Copyright law is in place to protect artistic expression, not individual ideas. That was the crux of the reasoning behind a recent federal appeals court ruling that saw no infringement on the part of Sony. In the court's opinion, Sony's photo (right) was not nearly similar enough to Donald Harney's (left) and "no reasonable jury could find 'substantial similarity' between Sony's recreated photo and Harney's original."
The origin of photography was artistic incompetence. On his honeymoon in 1833, William Henry Fox Talbot struggled to sketch the Italian countryside. He was assisted by a camera lucida, a device that projected the landscape onto a sheet of paper, but his untutored hand couldn’t follow the contours. So he conjured a means to record scenery chemically. He dubbed it “the art of photogenic drawing”, and in the 1840s popularized his invention with a book called The Pencil of Nature.
It seems like every photography app and update has to do with iOS users, so here's one for the Android fanboys out there. Amazon's Cloud Drive Photos app -- which went live last November -- just got an update, complete with several much-requested features.
Last week, we wrote on how you can use LEGO pieces to keep your lens caps on your camera strap when they're not protecting your lenses. A reader named Fearn quickly pointed us to a similar tip published over at Sugru at the end of last year. Instead of using camera straps, however, they suggest tripods as a sturdy way of keeping track of the caps.
Photographer Caleb Charland is an artist who perpetually thinks outside the box for his photo concepts. In the past we've featured experiments that include a 14-hour exposure of a lightbulb powered by an orange and using scientific principles for creative images.
When your grandfather was Dr. Erhard Glatzel, one of the great lens designers of the twentieth century, it won't come as too much of a shock to find out that you've inherited two lenses that, by all accounts, don't officially exist. Other people? Well, they might be a little bit surprised... and a lot bit jealous.
If you seriously want to nerd out in the area of photography-related fashion, check out this T-shirt by The Unrefinery. It's titled "Crop It," and is available for $24.
Over the last couple of years, smartphone photography has gained a lot of credibility. Many stock photography agencies, however, have managed to keep their "no smartphones allowed" signs proudly on display even as all of this was happening.
This past Tuesday, a major fire gutted an abandoned warehouse in Chicago. More than 50 fire companies and nearly 200 firefighters were summoned to the scene to battle the blaze. What's interesting is that temperatures in the area were so low that the water used to put out the fire quickly froze, turning the building into a giant block of ice.
If you got on Twitter yesterday, you probably noticed an abundance of strange, .gif-like video loops. These are the result of 'Vine,' Twitter's stand-alone video clip sharing app that is being called something akin to the "Instagram of Video" by more than a few online sources.
Here's a sneak peek at Olympus' upcoming high-end compact camera, the XZ-10. It will likely succeed or be sold alongside the Olympus XZ-2, which features a 1/1.7-inch sensor and competes directly against the semi-large-sensor compacts of other manufacturers (e.g. Nikon P7700, Canon G15).
Can you tell what this photograph is of? Snowflakes? Skydivers? Some kind of illustration involving stick figures? Here's the description by the photographer behind the photo, Reddit user Toastbiscuit: …
When shopping online, you've probably seen options for entering promo and discount codes during the checkout stage. Most of the time, however, you probably don't have a suitable code to use for knocking some dollars off the purchase price. Scouring the web can sometimes do the trick, but it's difficult to sift through the noise and find working codes.
NASA's Curiosity rover quietly accomplished another photographic first today. This time it was the first nighttime photographs captured on the surface of the Red Planet.
Photographer and photography professor Kerry Skarbakka photographs himself falling. The concept sounds simple and straightforward enough, but when you lay eyes on the photographs themselves, you find yourself worrying about Skarbakka health... and sanity.
Fujifilm's new X-Trans sensors diverge from the traditional way CMOS sensors are designed by using an irregular pattern of red, green, and blue pixels. This allows the sensors to eschew the standard anti-aliasing filter, eliminating moiré patterns without putting an extra component in front of the sensor. Roy Furchgott over at The New York Times has an interesting piece on how the new tech is inspired by Fujifilm's glory days in the film photography industry: …
Since its inception in 2005, street fashion photography blog The Sartorialist has become something of a bellwether in the fashion industry, turning photographer Scott Schuman into a kingmaker that can give ordinary fashionable folk 15 minutes of intense Internet fame by spotting them, shooting their photo, and publishing it to his blog.
