In May 2023, PetaPixel reported on the growing ALERTCalifornia web of connected cameras established to detect wildfires and give firefighters a chance to contain them before they grew and became deadly. Over three years later, the network continues to grow, and California is even using space-based cameras to detect wildfires as quickly as possible.
Nicolas Cage says he is unwilling to allow artificial intelligence to be used in his performances, revealing that he declined to sign an AI waiver while working on the Prime Video series Spider-Noir.
It is now easier than ever to type a few words into an AI generator and create a photorealistic image of something that never happened. So, when a photo goes viral, how do we prove that it is actually real? How do we prove a camera actually saw what is in the picture?
A Leica 0-Series camera from 1923 sold at auction over the weekend for a staggering €4,250,000, or about $4.75 million at current exchange rates.
Brandon Thomas, the experienced software engineer behind the AI-assisted reverse engineering effort to rebuild open-source versions of Adobe's Creative Suite applications, including Photoshop, Premiere, and Lightroom, is setting his sights on another oft-maligned set of software: Microsoft Office.
A photographer is pleading with thieves to return the wedding photos he shot after all of his camera gear was stolen in Oakland, California.
A stunning photo book explores the giant pandas of China and the country’s efforts to protect the endangered species.
It was supposed to be a happy post celebrating Gayle's 44 years working at Walmart. But it hasn't gone according to plan.
The Walmart Owensboro Facebook page shared a photo of Gayle looking extremely sad while holding a bouquet of flowers. The caption on the post, which has since disappeared, read: "Congratulations Gayle on 44 years with the company!! What a huge accomplishment! We appreciate everything you do!"
The post has since been reshared on multiple platforms, with viewers drawing their own conclusions.
GitHub contributor Radium Wang is working on various open-source Hasselblad X2D 100C and X2D II 100C firmware projects, including for some reason, running pioneering 1993 first-person shooter, Doom on the camera. We've seen this same idea before, and it's always equal parts absurd and fun. This time is no different. Radium Wang says they'll release the necessary files on their GitHub soon.
Google is celebrating World Space Week with Doodles that were taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.
World Space Week runs from October 4 to October 10, and today's Google Doodle (October 9) is of Herbig-Haro 46/47.
Webb used its infrared vision to cut through the dense cosmic dust to captured the Herbig-Haro, a rare cosmic structure created when newborn stars shoot out high-speed gas. This gas runs into nearby dust clouds, causing them to light up and glow.
Camp Snap is adding three new color options for its CS-8 Camcorder: Espresso, Champagne and Rose. The company is debuting these colors along with the news that it generated $20 million in sales in the past 11 months. That explains why it keeps releasing new models and colors: people keep buying them.
Fujikina is returning to New York City this month and is warming up with a gallery of photography on the walls of the Delancey/Essex subway station. There is some stunning work featured here, including a spectacular photo from PetaPixel's Sarah Teng. If you're in the city, you can take a look at the free exhibition until October 18.
More and more movies are being shot on film, but which formats are being used? Check out this useful guide from Panvision that runs through the advantages and disadvantages of 16mm, Super 16, 35mm, Super 35, and 65mm.
The Pexar Bolt Thunderbolt 5 dock that hit Kickstarter a month ago is closing-in on half a million dollars raised and it still has a month left to go. Pexar, which is an offshoot of Lexar, says it is celebrating the achievement with two additions that will now ship with finished docks: 60W AVS charging (which supports the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max fast charging) as well as what it calls Vibe Plugins, which allow users to create touchscreen tools without coding. In short, users describe a tool in the desktop app, such as a Pomodoro timer, and a connected AI agent builds its interface and interaction logic.
The full update on the Pexar's $400K+ milestone can be read on Kickstarter.
A photographer was filmed tripping over French riot police during student protests, sending an officer flying to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of high school and university students have taken to the streets across France to campaign for better school conditions and what they called less police repression. Rights groups have accused police of using heavy-handed tactics, including batons and tear gas.
