Crave

(Credit: Tamrac)

Currently, most tripod legs are hollowed and allow the extensions to fit inside. Tamrac has taken a different approach and designed what is possibly the most innovative tripod we've seen this year.

The ZipShot is a compact, three-legged support whose design is inspired by collapsible tent poles. With a rugged bungee cord inside the legs, users just have to pull apart the joints and fold the tripod. The rounded edges at individual sections help to guide the aluminum legs to join together.

Tamrac rates the ZipShot as able to support up to 2.8 pounds, which means the tripod can accommodate most point-and-shoots and entry-level dSLRs. However, PopPhoto said it is wiser to activate the self-timer function when taking pictures because the thin legs are rather unstable and can shake when the shutter button is pressed.

At $50, the ZipShot is rather pricey considering you can get a decent standard tripod for that price. But if portability is your main concern, you might want to check out this Tamrac product.

(Source: Crave Asia via PopPhoto)

(Credit: PetaPixel)

I already own a couple of camera/photography-related tees, and I have to say they are some of my favorite wear. But looking at the roundup of such clothing put together by PetaPixel makes me want to hit the links and get even more.

My favorite of the 21 shirts in the collection has to be the above "oh, crop" design, which takes a leaf out of Adobe Photoshop's crop tool. The camera display panel shirt looks pretty awesome, too, and I'm still trying to figure out which dSLR display it copies. Of course, there are plenty of T-shirts on the market now that have a camera hanging around the neck, but that's so passe.

(Credit: PetaPixel)

(Credit: PetaPixel)

(Source: Crave Asia via PDNPulse)

Here's a funny video clip by two photographers in Colombia, South America. Taking a jab at some of the gearheads who troll Digital Photography Review's forums, one of them portrayed a delirious photographer who is crazy about aligning his lens just because "the professionals on DPreview said so." He also spent two days looking for a dead pixel in his camera and has deleted his entire catalog of photos because of that.

Do note that this is just a parody done by the duo to poke fun at shutterbugs who are crazy about their photo equipment, so don't take it too seriously. Remember, the camera is just a tool to help you capture an image.

(Source: Crave Asia via Sony Alpha Rumors)

Boost your photography skills with Nikon's free iPhone app.

I've owned a dSLR camera for years, but it spends most of its time on Auto mode. That's because I can't wrap my brain around things like aperture priority, ISO, and f-stops.

Unsurprisingly, most of my shots bite. I've tried reading enlightening books like How to Do Everything with Your Digital Camera (nepotism alert: I know the author), but that doesn't help me when, say, I'm standing on the soccer-field sidelines trying to capture my daughter as she scores a goal.

What I need is a simple, informative how-to guide that fits in my pocket. Enter Nikon Learn & Explore, a new iPhone app that teaches photography fundamentals and offers shooting techniques for common situations.

Actually, that's just part of what you get from L&E. The app also offers a library of professional images you can browse, each with an accompanying Nikon World article that details shot composition, equipment, lighting, and all that.

The Learn section offers articles on image editing, shooting techniques, and fundamentals--many of which include both sample photos and how-to videos.

The Nikon World section provides features from the eponymous magazine, while the Glossary explains photography terms from A to Z. You can even mark individual articles and photos as Favorites for quick future access.

In short, this is a must-have app for novice shutterbugs and pro photographers alike (but more for the former). Best news of all: it's free.

Watching ice cubes melt is much more fun when you speed it up. iPhone app Timelapser lets you do it right on your phone.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

Time-lapse movies can be a complicated affair, and quite often involve either a lot of special equipment, and/or post-processing skills. For just a buck though, you can use the recently released Timelapser app (link opens in iTunes) to turn your iPhone into a tool that can do this time-bending filming technique using nothing more than the onboard camera.

Timelapser's interface tells you how long your movie will be, and how many shots it's taken.

(Credit: CNET)

Depending on what model of phone you have you can use the app to take a picture anywhere from every three seconds to once per half hour. All the while it grabs each frame and stitches it into a movie that's saved on the phone, and that can also be e-mailed to friends.

Of course if you really want to cook with gas, you'll need an iPhone 3GS, which lets you speed up how fast the phone can take shots. Alas, with my lowly 3G I was limited to taking a shot every six seconds. Owners of the original iPhone have to step it down to eight seconds.

The app has a wealth of settings that let you pick things like how large the video's resolution is, how many frames per second it should be, and how long you want the delay to be before it starts shooting. This can be useful if you're propping up your phone somewhere and need time to set up your scene. Users can also use the app just to take a series of photos one after another which get saved in your phone's camera roll.

