A Reader sent a “BOX” check out what's in it: RAWtalk 178

A reader sent us a mystery box with gifts for Stephen, Todd, Joe and myself, what’s in the box will totally make you laugh. Check it out at 7:54

This weeks episode is brought to you by MyRodeReel.com the video competition that if you don’t at least try and enter you have a problem. IT”S FREE AND GIVES YOU A CHANCE TO WIN COOL SHIT so do it, no excuses.

Lot’s of Photo News, Flying Solo and huge GLASS for gear of the week.

You guys crushed the meme’s and videos of me falling and we wanted to share what we though were the best ones on the show.

Thank you for your continued support, we appreciate each and every one of you, except the ones who complain about links not being there until Monday morning.

00:00:16 – Stephen’s Sunburnt Hand Update
00:01:08 – Watching vs Listening to RAWtalk
00:04:04 – Facebook Live Update
00:05:35 – This Week’s Plug: MyRodeReel.com
00:07:54 – MAILTIME! We Got a Box!
00:10:31 – Joe Finally Got a Microphone!!!
00:11:28 – Photo News
00:31:00 – Jared’s Future Photo Exhibit?
00:39:39 – Gear of the Week: Nikon 400mm f/2.8 Lens
00:42:08 – Jared’s New Mesh Shirt
00:42:32 – Flying Solo
00:44:23 – Jared’s New Vinyl Fro Decals
01:33:02 – Wheel of Fro
01:38:59 – Jared’s Scooter Fall Memes/Videos
01:46:41 – Joe Tests Out His New Mic

Here’s all of Stephen’s photo news stories in detail:

For Sale: This Lens May Contain Lunar Dust

The first telephoto lens ever used on the moon is now up for auction, and it’s not cheap! Expected to sell for between 400-600,000 dollars, the lens will hit the auction block the week of April 14. The lens itself is a Zeiss Tele-Tessar 500mm f/8 lens. Paired with the Hasselblad Electric Data Camera, it was used by Commander Dave Scott during the Apollo 15 mission. 293 photos were officially taken with it in the end. The auction description reads, “The holy grail of space collectables are those that have made it to the moon. This is a quintessential piece of photographic equipment used extensively on the lunar surface, making it a truly remarkable flown artifact from Apollo 15.” It’s not in perfect condition either, it took a few falls along with the commander so there is some duct tape covering the rear of the lens and lens cap—which was applied in space—so it may retain actual lunar dust. As a bonus, the commander also autographed the tape. To add to that, the 12” silver lens will come with a letter from Scott himself, explaining the importance of it on his mission. The lens has some special adjustments done to it too for space use: they made a giant ringed tab to control and pull focus as well as change the aperture, so it could be used with those huge space gloves. Head over to the auction here and check out video of the commander falling with the camera in hand on the moon below: (via PP)

Facebook’s New AI Tool That Visualizes Images for Blind People Is Now Live

We talked about this a few months back but now it’s officially live. Facebook’s new “Automatic Alternate Text” tool which describes photographs to blind people is now available. Facebook says, “This is possible because of Facebook’s object recognition technology, which is based on a neural network that has billions of parameters and is trained with millions of examples.” For example, if the photograph shows a picture of pizza, it’ll read off “image may contain: food, pizza, pepperoni.” They add that, “With more than 39 million people who are blind, and over 246 million who have a severe visual impairment, many people may feel excluded from the conversation around photos on Facebook. We want to build technology that helps the blind community experience Facebook the same way others enjoy it.” Currently, it’s only available to English-speaking users who use an iOS device. Check out a preview of it in action below:

Think Tank Unveils the World’s Largest Rolling Photo Gear Case

Think Tank has officially “rolled” out the world’s largest rolling photography gear case with their new Production Manager 50. The new roller bag measures 17.3×53.1×12.6 inches and weighs 21-30 pounds, depending on what accessories you use. It features all the usual accessories that make Think Tank bags awesome too like a customizable inside with dividers, lock and cable, a rain coat and more. Since it’ll definitely get heavy once packed, it comes with handles on all four sides too along with shock-absorbing wheels. As an example of how much it can hold, they say it’ll take on “3-4 flash heads, 2-3 power packs, monoblocks, umbrellas, large collapsed softboxes/modifiers, and large light stands.” It’s now available for $600 and you can see a preview video of the bag being shown off below:

