Public outrage at the US Forest Service's proposed commercial photography and videography permit rules has forced the agency to pull back and reconsider. As of yesterday evening, the USFS issued a statement clarifying its intentions and delaying a final decision until December 3rd to allow an additional month of public comment.
Hand-held macro photography presents a lot of challenges, but three of the most prevalent are: subject movement, camera shake, and harsh shadows. Fortunately, you don't have to carry around a bunch of gear to solve these issues. In fact, a cheap plastic cup will do the trick all by itself!
Remember the days of the 24 exposure disposable cameras? When you went on vacation or out with your friends, you could pop one of these cameras in your bag or pocket and walk out the door. You snapped one photo at a time, that’s all there was to it: no filters, no #trendy #hashtags, just single snapshots that you couldn’t see until you turned in the camera and had it developed.
For those of you who want to relive those days of disposable glory, there's a Kickstarter campaign that's right up your alley.
On September 5th of this year, the OSIRIS imaging system aboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Orbiter snapped one of the closest looks at a comet that we’ve ever seen. Roughly 38.5 miles from the surface of Comet 67P, the photograph captured an incredible amount of detail, even showing the boulders on the surface of the comet.
After the original black and white image was published though, Flickr user 2di7 & titanio44 decided to bring the image to life even more by using obtainable information about Comet 67P to colorize it to the best of his or her ability. You can see the resulting image above.
Today, Chris Pratt is a superstar actor whose credits include the summer blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy, but when he was 20 he was just a kid living out of his car in LA who wanted to make it as an actor -- a goal he might never have achieved if it hadn't been for a generous mystery photographer in West Hollywood who took his headshots for free.
Film is making something of a comeback. Sure, certain film stocks are still disappearing and being discontinued, but other companies are coming back from the dead, new companies are releasing new and exciting film, and now, Epson just decided to update two 8-year-old multi-format film scanners by releasing two new models.
If you’ve been looking to get your hands on an LED ring light but don’t have the cash to burn, this weekend project is just for you. It’s called the Octo-Light, and it’s a DIY LED ring light create by Instructables user comsa42.
Government agencies aren't exactly known for speed or efficiency. Hank Green once said that, "if Congress was on fire they couldn't pass the 'pour water on Congress' bill," and most people would probably agree with him.
Fortunately, the FAA is defying the stereotype somewhat by taking concrete steps towards allowing properly regulated commercial drone photography and cinematography, the first of which was giving six production companies an official stamp of approval.
Photographer Trevor Dayley has put together a very handy little tutorial to give your photographs that extra ‘pop’ of color in Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW without going overboard.
In 2011, award-winning 'art documentary' photographer Anthony Kurtz was volunteering in Senegal when he saw a clip about a female-owned shop in Dakar on a French television station. "When was the last time I saw a female auto mechanic?... Even in the US!" he wondered.
When the Panasonic FZ-1000 was announced, it was obvious to everybody that Panasonic was going for the Sony RX20's jugular... metaphorically speaking. It was cheaper, could shoot 4K and had a longer (albeit darker) lens.
Well, it seems Sony is ready to fight back, and soon, with a 4K-capable RX20.
The rumor mill is abuzz with speculation, but we have the first full scoop on the GoPro HERO4.
As many have reported, the two big features that are appearing are 4K video recording at 30FPS and a built-in touch display.
Canon's 100D (aka SL1) is the world's smallest and lightest DSLR, and one that's marketed heavily towards women. In what is perhaps another bid to appeal to the female demographic, Canon UK is launching a limited edition camera bag that's designed specifically for the Canon 100D White.
Karl Taylor has shared a new video highlighting just how important and impactful proper lighting can be no matter what camera you choose to use. In the anecdotal video, shown above, he pits a Canon 5D Mark III against an Olympus OM-D E-M10 in the studio to show you just how similar the results are when the lighting, not the camera, is the focus of the image.
They say not judge a book by its cover, for photographer Joel Parés' series "Judging America," that's exactly what he wants you to do... at first. Presented as simple portrait GIFs, Parés wants you to start by judging the book -- or in this case person -- by his or her ethnicity, profession, or sexual orientation, and then, just as you've decided what it is you want to believe about the person you're looking at, he reveals the reality.
Yongnuo is a Chinese company that's known for making cheaper third-party alternatives to pricier camera gear. While they've focused on lighting equipment and various accessories up to this point, the company is now branching into a bigger and better market: lenses.
The first product announced is the Yongnuo 50mm f/1.4 (shown above). If you mistook it for the Canon 50mm f/1.4, you're not alone.
Philippe Echaroux -- many of whose projects we've shared with you in the past -- is back with an interesting, portable project from this year's Photokina. Teaming up with Elinchrom, the photographer set out to show how even a portable, one-man studio setup can produce impressive results.
Two weeks ago we told you that HTC was reportedly working on an action cam. Today, those reports were further cemented by a a teaser website, a teaser video that hints at an October 8th release, and leaked images of the purported device that have popped up online.
Author’s note: The following video does contain some explicit language and one instance of nudity at 3 minutes. Proceed with caution, especially if you’re at work.
Bruce Gilden -- a Brooklyn-born photographer who has won numerous awards and is now part of the Guggenheim Fellowship thanks to his street photography work -- recently sat down with VICE to do a little art critique. Although 'critique' might be a nice way of putting it.
Instagram's Hyperlapse app has taken the App Store by storm and already inspired many thousands of people to try out the genre thanks to its super simple interface and incredibly smooth results. But Instagram's not done shaking things up yet, because the next evolution in Hyperlapse videos just arrived thanks to a minor update to the app: they call it, the #selfielapse.
