September 2015

I have always wanted to see the Alps. They look so grand in the movies. After my roadtrip through the Norwegian mountains in 2014, it felt like the next step would be to see the Alps. But the question was: in which country?

Phottix today launched its new Phottix Laso flash triggering system that lets Canon photographers control and trigger Canon RT radio flashes as well as non-radio Canon flashes mounted on Laso Receivers.

It's not often that one gets to narrate the story of their birth. Fortunately (or unfortunately) in my case, the story has been told to me and to others around me time and time again. It’s imprinted in memory, much like a photograph, due to its many renditions, and it's narrated more often whenever my birthday comes around each September. Thankfully, it is not one of those tales that changes and has details added or subtracted to it with every rendition.

My name is Tanner Johnson, and I'm a local photographer from Bozeman, Montana, who works at the local camera store, Bozeman Camera. We recently received the new Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E …

Sex offenders have the 1st Amendment right to photograph children in public. That's what a state Court of Appeals in Wisconsin ruled on Tuesday, striking down a law that make it illegal for registered sex offenders to take ordinary pictures of kids in public without getting permission from the parents.

Photographer Adam Jackman-Moore runs a Perth, Australia-based dog photography studio called The Dog Photographers. Aside from standard portraits of people's beloved pets, Jackman-Moore also does quirky photo projects.

Back in 2012, photography broadcaster Frederick Van Johnson conducted this short 6-minute video interview with photographer Ralph A. Clevenger, who shares the story behind his famous iceberg stock photo (which you've probably seen before in various forms).

Want to give the LCD screen on your digital camera a super tough layer of protection? The company Phantom Glass announced earlier this month that it has extended its tempered glass screen protector products to the world of digital cameras. It's touted as "the last screen protector you'll ever need" for your camera.

Lucas Blalock is an artist who has a love for the surreal and who isn’t afraid to use what many might consider a heavy hand to create his unique artwork. He uses simple tools in Photoshop (e.g. eraser, clone stamp, pencil) to transform his large-format analog photographs into "uncanny pictures." …

My name is Neels Castillon, I’m a 27-year-old French photographer and filmmaker based in Paris, France, and I started my photography journey more than ten years ago.

Confucius once said that "the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." Well, the journey of a thousand weddings begins with one photograph. We asked a handful of wedding photographers to share an early photo that represents their humble beginnings, and a current photo that represents where they are today. Not surprisingly, many of the photographers turned us down.

What's the current state of photojournalism, and where is the industry headed? That's what a major survey recently attempted to answer, and the result is a massive 76-page document that was just published today. It's an interesting and in-depth look at the state of news photography.

Editor's update: It appears that SmugMug has identified and fixed the issue described in this article.

Every day, NASA releases a photograph from their collection that allows us to admire the great blue and green planet we call Earth. Recently, the agency released a picture of a group of small island cays in the Bahamas. The most interesting aspect of the photo is not the location, but a little bit of detail that reveals itself when you closely examine the photo.

Photographer Lucian Hunziker wants to give you a whirlwind tour of the history of portrait photography. For his new photo project and book titled Basel in Portraits, Hunziker photographed 59 celebrities in the iconic styles of 59 different famous photographers from the past 150 years.

Alright photographers, here’s something esoteric from a person that isn’t esoteric at all. For a minute, let’s just forget about all the settings, lenses and cameras we photographers love to talk about all day long. This article is solely dedicated to your inner creative soul. That deep, underlying voice of your photography that influences all your creative decisions. What is it in you that actually leads to hitting the shutter?

You’ve spent the last few hours working on the perfect photo shoot and everything went better than you could have possibly imagined. After importing the RAW files to your PC and making a few edits in Photoshop, it is time to save your masterpiece. But, what file type do you select? With over twenty different file types to choose from, we are here to break down some of the most popular and tell you a bit about their strengths and weaknesses.

Remember that strange vacuum cleaner lens we featured last year? A new version has been unveiled, and this one sucks even more than the original.

This article is about how this time slice shot of a lunar eclipse was made. Its focus is mainly on the planning that went into it, even before the first shutter click. Hopefully by sharing what I did, I can prepare you for creating your own lunar eclipse photo.

Instagram announced in a blog post today that the photo sharing service has rocketed past another major milestone: 400 million users worldwide.

Remember that copyright controversy last year between photographer David Slater and the money that took selfies with Slater's camera back in 2011? PETA is joining in on the fracas.

Apple selected our new PetaPixel Photography Podcast as a "New and Noteworthy" podcast, and it's currently being featured on the podcast front page! We're also holding steady as one of the top podcasts in the Visual Arts category.

Thomas Demand is a German photographer and sculpturist who is internationally known for his remarkable and engaging political still life artworks. I had the opportunity recently to ask Thomas about the thoughts and processes that go into making his art and photos.

‘Sallie Gardner at a Gallop’ is sometimes considered to be one of the earliest films ever produced when it was released on June 15th, 1878. Twenty-four photographs of a horse and its jockey were played rapidly in succession, creating the illusion of motion when viewed through an old-time zoopraxiscope.

RED has been teasing an upcoming camera that's intended to make a huge splash in the filmmaking industry. It's called the RED Raven, and it'll be a $5,950 Canon EF-mount camera that brings RED's 4K video recording to the masses.

