If you're just starting out in post-processing digital photos, you may feel overwhelmed with all the different terms and concepts involved in tweaking your shots. To help make things easier to understand, the browser-based photo editing service Polarr has created a helpful interactive website that explains common jargon with interactive demos.
Well now, it seems my little guide to common photographic expressions hit a chord with a few people. It’s great that people appreciated it and I received some awesome comments. So I decided to put my thinking cap back on and come up with some more definitions. As before, it’s just a bit of fun and I’m in the firing line, just as much as the next guy.
The first ceremonial first pitch ever thrown was tossed by former Japanese Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu at a baseball game in Koshien, Japan, back in 1908. Two years later, US President William Howard Taft started the tradition in the United States, tossing a pitch (shown above) in Washington DC on the opening day of the Washington Senators' season. Since then, every US president has thrown at least one ceremonial first pitch, and they have all been documented in photographs.
There are only a couple of Canon 5DS cameras floating around in the US for reviewers to play around with prior to the DSLR arriving on store shelves in June. Portrait photographer Peter Hurley managed to get his hands on one of them. In the video above by Resource Magazine, Hurley uses the camera for two headshot shoots and shares his first impressions of the camera's capabilities.
Color management company Datacolor has just announced Spyder5, a new line of devices for making sure the color seen on your monitors is accurate to ensure that your photos look the same across screens and match your prints.
"Underwater Babies" is a new photo series by photographer Seth Casteel. It's a collection of adorable portraits showing babies exploring the underwater world of a swimming pool.
Tired of waiting hours for your camera battery to recharge? A newly developed aluminum battery could one day replace lithium-ion batteries and allow you to charge from empty to full in a matter of minutes.
Underwater photographer John Ng was diving off the coast of the Maldives last month when he noticed something stuck among the rocks and coral reef at the bottom of the ocean. After a recovery and investigation, it turned out to be an underwater camera that had been lost last year -- a camera that was still perfectly functional.
Here's a colorized 1912 photograph of freelance photographers Bill and Joseph James riding a motorcycle in Toronto. Their father was William James, who's often referred to as Canada's first photojournalist. The James family created a huge photographic record of Toronto that spanned decades starting in 1909.
Lensbaby has just added a new lens to its lens lineup. The Velvet 56 is a 56mm f/1.6 lens that can be used for super soft portrait shots or for macro images that highlight the details of little things.
The short film above is a dazzling "macro symphony" showing some of the colorful and complicated ocean creatures found off the coast of Indonesia.
Apple made quite a splash last year when it announced its new iMac with a 5K display, but something much bigger could be on the horizon. A page on the LG website briefly referred to an 'iMac 8K' announcement by Apple -- one that hasn't happened yet.
Live Portrait is a new service that's trying to breathe new life into the standard school portrait. Instead of simply static photographs, the company's idea is to use augmented reality through a smartphone camera to add a video element to every photograph in a yearbook.
If you don't mind shelling out $880 on a single memory card and putting all your eggs in one basket, you can buy Lexar's 512GB CF card (or SanDisk's 512GB SD card for $600). To give you a better idea of just how massive these capacities are, photographer Jared Polin stuck his 512GB card into his Nikon D4s and documented it in the video above.
The Syrian civil war has been raging for over four years now, and millions of Syrians have fled their homes and into neighboring countries as refugees. As refugees struggle with basic necessities and figuring out their futures, a new project has popped up to give refugee children a creative outlet and a voice through photography. Hundreds of children have been documenting their tumultuous childhood experience using disposable cameras.
Late last month, at a press event in China, Canon showed off a glimpse of the 4K camera it's planning to launch in the near future. At the time the camera was reported to have a 1-inch CMOS sensor, a fixed 10X lens (24-240mm equiv.), built-in W-Fi, and an external viewfinder. We're hearing a few more details about the camera now as Canon gets it ready for an unveiling.
