March 2014

As the owner of an extremely cute rescue puppy from my local humane society, I can attest to how wonderful it is to be able to rescue a pet whose life was previously in danger for some reason or another.

However, it's not a happy ending for many of the dogs in shelters. To help with that, Massachusetts-based photographer Fred Levy has started the "Black Dogs Project," a series that focuses on capturing portraits of black dogs against a black background.

You know those perfectly overcast days, where the clouds just perfectly diffract the sunlight, turning the world into a beautiful, evenly-lit soft box? Imagine if you could have that indoors when trying to shoot a subject.

Stolen gear registration and recovery service Lenstag reached a major milestone last week when they successfully recovered and returned a stolen lens to its rightful owner!

Photography is one of the most powerful ways that ecological messages are transmitted. Photo series of landfills show us the issues we need to address, while beautiful landscape photography shows us what we should strive to preserve. But a UK company called Co2ncience is going a step further.

From the looks of a recent rumor over on Canon Rumors, we might soon see a Canon branded smartphone. While there's no information on what cell phone manufacturer they're working with, it's safe to say with Canon entering the market, this device may become the smartphone camera to beat.

What is that, you say? Look at the calendar? Oh...

When Nick Fancher created his series of 80's Cyber images, he made use of some textures to add that extra bit of character to the photos. The textures turned out so well that, upon publishing the series, he received multiple inquiries about where he got those textures.

Well, it turns out he created them himself, and he's decided to share the step-by-step how-to in case you want to duplicate his results.

We’ve shared many a flowchart, both serious and silly, in our day, but this one …

In the world of photography, one of the most vital components is the display on which you view and post-process your images. And while many of us are holding out for the day 'retina' displays become the norm on a larger scale, it's not quite the reality, yet.

However, Samsung is giving us a bit of an introduction to it, if you will, with three new display models the company is releasing in the coming weeks.

Are you looking for a creative new way to photograph your newborn at home AND you like to be part of the newest social media trends? Well you're in luck, because a new thing called "Baby Suiting" is sweeping the Instagram nation right now.

Japanese security firm Security System Co. (gotta give them credit for originality) recently got in touch with the incredibly talented designer Chicara Nagata -- who creates high-end custom-made motorcycles -- to see if he would build them a security camera... they left the details up to him.

So, naturally, he chose to do what he does best and built a motorcycle ... or a security camera ... or whatever you want to call this strange and strangely awesome hybrid.

The PEN-like Stylus SH-1 wasn't the only camera to get its debut tonight. Olympus also introduced a new Tough camera, the Stylus Tough TG-3, whose claim to fame is impressive macro photography capabilities including an automatic focus stacking feature that'll help expand your depth of field when you're shooting really tiny subjects.

Olympus released two cameras tonight, the first of which is a 24x zoom compact camera called the Stylus SH-1 that is styled after the company's PEN line and boasts the title of 'world's first compact with mechanical 5-axis stabilization' for both stills and video.

What does six decades worth of photography experience look and sound like? David Goldblatt. Speaking both to an interviewer and an audience at the 2014 Design Indaba Conference throughout the six-minute video above, Goldblatt takes a look back at the career and some of the resulting images that have brought him so far, giving powerful insights that only time and experience can bestow upon a person.

For those of you who, like me, enjoy shooting film on occasion but keep a predominately digital workflow, German company Reflecta has a new 35mm film scanner on the way that will blow away almost any other consumer-level scanner you're going to find.

One of the challenges if you're just now carving out your niche in this crazy world of professional photography is figuring out how to price your work. How exactly do you determine how much your photos are worth, what expenses can you expect to run into, what contracts are you likely to run into and what exactly do they mean?

All of this and more is explained in a series of free guides that PhotoShelter has released over the course of the last year. Starting with Magazine Photography, then Corporate & Industrial Photography and finally finishing off the series with a guide for Photojournalists.

In a video that is equal parts awesome and terrifying (with just a dash of "this is a GoPro ad") whitewater kayaker Dane Jackson gives you a first person view of what it's like to go over the edge of the 60ft tall La Tomata waterfall in Veracruz, Mexico.

First and foremost, if you aren’t at least a little Geeky, this post is not for you. Unless you’re one of those people who thinks ‘just take some pictures, dammit’ when I write some article about resolution testing. In that case, you might like this article because we’re taking pictures to test lenses. Sort of.

When it comes to stabilizing your camera on the go, there are quite a few options out there. However, they tend to come at the cost of size or price, neither of which is appealing to many. That's where the DIY "Stringpod" will help you.

Fascinated by the landscape and the mystical mood of the movie "Braveheart," Scotland is always on my mind when it comes to mystical mountainous landscape photography. So I was happy that I found two fellow photographers who were willing to accompany me for a two-weeks road trip to the Scottish Highlands.

The title kind of says it all on this one, so we'll keep it brief. There is a coffee shop in South Korea that ought to make it onto every quirky photographer's bucket list... kind of like the bathroom in China we told you about a couple of weeks ago.

The bathroom was shaped like a rangefinder and this coffee shop lets you enjoy your favorite South Korean brew inside a beautifully designed Rolleiflex camera. However you prefer your coffee, there's little doubt in our minds that photo lovers would rather be drinking it from inside this cool and quirky café.