As I noted when I checked out the IP Camera app, which can turn your iPhone into a networked security camera, the very best way to use this app is with one of Apple's fancy docks. You can also just prop it up with whatever you may have laying about the house, but with the dock you get the benefit of... Read more

(Credit: Photobooth)

In the past, photo booths usually showed up along the sidewalk. If you desperately needed to get a mugshot taken for your passport, you simply popped into one to take a picture, and out would come a strip of photos. But these days, photo booths are enjoying a healthy revival at events such as parties and weddings where they provide a fun picture-taking experience for guests.

Two commercial photographers in Australia, Marija Ivkovic and Lachlan Moore, have decided to capitalize on this trend and build a fully portable, inflatable photo booth that has an 11-megapixel camera. Images snapped are transferred to a password-protected online gallery where guests can browse and order prints.

No word on rental pricing yet, but you can take a look at the booth's Web site for more information.

(Source: Crave Asia via Gizmodo)

Chase Jarvis is a professional photographer. Chase Jarvis has an iPhone. Chase Jarvis got tired of using five apps to shoot, edit, and share photos taken with his iPhone so he created the Best Camera app.

If you haven't already started watching the demo video above, you can open the app, shoot a picture or open one from your photo roll, apply filters and effects, and then upload it to Facebook, Twitter, or Jarvis's iPhone photography community Web site.

The app is only $2.99 and appears to be heavily branded to help sell copies of Jarvis's book of iPhone photography, "The Best Camera is the One That's With You." Personally, it looks like it's still missing some features that'll keep me using other apps, but hopefully Jarvis and his software-engineering partners, Ubermind, Inc., will continue to evolve the app and not charge extra for updates.

Jessica Dolcourt, associate editor over at CNET Download, has two other quite good photo app recommendations: Photogene and Snapture.

(Credit: Honest Technology)

With the proliferation of digital cameras, everybody and their mom probably has one. In fact, you may come away from parties with hundreds of images just waiting to be displayed. So why wait for the next gathering to showcase your photos?

The Fotobox Plus is an SD card reader that comes with embedded flash memory. But what's unique is that the internal memory also contains an editor that converts your images into a slideshow with music.

The finished product can be uploaded to YouTube or converted into various formats such as DVD, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and WMV, as well as iPod and PSP formats. The Fotobox Plus works in Windows XP and Vista environments, though Mac and Linux users can still use this device as a memory card reader. It will be available starting next month for $79.99, excluding shipping.

The built-in editor comes in both easy and advanced modes.

(Credit: Honest Technology)

(Source: Crave Asia)

The Snapture (app) is upon us! No more jailbreaking required. Instead, $1.99.

For more than a few iPhone owners, homebrew apps like Snapture--which endows the iPhone camera with extra features--were reason enough to jump through jailbreaking hoops.

Thankfully, that's no longer necessary, at least for this particular app: Snapture has gone legit. It's available in the App Store for an introductory price of $1.99.

Snapture provides a wealth of handy camera tools, starting with full-screen shutter action: tap anywhere to capture a snapshot. That makes self-portraits a lot easier than trying to nail the Camera app's tiny shutter button.

You also get zoom and pan capabilities: just reverse-pinch your fingers to zoom in up to 5x (keeping in mind that photos will turn seriously blurry at that level, though perhaps less so with the 3GS' higher-resolution sensor), then drag your finger to pan around. Very cool.

Speaking of fingers, Snapture's clever Touch Zone gives you the option of tapping and holding the screen, then releasing when you're ready to shoot--the idea being to reduce the blur that results from "shutter tapping." And if you slide your finger out from the blue circle that appears beneath the Touch Zone, it cancels the shot.

I particularly like Snapture's multishot feature, which can fire off three shots in rapid succession. As you shoot, thumbnails appear along the left (or right) edge of the screen for easy review. Tap and hold a thumbnail to get a full-size look, or swipe it to the opposite edge for Delete and Email options.

Having trouble keeping your shots level? Just toggle Snapture's Level Aid, which overlays a simple reticle. Want to shoot at a lower resolution so you can save memory? Snapture gives you a choice of three image sizes.

The app normally sells for $7.99, but Snapture Labs should give serious consideration to making the $1.99 introductory price permanent: Competing app Camera Genius offers many of the same features for just 99 cents.

But two bucks is a very reasonable price to pay for an app that overcomes most of the camera's shortcomings and adds several worthwhile features. I think it's safe to say Snapture has earned a permanent home on my 3G.

Update: Snapture Labs is offering a free upgrade to those customers who purchased the jailbreak version.