Rumors, leaks, and sneak peaks dominate headlines in photo gear news. More often than not, the appearance, specs and even price of a new piece of gear (this applies particularly to cameras) is known well before its manufacturer announces it themselves -- a fact that should come as no surprise to frequent PetaPixel readers.
It's been a good few weeks for revolutions in photography. First, Sony broke ground on affordable full-frame mirrorless cameras with the a7 and a7R, and now Profoto has up and changed the lighting game by releasing the B1 Off-Camera Flash: a powerful cordless monolight with TTL metering capabilities.
The above video, titled "How not to be a photographer at a gig," has gotten a ton of attention over the past few days as it has made the rounds online. It shows concert photographer Aelle Lucà at a small gig really going at it with the flash and bothering (at the very least) the person who recorded and posted the video.
As you might imagine, the comments section for this video on YouTube quickly turned into a troll-fest of insults and negativity directed at Lucà. But as it turns out, this is exactly what the band wanted and asked for... and his photos turned out pretty darn well.
If versatility is the name of the game, then the Lollipod is doing its best to win that game. A new product currently making the press rounds, the Lollipod combines the functionality of a tripod, monopod, boom, lighting stand and selfie stand into an extremely portable and easy-to-use package that will come in handy in a slew of different situations.
First comes hype, then comes the announcement, and last comes the post-release marketing. In regards to the Nikon Df, we've officially moved into the last of those three steps, and right on cue, Nikon has released three videos of big time photographers endorsing the Df by talking about their experiences shooting with it.
Art and photography often intersect in interesting and, at times, confusing ways. For instance: if you create a beautiful 11-acre portrait out of wood stakes, soil, sand, grass and stones that is only truly visible from the air, are you an artist, portraitist or just a landscaper with an artistic eye? What's the percentage breakdown?
Obviously there's no right answer here, but Jorge Rodrigeuz-Gerada -- a man who recently did just this -- calls himself an artist and so we'll go with that.
The time has finally arrived to do away with terms like "rumored," "soon-to-be-announced" and "expected" and replace them with the term "official" where the Nikon Df is concerned. After leaks so severe earlier today that they left nothing to the imagination, Nikon has finally unveiled its retro-styled full-frame 'Pure Photography' machine.
It looks like Amazon made a major goof and accidentally (or maybe not) published the Nikon Df sales page momentarily before taking it back down again. In addition to confirming the specs we already expected were coming, the page also let the cat out of the bag in regards to how much the Df will cost... as it turns out, it's an expensive cat.
When Nokia announced that the new Lumia 1520 and the current Lumia 1020 would both soon have DNG Raw capabilities, the response was polarized -- half of the smartphone photo community was excited, the other half skeptical. Would these files really give you the latitude that RAW is known for? Or would they just be a massive waste of hard drive space.
For as long as most of us can remember, the pre-takeoff safety briefing given in airplanes worldwide always included something to the effect of "all electronics must be turned off and stowed during takeoff and landing." For photographers, that meant lost photo opportunities unless you were willing to break the rules to get a great shot.
Android 4.4 KitKat was officially announced a few days ago, but one of the coolest features (especially for us camera folk) wasn't mentioned in the announcement at all: an impressive new non-destructive photo editor is built right in.
The title of this post is what we imagine safari guide Matthew Copham says whenever he tells people about his most recent adventure.... well, that or, "and then a cheetah tried to eat my GoPro." As far as the response he gets, we expect it involves copious amount of Awwwww.
If the Nikon "Pure Photography" teaser videos left you wanting a lot more in terms of info or pictures of the upcoming Nikon DF retro full-frame, you're in luck. Less than 24 hours before we expect the camera to finally make its official debut, several press pics of the shooter have leaked.
Let's be honest, we all saw this one coming. Ever since Instagram first announced that ads would soon be appearing in US users' feeds, we've known that the official launch would be met with a less than enthusiastic response. Now that the first ad has gone live, it seems we struck this nail on its head.
