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Picture Blocking Beer Cooler Keeps Your Face Out of Embarrassing Photos
cylonlover writes "It may sound like something dreamed up by a cheesy men's magazine as a joke, but apparently this is a real thing that actually exists. Ostensibly, the Norte Photoblocker is a functional beer cooler surrounded by four sensors that can detect the flashes from cameras or cell phones. If a flash goes off in the direction of the Photoblocker, it fires its own flash to flood the resulting photos with bright white and obscure anyone nearby. Now you can go about your usual business of cheating on your spouse, being an idiot around your boss, or drunkenly harassing fellow party-goers without worrying that some wildly irresponsible person will tag you in a photo and posts it online."
Because there is no way to take a photo without a flash.
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
This will go great with my strobe light at my next party!
If you're an adult, no problem going to a bar/party. Just don't strip to your undies and and poor beer on yourself. If you're married, don't go out to public places with the prostitute/mistress. Don't throw wild keggers in your backyard. If you're going to go through this much trouble not to have your picture taken, you may want to 1) rethink your priorities, or 2) do such things in relative privacy with people you trust.
If you're still young, go be an idiot. That's what college is for, generally.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Can I get this for my license plates?
would the first stray flash trigger a duel to the death?
I'm not sure if you've ever actually been to a bar or real party (read: rager) but most of those environments are dark enough that without flash, your pictures are nearly useless when attempting to identify people.
Not so for me. I use a Nikon D700 camera with a 85mm f/1.4 lens and need no flash to shoot in near-darkness. I have many images to back up that statement.
Place nail here >+
Already available if you have a soldering iron.
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-add-led-lights-avoid-speed-detection-while-driving-222857/
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It won't work that way. Assuming the device is made as any other professional flash, the speed of the operation will be too fast and the bightness spike duration will be too short to have a cascading effect. I've worked with professional studio flashes, and this behavior don't happen.
My wife is a professional photographer and consultant, I sometimes use her equipment to take some shots. But I can give you some hints based on what I know:
You will need a DSLR camera. Sometimes you can take good shots with a compact camera, sometimes you can't. Professional-looking equipment is also part of the show, so people will bother you less if you look like a professional.
You usually won't be able to make good close-ups from far away without a tripod (and you probably won't get inside with a tripod), so you'll need to be close to the stage. Work with your camera in manual mode or speed priority, use a lens with a good aperture (be aware that below f/1.8 many not-so outrageusly expensive lenses may suffer from severe chromatic aberrations), use a sensible ISO value for the lens aperture and the kind of venue, and be aware that you probably won't take good pictures using the camera on your hands with speeds below 1/20s. If many variables confuse you, you may try a fixed aperture lens - you can probably find something like f1.8/50mm cheap, that will allow you to do good close-ups. As I said, I've used a common 18-55mm/3.5-5.6 with good results, but with a f/1.8 lens you'll be able to take dark photos and capture all the essence of the moment.
Some (good) photographers use speelites (those flashes you put on top of your camera) for floodfilling. You point your flash to the ceiling, and on a minimal setting, so it will "light up" the scene or the background without causing too much damage. Many use filters to scatter the flashlight and/or a small reflector to minimize impact on the public. Some (bad) photographers just think they need it, and spend all the time they have ruining other people's photos with light contamination.
One final note regarding equipment - live concerts are terrible for cameras, be aware that you may have to send your machine and lenses to be cleaned every year or so. The cigarrete smoke and from special effects machines will slowly make your machine dirty.
Now the good stuff - how to get in & get away with it: Get a professional-looking DSLR! If it is a local venue, you can contact the organization previously and ask for permission to take pictures, They usually allow it if you give them a copy of the resulting pictures. Many times you can score a free ticket if you already have portfolio. If the organization doesn't respond you, sometimes contacting the band directly works, but don't expect a free ticket. If nothing works, park near the venue and try to go in with the camera, they probably won't stop you if you look like a "photographer".
With smaller bands, they won't care if your photographing or not, specially if not using a flash at all. In bigger venues, expect to have a limited time to take pictures (usually the 2 first songs). I've actually seen concerts where the band stopped the concert until everyone stopped flashing their eyes.
Authorization from the organizers usually will allow you to go to the "special zone" between the stage and the public, but not much more. Every other situation may or may not give you access to that, so ask politely to whoever is doing security there.
Don't take my experience as a gospel (I'm from an european country, it may be different where you live), specially because my experience is mainly extreme metal concerts. Last advice - the mosh pit isn't the place to carry expensive equipment, so be careful if you cross it.
A pretty good marketing stunt, but I'm sure other uses can be found for this in areas where photos are not desired for privacy reasons.
One that I can think of right away would be at abortion clinics. Many protestors will try to take photographs of the people entering the clinics and then post them online to try and shame them. I'd love to see this sort of tech spoil their day.
This is a pretty risky idea, FYI. If the cops can get even a partial plate number, combined with the make and model of your car, they can most likely track you down, and will have additional incentive to do so when they see the bright IR flash in the photo. You're better off just not speeding/running red lights. If you go a bit over the limit, or accidentally run a light by mistiming the yellow, then you probably won't get a ticket. The systems are not fully automated - they get screened and marginal cases are thrown out because they don't want to bother with a case that might actually go to court (can't make money on those!). Having plate obscuring systems is just going to draw unwanted attention to your car.
I go to Erotica in London every year (if you don't know what it is, google it - it's held at Olympia every November).
In previous years, photography has been banned outright. You were even supposed to leave cameras with security if you had them on you when you arrived.
This year, the terms and conditions allowed for photography as long as it was with the consent of the subject. I guess they realised they were fighting a tide and couldn't police all the camera phones so just gave in to the inevitable.
Lots of people dress up (or down!) for it, though, and some give free rein to their "thing" - you see people in slave gear, cross dressers and so on. Despite the rules, people were taking surreptitious snaps which no doubt would end up online. OK, the subjects won't be tagged, but who's to say that they won't be spotted?
While I firmly believe noone should care what you do in your private life, a genuine picture blocker would be useful in the sad world in which we live.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
While the photog owns copyright in asny pictures taken, the subjects of the photo also have rights. Why else do newsies get signed releases?
Once you discover a undesireable photo, why not send a DMCA takedown notice to the offending site (Facebook?)