A while back I got my hands on my first tilt-shift lens. Since then I have carried it with me nearly every day, grocery shopping and subway riding – you name it. It’s quite a special and fascinating piece of glass even having aged 43 years.
Need a laugh? Check out the official Instagram account of the Reykjavík metropolitan police (Reykjavík is the largest and capital city of Iceland). It's a strangely humorous account that's filled with silly snapshots showing that the officers know how to have a good time while busting criminals and keeping their city streets safe.
In 2012, Olympus launched a new 5-axis sensor-shift image stabilization system in the retro OM-D E-M5 mirrorless camera. If you'd like a better idea of how the system works, check out the video above, which shows the technology in action.
Photographer and filmmaker Matt Mangham has launched "Analog: Stories of Film Photography," a series of short videos that explore the current state of film photography. "Ever since getting into film photography, I've been so passionate about learning from others using film in one way or another," he writes. "It's a dying medium and yet in a lot of ways a thriving one." …
A Texas lawmaker recently attracted death threats after proposing a law that would make it illegal for photographers to take pictures of police officers from within 25 feet of them. Colorado is moving in the opposite direction.
Photojournalist Troy Wayrynen has been selected as the 1st Prize winner of the Sports Feature category in this year's Best of Photojournalism contest by the NPPA, one of the most prestigious awards for photojournalists.
The two "Final Four" basketball games of the 2015 men's NCAA basketball tournament were held yesterday. One of the photographers sitting on the sideline was 82-year-old Rich Clarkson, a man who has been photographing the tournament for 60 straight years. The video above is a 5-minute segment CBS recently aired that looks into Clarkson's life and work as he "hangs up his camera" after this year's tournament.
Famous rock star and photographer Lenny Kravitz is having quite a year in the world of photography. In addition to publishing his own photo book and holding a gallery exhibition for his work, Kravitz has also partnered with Leica in designing a custom Leica M-P rangefinder called the "Correspondent" edition.
On March 23, I was in Kearney, Nebraska to view and photograph the annual migration of the Sandhill cranes. These birds are graceful, awkward, beautiful and kooky all at the same time. They fly with grace, but while on the ground sometimes exhibit some of the funniest behaviors you'll see from a bird. With a wingspan of up to 7 feet, these birds aren't the biggest, but they're some of the biggest most of us will get to see.
An interesting camera story developed over in Sweden this past week. A man named Kristoffer Örstadius reported online that his father had found a GoPro lying in a field outside of Kristianstad, Sweden. The memory card on the camera was intact, but the last video on it was surprising: it showed that the camera had taken an unexpected journey from 10,000 feet above ground four years earlier.
Here's a clever Craigslist listing by some photographer with a knack for marketing over in Vancouver. Buy their "super handy" 3-axis hot-shoe-mounted bubble level, and they'll throw in their Nikon D800 for free!
Manga artist Joanna Zhou created a series of 12 illustrations showing the common types of photos you'll come across when browsing Instagram.
The rumor mill is saying with relative certainty that Canon is planning to launch a new 50mm f/1.8 IS STM lens. The lens has been rumored for a while and may be announced sometime in the near future this month. Photo Rumors reports that it just received the image above, which appears to be the first leaked photograph we've seen of this upcoming lens.
You can solve everything with black tape. If not, you just don't have enough tape.
Here's one crazy way to use the new Olympus Air wireless modular camera: "rocket launcher" style. The photographer above attached the Olympus Air to a 300mm lens, flipped the lens upside down, and used the tripod mount ring to attach a smartphone live view and a magnifying loupe.
The Internet is teeming with photographs and videos of the starry night sky that dazzle the eyes and tickle the imagination, but have you ever wondered how the imagery compares to what photographer's naked eye actually saw while the camera was taking a picture? …
Photographer Kayli Rene has captured quite a few family portraits for clients, but a somewhat unusual one has captured the world's attention. It's a photo she made recently for Sierra Sharry, the mother of a 6 month old boy who lost her husband in an accident last year. At Sharry's request, Rene included the husband as a ghostly figure in the shot.
