September 2015

Photographer Jack Watney wanted a lightbox for years, but he lives in a small apartment and doesn't have space to store a large, dedicated lightbox. So, he decided to build one himself using an IKEA Lack side table that costs just $10.

The 67 annual Emmy Awards will be held in Los Angeles today, recognizing excellence in the television industry over the past year, and USA TODAY photographers Robert Hanashiro and Dan MacMedan will be at the Microsoft Theater to shoot the show. The 3-minute video above offers a glimpse into what its like to cover this type of event, as Hanashiro and MacMedan discuss their approach and their spots throughout the night.

If you shoot with a Hasselblad 500 series camera, there's a new lens on the horizon: the Petzvar 120mm f/4. Unlike other lenses, which are designed and mass produced by large companies, this one's a bit different -- it's produced by a single lens maker.

Dear photographer friend, …

"200mm" and "f/1.0" aren't two specs you generally see together in the world of camera lenses. After all, the Canon 200mm f/2.0 is already a giant 5.6 pound piece of glass, so an f/1.0 version would be ginormous.

Tokyo-based photographer Irwin Wong just released a crazy film titled "The Last Sentoshi." It's about a female superhero who defeats her enemies using a powerful camera flash.

We're in the dawn of a new camera drone age in which aerial units are readily available from a number of different manufacturers. In addition to taking to the skies, companies are also looking to take drone exploration in the other direction: to the depths of the seas. OpenROV has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Trident: a submersible drone geared toward the general population.

Vox has published a short 5-minute video that tells the story of how early film stocks in photography were designed with light skin as the ideal skin standard, and therefore sometimes had problems rendering darker skins -- especially in photos that showed both darker and lighter complexions.

Ricoh has put up a new teaser page for its upcoming full frame Pentax DSLR. Back in February 2015, Ricoh announced that the camera would arrive by the end of the year. It looks like that date got pushed back a bit, as the website now says the debut will happen in Spring of 2016.

Peak Design is a photographic accessory company that never seems to run out of new and exciting ideas to improve the everyday lives of photographers. Recently, Peak Design announced their latest product, the CaptureLENS: a double-sided rotating mount for quickly storing and switching out your lenses while on the move. We got a chance to test out the CaptureLENS system to see if it lives up the Peak Design standard.

Heads up: Eugene Richards, one of the great American documentary photographers of our time, has joined Instagram. If you're tired of staring at cats and selfies, @richardseugene may be an account you should start following today.

Back in 2002, photographer Christopher Herwig embarked on a long-distance bike ride from London, England, to St. Petersburg, Russia -- a journey that spanned over 1,500 miles. The trip was also a photo ride, as Herwig challenged himself to capture one good photo per hour. As he biked through former Soviet countries, Herwig began noticing how unique many of the bus stops were.

We recently published an interview with motorsport photojournalist Jamey Price, who shared some insights into what it's like to photograph top events in Formula One racing. Today, we'll share some behind-the-scenes photos Price sent us that show what a day multiple days in the life of an F1 photographer looks like.

Back in 1974, photographer Mike Mandel traveled across the United States and photographed 134 top photographers and curators as baseball players. Mandel then used those portraits to create Baseball-Photographer Trading Cards, an unusual set of trading cards featuring big names in the industry. As you can see from the card above, Ansel Adams was one of them.

The YouTube channel Found Footage Fest scoured thrift stores and purchased old modeling how-to videos from the 1980s. They then threw a bunch of the highlights together to create the 3-minute video above, a strange and strangely-awesome instructional video on how to pose for photos as a model from decades past.

NASA has released a spectacular new photo of Pluto that was captured by its New Horizons spacecraft during the flyby on July 14th, 2015. This latest one shows a near-sunset view of the icy mountains on Pluto surface, poking up on a curved horizon.

There has been another tragedy involving a dangerous photo shoot on train tracks. A 16-year-old boy was struck and killed by an Amtrack train this past Monday afternoon while doing a casual photo shoot with his girlfriend.

In early September 2015, we reported that VSCO was discontinuing its VSCO Keys keyboard shortcut software for Lightroom. There's some good news today: instead of killing off the product, VSCO has decided to turn it into a free and open source project.

At the IBC 2015 trade show in Amsterdam, which just wrapped up a couple of days ago, the camera gear company Genus was showing off a prototype of a groundbreaking new product: an electronically controlled neutral density (ND) filter adapter. It was a Canon EF to Sony E lens adapter that had a dial that lets you adjust the level of ND filtration electronically.

Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.

Bangkok, Thailand-based photographer Chompoo Baritone recently created a clever series of images that pokes fun at how Instagram users often use carefully framed photos to make their lives seem more glamorous or exciting than they actually are.

This is the story of how I had to deal with a panic attack during a recent three-day photo shoot. Day three… oh day three.

Movie and TV show blooper reels often feature unfortunate moments when an actor just can't seem to say a basic line correctly, and generally hilarity ensues. Well, the same thing can happen during camera reviews too. That's what Michael Reichmann and Kevin Raber over at Luminous Landscape experienced recently while trying to review Sigma's Quattro DP Zero. Check out what happened in the 3-minute video above.

Red Bull recently came to me with an interesting idea: "We'd like you to photograph NBA star Anthony Davis dunking the sun.” …

Here's a list of 23 things you'll (probably) never hear coming out of a professional photographer's mouth.

