Sony's image sensor business has seen meteoric growth in recent times, but it seems that things are now cooling down. The company just reported its earnings for its latest quarter, and things aren't looking as rosy as they were before: Sony reports a "significant" decrease in image sensor sales.
It occurred to me yesterday that the whole idea of "tips" is a bit lopsided. If someone does a great job, we give them a hefty tip; if they do a terrible job, we give them no tip. In other words, the worst thing we can do to someone who provides a bad level of service is to not give them extra money.
That's... kind of a low bar to set. It's not even carrot-and-stick -- it's carrot-and-smaller-carrot.
Kodak's film business may finally turn a profit this year thanks to support from Hollywood, but the photographic film industry is still seeing declines in demand.
That's the latest word from Fujifilm, which today just announced a major worldwide price increase for its film lines.
GoPro has seen better days. The company just announced that it will be cutting its workforce by 7%, roughly 100 people, after seeing big declines in sales of its action camera.
Things definitely aren't looking too hot for you if you're a fan of Samsung's digital cameras. The South Korean company has been showing off many of its latest and greatest products in Las Vegas at CES 2016, but there hasn't been a single mention or appearance of a Samsung camera.
Photographer David Hobby is best known for his popular blog Strobist, which has introduced countless photographers around the world to the art of shooting with off-camera flashes. Today, Hobby just officially announced a new endeavor called The Photographer's Oil Collective (POC): it's a service that turns photos into one-of-a-kind, hand-painted oil reproductions -- a tangible product that pro photographers can be proud to present to clients.
Back in July 2013, we shared how major filmmakers had banded together to rescue Kodak by committing to purchasing film from the company. One of the big names was J.J. Abrams, the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opens this week.
The new Star Wars was shot on Kodak film, and thanks to a number of other major productions using Kodak as well, Kodak says it may be profitable starting next year.
Adobe announced its quarterly results last Thursday, and investors are happy: the company beat market expectations by doubling profits from a year ago thanks to a huge growth in Creative Cloud subscribers. It seems that the shift from boxed software to digital subscription plans is paying off big time for the San Jose, California-based company.
Flickr could soon find itself with a new owner. Yahoo is reportedly considering a sale of its struggling core Internet business, in which the photo sharing service Flickr -- acquired back in 2005 for around $25 million -- is just a small piece of the pie.
Samsung's rumored shuttering of its camera business looks like it's continuing to play out. After pulling out of the camera market in Germany earlier this month, the company is now saying that it's ditching the UK as well.
Weddings are a seasonal thing. They really pick up in spring, roll on at a steady pace through summer and then spike into the fall. But then comes November, when the frenzy of peak wedding season slows down, it can be tempting to hibernate until spring. If you’ve had a particularly busy year, it may actually be necessary for you to cool your heels for a minute.
Rumors about Samsung's camera business struggling and closing down have been swirling around for months now, and today we may be seeing yet another proverbial nail in the coffin. Samsung is officially saying that it's exiting the German photography market.
The Tamrac brand of camera bags has been around for nearly 4 decades now, and it looks like it will continue to live on much longer. Gura Gear, on the other hand, ends here.
When Tamrac went bankrupt last year, Gura Gear swooped in and acquired the company's brand and assets. Now, a year later, Gura Gear has decided to drop its own brand name in favor of the older Tamrac brand. Thus, Gura Gear will be no more.
Rumors have been swirling around in the photo industry the past couple of months about Samsung pulling out of the camera industry. Samsung hasn't announced anything new in recent times, and its camera division has reportedly been bleeding money every year since the NX system was announced in 2010.
Want a high-tech way to share photos with others? MOO recently launched a new product called Business Cards+ that can help. On the surface, they look just like ordinary business cards that can be printed with personalized designs. However, inside each one is an embedded NFC chip that can trigger actions with a simple tap of an NFC-capable smartphone.
National Geographic is laying off 9% of its 2,000 employees as it prepares to finalize its "expanded partnership" with 21st Century Fox, a $725 million deal that turns the iconic yellow-bordered magazine into a for-profit publication. The roughly 180 layoffs reportedly represent the largest reduction in the 127-year history of the Society.
I am often asked for advice by those starting out in the photography industry. And if there’s one thing I have no shortage of, it’s advice. So with that in mind, I present you with my 8 Tips for Starting a Photography Business.
Canon announced its quarterly earnings today, revealing that its operating profit for the quarter (~$665 million) has fallen 21% compared to last year and that total revenue fell by 4.5%. At the same time, Canon increased its full-year earnings estimate due to a drop in the value of the Japanese yen.
Sony's juggernaut image sensor business may soon grow even more thanks to a name brand acquisition. The company is reportedly finalizing a deal with Toshiba to buy its sensor business for about $164 million.