"Undulatus asperatus" is a cloud formation proposed in 2009 that roughly translates to "roughened or agitated waves." These dark and stormy clouds travel across the sky in ominous waves, but generally dissipate without an a storm forming.
Storm chaser Alex Schueth was recently in the right place at the right time with his DSLR, and managed to capture one of these formations in the mesmerizing time-lapse video seen above.
South Korea-based artist Seung-Hwan Oh creates some truly unusual portraits by unleashing little microbes and letting them eat away at his medium for months or even years. The project is called Impermanence, and it's a series of microbe-mauled portraits that hardly resemble what they were originally captured as.
It seems the secret to having an enthusiastic following on a major photo sharing site has very little to do with the quality of your pictures. Sure, you can't just post terrible snapshots of nothing, but as one Redditor found out, engaging with the community is actually far more important.
This piece of news might be concerning to those who already have or are looking to get their hands on Nikon’s new D750 camera. According to a report, the WiFi app built into the D750 automatically uses an unsecure connection to transfer images from your camera, which means anybody with a WiFi-capable device and some know-how could get their hands on your photos.
Earlier this year, we told you about the FLIR ONE, an iPhone case with a built-in thermal camera that made 'predator vision' available to all.
But if the FLIR ONE is just a bit too pricy for your blood, there's a new player in the thermal camera game you might want to take a look at. It's called the Seek thermal camera, and while it's not as impressive as the FLIR ONE, neither is its price.
We spend a lot of time over at Lensrentals getting dust out of lenses. Dust doesn’t affect an image, except in very rare circumstances, but people want their rental lenses to look nice and clean inside and out, and our inspectors check the inside of every lens with spotlights and send any dusty ones over to the repair department.
Perspective, gravity, up, down, all of them are mere suggestions in The Ocean Brothers: a mind-bending, surreal video by …
Here's a new reason you might want to consider picking up a Google Glass if you're a photographer: it can be used as a light meter.
A new app called Google Glass Light Meter is trying to pioneer a new way of metering light -- with a device strapped to your face instead of held in your hand.
This week, I had the chance to do my first-ever real photoshoot with an iPhone. Granted, I’ve shot tens of thousands of photos with my iPhone over the years and did a whole project in Haiti with my iPhone 4S… but I’ve never done a commercial portrait photoshoot, using an iPhone only.
Chris Keeney, a San Diego-based photographer, enlisted the services of the most unlikely of photographers to capture the artwork for his latest book, PetCam. As the name suggests, the book uses a handful of animals from all over the globe to capture first-pet perspective photographs of their daily activities.
After taking an unexpected hiatus, action camera manufacturer Contour is back and action with its first new action camera since 2012. It’s called the ROAM3, and while its design and capabilities aren’t vastly different than the cameras that came before it, it manages to pack in some new features for those who really want to put it through the ringer.
Here's a video that offers a look at the life and work of Joachim Schmid, a Berlin-based artist who is obsessed not with making photographs but with finding them.
For more than 30 years now he has been hunting for ordinary discarded photographs that catch his eye. Once discovered, these found images -- many of which were destined for landfills -- are compiled into collections that give them new purpose and meaning.
Joe Barone is a recent college grad who enjoys the process as much as the result. Inspired by his love for old objects, knack for tinkering with things and growing up in his parents’ hardware store, Barone brought the camera obscure into the 21st century recently with the help of an old scanner, a magnifying glass and duct tape... well, gold duct tape.
The result is a glorious steampunk-esque contraption that yields some rather impressive images.
The crushing blow came just 52 days before her wedding: Janine, a blushing bride-to-be, unexpectedly lost her fiancé. The grief was unimaginable, but she didn't let it conquer her. Instead, after taking some time to grieve, she got in touch with Matt Adcock at Del Sol Photography and asked him to help her move on and rediscover the beauty of the world around her.
What followed was an incredibly powerful 'trash the dress' photo shoot full of symbolism: a cleansing shoot that has helped Janine to make her peace with the past and embrace the possibility of a bright future.
The US Forest Service is under fire today after proposing a set of rules that would put strict restrictions on photographers and filmmakers who want to ply their trade in wilderness areas. The rules subject potential projects to an approval process with permits costing as much as $1,500 while fines for breaking the rules would run around $1,000.
The now-public iOS 8 brings about a number of updated features that give users more control than ever before, and one of the most talked-about ones is the ability for developers to integrate full manual control of the camera into their applications.
A number of major camera apps have already done that, but there’s a new app out that focuses on full manual controls and full manual controls alone: it’s called (go figure) Manual, and without any extra bells or whistles, it emphasizes giving you complete control over you iOS device’s camera without any other distractions.
There's no shortage of methods for creating the partially animated photographs we call cinemagraphs; however, if simplicity and minimal effort is what you’re looking for in cinemagraph creation, the above tutorial by Howard Pinsky is just what you’ve been looking for.
When it comes to the quantity of lights that one needs, opinions are often heavily polarized and a hotly contested debate often rages. There are those that are staunch supporters of one light while others claim that a handful of lights are needed before anything meaningful can be done. Ultimately neither group is right as there is no definable minimum or maximum number of lights that one should use.
Okay, so maybe it bends a little easier than it should, but there's one thing the naysayers will have to begrudgingly admire about the iPhone 6, and that's the camera. For proof, check out these side-by-side images that compare all 8 iPhone cameras, and then see why DxOMark ranked the iPhone the best smartphone camera they've ever tested.
As Photoshop CC continues to get more and more complex -- seriously, have you seen THE SIZE of some of the Photoshop books out there!? -- thanks to the myriad of new features Adobe continues to add, the company is moving its beginner-focused Elements offerings the other direction.
Released officially last night, Photoshop (and Premier for you video folks) Elements 13 is even easier-to-use, more intuitive, and yet more powerful than any of the previous iterations.