Google's Images search engine is a useful tool for photographers in a number of ways. Search for a particular type of assignment or a theme, and you can browse through an ocean of inspiring photographs. Do a reverse search on your own photo, and you can look up whether it has been used without your permission online.
There's some new activity in the world of Sony NEX mirrorless cameras and E-mount lenses -- both new product launches and rumors of soon-to-arrive gear.
Here's a bit of lighthearted humor as we heat up the bloggin' machine today: at the second inauguration of Barack Obama this past Monday, a number of humorous photobombs were spotted in the live television coverage and in the press photos that emerged afterward. A few of them have the web talking (and laughing).
Focus stacking is when you combine multiple photographs of different focus distances in order to obtain a single photo with a much greater depth of field than any of the individual shots. This can be done by turning the zoom ring on your lens, but this can be difficult to control (especially for highly magnified photos). It can also be done using special rigs designed for the purpose, but those are generally quite pricey.
When Kodak announced that it had reached a brand licensing deal with JK Imaging, hardly anybody questioned the move. It meant that Kodak-branded cameras were not a thing of the past -- there's even an upcoming Micro Four Thirds offering -- and after all, Kodak probably has standards when making deals like this.
The painting above is the first official portrait of Kate Duchess of Cambridge (formerly known as Kate Middleton). When it was unveiled to the public earlier this month, art critics around the world bashed it for making Kate look ghostly and much older than she actually is. On the receiving end of all the criticism has been British artist Paul Emsley, the man who photographed Kate Middleton and then turned one of the photos into the painting seen above.
A new piece over at The New York Times is bringing to light an issue that, to be honest, we hadn't realized had gotten so bad. Apparently, amateur food photography is out of control, forcing many restaurants to begin implementing bans or other photo related policies.
When we first shared the news that Metabones had announced a "speed booster" adapter that makes your lenses faster, wider and sharper, not a lot of people had gotten their hands on it yet. But now that the most exciting accessory on the block has been accepted as definitely NOT an elaborate April Fools joke, a few websites have taken turns with it, and initial reviews all seem to be positive.
Strange Fruits is a series of clever conceptual photographs by German photographer Sarah Illenberger. Each photo shows a common fruit or vegetable that has been arranged to look like some other object or material.
Don McCullin is known the world over for his incredible work as a photojournalist. His powerful and moving photography of devastation and suffering in Cyprus, The Congo, Vietnam and many others have won him worldwide acclaim as one of the greatest ever.
San Francisco-based street photographer Travis Jensen has made a name for himself capturing candid shots, many of them in the rough Tenderloin neighborhood in downtown San Francisco. In this video from KAYO TV, he explains his love of street photography and the city that has become his adopted home.
The folks over at Chipworks have come out with an interesting infographic that shows the top U.S. patent holders in 2012, and compares them to the same list from 2000. Beyond just gawking at the increase in the sheer number of patents held by each company, we were pleased to see camera manufacturers making a strong showing.
After taking a pinhole workshop taught by renowned pinhole photographer Justin Quinnell, UK photog Matt Bigwood was inspired to start an interesting pinhole project of his own. Thus was born the six-month long exposure you see above, taken using a pinhole camera made from a beer can, some gaffer tape, and a sheet of 5”x7” black and white photographic paper.
In mid-December, photographer Gavin Heffernan and his team braved freezing temps at the Eureka Dunes in Death Valley to capture the beautiful time-lapse footage seen above. They expected to (and did) get some gorgeous shots of dunes and star trails; what they didn't expect was footage of a strange flying object (we're purposely avoiding the term UFO because of its affiliation with oblong green men with large eyes) circling the night sky.
If you were planning to install 500px's popular photo sharing app on your iPhone or iPad today, you're out of luck. The app was abruptly yanked from the iTunes App Store earlier today over the fact that users can search for photos showing artistic nudity.
One of the biggest stories in the sports world over the past couple of weeks has been the hoax involving star football player Manti Te’o and a girlfriend that never existed. After the news spiraled into the national spotlight, Te'o agreed to an exclusive off-camera interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap to explain his side of the story.
There are some places where you're just not allowed to stage a professional photo or video shoot, and topping that list would be places like Disney World, Disneyland, and probably Apple's headquarters in Cupertino. The thing is, some photographers and videographers have no problem ignoring the rules to get a great shot (think: rooftopping).