Leica Teams Up with Huawei For New Dual-Lens Smartphone

Leica has officially partnered with smartphone manufacturer Huawei, and for the first time, put Leica lenses into a smartphone. I saw lenses, plural, because there’s TWO of them—two 24mm f/2.2 Summarit ASPH lenses in Huawei’s new P9 smartphone. The dual cameras are 12 megapixels each, with one shooting color and the other monochrome. They say this is ideal for improving contrast by 50% and it also increases the amount of light the cameras can see by 300%. Also, you will be able to control focus and DOF after the fact, because of the dual lenses. The phone’s camera app was designed with pros in mind too, it will give you full manual controls as well as Leica’s color profiles. Leica CEO Oliver Kaltner says this isn’t a one-time deal either, “[This] is a long term collaboration. So it’s not a single product, it’s a journey that we are starting … to really achieve better results in photography.” The new phone will be available later this month in Europe and Asia, starting at £450. No word yet on when or if it’ll hit the U.S. In the meantime, check out a preview video of the smartphone in action below along with sample photos here. Thoughts? (via PP)

Lomography Revives First-Ever Optic Lens from 1839 in New Kickstarter Campaign

Lomography is at it again, and will officially revive the first-ever optic lens from 1839. They kickstarted the campaign just a few days ago, and after the first few hours, it already succeeded the goal, raising well over the initial goal of $100,000. The lens—the Daguerreotype Achromat 2.9/64 Art Lens—is “a reinvention of the world’s first photographic optic lens from 1839,” which was originally created for Louis Daguerre by Charles Chevalier. The main difference with this retro lens is that it’s designed for Nikon and Canon mounts and uses the Waterhouse Aperture Plate system. The drop-in plate system ranges from f/2.9 to f/16, from “silky soft focus” to “razor-sharp” images. They also include special bokeh effect plates including sun flares and snowflake-shaped plates. It’s available in sleek brass or special edition glossy black for $400 (for the early bird special). Check out their official Kickstarter promo video below which includes sample pictures. Will you be pledging?

Animator Creates Stop-Motion Short Film Using Old Photos of U.S. Cities

This is really incredible: animator Alexey Zakharov of Russia, put together a stop-motion animation using old photos of U.S. cities from the early 1900’s. Titled “The Old New World,” the film showcases NY, Boston, DC, and Baltimore between 1900 and 1940. He used 3D projection mapping based on the original photo to create the environment along with custom 3D models of people moving, making it appear realistic. Travel back in time with the video below and head to his Behance profile to see behind-the-scene screen grabs from his animation process. (via PP)

Seagate Announces World’s First USB-Powered 8TB Desktop Hard Drive

Seagate announced the world’s first USB-powered 8TB desktop harddrive. Called the Seagate Innov8, it’s great for photographers and video editors on the go. The aluminum housing sports a USB-C connection, like the one found in the new macbook, supporting the USB 3.1 protocol. Price wise, it’s only $349 and will be available later this month.

Photographer Fills Her House With Sand To Showcase Photos Of Sand-Filled Houses

To showcase her photos of sand-filled houses, a photographer filled her house with sand and turned it into a creative exhibit for the images. Photographer Emma McEvoy is behind the series called “Sand Castles,” which is of sand-filled houses from the abandoned mining town of Kolmanskop in Namibia. After months of searching, the perfect house was found which was scheduled for demolition in a few weeks. She rented it, and filled it with 9 TONS of sand. With a landscaping team of 7 people, it took them two truckloads and half a day to get the sand inside the house. The exhibition then ran from March 31-April 3, and the house was scheduled for demolition the very next day. You can find photos from inside the exhibition here. (via DIYP)

Researchers Working on New Auto-Colorization System for B&W Photos

Computer science researchers are working on a new system that auto-colorizes b&w images, with no input data needed. In a new research paper entitled “Colorful Image Colorization,” UC Berkeley computer vision PhD student Richard Zhang and his team explain how they’re using a “neural network” to create automatic colorizations that can often fool humans. Training the computer with one million color photos, the new system is now fully automatic, creating a realistic color tone compared to previous color systems. To test it out, they showcased a group of people two photos: one being the real color image and the other being the computer-generated color photo. The test concluded that 20% of the fake-colored photos were thought to actually be the real photos, meaning the colors are very realistic. Check out some before-and-after tests featuring some Ansel Adams landscape images below and read the full research paper here. Imagine if this was a Lightroom plugin?! (via PP)

Samsung Granted New Patent For Smart Contacts That Take Photos When You Blink

Samsung has patented a new contact lens camera that is triggered by blinking. The design of the contact lens shows it having a camera, a tiny display, sensors, and an embedded antenna which will beam the images to an external device like a smartphone. A new “Gear Blink” trademark application was also filed by Samsung both in the U.S. and South Korea—no word on whether the patent and trademark filing go hand-in-hand though. Samsung notes that the lenses will offer better image quality than off-eye applications like Google Glass. Is this the future? (via Mashable)