Dear clever person who stole my camera from the Barcelona train station -- yes, you are oh so clever. I must say, I read about your ilk in all the guidebooks and could not even imagine how you might be able to get my beloved camera from my ever-watchful grasp, but you and your band of accomplices managed to play me and my group of friends like a fine tuned instrument. I am still only guessing at what you did to me.
Alright, last but not least of the posts meant to convince you that I went to Nashville for photographic reasons and not because Sony paid for me to go hang gliding, I present to you: the sample images taken with the new Sony RX10.
The Sony RX10 was in shorter supply than the other two cameras during my time with Sony in Nashville, so getting my hands on it was a little bit more challenging. But get my hands on it I did, and even though I spent less time shooting with it than I would have liked, what I found was a camera that really blew away whatever expectations I had.
The last Nikon DF (if it is indeed called that) teaser is out and ready for you to take a look, but honestly, there's not much left to see. The 4th and 5th teasers gave us our best look at the upcoming camera, and so you would think the 6th would be all but a reveal.
Rather, Nikon seems to have moved in the opposite direction by recapping the old teasers, showing nothing new, and letting us all sweat it out for the next two days while we wait to see if the official announcement can live up to all this hype.
There's been a lot of gear talk today -- both serious and comical in nature -- so we thought we'd shift gears and share a little bit of inspiration in the form of a gorgeous time-lapse of the night sky over the Canary Islands.
Over the course of my week in Nashville, I got to try out both of Sony's new full-frame mirrorless cameras. And so, here is the promised sample image gallery, broken up into categories of photos taken with the a7, the a7R and the a7R with the E-Mount 24mm f/1.8 APS-C lens.
Nikon has spared no amount of hype getting ready for the release of the rumored Nikon DF full-frame retro-styled camera. But all of this throwing around of high-brow terms like "pure photography" and five full teasers worth of mechanical whirrs and clicks and peeks at the camera's design has also opened the company up to a little bit of mockery.
This last week, I had the great pleasure of joining many of my fellow writers from other major photo and tech news outlets for a week of fun and photography with Sony in Nashville, TN. Basically, the event gave us all a chance to test out the new mirrorless full-frame a7 and a7R cameras (as well as the RX10, which I'll hit on in another post) in a variety of situations, with Sony artisans and engineers on hand to answer all of our questions.
When Sigma announced a new version of the much loved 120-300 f/2.8 I immediately kicked myself for buying a much pricier 300mm Nikon about 6 months earlier. The reasons why may not be readily apparent, but we'll get to that. First let's discuss the aesthetics and specs.
For the past couple of years, photographer Klaus Pichler has been interested in the subject of costumes. The subject has traditions in many of the world's cultures, and some people spend great deals of time and money in order to obtain extremely elaborate outfits.
Between 2011 and 2013, Pichler visited many of these costume owners in their homes, asking them to pose among the spaces and objects of their life while taking on the appearance of their "alter egos." The resulting series is titled "Just the Two of Us."
If you're Maroon 5 or the like, you get to commission photo shoots for your album covers and boost Terry Richardson's bankroll.
Smaller-scale musicians need to DIY it, however, and now music-sharing service SoundCloud has made it easy by partnering with Instagram.
From the Dept. of "I Wonder What Will Happen If I Shove This Into There" Research comes news of handy substitute for a dedicated remote camera trigger.
You might not thing there was much economic clout left in the Kodak brand, but apparently it still carries some weight in the courtroom.
The one-time photography monolith recently won a $76 million judgement from Japanese electronics conglomerate Ricoh to settle a dispute over patent licenses and royalties.
A professional photographer since 2005, Spencer Boerup quickly learned that modularity and ease of use aren't very easily found in the world of flash modifiers. Sick of using "bulky, awkward, and cheap" modifiers that use velcro, straps, brackets and bands, Boerup decided to develop a new system that uses the power of magnetism. It's called MagMod, and has already generated quite a bit of buzz in the industry.
Nikon's rumored full frame 'DF' camera will soon be upon us, and this past week Nikon released the 4th and 5th installments of the teaser trailer series it has been releasing through YouTube. Here are parts one, two, and three.