September 2012

Apple is on stage right now announcing its new iPhone 5, and has just revealed the details of the smartphone's camera. It's pretty much the same camera as the one found inside the iPhone 4S, except they made the whole thing "thinner" (the iPhone 5 is 18% thinner than its predecessor). You'll find a slightly improved backside-illuminated sensor that shoots the same 8-megapixel photos at 3264x2448 resolution, and the same 5-element lens with a f/2.4 aperture.

After being announced back in 2002 as a replacement to the 28-70mm, Canon’s 24-70mm f/2.8 (above right) quickly became …

Last year, we shared an interesting video showing a blank white room that could be completely transformed in an …

I'm going to be in Cologne, Germany next week, covering the latest and greatest photo announcements at Photokina 2012. In addition to posts -- and possibly live blogs -- on this website, I'll also be sharing photographs of the products, parties, and press events through our relatively new Instagram account: @petapixel. The photo steam may also be added to the sidebar of this blog. Follow along for the inside scoop!

BERG Cloud got the tech world talking earlier this year when it announced the Little Printer, a tiny little ink-less, cloud-connected printer that prints your social media feeds onto strips of thermal printer. While the device is designed to print out tiny, text-based newspapers with updates from services such as Twitter and Facebook, they company is also hacked together a simple photo printing feature that lets you send the printer any photo from your phone and have it quickly printed out in black-and-white.

Sony shook up the digital camera world today by announcing the RX1, a game-changing camera that was somehow kept under wraps until news about it leaked a few days ago. Regardless of whether or not ordinary consumers will readily adopt it, it's a bold camera that sets the bar for what the world can expect in a point-and-shoot. Why is it so revolutionary? It's the first time a full frame sensor has been put inside a compact camera body.

Sony has announced the new NEX-6, a mirrorless camera that follows up -- and one-ups -- the NEX-5R that was announced a couple of weeks ago. In the NEX pecking order, the 6 falls somewhere in between the 5R and the 7 (announced back in December 2011). It differs from the NEX-7 in that it features a new secondary mode dial and has less resolution (16.1MP, down from 24.3MP), and differs from the NEX-5 in that it has a 2.36-million-dot electronic viewfinder.

Other specs include an APS-C-sized CMOS sensor, ISO that goes up to 25600, a 3-inch tilting LCD screen, a built-in flash, a speedy hybrid AF system, 10fps continuous shooting, and 1080/60p video recording.

Sony has launched a beastly new full frame camera to wage war against the flagship DSLRs of rival camera manufacturers. The A99, which saw its share of leaks over the past couple of weeks, is the company's new flagship professional camera, replacing the full-frame A900 and A850. It's also the world's first pellicle mirror full-frame digital camera, combining the image quality benefits of having a large sensor with the speed benefits of having a semi-transparent mirror.

The camera features a 24.3MP sensor, an ISO range of 50-25600, 6fps continuous shooting, 14-bit RAW files, a viewfinder with 100% coverage, a 3-inch LCD that tilts in three directions, and a high-res OLED EVF (the same one found in the A77, NEX-6 and NEX-7).

An apparent meteor struck Jupiter yesterday, creating an explosion so massive that amateur astronomers looking through their telescopes her on Earth were able to see it. Amateur astrophotographer George Hall of Dallas, Texas happened to have a camera and telescope pointed at the planet at the time, and managed to snag some video footage of the fireball, which he soon uploaded to his Flickr account.

A user over on the Chinese forum Xitek has leaked the first sample photographs captured using the Sony A99, the company's upcoming flagship SLT (i.e. pellicle mirror) camera. The images are 100% crops of straight-out-of-camera JPEGs, with noise reduction completely turned off.

Zuckerberg’s crazy $1 billion purchase of Instagram 6 months ago is now looking like a steal.

