer from other vendors for other purposes, the $10 price tag seems a little bit high. Still, I did spend $50 on a coffee mug shaped like a 70-200 f/4L, so it is hard for me to say that I would never buy one. Or two. Or maybe three… But certainly no more than six.

Check out all of the Lens Bracelets available on Adam Elmakias’ site.

I’ve posted about Canon’s involvement in the filmmaking industry before; in my cheekily titled Canon 5D Mark II in the (Dr.) House I reported on the use of the EOS-5D Mark II to film an entire season finale episode of House M.D.

Since then, the hipster Vimeo community has been running their Converse All-Stars threadbare filming hundreds of hours of content with the 5D Mark II and thoroughly enjoying it. But the 5D Mark II remains, at its core, a still camera. I mean, that’s what it was designed to do. The ability to record video is a cute add-on, and although it works very well for small-scale filmmakers in oversized scarves and skinny jeans, it falls short on many features a crew would need to film a real movie (regardless of wardrobe). (more…)

A while back I posted that cool video of how a Leica lens is hand-assembled. At the time I mentioned that I’ve never owned nor even used a Leica lens but that I respected the craftsmanship and care with which they are put together.

It occurred to me back then that I had, indeed, seen videos of Canon lenses being assembled (specifically their “L” series; I am not sure if the non-L lenses are hand-assembled or not) but I didn’t have the presence of mind to go find them.

Because I’m still mostly a Canon devotee I thought it wise to catch up with that thought and post these behind-the-scenes videos of a Canon “L” lens being assembled, yes, by hand. Truly it is a marvel of engineering and of manual dexterity at some points. Hopefully if you, too, are a Canon shooter, these videos will give you even more respect for the product you likely hold in such high regard.

This is a three-part series and takes you all the way from “how do we make sand into a lens” to “this is how we put the barrel together.”

That’s “image stabilization” for those of you not paying attention. Or “VR” for the Nikon folks out there. I believe Canon and Nikon use very similar electronic systems. Either way, this is fascinating. This is what the inside of a Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens looks like when the image stabilization is operating.

Image Stabilization Revealed from Camera Technica on Vimeo.

Sometimes I feel like a shill when I talk about these sales and deals, but it’s so hard for me to look at a fabulous bargain and not pass it on. Such is the case with the so-called Canon Loyalty Program, which is apparently Canon’s way of saying “thank you” for buying one of their point-and-shoot cameras.

I found this on the venerable deal-hunting site “FatWallet,” and if you like you can read the original post yourself. Basically, if you have a qualifying Canon digital camera (it has to be digital and it’s really limited to point-and-shoot models), even if it doesn’t work anymore, you can trade it in for a refurbished white-box replacement at a pretty reasonable discount.

If you have an out-of-warranty Canon point-and-shoot and you were thinking of upgrading it, this could be an opportunity to save a little cash, which is something everyone could probably stand to do right now.

Read the fully detailed summary of the program on the FatWallet forum.