Hasta La Ideas

The first movie camera from the masters of throwback film photography

Taking the next great leap in their photographic evolution, Lomography has launched their first-ever movie camera. The LomoKino, which dropped today, is a compact, crank-powered movie-making machine that maintains the aesthetic and quality expected from the Lomo brand. Harkening back to the handheld crank cameras typical of home movies in the ’50s and ’60s, the LomoKino is a far cry from feature-packed HD setups you find in local electronics stores. As with all Lomo products, the LomoKino celebrates the beauty and romance of film while offering an amusing and experimental way to express yourself.

The LomoKino will work with any roll of standard 35mm film. The camera exposes the film in a constricted manner to turn 36 frames into 144 frames, giving the user about 40 seconds of movie magic. Other than an f/5.6 to f/11 aperture range, a “close-up” button and a hot shoe mount for Lomography flashes there aren’t a lot of controls to worry about and that is part of the point. The LomoKino is designed for the fun, playful and creative—it’s an exciting way to reconnect with the heritage of homemade movie-making while bringing the classic Lomo look alive in beautifully vivid colors, textures.

The LomoKino sells for $79 from Lomography or as a package with the LomoKinoScope, a viewfinder that lets you watch your movies right after processing, for $99.

New super-compact tripod that fits in the palm of your hand

Joby is notorious for their creative ideas in photography support systems. With their roots in twisting, winding, magnetized tripods for cameras of all sizes, today the company announced two new and exciting additions to their product line. The GorillaPod Micro 250 and GorillaPod Micro 800 take portable and compact tripods to a whole new level.

Weighing only a few ounces the 250 supports up to 250 grams of photo snapping action while its big brother the 800 can support up to 800 grams. Both models fan out to form a sturdy base for your camera, and while closed fit easily in the palm of your hand or left attached, aren’t obtrusive. The mini-tripods also have a steel mount which has thirty-six degrees of tilt motion in any direction to allow the user to position their camera as desired. A must have for any on-the-go photo enthusiast, these tiny tripods are a great way to gain some stability without adding clutter or weight.

Available today from Joby for $20 (GorillaPod Micro 250) and $30 (GorillaPod Micro 800).

Our video with snowboarder Travis Rice on his epic new film

Travis Rice’s use of the word epic to describe his new snowboarding film “The Art of Flight” barely does the powder-crushing tour de force credit. The Herculean adventure, captured by the same type of Cineflex cameras used to film Planet Earth, shows Rice and his handpicked crew as they snowboard some of the wildest terrain around the globe.

The Art of Flight is Rice’s follow up to the award-winning film “That’s It, That’s All”—both shot by Curt Morgan, a snowboarder who turned to filmmaking after a serious back injury. A self-dubbed “tech geek,” Morgan and his boutique production house Brain Farm test the limits of aerial cinematography, shooting for outlets like National Geographic, ESPN, the U.S. Marine Corps and Red Bull Media House.

Primarily filmed in Alaska, Chile, Colorado, Argentina, Romania and Rice’s hometown of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, we caught up with the trailblazer in NYC where he explained some of the details of the two-year filming process. The insanely crisp high-def shots, combined with dramatic birds-eye views, create an almost first-person effect—an astounding portrayal of what it’s like to step into Rice’s boots as he and the team shred in often untouched territory.

The Art of Flight premieres 7 September 2011 in NYC, before touring the U.S. Tickets sell online or at a variety of snowboard shops for $20 each.

Reporting by Karen Day

The next-generation PEN camera makes a huge leap forward

As a long-time fan of Olympus’ PEN series of micro-four-thirds cameras, I was ecstatic to have a chance to spend the last week testing their brand new E-P3. The new shooter, at the top of the line of their just-expanded family of cameras, is loaded up with incredible new features and has an updated body that maintains its classic compact design. Maintaining the lines of the original design was so important that the flash was intentionally nested below the surface of the camera.