San Diego-based light-painting photographer Darren Pearson has a knack for drawing elaborate illustrations in mid-air using light. He frequently draws skeletons into his long-exposure photos, and recently created a series of photos showing a skateboarding skeleton.
Photographer, blogger, and photographers rights' activist Carlos Miller has made headlines quite a few times over the past few years with his legal rumbles with authorities over photography in public places. Miller, who often instigates the disputes for the purpose of bringing photographers' rights into the spotlight, recently had another big confrontation with authorities in Miami (it's not the first time it has happened).
Nikon's free online image service my Picturetown never really caught on; given the stiff competition from big names like Flickr and 500px and, let's face it, that unfortunate name, it's not surprising. But Nikon is calling a do-over and starting fresh with a new look, new features and a new name. Staring January 28th, my Picturetown becomes 'Nikon Image Space.'
The issue of publishing social media photos of breaking news without their owners' permission is in the news again. After a helicopter crashed in central London last Wednesday, the London Evening Standard found a photo snapped by a witness named Craig Jenner and shared on Twitter. Unable to obtain permission from Jenner prior to its paper going to the press, the Evening Standard went ahead and published the image on its front page.
Earlier this month, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt paid a visit to North Korea with former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Schmidt's daughter Sophie also tagged along, and was allowed to snap photographs of things they experienced during their stay.
For several years now, my occupation has been to basically read everything written about new equipment. In order to help everyone save time, and to save the Internet millions of electrons, I have developed a concise method to summarize all such discussions for all newly introduced imaging equipment.
Flickr photographer RawSniper1 has a clever way of holding onto his lens caps when they're not attached to the front of his lenses: he uses LEGO pieces. By attaching one thin 2x4 piece permanently to the top of his lens cap and one thin 2x8 piece to his camera strap, he created a simple DIY lens cap holder system.
Goodbye old young friend. Let me give you all a piece of wisdom that I recently learned the hard way. If you go on a fishing trip called 'Hit em' Hard' and the captain tells you that you should take your bag off and put it in the 'dry container', what he really means by 'dry container' is a place that will fill up with seawater after he accidently clogs the drainage pipe, soaking you and your friends cameras, bags, wallets and cellphones for over an hour in salty seawater.
Photographer Brandon Stanton has generated quite a bit of attention in the photo world through his project Humans of New York, which features thousands of portraits that form a visual census of the city. His goal is to capture 10,000 portraits of New Yorkers that are associated with points on a map.
This is a cautionary tale about a recent experience with Amazon. For Christmas I was the lucky recipient of a Pentax K-5 -- a gift from a family member who bought it from my Amazon wish list (Yeah me!). Unfortunately, unwrapping was the last happy moment in this tale.
It may not be the most popular series of compact cameras, but the Ricoh GR Digital line has attracted a sizable cult following of photographers around the world -- particularly street shooters. From the time the original GRD was announced at Photokina 2004 until the most recent GRD IV, the cameras have offered smaller 1/1.77-inch CCD sensors. That will soon change: a trusted source tells us that the Ricoh GR Digital V will feature a larger APS-C sensor.
Chilean visual artist Felipe Baeza is doing some pretty interesting work with Matrix-style camera rigs. Instead of bullet time videos, Baeza uses his rig to create 3D portraits of subjects that can then be displayed in augmented reality or through a 3D model viewer.
In most ways the smartphone is the height of convenience. Phone, check; computer, check; camera, check. But one market the smartphone seems well suited for, but hasn't yet broken into with any reasonable force, is the action cam market.
Upon first glance, artist Thomas Barbèy's surreal photomontages may seem rather amateur when compared with all the highly-polished photomanipulations that are floating around on the Internet. However, one simple fact will make you see the pieces in an entirely different light: Barbèy shoots film and uses in-camera and darkroom techniques to create the works! …
For his project Presidial.org, Chicago-based artist Jeremy Tubbs collected random news photographs of Barack Obama captured between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2012, aligned them, and then turned them into the above time-lapse video. The 2,500+ photographs were scraped from various online sources and are arranged in chronological order.
Facebook has over 240 billion photos on its servers -- that's billion... with a "b" -- and every day about 350 million more are added. Naturally, Facebook needs to store all of those photos somewhere, and that somewhere needs to be accessible at all times because who knows when Jack will need to show Jill some pics of the hill from 3 years ago.
