January 2014

It's a question we hope none of you ever have to answer, but one that a talented colleague and PetaPixel reader is facing with incredible optimism and strength.

If there's a secret contest going on for most terrifying action camera video, then 25-year-old skydiver James Lee recently gave the skydivers in the mid-air plane crash a run for their money. In a terrifying video captured on the veteran skydiver's helmet cam, you see him get knocked unconscious just seconds after jumping, and then get rescued by his fellow skydivers.

Despite all of the crazy gloom and doom talk that tends to circulate in the photography industry, it seems us photographers are still an optimistic bunch.

What's the best way to entice the professional photography market to buy into your device? Insult them of course! At least that seems to be Nokia's strategy in its latest Lumia 1020 Ad, "Goodbye DSLR, Hello Lumia 1020."

A new app called 'Flag' is exploding on Kickstarter today, and it's based on a very simple premise. The app will print and mail you museum quality, 220 gsm prints of 20 photos per month absolutely free... just as long as you allow them to place advertisements on the usually-blank back side of the photo.

Artist Jon Burgerman thinks there are too many violent film posters greeting us everywhere we go. These posters of movie and TV show characters holding weapons are all too common, and most of them show the protagonist brandishing their weapon right at the viewer.

Update: According to collectSPACE, this might not have been the only camera brought back from the moon. Check out the update at the bottom for details.

Update: Andrew recently created a Facebook page where you can follow him as he continues to go on enviable adventures. Be sure to give him a follow if you found this interview and his work interesting.

Life as a race photographer can be a tough and risky one. Add in a little eastern spice and it has a whole different taste. Steve Thomas takes us on a back seat ride through the pelotons of Asia.

If the first two SmugMug Films features are any indication, we're going to be covering them all... and we doubt anybody is going to complain.

Camera weenies can argue until they drop about subjective qualities like bokeh yumminess or ergonomics. For the folks who like to stick with numbers, however, there's software maker and testing titan DxOMark, which recently declared the Zeiss 55mm FE the best autofocus lens it's ever tested.

Britons are seeing a new side of the nation's World War I experience thanks to the publication of a small treasure trove of negatives that were only recently discovered tucked away in someone's attic.

ZEISS is touting its latest release as a "perfect" portrait lens with serious Macro chops to boot -- a 50mm, f/2.8 model for APS-C cameras sporting Sony E and Fuji X mounts.

LEGO and baking powder, that and some Star Wars inspiration is all Finnish photographer (and PetaPixel reader, we might add) Vesa Lehtimäki needs to blow your mind and send you into a nerd frenzy that'll have you digging up your old D&D set.

Ever since we here at LensRentals first tested a Sony A7R, we were dying to take a look under the hood. Say what you will about Sony as a company, but they create some of the most elegantly-engineered camera bodies we’ve seen. Plus, the A7R is something of a groundbreaking camera, and we wanted to see how they crammed all that stuff into its little body.

Tablet photography is something of an oxymoron for most photographers, but there are those who occasionally (or more than occasionally) snap a photo on their iOS or Android tablet, and Sony would like to help those people take better pictures.

The Mars Opportunity Rover has found a jelly donut on Mars... man would that be an awesome headline. Unfortunately we couldn't run that unless we were intent on click baiting you (we're not...). What the 10-year-veteran Mars Rover did find (and photograph) is a mysterious rock that looks like -- and has been nicknamed -- the 'jelly donut.' …

Don McCullin is a household name in the photographic community, but as far as he is concerned, it's for all the wrong reasons. In this incredibly poignant and thought-provoking interview, he shares his thoughts about an illustrious career that was spent photographing atrocities, and left him somewhat haunted.

There's no rule against having a little fun while proving a technological point, even if you're Microsoft.

For those intrigued by the notion of add-on lenses for smartphones but put off by the bulky design, Apple offers hope with a couple of recently patented designs for swapping camera components on an iPhone without turning it into an unwieldy monster.

Dominic, the guy behind the popular web comic Domics, put together this humorous animation about asking a stranger to take your picture. We're not sure why, but this really cracked us up, even as it sort of creeped us out at the same time.

The lens is the most important factor in the image quality of a landscape astrophoto.

On the weekend of the 18th, 23-year-old Annie 'Kim' Pham accidentally photobombed a group of strangers in front of a Santa Ana nightclub while out with her friends. That accident cost her her life, as the strangers converged on her and beat her to the point where she had to be put on life support before ultimately succumbing to her injuries one week ago yesterday.

There's a good chance you're sick of reading about Fujifilm this week. But with the fever-pitch buzz surrounding the release of the X-T1, it's not often that we consider the business behind these popular cameras.

As it turns out, we all might have some skin in the Daniel Morel vs. AFP/Getty Images copyright game; and we're not just talking about emotional investment here, there are serious precedents being set.

The E-M10 wasn't the only announcement to come out of Olympus tonight. Also arriving (and also noteworthy) is the longest superzoom Olympus has ever made, and a new, tougher tough camera -- both of which have some world's first features to their name.