The micro four-thirds format is a combination of a large sensor (for a relatively small camera), compact mirrorless body and interchangeable lens system. For the E-P3, that sensor maintains its 12.3-megapixel capacity while upgrading image processing to capture a better light and color range. The processor upgrade also affords extremely fast image playback without compromising the camera’s lightning fast shutter response or ability to focus—faster than ever.

On the back of the camera, the screen has been upgraded to a crisp, bright, three-inch OLED touch display which goes beyond simply accessing the (also refreshed) menus and swiping between photos during playback. One shooting mode allows you to touch anywhere on the screen to set that as the point to focus on, much like the familiar iPhone camera; another mode allows you to touch anywhere on the screen to snap a picture—convenient for shooting from the hip or at awkward angles.

Manipulating settings for taking pictures is a fluid combination of on-screen menu items and conveniently placed dials. Beyond the freedom of setting your own aperture, shutter speed, ISO and much more, PEN cameras incorporate a variety of art filters to render images in even more creative ways. New to the E-P3 is the ability to bracket these filters so that all options are presented at once.

Beyond this new top-of-the-line model, Olympus expanded the family to include the E-PL3 “lite” and the E-PM1 “mini” bodies to offer greater portability options and a broader range of features for different levels of photographers. Of course, they’re all still PENs so they use the same lenses and have the same oversized sensor.

Rounding out a huge day of new product, Olympus also just announced two new single focal length M. Zuiko lenses— a 12mm f2.0 (24mm equivalent) and 45mm f1.8 (90mm equivalent). I tested the 12mm, a perfect street shooter. The bright, bold wide-angle is complimented by a subtle focal ring that pulls back to switch from automatic to manual mode.

The E-P3 will be available in black, white or silver starting this August for $900 as a kit with either a 14-24mm zoom loens or a 17mm fast prime lens. Check out some sample photos taken this week on The High Line in the gallery after the jump.

Twenty teams are challenged to make short films in 48 hours using micro-four-thirds cameras

During the recent Vail Film Festival Olympus challenged 20 teams of young filmmakers to shoot and edit a short film using only Olympus PEN E-PL2 cameras and lenses—a great way to show-off how powerful their high-end, compact cameras really are. A creative set of rules challenged the teams with using the cameras’ built-in art filters as well as forcing them to take in commercial considerations like not showing logos and including slugs for Vail and Olympus. As a guest of the camera-maker, I had the opportunity to observe this process from initial allocation of equipment all the way through to final screening and awards.

While many teams were comprised of Vail locals, some came from as far as California to participate. Experience levels were also varied—high school students, film school graduates, professional skiers and grandparents rounded out the competition. Having a tight plan proved to be a key element as four teams weren’t even able to complete in time and a fifth was not done rendering by the time the deadline hit. That piece, Exit the Snow Dragon directed by Ryan Dunn, was disqualified from the competition but still presented at the screening and turned out to be one of my favorites for its humorous take on the perceived tension between skiers and snowboarders.

Even before the contest kicked off, Bujin Productions stood out as the team to beat, with brotherly duo Austin and Maitland Lottimer (pictured above) asking specific technical questions about the cameras and comparing the answers to details in their well-organized shot list. Their production in the Vail village drew attention from passerby for its grand setup that looked like a professional film shoot. This professionalism wasn’t a veneer, their final short film stood out from the rest for its complex camera work, tight edit and creative post-production. Winning the contest with their short film “Running Colors,” all five members of the team received Olympus PEN E-PL2 kits plus a cash prize.

Team T&A’s Der Burgermeister won honorable mention for their cleverly written comedy about the fallen pop star-cum-mayor of a small Swiss village—Zwiebelberg (which translates to Onion Mountain). The story sees mayor Klaus Lautner traveling to Vail in an effort to save his town from the economic despair wrought by the closing of their famous coo-koo-clock factory.

While the contestants were busy filming, Olympus was also using their own E-PL2s to shoot a documentary about the project. Have a look at that after the jump.