October 2015

We don't share deal alerts here very often, but this one is pretty sweet: Canon is running a "Buy 1 Get 10 Free" promotion for packs of 4x6 glossy photo paper. If you buy 1 pack of 50 sheets for $10, you get 10 packs free... with free 2-day shipping thrown in.

Sony just launched a new image sensor called the STARVIS that excels in capturing images in low-light environments. Designed for industrial applications -- surveillance cameras, for example -- the new backside-illuminated CMOS sensor boasts extremely high sensitivity that can capture usable images at night.

Photographer Isiah Xiong made this 3-minute video tutorial showing how you can quickly, easily, and cheaply build a grid spot for your flash using black straws. Instead of gluing things together, Xiong uses strips of masking tape.

For the past few years, people have been contending with more and more false copyright claims and ID matches on services such as YouTube. While these copyright claims often involve an audio match of copyrighted music, sometimes it is the visual content that is in question.

Over the past several years, the U.S. Geological Survey has been shooting a "Repeat Photography" project in various locations to show how glacier ice has been retreating over the past century. Using photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s as references, photographers are rephotographing those same scenes to show how things have changed (and are changing).

Want your own instant camera that prints lo-fi photos on receipt paper? Muth Pierre has published the designs for a build-it-yourself camera called the PolaPi -- it's a standalone compact camera that combines a Raspberry Pi and a thermal printer for a fun DIY instant camera.

A couple of days ago, photographer and retoucher Clint Davis shared a guest post about how he created composite photos for a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 4x4 brochure. Turkish photographer and retoucher Burak Erzincanli was also recently commissioned to create a composite with a Mercedes Sprinter.

Actress Kate Winslet is taking a stand against unrealistic beauty retouching in the ad industry. In addition to speaking out publicly against the practice, Winslet has even included a "no retouching" clause in her modeling contract with cosmetic giant L'Oréal.

Sony's juggernaut image sensor business may soon grow even more thanks to a name brand acquisition. The company is reportedly finalizing a deal with Toshiba to buy its sensor business for about $164 million.

The power of the slowly moving ice could be felt even from our lofty vantage point in the small, single-engine plane. A vast river of glacial ice stretched far into the horizon. Treeless mountains reared above us on both sides as we soared up the valley, their grey stone walls loosely robed in a white frock of snow, even though it was the height of summer.

A school portrait photography company in the UK has apologized and pulled its "retouching service" after a mother publicly complained about the service sending the wrong message to children.

A new product just landed in the world of high-end camera straps. The new HoldFast Sightseer Sling Strap is an elegant and rugged leather camera strap that can be expanded as desired with add-on pouches.

When nine photographers from as far away as India, Hong Kong and Croatia descend upon Newburgh along the Hudson River, 60 miles north of New York City, the question asked most by Newburghers and our friends and family was, "why Newburgh?" The short answer is we are documenting a historic town on the cusp of a revival.

Last year, NASA released a 20-gigapixel photo of the Milky Way that was made up of over 2 million infrared photos. Back in January, NASA published a 1.5-gigapixel photo of the Andromeda Galaxy. If you thought those were big photos, get this: German astronomers have created the largest astronomical photo ever made: a ridiculously big 46-gigapixel photo of the Milky Way that took 5 years to make.

The Internet is teeming with copyright infringement these days, and there are various ways for photographers to get stolen photos taken down and paid for by the offenders. But what happens when the offender is a UN-designated terrorist organization? …

Instagram has launched a new app called Boomerang that lets you share your life with extremely short looping animations. The app shoots 5 still photos in just 1 second, and then turns those frames into a moving picture that plays forward, and then backward, looping forever.

Earlier this year, music photographer Adam Elmakias shot one of the biggest shows he has ever covered: a performance by the American pop punk band All Time Low at London's O2 Arena, which has the second-highest seating capacity of any indoor venue in the UK.

Photographer Freddy Fabris spent years wanting to pay homage to the legendary artworks of great Renaissance master painters, but figuring out how to do so with his camera was a challenge. Recently, he finally came up with an idea that blends the style of old with ideas that are new: it's a series of portraits of car mechanics in a repair shop, created with the look and feel of Renaissance paintings.

National Geographic Indonesia is attracting attention this week after revealing the cover of the November 2015 issue. The special edition issue is about climate change, and it will be the first issue of National Geographic Indonesia to be published without a cover photo or illustration.

Mercedes-Benz Canada commissioned me in 2014 to shoot photos for the 2014 Sprinter lineup. In addition to those photos, I was also asked to piece together brochure images for the newer and not-yet-released 4x4 Sprinter model. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the Photoshop work that went into the 4x4 images.

PocketWizard today announced its new Plus IV transceiver, which adds a metal hot shoe and new compatibility with more flashes.

It seems that Nikon has partnered with toy block maker Nanoblock to create a special set that lets you build a Nikon F SLR, Nikon's first SLR camera that was introduced back in April 1959.

19-year-old signer, actress, and model Zendaya is making waves today after calling out a magazine for Photoshopping her body. She says she was "shocked" when she found her hips and torso "quite manipulated" in the published photo, and she has posted comparison photos showing what the retouchers did to her.

Every year, there's a competition held in Petaluma, California, to discover and crown the ugliest dog in the world. Petaluma-based photographer Ramin Rahimian attended the World's Ugliest Dog Contest this year and shot portraits of the 27 dogs as they flaunted their hairlessness, strange hairdos, crazy eyes, strange expressions, and floppy tongues.