Earlier this year, a set of mugshots from the 1920s showing Australian criminals made the rounds on the Internet. When art director Michael Jason Enriquez came across this portraits, he was struck by the artsy-ness of the photos. He writes,

Hasselblad first launched its H System of digital medium format cameras back at the 2002 Photokina. The H4D was …

When the September 11th terrorist attacks happened exactly 11 years ago today, NASA astronaut Frank Culpertson was the only American not on planet Earth. Looking down at New York City from the International Space Station, he managed to snap the powerful photo above (high res here), showing the smoke plume from the World Trade Center site.

The New York Times has a fascinating interview with Li Zhensheng, a photojournalist …

Check out this vintage photo of a halloween party group portrait. It might be hard to believe, but it's not actually a photograph, but a pencil drawing by 28-year-old Scottish artist Paul Chiappe. He creates insanely detailed artworks that look just like old, fading, blurry, black-and-white photographs from decades ago. The "photos" show family pictures, elementary school class pictures, and even standard yearbook pictures.

Kodak has announced that it'll be shedding even more jobs in an effort to cut costs as it transitions into being a company solely focused on commercial printing and corporate services. Two weeks after announcing the sale of its photographic film business, the company is stating that another 1,000 pink slips will be issued by the end of this year as part of a $330 million cost cutting plan. This is on top of the 2,700 layoff notices already handed out this year, and the new round of cuts will reduce the company's headcount to 13,400, down from the 145,000 employees it had during its glory days.

Here's a great video by Reuters in which Bangkok-based photojournalist Damir Sagolj shares seven things about photography he has learned over the years by working in the field. They are: anticipate, research, reach out, prioritize, practice, interact, and be invisible. Although the tips are geared towards photojournalists trying to document the issues of the world, many of them can be applied to everyday photography as well.

If you need a tabletop photo studio for nice-looking product shots, a quick build involves using a piece of …

Editors have always been wary of sending photographers into war zones since the practice began in the early 20th …

Pentax has officially announced its pint-sized followup to the Q mirrorless camera: the Q10. Although it shoots 12.4 megapixel images, the CMOS sensor size remains at 1/2.3-inches, the same size as the Q and a boatload of other company cameras on the market. The camera allows the Q system to hold onto the title of "the world's smallest and lightest interchangeable lens camera system."

Other specs include a 3-inch LCD, RAW mode, an ISO range of 100-6400, 1080p HD video recording, faster autofocus, a built-in pop-up flash, built-in HDR, 5fps continuous shooting, manual exposure modes, and in-camera image stabilization.

After leaking onto the web late last week, the Pentax K-5 II and K-5 IIs have now been officially announced. The cameras succeed the K-5 as Pentax's flagship DSLR, and feature a 16.3MP APS-C CMOS sensor, an ISO range of 100-12800 (expandable to 80-51200), an 11-point autofocus system, a 3-inch LCD screen, 1080p HD video recording, in-camera stabilization, RAW shooting, a 100% FOV viewfinder, full weather sealing, and 7fps continuous shooting.

360° interactive photographs of products are a great way for online merchants to increase their conversion rates -- people apparently feel more comfortable buying things if they can see what it looks like all the way around -- but creating those views can be a pain. Enter RotaryView's new CupChair, a simple app that greatly simplifies the process by taking care of most of the steps for you.

One of the biggest photo stories at the moment is the fact that Sony is planning to stuff a full frame sensor inside an upcoming compact camera called the RX1. While the $2799 price tag likely puts it out of the reach of many photo enthusiasts, the fact that full frame sensors are starting to appear in fixed-lens compact cameras by a company other than Leica is pretty exciting.

What's amazing about the RX1 is how small it is. Sony somehow managed to stuff a huge full frame sensor inside a camera body that's roughly the size of the Panasonic GX1, which packs a much smaller Micro Four Thirds sensor.

Photographer Jon Shireman has a cool project titled Broken Flowers that features photographs of flowers that were shattered. How do you shatter flowers, you ask? By freezing them with liquid nitrogen!