Here's a crazy but true statistic: selfies are now a bigger cause of death in the world than shark attacks.

Want to see what it was like to work as a photographer at a major newspaper back in 1983? Check out this blast from the past: it's a 20-minute video by photographer Hugh Wesley, who spent 28 years at the Toronto Sun before retiring as the director of photography in 2001.

Noell Oszvald is a 25-year-old visual artist from Budapest, Hungary. "I'm not a photographer," she says, but she does use a camera to create her art.

The New York Times published an article about brands using user generated content (UGC) without explicit permission. When a woman named Shereen Way posted a photo of her daughter to Instagram with the hashtag #crocs, Crocs pulled the photo and posted it to their website with other user photos.

What is the largest photograph you have ever taken? Ask professional photographer David Bergman that question and he will proudly tell you he shot and produced a 20 gigapixel -- or 20,000 megapixel -- image of Yankee Stadium this year for Canon EXPO 2015. By stitching together 825 Canon 5Ds R images with a resolution of 50MP each, the result is a gigantic photograph with stunning detail.

I recently did a shootout to compare the image quality of the new $1,799 Canon 35mm f/1.4L II against the $899 Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART. Unlike most comparisons out there, I would like for you to be the judge of what you think is a better image and leave comment about why you would choice one over the other.

One of the modern day cruces of video filming is smooth stabilization. While many of us carry around smartphones with exceptional video capabilities, everyday moments seems to remain plagued by shaky footage. Now, a new German-based company has hit Kickstarter with the solidLUUV: the world’s first all-in-one stabilizer for smartphones, action cams, and compact cameras.

The American news media company RYOT recently sent its World Editor, Christian Stephen, to the war-ravaged streets of Aleppo, Syria. While there, he used a 360° camera to capture the world's first virtual reality film of the inside of a war zone.

If you're just starting out in photography, learning the fundamental principles, techniques, and concepts can feel daunting. To help beginners out, the private photo sharing service KatchUp has created a handy and easy-to-follow infographic that can help bring you up to speed.

In addition to running a giant stock footage archive of over 1,500 4K clips, Philadelphia-based DOP Mitch Martinez also shoots Time Slice, or Matrix-style Bullet Time, footage.

Here's your "weird photo product o' the day": the cereal brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch has announced a new product called the Selfie Spoon. It's a selfie stick with a spoon for a handle that's designed to help you take pictures of yourself while eating food (and especially cereal).

A new patent filed by Facebook suggests that the social networking giant is working on giving user cameras a unique digital fingerprint. Looking for ways to identify fraudulent accounts and evermore establish what connections you may have with others, the new technology means that your future photographs will be tracked at levels previously unimaginable. For photographers, however, it may be an excellent way to prove that you truly own an image.

Instead of relying on photomanipulation, as is common these days, photographer Lara Zankoul creates surreal photos by putting together elaborate sets. For her project "The Unseen," Zankoul spent roughly three months planning and building a large tank set that she filled halfway with water.

Integrated Wi-Fi is quickly becoming a standard for many camera manufacturers who are trying to stay up to date with the latest trends. It took a while for the two giants, Nikon and Canon, to get on board, but most of their latest cameras have been rolling out with wireless connectivity.

For the past 29 years I’ve been traveling to China for my day job as an industrial designer to manage the ramp-up of new products manufactured in China. I’ve discovered that it’s become a common career path for product designers to morph into Asian sourcing managers because of our background in product development. That’s exactly what happened in my career about 30 years ago, with the exception that I’ve remained active in product design plus I’ve become a street photographer in …

Samyang Optics has announced two new lenses due out this October under their Rokinon branding. The first piece of glass announced is a 50mm f/1.2 lens, while the second is a 21mm f/1.4. Both products are compatible with Canon EF-M, Fujifilm X, Micro Four Thirds, and Sony E mounts. The lenses are entirely manual focus but feature aspherical elements, with the 21mm housing an extra-low dispersion element, for increased image clarity.

Sports Shooter Academy recently released this 3-minute behind-the-scenes video in which Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim director of photography Matt Brown talks about how he uses remote camera setups to cover baseball games.

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.

Last week, RIT photography professor Willie Osterman held the 2015 RIT Photo MFA picnic in the front yard of his home in Bristol, New York. To commemorate the gathering, he pulled out a giant camera to shoot a wet plate collodion ambrotype portrait of the group.

I firmly believe that photography is a powerful force for good in this world.

Back in July, we shared some slow-motion tests shot with the $948 Sony RX100 IV, which can shoot at up to 960fps (1000fps in PAL). Reddit user ricktheman1 just published this new test of the camera's slow-mo capabilities.

As a photographer, videographer, and drone hobbyist, I follow with great interest all the media attention drones have received lately. Unfortunately, drone news coverage here in my country, Colombia, has been skewed towards the negative, with stories of isolated incidents like the Connecticut "Gun-Drone" and the Mexican "Drug-Drone" making big splashes on every possible media outlet.

New York-based stop-motion artist Adam Pesapane, who goes by PES, has earned a great deal of attention over the past few years for his remarkable animations that are made with creativity, hard work, and still photographs from DSLRs. His viral shorts include "Fresh Guacamole," "Western Spagetti,", and "Submarine Sandwich" (his projects often involve ordinary things getting turned into food).