Back in July 2015, we reported that 500px had raised an additional $13 million in funding led by China's equivalent of Getty Images, the Visual China Group. The move suggested that 500px was working hard to offer its massive archive of 55 million images to photo buyers in Asia.
Today, 500px announced that it is officially expanding into China with the unveiling of a new website, 500px.me.
SanDisk is a huge name when it comes to memory cards used by photographers, but it's actually a relatively small company compared to other heavyweights in the memory chip industry -- one of the biggest of which is Samsung. A new report says that SanDisk is actively exploring the potential sale of its business, with at least two competitors expressing interest in the deal.
Sony announced today that it will be spinning off its booming image sensor business as a new company called Sony Semiconductor Solutions. The goal of the change is to bolster the company's Devices segment.
Here at PetaPixel, we receive quite a number of review requests daily, and picking what we feel is unique and interesting can prove to be a difficult task. But when we recently got a slightly more unusual request to review custom-branded wooden boxes from a company called ‘Woody Woodclick’ we had to give it a try. Producing custom wooden boxes and engraved flash drives, the company aims at premium packaging for photographers.
Advertisements on Instagram aren’t a new concept, but the folks at Facebook are working to open their image sharing platform to even more businesses around the globe. Beginning on September 30th, small businesses will be able to run advertisement campaigns on the network in more than 30 countries around the world.
Jason Kirby is a photographer and entrepreneur who is working on building Togally, a new online marketplace for connecting photographers and those who need photos shot. We had a chat with Kirby about his new venture.
Photographers are up in arms this week over an online battle between a DJ and a wedding photographer. At the center of the controversy is the question of whether or not a DJ should be able to shoot and share wedding photos when the photographer has an exclusivity agreement with the bride and groom.
In this post, I'll be sharing 5 business mistakes that photographers make all the time.
Lens Rentals Canada is calling it quits after years of being one of the prominent gear rental services serving photographers in Canada.
If you've always dreamed of owning a business that builds software for photographers, there's currently an opportunity to jump in headfirst. Koken, a free and self-hosted content management system for photography and portfolio websites, is for sale.
Sony announced a few years ago that digital imaging would be one of its three main pillars (with the other two being games and mobile). It looks like the decision is paying off, and Sony is doubling down on its plans. After making 40% of all image sensors sold in 2014, Sony is now announcing that it will raise $4 billion in funding in order to increase how many sensors it can produce.
Sony may not make the world's most popular smartphones or cameras, but it's playing a bigger role in those industries than what meets the eye: the company's image sensor business has been booming in recent years. In 2014, Sony was the company that made 40% of all the sensors sold across the globe.
There's a critically endangered species in the world of photography businesses: the one-hour photo shop. With the decline of film developing and photo printing, the one-hour photo niche has become the single fastest-dying business in the United States.
How bad is it? There are only 190 of the shops still open in the whole country.
Note: This article is written for commercial photographers, not consumer photographers. A consumer shooter has a different list of challenges, and since I am not a consumer photographer, I won’t be addressing them.
Well it has certainly been a hectic week. Two proposals, a shoot, designing and writing -- and that was only Monday, heh.
It reminded me of how many channels I have, and I wonder if it may be possible to actually have too many. Can one have too many things one does? Possibly. Perhaps. Probably.
This past Monday, GoPro announced that it has acquired Kolor, a French company that's pioneering the use of 360-degree cameras for immersive virtual reality.
Visual Supply Co., better known as VSCO, is becoming a juggernaut in the photo world. After raising an impressive $40 million from investors last May in order to build out its photo community, the Oakland-based retro preset company has just raised another $30 million.
Canon Europe has acquired a London-based startup company called Lifecake, which builds a photo-sharing app that's marketed toward parents of young kids. The service, which launched back in 2013, claims to offer "time travel for parents."
John Rogers was once one of the high flying entrepreneurs in the photo world. After coming up with the brilliant idea of scanning old photos for newspapers and splitting the rights to the digital images, Rogers was on his way to amassing one of the largest photo libraries in the world and was earning a whopping $120,000 per week selling his images on eBay.
Now his empire has come crashing down. Rogers is reportedly being sued for more than $90 million and has lost his business entirely.
LinkedIn announced today that it has shelled out $1.5 billion to acquire Lynda, the popular online education site that is teeming with material for photographers. As part of the acquisition, LinkedIn is now the new owners of, among many other things, 500+ photography courses and 24,000+ photography tutorial videos.
Sony became the largest shareholder in Olympus back in 2012 after investing $645 million in the company in exchange for a reported 11.5% of shares. It's not the largest anymore.
The company has just sold about half of its remaining shares in Olympus to the bank JPMorgan, reducing its stake from 10% to 5%.
Photoflex, a popular manufacturer of lighting gear and camera accessories, has unexpectedly announced that it will be closing its business that has been in operation for three decades.