2015

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.

Sony announced today that its new a7S II "low-light monster" camera will feature user-selected compressed and uncompressed 14-bit RAW when it ships in October. What's more, the already-shipped a7R II will also be upgraded with 14-bit RAW via a free firmware update.

Canadian photographer and photo-manipulator Renee Robyn has had an unusual career journey -- one that started with a devastating motorcycle crash. After getting knocked off her bike and run over by a vehicle, she spent 5 days in the hospital and the next 6 months learning how to walk again.

Epson today announced its new SureColor P-Series line of large format commercial ink jet printers. The new lineup includes the SureColor P6000 and P8000, which is geared toward photographers (and other creative professionals), and the SureColor P7000 and P9000, which is designed for high-end commercial purposes.

Last week, NASA released a number of new close-up photos captured by its New Horizons spacecraft during its historic flyby of Pluto back in July. Many of the images showed the details of specific regions of Pluto's surface.

If you're just getting started with wildlife photography, photographer Steve Perry of Backcountry Gallery has some tips that can help you capture better shots. The 9-minute video above has 10 rapid-fire wildlife photography tips.

Editor's note: This article was also published on photographer Alex Cornell's blog.

Every year there are multiple stories of people getting killed while doing photo shoots on train tracks. Union Pacific even launched a PSA campaign about the dangers earlier this year.

If you're a fan of both photography and scary movies, check out this creepy little short film titled "Follow Focus." Created by photographer Lou Guarneri of Nailed It! Productions, it's the story of a photographer who takes his DSLR into a forest... one last time.

Since launching back in 2010, Camera+ has been downloaded over 14 million times by iPhone users and has become one of the best-known third-party camera apps.

Last week, Chinese lens company Zhong Yi Optics started teasing a new Mitakon 25mm f/0.95 lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras. That lens has now been officially announced.

Virtual reality is one of the trending technologies that tech companies are pouring vast amounts of time and research into, and one company that wants in is Flickr. The photo sharing company is working on a virtual reality photo viewing experience that may be integrated into its service in the future.

I always tell people that the problem with phone cameras is the lenses. This isn't a thesis that is easy to test because you can't swap the lens on a phone without destroying it. But now the Raspberry Pi has a camera module that's basically a phone camera sensor. It's also easy to get an Raspberry Pi camera module with a C mount so you can easily change lenses.

Back in July, Canon announced an ultra-high-sensitivity camera that has a ridiculously high max ISO of over 4,000,000. If you've been wondering what the camera can capture, check out the eye-opening sample video above that Canon just released.

Qualcomm is the driving force behind a number of smartphones with its Snapdragon brand of mobile processors. Soon, however, Qualcomm will be powering quite a bit more. The company has announced their new high-end Snapdragon-powered performance platform aimed at advancing consumer drones.

Want some cheap and simple do-it-yourself photo equipment? Check out the IKEA store near you. In addition to being affordable options for home items, a number of IKEA products can also be repurposed for your next photo shoot.

Among professional photographers, Instagram can be a bit of a black sheep; however, those holding this belief may want to rethink their stance. We have spoken to numerous photographs who have gotten paid work through Instagram, and now, Getty Images has awarded three photographers $10,000 in grants to further their work.

People often use social media photos these days to make their lives seem a lot more happy, exciting, and/or glamorous than it actually is. Popular Vine comedian/actor @MelvinGregg decided to poke fun at this fact of Internet culture with a little 6-second-long Vine sketch that's going viral.

At the turn of the century, the Joint Photographic Experts Group created what they considered to be the next generation of JPEG image compression. Suitably named JPEG 2000, the standard promised better compression performance with improved image quality. However, despite the standard being released fifteen years ago, why do most photographers only glance over the option when saving in Photoshop? Today, we explore the advantages and disadvantages of a file format that already seems to have …

YouTube star Ryan Higa recently decided to parody the popularity of “hover boards” that have been flooding the consumer market. In the creative "infomercial" and stop-motion video above, he throws aside an expensive ‘FloBoard’ to find more fun with the cardboard box itself.

As the new NFL season is getting underway, Sports Shooter Academy has posted a short and inspiring talk by Seattle Seahawks team photographer Rod Mar titled “Football And Photography.” Mar speaks about how he utilizes the coaching philosophies of head coach Pete Carroll to enhance his own photographs. The inspirational talk showcases the confidence and determination needed to pull through as a professional photographer in today’s world.

Rafael del Col was 30-years-old when he lost his wife Tatiane Valques to a car accident back in 2013, leaving him to raise their daughter Raisa by himself. Last year, Del Col decided to pay an emotional tribute to Tatiane by recreating portraits the couple had taken a week before their wedding in 2009, with Raisa stepping into her mommy's shoes.

The sun can be a photographer’s best friend: it is a constant source of light that lasts all day and doesn’t require any power from your end to keep it up and running. However, knowing how exactly to work with a source of lighting that changes over time can be a bit difficult. In the 6-minute video above, director of photography Jon Salmon and his team show us how to use the sun during various times of the day to obtain the ideal lighting during a shoot.

