Back in 2010, Canon showed off a "Wonder Camera" concept at its Canon Expo event in New York. The idea was that by 2030, the camera maker would have single lens cameras that would shoot only video. This magical camera would be able to record footage while keeping every part of the scene in focus simultaneously, allowing the user to pull the perfect photographic still out of the video after the fact. Think of it as the Lytro Light Field camera--which lets you refocus images after the fact--but for video too.

We're closer to that vision than Canon had anticipated. Production-quality digital cinema cameras already use sensors that are comparable to DSLRs. A camera like the RED Epic which shoots RAW 5K video has individual frames that are the equivalent of 14 megapixel photos (5120x2700 = 13,824,000 pixels). Inherent motion blur in video is a potential problem--anyone who's tried to save stills from a 24 frames per second movie knows that it's difficult to avoid blur. But these new cameras also have relatively high shutter speeds--120 frames per second--which means that the stills pulled from video clips would theoretically be sharp enough for practical use.

Photographer Kevin Arnold was able to borrow a $65,000 RED Epic rig to test this theory, and spent two days shooting sports video with a small crew. The goal of the shoot wasn't just to capture amazing-looking 5K video, but to shoot video in a way that would produce usable stills in lieu of bringing a separate DSLR camera. The details and results of the test are in Arnold's blog post, but it wasn't the technical proficiency of the RED Epic that stood out. Arnold found that the very act of shooting video instead of stills allowed him to record more natural moments:

What I hadn’t anticipated going into this was the advantages this style of shooting would offer in terms of capturing natural expressions and key moments. Obviously, when you’re shooting 120 frames-per-second, it’s almost impossible to miss a moment. But there’s more to it. Shooting video is comparably silent and, without the constant clicking of the shutter reminding them that their every movement was being recorded, the athletes were able to forget I was there. This is huge when you’re striving for authentic, candid images, a hallmark of my work.

...In the end, the dream of simultaneously grabbing stills and video for what I shoot is not quite there. It’s certainly close, and I’m convinced that it won’t be long until the dream is a reality.

Image Credit: Kevin Arnold Photography

Arnold's test reminds me a lot of another case where video is actually better than capturing individual stills: video game screenshots. In the old days of PC gaming, taking game screengrabs during a fast action sequence was an arduous process. Even if you're mashing a hotkey (or using a pedal) to save screenshots, you're not guaranteed to be quick enough capture the moment. When I worked at PC Gamer magazine, we used to stage action scenes using cheat codes, assigning one in-game player as a "cameraman" while the other players played the game as "actors". It was clumsy and time consuming.

Today, computers have enough processing power and storage capacity to let you use FRAPs to save full-screen uncompressed AVI video while playing a game. Those gigabytes video are then imported into Virtualdub, where you can grab the perfect frame from your gaming session. And like Arnold's realization that not focusing on photography fostered more natural and authentic expressions in his subjects, pulling game screenshots from saved FRAPs videos after the fact produces more spontaneous scenes. But another parallel exists too: just as Arnold faced the challenge of motion blur in grabbing stills from video, motion-blur in games affects the sharpness of a screenshot. And unlike in a game, you can't just go into a menu and turn off motion blur and "post-processing" effects in real life.

The CNC revolution is about to get some government attention in the form of Pentagon funding. Over the next two years, the defense agency proposes to launch research and educational programs exploring the benefits of additive manufacturing, or commercial 3D printing. The $60 million budget for this program would come from the White House's $1 billion initiative to increase innovation in domestic manufacturing. According to Nextgov:

Defense expects to fund $30 million from fiscal 2012 through 2014. The bulk of the funding -- $18.8 million -- is expected to be forked over in fiscal 2012. The 3-D printing initiative will offer a proof of concept on how to build a network of 14 institutes to spur ideas on improving domestic manufacturing, as part of a $1 billion White House initiative called the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. The program will be managed by various federal agencies, including Defense, the Energy Department, and the National Science Foundation.

The government has already begun soliciting proposals from nonprofit and public institutions to set up the pilot program, with applications due June 14th. The goal is to find an institute that can take the seed funding to create a financially sustainable 3D printing enterprise in five years.