Alright, it's time to set aside all the Fujifilm talk for a moment, because it's now Olympus' time to shine. Debuting tonight is the new OM-D E-M10. A camera that packs features from the E-M1 and E-M5 into a more affordable package that Olympus is proud to call 'the OM-D for all.'

The Daily Show Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook …

Well, well. Fuji's done it again. They've simultaneously wowed fans and foes with the newly announced X-T1. There's a lot to learn here and a lot to discuss. Let's take a look at some of the details and perhaps more subtle or overlooked points.

Wedding photography gets a bum rap among many photographers, but the thing is, it gets that bum rap because it's hard! You're working in a high-stress environment, tasked with capturing someone's 'most important day of their lives'... and you'd better be doing it on par with the 3,426 amazing wedding photos they've compiled on Pinterest in preparation for this day.

Yesterday we featured a far too common headline that went something like "*insert newspaper here* fires all photographers." This time, it was an entire chain of local UK papers, and like the Chicago Sun Times before it, the chain is planning to replace these pros with freelancers, submitted photos and reporters with smartphones.

For all you hipster and pro photogs out there, I’m sure you already know that the X100S has already been out for quite some time now. So if you’re looking for another one of those lengthy, technical, in-depth pixel peeping reviews about this camera? Then you’ve most definitely came to the wrong place.

For some reason we're fascinated by photographs of real things made to look like drawings or paintings. Series like Alexander Khokhlov's 2D or Not 2D and pretty much Alexa Meade's entire portfolio are great examples of this.

Nikon's release of the D610 was met with a bit of... hostility... from many of the D600 users who were and still are dealing with sensor spot/oil/dust (whatever the heck you wanna call it) issues. But it looks like at least a few D600 owners have been treated to a nice surprise from the company service center.

It's finally here! About one bazillion (official statistic) leaks and one teaser later, Fujifilm has finally announced the much-longed-for X-T1. With a weather-resistant body, a large and powerful OLED EVF and the fastest autofocus in its class, Fuji promises that this camera will make for a "truly remarkable photographic experience."

In the last days I received multiple requests to translate my posts for foreign readers, as they have very limited information about the happenings in Ukraine. This material describes events which took place in Kiev on January 22nd and 23rd.

When DxOMark tests out the quality of mobile phone cameras, they usually classify and rank them as such. There's a whole mobile section to the site where one can compare different smartphone cameras using a different scoring system.

The Impossible Project, the ongoing effort to keep classic Polaroid cameras alive and well-fed, has added a splash of color to its catalog with three new special edition SX-70 that films sport gold, silver and colored borders instead of the usual white.

Britons tend to take their newspapers a bit more seriously than Yanks, but that hasn't stopped a newspaper chain there from Chicago Sun-Timesing (yes, we verbed it!) its way to ignominy by firing its entire photography staff.

Sometimes, all that's required to take a standard photo and turn it into something special and unique is to flip your camera upside down. That's what artist Peter Wegner did for his Buildings Made of Sky series, which features 'skyscrapers' outlined by the New York City streets when you flip your perspective.

Still autofocusing by pressing halfway down on your shutter release? Well, suppose I told you there’s another way that you might even like better? Sound interesting? Read on.

I don't think we've referred to a time-lapse as "dramatic" before, but when it comes to photographer Nicolaus Wegner's most recent time-lapse creation, no other word fits quite as well.

Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner has been announced at the end of this post.

A few weeks ago, we shared a video by photographer Karl Taylor that gave you a behind the scenes look at what a day-long fashion shoot in his studio was like. And even though a few of our readers poked fun at the video's obvious product placement, a lot of people learned a thing or two and came back with followup questions regarding the light modifiers that Taylor was using throughout the day.

When the Mars Rover Opportunity landed on our planetary neighbor on January 25th, 2004 it was undertaking a three-month mission. Well, it's a full decade later and the little guy is still alive and kickin' (in a robotic kind of way).

Natan Dvir is an Israeli photographer who focuses on the human aspects of political, social and cultural issues. He received his MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts (NY), after which he became a faculty member at the International Center for Photography (ICP). Based in New York City he photographs around the world represented by Polaris Images photo agency and Anastasia photo gallery.

For the second time in one week, the Associated Press is making headlines of its own. Earlier in the week, the agency was praised by some and condemned by others when it decided to let a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer go over an edited photo, and now the AP is going after George Zimmerman over a painting he was selling.

If there are two things I love in life it’s cars and photography, and the thought of putting those two together sounds better to me than getting chocolate in my peanut butter! Now I don’t claim to be an amazing photographer nor hold any hopes of one day having my own photography tutorial DVD. However, I do like to talk about photography and more so, I like to get other people talking about it.

Artist and professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, Dennis Hlynsky, is interested in studying the way small-brained animals flock in groups. Using a special editing technique, he can visualize the paths of each individual in the flock, and though he's recorded everything from ants to fish to flies, the most fascinating examples of this technique in action involve flocks of birds.

Almost 25 years later, the country of Romania is still in the midst of a difficult transformation from one of the region’s hardest dictatorships to a modern European nation. A transformation that photographer Tamas Dezso masterfully captures in his series Notes for an Epilogue.