Western Digital’s My Passport line have always been popular with amateur photographers. But today they’re announcing the My Passport Ultra, which feature USB 3.0 integration, WD Smartware Pro backup software with Dropbox, and the standard hardware encryption. Dropbox integration is extremely interesting since many phones and mobile devices these days have Dropbox installed, so it means that there is a greater spread of your files across the cloud. For the person wanting to show off their portfolio later on, this feature will make things much easier if they carefully curate a folder after automatic uploading.
My Passport Ultra 500 GB MSRPs at $99.99 USD, and the My Passport Ultra 1 TB is $129.99. There is a 2 TB option, but no word on pricing yet for that unit. They’re available now at the Western Digital Store.
Urban exploring is cool, but when the locations have some serious history or creepiness to them, it’s even cooler! Malaise is a photography project done by 23 year old London based creative Christian Schmeer about Beelitz-Heilstätten. According to Forbidden Places, it was a tuberculosis sanatorium until World World I came along. During that time, it served as a German Military hospital. Then World War II happened, and it served as a Soviet hospital. Adolf Hitler was treated here. Most of the complex though was abandoned but some of it still remains active.
“The smell of disinfectant still lingers in the operating rooms, permeating through the airy corridors, a caustic whiff in sharp contrast to the gentle palettes of old paint flaking off the walls and fantastic window frames,” stated Abandoned Berlin.
In 1989, the grounds became the scene of six murders as necrophilic serial killer Wolfgang Schmidt, also known as “The Beast of Beelitz”, terrorised the area. Once considered amongst the most advanced hospitals in Europe, Beelitz-Heilstätten has been abandoned and left to dilapidate due to discrepancies over ownership.
Take a look at some other photos and his Vimeo Staff Picks video after the jump.
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We’ve featured items from Bite My Apple before, but the latest one is just weird. Meet the Tiltpod: it’s a stand for your iPhone that lets you take more stable handsfree photos without being awkward and asking someone to do it for you when you want a picture of yourself. It works through a magnetic ball pivot system. And the entire thing connects to your keychain–and is being specifically bills as doing so.
Now, how many of you eagerly say to yourself, “I’m going to put my keys next to my iPhone and in the same pocket too!” only to see that your beloved Apple product gets scratched up–to which you proceed to drink yourself into oblivion due to the sadness incurred from damaging one of Steve Jobs’ beautiful contributions to the world. Shame on you!
This self-mutilating iPhone device will cost you $14.99–and probably a new iPhone case. It’s available for the iPhone 5, 4 and 4s. Sorry older users–you’re not cool enough.
Along with the new Rebel cameras, Canon is announcing a brand new point and shoot camera. The new SX280 HS sports a 12.1MP sensor, 20x optical zoom, WiFi connectivity, a DIGIC 6 imaging processor, ISO performance up to 6400, and high speed burst capabilities at 14FPS and full resolution. Indeed, it is quite the speed demon. Now before you go and say, “my camera can go faster” just remember that this is a point and shoot dude. And it’s at full resolution! The camera also sports a 3.0 inch, 461k LCD screen.
The PowerShot SX280 HS digital camera is expected to ship in April 2013 for an estimated retail price of $329.99.
More hands on photos are after the jump.
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I went out tonight into Greenpoint (you know, where that show Girls is shot) and photographed near the new park at the Golden Hour with the Nikon D7100 and the 50mm f1.8 G. I’m really starting to like it more–the focus is snappy (but sometimes not accurate) and the color rendering is really great. But a part of me is still yearning for a full frame sensor and all that it can do.
But be sure to check out our High ISO samples and first impressions. Once again, these are JPEGs resized for the web because the raw files aren’t supported in Lightroom yet.
This post is sponsored by Adorama as they have loaned us the unit for this review. You can purchase the Nikon D7100 body only or with kit lens directly from them.
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Today, Flickr announced on their blog that they’re going to try to do something special for their users. In an interesting social marketing approach, they’re telling their users to shoot a photo of a love letter, card or message and tag it with, “BeMyFlickrValentine.” As an alternative because tons of people don’t know how to tag an image (after running many Flickr contests for different companies, I would know this) you can submit your image to a specific Flickr Group.
The Flickr Blog crew will then select a tightly curated few and showcase them on a blog post.
Sadly, at the time of publishing this news post the submission numbers seem even sadder than some people may be because their photos haven’t been featured. A better idea would have been if Flickr agreed to send the image to a specific loved one in the photographer’s life. Even more sad is the fact that we keep hoping to see Flickr return to the glory that it was before, but it doesn’t seem like that so far.