Government interest in 3D printing should come to no surprise--it's a proven technology used for rapid prototyping consumer products. We previously reported on 3D printing and electronics companies collaborating to create complex models suitable for UAV design. And while the US government is just dipping its feet into 3D printing research, it's easy to see 3D printing becoming a part of mainstream consumer culture. We all want replicators in our homes one day, though we're not likely going to write and sing songs about them.

This past Sunday, a near-Earth asteroid came within 119,000 miles of us, which is right at about half the average distance between the Earth and the Moon. The asteroid, with the eloquent name of 2012 JU, is estimated to be between 6 and 13 meters wide (~40 feet) and passed us by while making its 3.2 year orbit around the Sun. The following NASA/JPL animation shows 2012 JU's course as it intercepts Earth's own solar orbit.

The asteroid is classified as an Apollo Near-Earth Asteroid, as determined by their orbital axes (greater than that of Earth) and orbits that cross that of Earth. Astronomers believe that there are at least 2000 Apollo-class asteroids of significant size, though the notable ones that come close to Earth are few and far between. The next Apollo-class asteroid that NASA/JPL expects to fly by Earth is the 10-meter-wide 2012 KA, whose approach date is...tomorrow.

Alaska-based photographer Mark Meyer has written up an interesting piece examining the use of computer generated images in lieu of photography in advertising, marketing, and product development. In experimenting with Blender rendering software, Meyer realized that cg software is now cheap and easy enough to generate images that rival those of still life photographs. He writes:

For the first time in history, photography is about to lose control of its monopoly on affordable, convincing realism and it's time for us to understand that realism has never been the most important feature of the photograph...At the moment photography is still the most affordable means to quickly create realism in most applications with notable exceptions in large scale cinema productions and car advertising. But the two worlds are about to merge and a large part of the photography industry will be replaced by software.

Image Credit: Mark Meyer Photography

For example, Meyer created the above image in Blender, simulating the fluid dynamics that would've been challenging for a photographer to perfectly time and capture in a studio. On the computer, Meyer can tweak the model, lighting, and "camera" angle without consequence or cost. And while professional CG artists may still charge as much as a studio photographer, rendering time and costs for cg are going down while quality is increasing over time.

But I don't think photographers have much to fear even in the long run--photography and cg aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, as Meyer can probably attest, his skills as a photographer contributed a lot to his ability to generate that render. Cameras and computers are both tools that required the trained eye to utilize properly; a computer graphics artist with no understanding of light isn't going to create a better image than an experienced photographer. They might be able create a "good enough" image faster, but not necessarily more convincing. One example that comes to mind is the use of photography in the cross section photos in the Modernist Cuisine books. These were images that likely could have been more cheaply created with cg, but the book's authors chose to take on the challenge to taking real photos for authenticity. I've seen these physical cutaways in person and the fact that they're real tangible objects makes the Modernist Cuisine books more credible and impressive.

Even if we're just talking about commercial and still-life photography where cg images are more than passable, there's a disconnect between the artificial and the real. It reminds me of a Chinese proverb about painting legs on a snake: an artist can add unnecessary detail that ruins the gestalt of the work. With the precision and control offered by cg, artists are actually struggling to find that balance between too much detail and replicating the imperfections of reality. Chaos and spontaneity are difficult to simulate. As Meyer concludes, "it's not about the realism, but rather the fact that renderings and drawing can't bear witness in the way a photograph can. This is where photography distinguishes itself as a medium and it's time for photographers to embrace it."

While our Makerbot is in storage, awaiting a new office, I'm marveling over this printed planetary gear set created by Thingiverse user aubenc. As always, you can download your own copy from Thingiverse

Yesterday, I posted a NASA video of the Space Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise being carefully detached from its 747 Shuttle Carrier plane at JFK International Airport. The time-lapse video was actually shot by a rig made by NYC Resistor, a Brooklyn-based hacker collective that counts MakerBot's Bre Pettis (and friend of the site!) as one of its founders.