Canon's latest press release has confirmed some of the rumors that have been floating around the Internet for a while now; that it has decided the megapixel war is not over and is preparing to drop its "nuclear option", a 120-megapixel behemoth.

SteadXP, which we first wrote about in September 2014, is a small box that is promising to stabilize some of your most problematic videos. By using an external system that tracks where in space the camera is currently positioned at any given time, stabilization software can do a more efficient job at making your video nice and smooth. No bulky steadycam or gimbal is needed for this lightweight solution.

Earlier this week, Canon announced that it's developing a new DSLR that captures a staggering 120 megapixels. If you're interested in purchasing one if/when it hits the market, here's a tip: start stocking up on memory cards NOW.

DJI today announced their new ZENMUSE X5 series of Micro Four Thirds Cameras for the Inspire 1 drone system. Featuring increased dynamic range, interchangeable lens compatibility, remote focus and aperture control, and lossless 4K RAW video recording, the ZENMUSE X5 series is ready to take on the high-performance world of aerial photography with two distinct models.

Back in 2013, five friends in Arizona decided to capture some photos and video from the edge of space by sending a GoPro up on a weather balloon. The camera made it to 98,000 feet, but the guys lost track of it after it landed out of cell phone tower range. All seemed lost, and the team spent months wondering if they'd ever find the camera.

Comic artist and professional photographer S. Dirk Schafer of CLICKittyCAT just finished up a series of comics about the new photographer problems that came with the emergence of digital photography.

Last year, Sony controlled around 40% of the $8.7 billion image sensor market. Now, Sony is looking to take on a new challenge: building small high-resolution sensors for the mass-market that can capture images at 1,000 frames per second. If this sensor makes it to the market, Vision Research's Phantom high-speed cameras may have some stiff competition on its hands.

It is said that printer ink costs more than black market human blood. With such high costs involved, you might expect that printer companies help you squeeze every last drop from an ink cartridge before you're forced to replace it. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

California governor Jerry Brown has vetoed a Senate bill that sought to make it illegal to fly a drone less than 350 feet above someone's private property without their permission.

Sony today unveiled the new a7S II, a full-frame mirrorless camera that's designed for amazing low light performance: its ISO range is 100-102400, expandable to 50-409600.

The life of a freelancer can be very unpredictable. I find it to be epitome of “feast or famine.” It’s good to have some down time on equipment every now and again to get things serviced, and I took this latest opportunity to get my D700 serviced by Nikon.

We've heard of quite a few close calls between drones and aircraft over the past few years, but this latest one was an extremely close call that actually resulted in an arrest.

While sitting in a hotel bar several months ago, photographer Ian Kasnoff came up with the idea of turning his small box trailer into a working ultra-large format camera. After some cocktail napkin sketches, the idea for Kasnoff's TrailerCam was born.

PetaPixel has written a number of times in the past about Nigerian 419 scammers targeting photographers and photography assistants. After spending time setting up business arrangements, the scammers will use shady tactics to try and steal your hard-earned money.

Apple and Adobe sparked some unintended controversy yesterday after unveiling and demonstrating the new iPad Pro. Adobe mobile design director, Eric Snowden, took to the stage and showed off a new app called Adobe Fix, which offers powerful face detection features for mobile photo retouching. This is the mobile Photoshop app that was previously referred to as Project Rigel.

Photographers are used to being behind the camera, but the prominence and rise of photography – particularly through social media – has created emerging opportunities for photographers. No longer relegated to pimping camera gear and workshops, the contemporary photographer has many more possibilities to endorse everything from cars to credit cars.

“Regardless of what it signifies, any photographic image also connotes memory and nostalgia, nostalgia for modernity and the twentieth century, the era of the pre-digital, pre-post-modern.” --Lev Manovich …

An Iowa photographer recently learned an extremely painful lesson about the importance of backing up images in multiple places after photo shoots. Someone broke into her car and made off with thousands of dollars in equipment, including 6 memory cards containing thousands of photos from over 20 wedding, family, and newborn shoots.

Advertisements on Instagram aren’t a new concept, but the folks at Facebook are working to open their image sharing platform to even more businesses around the globe. Beginning on September 30th, small businesses will be able to run advertisement campaigns on the network in more than 30 countries around the world.

Carl Zeiss today announced Milvus, a new family of lenses for Canon and Nikon DSLRs. The lenses are optimized for the high-resolution cameras that are emerging in today's market. The line has 6 models for each mount at launch: a 21mm f/2.8, 35mm f/2, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.4, 50mm f/2, and 100mm f/2.

Shenyang-based camera lens manufacturer Zhongyi is taking to Facebook to give a sneak peek of its latest creation, a Mitakon 25mm f/0.95 pancake lens for Micro 4/3 cameras. The new lens will be one of the fastest lenses available for the system: matched only by Voigtlander's Nokton series of f/0.95 lenses. The Mitakon looks to have the edge with a more affordable product in a much smaller package.

Apple today officially introduced the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, a refresh of the original 6S that offers a number of improvements to smartphones that double as two of the world's most popular pocket cameras.