A few days ago, we shared a creepy short film titled "Follow Focus," which told the story of a photographer's last nature photo walk. Here's another one with a similar theme.

Wildlife photographer Jeff Cremer of Rainforest Expeditions recently set up a special DSLR camera trap in the Amazon jungle in southeastern Peru. His goal was to capture some photos of rare jungle animals, but he got a lot more than he bargained for: a termite infestation in his camera.

Action camera accessory company PolarPro has announced the PowerGrip H20, the world's first battery-powered, waterproof selfie stick that you can take into the water with you.

[re-]Mixing Hollywood is a project by American photographer Antoine Tempé and Senegalese photographer Omar Victor Diop, who shot elaborate portraits inspired by famous American and European movies.

Back in June, we shared a series of photos by Joey L., who made a dangerous trip to Kurdistan to point his camera at the Kurdish guerrilla groups fighting in the Syrian civil war.

Snapchat has amassed hundreds of thousands of users since it launched in 2011, and it has largely stuck to its formula of simple, self-destructive photo sharing. Yesterday, the company announced a new "Lenses" filter feature and the ability to replay 3 photos or videos for $1.

I proudly ordered an Instacube in August 2012 amid significant press hype over a device that would display your Instagram feed with a large 6.5” screen. Finally... the digital picture frame that I actually wanted. The initial goal of $35,000 was quickly smashed, and the Kickstarter campaign ended up raising over $620,000.

The promise of truly immersive, virtual reality headsets for the masses is just around the corner with Oculus Rift launching its consumer version in 2016. In the meantime, a number of alternative solutions have been introduced including Google’s Cardboard, Samsung’s GearVR, and Carl Zeiss’ VR ONE headset. We’ll be taking a look at the latter to see if one of the world’s greatest optics manufacturers has what it takes to jump into the virtual reality space.

Three weeks ago, I purchased off of eBay a “junk” Minolta MC Rokkor-PG 58mm f/1.2 lens. I had read so many good things about this particular lens in Minolta’s history that I really wanted to get one for my ever-growing collection. A fully-functioning, good condition one will run anywhere between $450-$700. The listing for the one that I bid on stated, “For parts.” …

After hearing that a hundred-year-old building was soon to be demolished in downtown Vancouver, artist Joel Nicholas Peterson had an idea: why not give the building one last hurrah by turning it into one of the world's largest "disposable" cameras? …

Startup Overlab has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund Hobie: a personal time lapse tool with the heart of a kitchen timer. Hobie utilizes an actual ordinary kitchen timer at its base to rotate the camera mount perched upon it. Simply dial-in the time on the base, insert your smartphone into the circular mount, and begin capturing easy time lapses. As a bonus, when the base finishes rotating, it rings loudly to let you know the process is complete -- and that your eggs are done boiling.

A couple in Chicago recently posed for an adorable engagement photo shoot in which they recreated the opening love scene from the 1961 Disney movie "101 Dalmatians."

There's a new GoPro housing that wants to transform the way your GoPro looks and works. Newly launched today, it's called the Exo GP-1, and it's a shell that makes your GoPro look like a stylish classic camera while giving it more functionality.

Back in July, Polish landscape photographer Jakub Polomski spent two weeks traveling around Iceland and shooting aerial photographs with his DJI Phantom 3 Advanced camera drone. The resulting photographs are gorgeous.

Dear Photographer, …

Last week a video created by Bellevue Fine Art went viral after it showed how much ink their large format Epson 9900 printers were wasting (Spoiler Alert: It’s a lot!).

A client named Nick recently approached me as he was finishing his degree, wanting his portrait taken to commemorate the event. With his references, wardrobe, and location, I saw an opportunity to replicate some of the lighting I had seen in Spielberg's Lincoln. As a period film set in the mid 1800s, light "sources" were limited to daylight, moonlight, or oil lamps and candles. My hope was to capture the magic of cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's lighting, while also adapting it for the purpose …

To promote the second season of its post-apocalyptic zombie TV show Z Nation, Syfy recently released an interactive choose your own adventure game called Find Murphy that was shot from a first person point of view. The footage was captured using a special face-mounted Sony a7S mirrorless camera.

When photographer Liisa Luts got married back on August 28th, she did something rather unusual: she decided to be the official photographer at her own wedding.

Ever since PetaPixel was founded back in May 2009, it's strictly been a blog that's enjoyed through your browser. That changes today. We're pleased to announce the launch of our all-new PetaPixel Photography Podcast, a daily twice-weekly news show about the wonderful world of photography.

On September 23rd, Pope Francis will be visiting Washington D.C. and rolling through the streets during a Papal Parade in his Popemobile. The Secret Service is working hard on security preparations leading up to the visit, and yesterday it published security policies for law enforcement to enforce.

If you find that someone is using your photo online without your permission, one thing you can do is send a DMCA take down request to force the hosting company to remove the image. But be careful, though: you need to make sure the usage doesn't fall under fair use. Otherwise, you could be liable for sending a bad-faith take-down notice.

18 months ago, 22-year-old photographer Rob Bahou started shooting a series of portraits focused on the two animals we know best: dogs and cats. His goal with the project is to show how expressive the faces of our beloved pets can be, treating the subject matter with respect and not focusing on breed, behavior, or funny moments. What resulted is a gorgeous and heart-warming project titled Animal Soul.