French photographer Mathieu Stern has a fascinated series called "The Weird Lens Challenge" on his youtube channel, and he recently shared what I think is his most fascinating experiment yet. He look a large-format stationary camera from the 1800s, carefully removed the iris lens, mounted it on his Sony A7II camera, and then posted the video results, which you can watch below:
How well did it work for him? Well, as Stern tells it,
"The lens is incredibly sharp for a 136 years old simple metallic lens, from my test it’s even sharper than most of my modern Canon lenses, the results are amazing … but it also gives some strange lens flares and light leaks that are pretty dreamy".
Description: Black and white photo of an unidenti- fied black woman in Victorian era fancy dress sitting for a photo portrait.
The website Dangerous Minds reports on some recently discovered and unearthed pictures of photographic portraits of some very elegant women of color from the Victorian era. Sadly, information on just who these women were are thin on the ground. Hopefully some historians or genealogists might be able to shed some light on the identity of these unknown and dashing people.
As Dangerous Minds reports:
Here are some photographs of Victorian women of color that date from 1860 to 1901. Unfortunately, a lot of these photographs have no names attached to the women posed in the photographs. I’d love to know the stories behind each photo. What each woman’s life was like. Sadly, we’ll probably never know... Photos of Women of Color from this era are hard to come by, especially “family” photographs.A [few] of these photos were taken when there was still slavery in the United States.
These photos being shared online are very striking. These photographs could also give plenty of inspiration for steampunk and steamfunk fans, creators and writers. You can check out the full set of pictures here.
For the Lego enthusiast that also has the grim duty of hunting the (tiny) undead, V & A Steamworks has unveiled this incredibly detailed Lego-based "Steampunk Vampire Hunter's Kit". V&A Steamworks, also known as Guy Himber has done some incredibly detailed work on the kit, with everything from a crucifix and tiny bottles of various potions to a stake-shooting gun and holy water bombs-- all in an attractive looking case that gives a satisfying creak at the hinges when you open it!
The groom said that the bride has been "...Wonder Woman from the moment we met, and I found out everything she’s been through and accomplished. She has always said I came in like Superman and changed her life.”
