Videos

I see a lot of cool imaging gadgets in my line of work but the Lily Flying Camera is one of the more intriguing devices I’ve looked at in a while. A remote controlled aerial drone in the vein of the popular Phantom quadcopters from DJI, Lily adds an interesting new twist to UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). It’s fully automated and requires very little to no practice from users to take it for an aerial spin and capture sky-high video footage and still photos.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: it’s not nice to buzz wildlife with aerial drones. In the latest incident of “when animals attack drones,” a chimpanzee at the Royal Burgers’ Zoo in the Netherlands can be seen swatting a pesky drone out of the air with a big stick in the below video.

DJI launched its new Phantom 3 drone to much fanfare yesterday with potential pilots most jazzed about the surprisingly reasonable price ($1,259 for the Pro model, and $999 for the Advanced) and the new features (4K video and live streaming) of this UAV.

Unboxing videos are the closest thing the photo industry has to straight-up product pornography. Or, as the great journalist, author and social observer Tom Wolfe once termed this fetishization of luxurious objects: “plutography.”

Nikon has caught some flak recently for isolated problems with its recent DSLRs but there’s no denying these cameras can still produce fantastic images and videos. For more evidence of this, check out the two below clips featuring Nikon D750s.

As part of Nikon’s “I Am Generation Image” campaign, Nikon sent complete pro quality DSLR camera kits to various people, asking them to document their lifestyle and the things they are most passionate about. The participants included Becky Chicoine and Sam Reece (a comedy due called Girls with Brown Hair), Darren Jefferies (urban cyclist), Rikki Mendias (advocate for the homeless), The Berzins (tiny house homesteaders), Mary Mattern (vegan chef) and Kordale and Kaleb (Dads).