Kodak Ektachrome had been very difficult to find this past summer with stock running out in the United States as early as last June in either 35mm or 120. Luckily, the drought appears to have ended and stock is once again flowing across the country. Birgit Buchart, an excellent photographer who also works for Roberts Camera, said the store got notified late last week that stock was coming in and Blue Moon Camera and Machine just filled its inventory today. Rejoice!
We still aren't sure exactly why production of Ektachrome was so hung up, but at least the wait is now over.
For several months, the most interesting thing about the Fujifilm X half to me was not its image quality, its Type 1 sensor or its resemblance to an old half-frame camera. It was the number of times it made me stop before taking a photograph.
Jim Wehtje is an American photographer and radiographic artist known for using X-rays to reveal the hidden internal structures of natural objects, particularly plants, flowers, and seashells.
Death in the Making by Robert Capa, first published in 1938, was a pivotal publication in photojournalism, taking a much closer and partisan look at the combatants of war.
Who said full-frame lenses have to be big? Pancake lenses are always popular because of their compact nature, and you can have the image quality of a full-frame sensor in a package that's easy to travel with.
Major League Baseball (MLB) playoffs are well underway. The on-field action has been great so far. Sophisticated camera technology, often going unnoticed, enriches the spectator experience, including telling viewers at home just how far that monstrous walk-off home run went.
Common Sense, one of the late photographer Martin Parr’s most ambitious and influential projects, will be presented at the Bristol Photo Festival this month.
Amazingly enough, not only is instant film not dead, it is actually thriving. That is in large part due to the popularity of the Fujifilm Instax films, so it is time for us to give one of those films the Film Friday treatment.
Godox has announced the Litemons SR20R, a new full-color LED light panel designed for mobile content creators, including those using smartphones and gimbal cameras like the DJI Osmo Pocket and Insta360 Luna series.
The winner of the Nikon Small World in Motion competition has been disqualified after Nikon determined that the winning video broke its rules regarding artificial intelligence.
A sports photographer has beaten a YouTuber's defamation lawsuit over comments she allegedly made about "suggestive" videos of youth wrestlers.
There are so many great full-frame mirrorless cameras on the market, and many are on sale right now. It may be tempting to buy only the latest and greatest camera equipment, but as PetaPixel's recent Full-Frame Camera Power Rankings show, sometimes slightly older cameras are not only just as good as the newest models, but arguably even better for some photographers.
Meta is reportedly testing a change that would make Facebook and Instagram open directly to full-screen vertical video feeds before anything else, as the tech giant continues to chase TikTok’s success.
Photographer, educator, and cofounder of Helium Design Lab, Hugh Brownstone, has teamed up with luxury bag company Oberwerth to create "The Street Bag -- Hugh Brownstone." Two years in the making, the bag combines the best of a backpack and a sling into a single, agile design.
The Curiosity Rover is on a roll: NASA has released another stunning panorama captured by the extraterrestrial vehicle that shows distant cliffs shaped by wind over billions of years.
A previously unknown species of giant waterlily, that is large enough to be seen from space, was inadvertently discovered thanks to a selfie posted on Instagram.
This year's U.S. Open tennis tournament was marred by rowdy influencers who conducted impromptu photo shoots that interrupted matches.
What if you could build your photography website, deliver galleries, book clients, sell prints, and manage your business without piecing together different services? That's the idea behind Zenfolio's NextZen, a photography-focused platform designed to bring more of the business side of photography into one place.
Leica has announced the winners of the 2026 Leica Oskar Barnack Award and its inaugural LOBA Women Grant.
The xenon flash "look" is extremely popular right now. Many young customers are buying up old, used point-and-shoot cameras largely because of the look of a proper, real flash. Godox is bringing that same xenon flash look to smartphones with its new magnetic A2 flash.
The 2026 Leica Hall of Fame Award winner is renowned Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide. Her work has been exhibited worldwide and is housed in major museum collections. She is among the most acclaimed and accomplished photographers alive today.