NYC Resistor members built and installed the time-lapse camera near Hanger 12 at JFK, bolting the rig down and marking it with traffic cones during the 20-hour operation. They used a Sony Alpha digital camera with a zoom lens, attached to a large battery and a simple $75 time-lapse trigger you can buy online. In addition to the time-lapse, the attending Resistor members took many photographs and even real-time video of the Shuttle demating process. My favorite is this close up of the 747 Shuttle Carrier showing stencils of its numerous Shuttle ferrying missions over the years. That's an incredible badge of honor for an passenger plane.

Photo Credit: NYC Resistor

If you live in the New York area, NYC Resistor hosts public events and classes weekly, including open sessions with its in-house laser cutter. Learn more about its events on the NYC Resistor website.

One of my favorite aspects of public space exploration is the availability of photographic data taken from government spacecraft and satellites. NASA makes its satellite photography available for anyone to download, which has resulted in some great homemade time-lapse videos. Russia's federal space agency, commonly known as Roscosmos, also makes its satellite photography available. Last year, the agency launched the Elektro-L spacecraft into geostationary orbit--the country's second operational weather satellite. In addition to collecting climate data, the satellite is also equipped with high-resolution cameras that use filters to capture images in four different wavelengths of light (including infrared). The cameras are also masked to block out light from stellar objects, such as the sun and other stars. That gives its photographs a sharply isolated view of Earth, which at 121 megapixels, also happen to be the largest non-stitched images of the planet. The view is fixed on one side of Earth because the satellite's orbit follows the direction and speed of Earth's rotation. Elektro-L is programmed to take photographs once every 30 minutes.

Photo Credit: Roscosmos

Canadian educator James Drake has collected photographs from Elektro-L and processed them for viewing on his Planet Earth site (temporarily down) and also uploaded a zoomable version to GigaPan for easy browsing. He's also filtered and combined hundreds of Elektro-L photographs to create time-lapse videos, the newest of which is below. Drake has stitched together and uploaded over 200 videos from Elektro-L and other publicly available satellite images on Youtube. These are the kinds of videos that I'd want as an animated background on my desktop.

Dominoes enthusiast FlippyCat spent 65 hours (over the course of 8 days!) assembling this chain reaction of 60,000 dominoes for a delightful 12 second payoff. He's also uploaded alternate angles and slow motion of the climax here. The laws of motion will not be denied.

This morning I found the Kickstarter page for this affordable follow focus and immediately jumped on board. A follow focus is a mechanical control mechanism for adjusting the ring focus on a camera lens. With increasing number of filmmakers and cinematographers choosing to use affordable DSLRs for shooting video, third-party accessory makers have scrambled to create tools to make shooting with a DSLR more like shooting with a dedicated cinema camera. Custom shoulder mounts, viewfinders, and follow focus knobs turn relatively tiny digital cameras into sprawling rigs that look more like sci-fi shoulder cannons than video shooting equipment. The problem is that these accessories are typically expensive--their makers can get away with that because the camera and lenses are so relatively cheap compared to "professional" camera equipment. Democratization of video production is still being held back by expensive gear.

That's why I'm a fan of devices like the Lens/Focus Shifter, created by the engineer/cinematographer team of Daniel Bauen and Jacob Snowden. The device itself is dead simple--it's just a plastic rod attached to an elastic band that tightens around standard DSLR camera lenses (between 56mm and 98mm). The rod looks like it gives you enough torque to quickly rack focus without twisting your wrist, and the whiteboard attachment for marking focus points is pretty clever. It may not be as stable as a professional quality follow focus setup, but looks perfectly suitable for shooting video at home with your camera on a tripod. Early backers of the Lens/Focus Shifter were able to claim one for $10, which is unbelievable for this type of tool. It's expected to ship in September, and its makers are targeting a $45 launch price.

You can find the project's Kickstarter page here as well as watch the introductory video below.

Google has launched a new educational microsite to inform users about the green energy practices used in its data centers. Accompanying "The Story of Send" is a brief animated video hammering in a few points for users: your data is secure, and the server facilities are green. Literally.