Everyone is a photographer these days, and it is estimated that 380 billion photographs were taken last year, with …

Benjamin Von Wong is a photographer based in Montreal, Canada. Visit his website here.

PetaPixel: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?

Benjamin Von Wong: Hah, where to begin. I'm a 25-year-old Chinese Canadian who's been to thirteen different schools in three different countries, in three different languages. I grew up in a loving family that believed that experiencing the world was a must, had the opportunity to try all sorts of things, from playing violin for 10 years, to getting a black belt in taekwondo, to graduating from Mining Engineering in 2008. I pick up hobbies sporadically, from parkour to bartending, painting to paintball. Photography is one of the more recent hobbies that I picked up that happened to stick just a little longer!

Love it or hate it, Instagram is currently a pretty big deal in the mobile space. Big enough, perhaps, that many smartphone users might not even consider switching to a phone running Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system unless the photo sharing app is available. If you're one of those people, get ready to think about jumping ship: Instagram is coming to Windows Phone.

We've shared a number of examples of surreal images created using multiple exposure techniques or by combining images using Photoshop, but did you know that you can also create beautiful images by stacking actual film negatives? Photographer Laina Briedis did some experiments with 35mm film stacking, and achieved some stunning results. She combined photos of stars and sky with pictures of people, creating images that look like they were plucked from someone's dreams.

New York Times photographer Damon Winter shot a neat portrait project earlier this year during the London Olympics. Titled Their Golden Years, the Times tracked down former athletes who represented the United States of America during the 1948 Olympic games, which were also held in London. The project provides a neat little biographical glimpse into each athletes life, using before-and-after photos, a brief description of what they did, and short audio interviews in which they share some memories.

We're a couple of days away from Sony's official announcement of its new flagship single lens translucent full-frame camera, the A99, and all the leaked pieces are starting to come together. These new leaked photographs, first published by sonyalpharumors, shows the new camera from all the standard press shot angles.

Now that The Impossible Project has succeeded in reviving Polaroid-style instant films -- even giant ones -- the company is expanding its horizons and branching out to new products. Today, it announced a crazy new device that's dedicated to turning your digital iPhone photos into analog instant photo prints: the Impossible Instant Lab.

A couple of weeks ago, we shared the sad story of how one hiker was killed after venturing within 50 yards of a grizzly bear to snap photographs. One of the biggest rules for photographing wildlife is to make sure you're a safe distance from the wild animals. This distance varies depending on the animal you're photographing. For grizzly bears, you're supposed to stay at least a quarter of a mile away.

If Google's vision of the future of photography comes to pass, we'll soon find ourselves in a world in which camera glasses are worn around as an everyday fashion accessory. Perhaps in an effort to make this idea easier to stomach, Google partnered up with luxury fashion company Diane von Fürstenberg (DVF) today for the label's Spring 2013 fashion show, equipping people on and around the runway with its high-tech glasses. Glass wearers included runway models, Google founder Sergey Brin, and designer Diane von Furstenberg herself.

Photographer Benjamin Von Wong recently traveled to the city of Bratislava (the capital and largest city of Slovakia) to photograph ballet dancer Ana Beschia and a number of dancers from National Slovak Theater. Using mostly natural ambient light, Von Wong captured the dancers leaping, dancing, and posing in various locations around town.

New details about Pentax's upcoming Q10 interchangeable lens camera have emerged. The tiny camera -- which likely has a tiny sensor -- is the followup to the Pentax Q, the world's smallest interchangeable lens compact. It'll be available in a number of colors, and will feature a 12.4 megapixel CMOS sensor, an ISO range of 100-6400, 5fps continuous shooting, AF face detection, 1080p HD video recording, in-body image stabilization, manual exposure modes, and a built-in flash.

If you live in California and have been eyeing some camera gear on Amazon, you might want to bust out your wallet and make the purchase this week. On September 15th, 2012, Amazon will start collecting sales tax for purchases made from California. The tax rate ranges from 7.25% to 9.75% depending on where you live, so the cost difference could be quite significant depending on what you buy. For a $1,500 camera or lens, the tax could be as heavy as $150.