Sony has announced the ECM-AX10, a spatial audio microphone designed for content creators that is the world's first to be certified by Eclipsa Audio. The mic uses omnidirectional capsules to capture sound that Sony says feels "more natural, immersive, and true to the moment."
WhatsApp users may have recently noticed an annoying pop-up message when sharing photos: "Restyle with AI."
Cameras, lenses, curry, ragù, and now... gloves. OM System feeds and clothes photographers. The company is one tent product launch away from hitting all the key survival requirements.
Yashica is back with yet another compact point-and-shoot camera designed to capitalize on the trendiness of old-school digicams. This time it's the Yashica Crew, an ultra-lightweight compact camera with a 13-megapixel sensor and 6x optical zoom.
Google has made its SynthID Detector publicly available, allowing users to check whether images, videos, and audio clips contain watermarks associated with generative AI.
NASA has released an image of the dark side of the Moon complete with handwritten annotations made by the Artemis II crew who were observing it at the time.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair's New Establishment edition.
The classic 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is such a useful staple in the professional photography world. Full-frame users have long lusted after these pro telephotos to handle everything from sports and events to studio portraits. Traditionally, these lenses are very expensive and very large, but on an APS-C platform, they could be far more compact and affordable.
Sigma has announced the 50-120mm f/2.8 DC OS Contemporary, the final piece of the company's compact "holy trinity" of zooms for APS-C cameras.
Tamron has announced that its compact, fast-aperture 20-40mm f/2.8 Di III VXD standard zoom lens is coming soon to Nikon Z-mount mirrorless cameras.
Software engineer Brandon Thomas has built and released an open-source, free alternative to Adobe's Creative Cloud suite, including versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Lightroom (not Classic), Acrobat, After Effects, and InDesign. The apps live under the ArtCraft banner and are available for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
This week on the PetaPixel Podast, Chris Niccolls and Jaron Schneider are joined by Gordon Laing and Sarah Teng for a discussion on the explosive popularity of digicams and why no matter how hard they might try, modern companies can't fully recapture the magic of the point-and-shoot cameras from 10+ years ago.
One of the most frustrating and time-consuming parts of being a photographer is dealing with all of the photos. The keepers make it worthwhile, but wouldn't it be nice not to slog through hundreds or thousands of photos to find the few you or your client actually want? That's where PhotoCuller comes in, helping photographers manage their photos from ingest to editing and save precious time.
The River Thames is one of the most famous rivers in the world, but what goes on beneath its waters? A YouTuber recently dropped a few cameras into the deep to find out.
Starting today, Instagram users can make carousels in the platform's free, dedicated video editing app, Edits. The update lets people mix and match photos and videos on a customized canvas using existing Edits tools, plus new ones built specifically for carousels.
A photographer has captured a magnificent timelapse of the Milky Way above New York City using infrared camera equipment.
Parents are increasingly turning to AI to create their children’s school photos or remove watermarks from existing images to avoid paying photographers.
A few weeks ago, it looked like the Sony FX5 might start shipping by the end of this month. It seems the release date may have slipped a little bit again.
Scientists have developed an AI model that can “read” a person’s brain activity and reconstruct what they’re looking at with striking speed and accuracy. The astonishing results can be seen above -- with the original image that the person sees on the left and the AI’s reconstruction on the right.
A "racist" woman who yelled "go back to Mexico" at photographers capturing a couple getting engaged at a park in Laguna Beach, California, has been outed on the internet.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer was beaten by armed Israeli settlers yesterday (Tuesday) while covering violence against Palestinian olive farmers in the occupied West Bank, according to witnesses and colleagues.
SmallRig’s Autumn Savings promotion runs from October 6 through 15, 2026, with up to 30% off selected photography and video accessories. These offers below include tripods, batteries, camera and phone rigs, and portable lights.
Italian photographer Simone Marulli is at the very apex of aviation photography. PetaPixel spoke to Marulli about his incredible photos of planes, including commercial airliners and fighter jets alike.