Nikon has announced the new N-MP001, the Nikon selfie stick. It's a standard Nikon-branded selfie stick that attaches to compatible cameras via the tripod mount and allows you to "conveniently and easily take 'Selfies' or self-portrait photos."
The photography and music worlds are at odds in a dispute between a music photographer and a popular band. Photographer Pat Pope was miffed by a request from the band to include his photos in an upcoming book without any payment, while the band Garbage argues that they've already paid Pope for his work, and that they were simply giving him a chance to have his work represented in the publication.
Crashing and destroying your drone is painful on your wallet, but it's not usually the cost of a house. The video above is different. It's documents the first ever drone flight to involve a Phantom 4K camera mounted to an Aerigon UAV.
Olympus has launched a new program called Olympus Rewards that's designed to reward loyal photographers in the United States with special savings.
Joey Lawrence (more commonly known as Joey L) is a 25-year-old photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. His career has taken him to the far corners of the world for all kinds of shoots for a wide range of notable clients.
Triggertrap has announced Timelapse Pro, a new app for its mobile camera control kits that gives time-lapse photographers more flexibility in creating complex sequences than the basic Triggertrap app.
In August I hired ImageRights International, a reputable copyright enforcement agency, to assume the routine handling of commercial infringements of my professional work. There are a lot. Starting in September 2014, companies began receiving letters from ImageRights’ partner law firms seeking to resolve these infringements on my behalf.
The popular photo newsletter and online store Photojojo has launched an iPhone app called Disposable Camera. It's a digital version of the disposable cameras of old, allowing users to snap 27 exposures and receive the photos as physical prints on your doorstep.
At the end of 2013, I was talking to my client at Ferrari Carano Vineyards about capturing the vineyards and we thought making a timelapse of the entire growing season could be a fun project. I hadn’t done one before, so of course I had to some research before we could start the project. This was one of those projects where everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Today Microsoft announced that it has released its Office Lens app for iOS and Android. If you've never heard of it before, Office Lens is an advanced camera app that turns your phone into a scanner. Take a picture of a document or a whiteboard, and the app will automatically turn the image into a straight and clear scan.
Most of you know I've been very impressed with Sigma's new Art lenses. Their 35mm f/1.4 Art I still think is the sharpest 35mm prime lens made. The 50mm f/1.4 Art is also superb.
Want to see how much our ability to photograph space has improved over the past 135 years or so? Just check out the side-by-side comparison above. On the left is a photo of Jupiter from back in 1879 as it appeared in the book "A History of Astronomy in the 19th Century" by Agnes Clerk. On the right is a photo NASA shot in 2014.
Korean camera gear company Samyang has announced a new Rokinon 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens. The manual focus lens provides life-size 1:1 magnification for macro photographs and can be used as a lens for portraits as well.
Magic Lantern is announcing that it has passed a new milestone in hacking DSLRs: making Linux run on Canon DSLR cameras.
Photographer Alec Dawson regularly battles with what he calls "emotional cancers": inner struggles that include regret, isolation, anxiety, and depression. As a way to deal with his inner dramas, Dawson has created a photo project titled "Nobody Claps Anymore", a series of portraits of people in their homes, lit and captured in a way that conveys what he feels.
This unique and beautiful image shows sun and moon haloes side by side. There was perfect halo conditions in the sky yesterday in Östersund, Sweden, so Swedish astrophotographer Göran Strand went out and shot a photo of the 22° solar halo.
Here's an interview by Advancing Your Photography's Marc Silber, who sat down for a short conversation with photographer David Hobby of Strobist back in 2011. In the 4-minute video above, Hobby offers some thoughts about photographic lighting and talks about some of his most memorable experiences in lighting portrait subjects.
