surveillance

Watch a Thief Steal a Photographer’s Camera at a Wedding

If you're ever shooting a photography gig with strangers around, it's always important to make sure your pricey equipment is safe from harm and theft. Here's a 3-minute video that shows why: a thief was caught on camera stealing a camera and lens while the owner was busy shooting the wedding.

Burglars Steal Hundreds of Cameras and Lenses from Midwest Photo

The priceyness and portability of photo gear makes camera rental and retail outlets a popular target of burglars, and last week yet another big name in the industry was looted. The camera store Midwest Photo in Columbus, Ohio, was broken into on March 15th, and a huge number of items were stolen.

Surveillance Video Shows Dangerous Photo Incidents on Train Tracks

Network Rail published a warning this week about the dangers of taking photos on railroad tracks. The company, which operates most of the rail network in England, Scotland, and Wales, also released a surveillance video that shows multiple dangerous photo incidents at a rail crossing that happened on in one day.

SF Police Ask Public for Help in Solving DSLR Robbery

In the San Francisco Bay Area, pricey camera equipment is becoming one of the favorite targets of robbers. In 2013, the New York Times reported that photojournalists in Oakland were becoming the victims of camera robberies. Last month, photographers were robbed in broad daylight by assailants wielding pepper spray.

The San Francisco Police Department is now asking for the public's help in solving yet another DSLR robbery that occurred in the city last month.

The War Against Photography is Growing Alongside the Use of Security Cameras

The western world was sent into a brief paranoid frenzy when whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked government information about the surveillance of the National Security Agency (NSA). I say brief, because it seems to have been forgotten by a large number of people; it seemed like it was just more news. The revelations, and more that followed, showed how the NSA record phone calls and data and more controversially; that they use information from emails and social networking sites.

About the Aerial Camera That Spotted the Second Boston Bombing Suspect

When Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two Boston bombing suspects, was discovered hiding in a man's boat just outside the perimeter police had set up to search for him, the cops took no chances. Rather than sending officers right in and risking injury, they enlisted the help of an impressive aerial camera to confirm his location and then keep watch as police tried to coax him out.

The camera, developed by the FLIR corporation, is called the Star SAFIRE III, and it's the one behind all of the infrared shots of Tsarnaev in the boat that spread like wildfire all over the Internet this weekend.

ARGUS-IS: A 1.8 Gigapixel Drone Camera That Sees Everything and Then Some

What do you get when you combine 368 5MP cellphone cameras into a mosaic and add some other super-secret parts? You get the DARPA-funded Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System (or ARGUS-IS), and this puppy can see your house from, well, wherever it darn well pleases.

Altogether, ARGUS-IS is a 1.8 Gigapixel drone-mounted surveillance system that took 30 months and $18.5M to become a reality. The video above is a clip from a new PBS documentary titled "Rise of the Drones". It offers a fascinating peek at what the drone cam is capable of.