Following up on a story we shared a couple of months ago, it seems we now have TWO examples of police officers facing consequences for dealing with photographers unprofessionally.

There are a few different ways to address bags under the eyes when you're editing a portrait in Photoshop, but the video above shows one that is both simple and extremely effective.

Thanks to The Slow Mo Guys, we get to start off the weekend …

If you're ready to have your mind blown for the next three and a half minutes, go ahead and press play. And keep in mind that the masterpiece your eyes are about to take in was anything but an easy task.

Created by videographer Daniel Stoupin from 150,000 22-megapixel RAW exposures, he put together a 4K masterpiece (despite Vimeo only showing it as 1080p).

As a photographer, there is nothing more intriguing to me than the unknown. What’s out there and where will it lead me on my next adventure under the stars?

Upon taking my first photo of the stars, I came to realize it wasn’t even close to replicating what was in the skies above me. Nothing man-made will ever be perfect. There are always improvements to be made in the never-ending journey to replicate what nature has been producing for billions of years.

With practice, however, I was able to break down the physics behind capturing high quality star shots and start to produce some nice results. Over time, I’ve been able to perfect this recipe with actions and inputs in my camera; and, with words and knowledge, teaching others to capture this beauty on their own. With that in mind, here is my tutorial that will teach you how to take some awesome shots of the Milky Way and night sky.

What happens when you combine the imagination of a three-year-old with the talents of a father who is a special effects artist? You get "Action Movie Kid", a great example of when a talented visual artist uses his skills to make his kid feel awesome.

In a year already filled with quite a few changes for the social media giant Twitter, two newly announced photo-related features show that the microblogging site is committed to becoming a more visual platform.

This latest device from technology licensing company Rambus goes to show: when you combine information-gathering sensors with powerful algorithms, you can yield some incredible results.

Developed by research scientist Patrick Gill, this 200 micron diameter glass sensor is capable of capturing an image of remarkable quality for its size. Etched with a spiral pattern, the light reflecting off of whatever object is being "photographed" is transferred as a pattern, in the form of spherical light, to the CMOS sensor.

As Jim Morrison once said, "Whoever controls the media, controls the mind." There is power in an image, and the press often become persona non grata in a conflict that is socially and politically charged. This is what is happening in Crimea right now, as photojournalists Kilian Fichou and Laetitia Peron revealed in a recent article on the AFP Correspondent blog.

Have you ever taken a photograph, just to look at it and be disappointed that you can only enjoy it with your eyes? Well, to your rescue is an incredible, fictional application called PicSong -- courtesy of The Onion.

Do you enjoy adventure? I mean, REALLY enjoy adventure, not just taking a walk through your local woods. Well, if you do, you'll enjoy this. Put together by photographer Mike Palmer and cinematographer Jon Simonassi, this video shows their journey to photograph an abandoned prison in Ontario, Canada.

Editor's Note: Due to some issues with the camera, this video is very shaky at times. It didn't bother us much, but if you're easily distracted this video might annoy more than it educates you. You've been warned.

If you're just getting into the world of cameras and lenses, the term "crop factor" and phrases like "this is a 35mm equivalent lens" might still confuse you. Well, that shouldn't be the case much longer.

The video above offers a clear, concise and simple explanation of crop factor that will hopefully clear all of this up and equip you with some important knowledge that will come in handy the next time you're shopping for a lens or crop sensor body.

News that Nikon had been replacing some defective D600s with brand new D610s broke months ago, but it wasn't confirmed officially until late last night when Nikon announced the news itself.

Heartbreak and tribulation are never something we strive for. Yet, they're unavoidable byproducts of a life well-lived, that teach us lessons along the way.

In addition to those lessons, these struggles often produce inspiration out of a need for escape or expression. And it was such a need that drove New Orleans native Frank Relle into the welcome embraces of long exposure photography and the city he calls home.

Using only stock video footage from their library, Dissolve Footage took a humor article titled "This Is a Generic Brand Video” by Kendra Eash and turned it into a cliché-filled reality that will either have you laughing or crying... or both.

Brandon Thibodeaux (b.1981) is a photographer based in Dallas, Texas who creates portraits in the documentary tradition. In addition to his assignment work and creative commissions, he explores life in the American south. He is a member of the photography collective MJR, based in New York City.

Firefly photography isn't a novel concept. In fact, long-exposure images of these glowing creatures lighting up beautiful forest scenes have appeared on PetaPixel a couple of times before... we've even featured a tutorial on the subject. But photographer Vincent Brady's firefly time-lapse above IS novel.

It's novel, not because it's a time-lapse of fireflies (we're sure that's been done a time or two) but because he combined many different photographic techniques to create something truly breathtaking.

Sonyalpharumors has gotten ahold of some more details about the rumored Sony medium format camera we mentioned earlier this week, and it seems this camera will be very portable indeed.

When it comes to sharpening an image, more than likely, your technique involves using a certain method over the entire image all at once. However, that's rarely the best way to do it, because how much and where to sharpen varies quite a bit depending on what you're shooting.

James Balog, the photographer behind the award-winning documentary Chasing Ice, is back at it again, capturing the ever-changing landscape of glaciers. This time though, he's headed to the southern hemisphere, taking his passion and ambition to Antarctica for the project Extreme Ice Survey.