A huge leak in the photo world today: Sony is planning to unleash a full frame compact camera called the RX1 that's designed to compete against the Leica X2, which contains a smaller APS-C sensor, and the Leica M9, which is much more expensive. Photoprice Canada and sonyalpharumors published photos of the camera, which looks like a beefier version of the highly-acclaimed RX100 compact camera (which has a smaller 1-inch sensor).

Is a college photography degree worth it? It depends on who you ask. There are plenty of successful photographers out there who have never set foot inside a university photography lecture, while others have done just as well after earning that diploma.

Photographer John Eklund spent the past year visiting various locations in the Pacific …

San Diego-based photographer Tim Mantoani, the guy who shot giant Polaroid photos of famous photographers holding their works, recently got his hands on Lot #1 of The Impossible Project's new 8x10 instant film. To test it out, Mantoani busted out his large format camera and 8x10 processor, and then visited a local surf shop to create a multi-shot panorama.

After The Verge broke the story this week about Nokia's dishonest promo video for its PureView camera technology, Nokia went into damage control mode. As its stock took a tumble, the company hired an internal ethics investigation into the matter, and took steps to turn the media's attention back to its revolutionary PureView features rather than the dishonesty seen in the video promoting them.

It also invited The Verge out to Central Park in NYC to do a hands-on test of the Lumia 920 camera, in an effort to show that the camera is worthy of the hype.

If you're a dog lover, you've got to check out the photography of 17-year-old photographer Jessica Trinh. Her two main photo subjects are her two dogs: a Golden Retriever named Chuppy and an Australian Shepherd named Daisy. Over the past few years, Trinh has captured hundreds of beautiful and creative portraits of her furry happy-go-lucky friends, aided by her keen eye for spotting gorgeous lighting and happy expressions. We dare you not to smile as you look through the images in this post.

Here’s the first leaked photograph of Sony’s upcoming high-end full-frame single-lens-translucent DSLR, the A99.

If you want a way to display and rotate through your latest prints and instant photos, you can try …

Freelance photojournalist Tracey Shelton captured the striking image above showing the instant a tank shell exploded in a Syrian rebel outpost earlier this week.

The Internet has won, and the United States' largest camera store chain will soon go the way of the Polaroid camera. We reported earlier tonight that the entire chain of Wolf Stores was slated to be liquidated, but it turns out the damage doesn't end there. A second source has now confirmed that the shutdowns go all the way up, and include Ritz Camera stores as well (Ritz Camera owns Wolf Camera).

Ritz Camera went under the hammer yesterday at a public auction, the latest chapter in the company's efforts to figure out a profitable business model in the increasingly Internet-driven business of selling camera gear. Among the things on the auction block yesterday was Wolf Camera, the competing chain of photo retail stores that Ritz acquired back in 2001. If you're a fan of Wolf Camera shops, here's some bad news: their days may be very numbered.

A source just informed us that all Wolf Camera shops are slated to be liquidated. He heard from a Wolf store manager friend that the chain was purchased by a liquidation company at the auction, and that exact time frames will be announced soon.

Nokia has endured a torrent of bad press over the past couple days over its faked promo video, but the truth is, the company is investing heavily in improving photography in its mobile phones, and its PureView technology is definitely something we should be keeping our eyes on.

In order to back up its claim that PureView low light performance is "unbeatable", Nokia set up a "photo challenge" booth at its launch party and invited passers-by to pit their cameraphones against the Lumia 920. The challenge involved shooting a photograph of a still life setup stuffed inside a dark cubby hole in a brick wall. Check out the video above for a glimpse of how the phone's camera stacked up against the iPhone's and the Samsung Galaxy's.

Back in March, a location-based mobile chat startup named Yobongo was acquired by …