HDR photo merging has been around for a while, but only recently has it been implemented inside Adobe’s Lightroom. In this article I will show a brief tutorial on how to use it inside LR and explain the pros and cons of this technique based on my own experience and photographic technique.

Want to see what it's like to work as a conflict photojournalist at the front lines of a war? Here's an 8.5-minute point-of-view video showing two photographers covering a battle in which Afghan soldiers close in on Taliban positions.

When Phase One announced its new XF camera system back in June, the goal was to unleash a new high-tech camera that can stay relevant long into the digital age. The company today announced the first firmware update that helps to fulfill that promise. It's a feature update that brings a number of exciting new features to the XF, including one called Seismographic Vibration Delay.

What do you say as a photographer when you’re asked to shoot for free? What if the one asking is a good friend, an old friend... a friend who really ought to know better? …

The "L" in Canon's L-series lenses stands for "luxury," and the professional-grade lenses can be easily recognized by the distinctive red ring found near the end of the barrel. Canon is now expanding that red ring to the world of high-end photo printers.

Lensbaby today announced the new Composer Pro II with Edge 50 Optic, the latest product in the company's creative effects lens stable. It's a manual focus 50mm f/3.2 lens with a metal body and a tilt design that lets you control your depth of field in-camera.

Janet Jackson doesn't just have a strict concert photography policy when it comes to professional photographers -- she's cracking down on fan shots as well. Instagram users are reporting that their accounts are being deleted by the service after they posted photos and videos of Jackson during her Unbreakable concert tour.

Google announced yesterday that Google Photos has just crossed the huge milestone of 100 million active users per month. The news comes less than half a year after the May 2015 announcement of the the standalone service, which provides people with free and unlimited photo sharing.

Australian photographer Richard Simpkin isn't exactly a celebrity, but you could be tricked into thinking so if you look at his personal photo album. Simpkin has spent over 25 years collecting photos of himself posing with some of the world's most famous people.

SanDisk just succeeded in its mission to get bought out. Hard drive maker Western Digital announced today that it has agreed to acquire SanDisk in a deal worth about $19 billion in cash and stock. If all goes well, the deal will close in the third quarter or 2016.

Fujifilm today announced its new XF 35mm f/2 R WR lens. It's the equivalent of a 53mm in 35mm terms, so it has an angle of view that's similar to that of the human eye.

Here's a clever new video by DigitalRev TV that imagines photography as a video game. There are 8 levels of photographer you can progress through as you gain more and more XP.

The sky may be the next frontier for time-lapse and hyper-lapse techniques. Aerial videographer Jonathan Lucan made this 2-minute short film titled NightLapse Concerto. It's an aerial hyperlapse that was created entirely from RAW DNG still photos captured from the sky with a DJI Inspire 1 drone.

If you're a concert photographer looking to shoot Janet Jackson's Unbreakable World Tour 2015, you'll have to agree to some extremely strict terms for permission to do so. First, you'll only get 30 seconds total to shoot. Second, you agree to sign over all copyright to your photos.

Halloween is just around the corner, and if you're looking for a photo-related costume this year, one fun idea that has appeared over the years is creating a DIY giant camera that's fully functional as a camera. Here's a look at 4 examples we've seen so far.

Photographer Rachel Hulin got quite a bit of attention a few years ago for Flying Henry, a series of Photoshopped photos showing Hulin's son flying through various scenes. Now she's back again with another creative endeavor.

Big news in the camera industry today: Leica has just announced the Leica SL, an entirely new mirrorless camera system that competes directly against the likes of Sony. Yes, the Leica M is technically a "mirrorless camera," but the new SL is a new non-rangefinder, full-frame camera with interchangeable lenses.

If you grew up watching Looney Tunes cartoons, you probably know Elmer Fudd as the hunter whose life mission is to capture or kill Bugs Bunny. But did you know that Fudd's character originally started out as a wildlife photographer? In the first episode featuring Fudd, he's actually a photographer trying to shoot his bunny nemesis with a camera rather than a hunter trying to shoot him with a gun.

Check out this photo of wispy clouds over a barren desert. It's actually a photo of a choppy waves hitting a beach... flipped upside down. New Jersey-based fine art photographer Michael Massaia's latest project is a series of these disorienting upside-down beach photos. The series is titled "The Pull: Inverted Seascapes."

A fisherman in Thailand is being lauded as a hero online thanks to a viral video that shows how he rescued an elderly Norwegian photographer couple who got stuck in thick mud while out shooting.

First Lady Michelle Obama launched her new "Better Make Room" campaign at the White House today to encourage teenagers to pursue higher education beyond high school.

The Obama administration announced today that it will be creating the first ever federal drone registry to reign in the wild wild west of drone usage. Drone owners will be required to register their drones with the database in order to fly legally, and those caught flying unregistered drones will face "consequences."

Want to shoot film photos at ISO 6? Now you can. Lomography today announced the new KONO! Donau 35mm film. It's a limited-edition, ultra-slow film that has an ISO of just 6.

The Chinese company ZY Optics just opened up pre-orders for quite an unusual lens. It's a Mitakon Speedmaster 135mm f/1.4 that boasts one of the largest apertures you'll find for the focal length. It'll also be quite expensive and extremely rare: the price tag is a hefty $2,999, and less than 100 units will ever be made.