2015

Update: This giveaway has ended. The winner has been announced below.

Here's a new giveaway for our faithful readers, this one's a doozy: we're giving away a Sony a7R II full frame mirrorless camera, which the photography world has been talking about since it was announced back in June. The camera has a 42MP sensor, 4K video recording, and a hefty price tag of $3,200.

Photo colorizer Jordan Lloyd of Dynamichrome was recently commissioned to digitally color reconstructed photos of the discovery and exploration of Tutankhaten's tomb starting in 1922.

Here's a little tip for those of you who shoot with Fuji Instax film while out and about: once you're done exposing a pack of film, you can use the empty plastic pack as a container to hold your Instax photos.

Yahoo is rolling out a revamped image search engine today that now includes photo results from its Flickr service. As long as you're signed in, the personalized Flickr results will include your own collection of Flickr photos, photos from people you follow, and other top public photos on the service.

Requests for free spec work is a big problem for photographers, who lose out when clients demand free photos in exchange for "vague to nonexistent compensation." To show how ridiculous the idea of spec work is, Toronto agency Zulu Alpha Kilo had a guy approach people in other businesses with requests for free spec work to sample their products and services before actually committing to paying. A barista, chef, personal trainer, and architect all responded with indignation; watch their reactions in the 2.5-minute video above.

On October 28th, 2014, the Orbital ATK Antares rocket exploded on takeoff, destroying the vehicle and the supplies that were being sent to the astronauts on-board the International Space Station. The explosion was captured by a large number of photographers and videographers observing from a distance, but now NASA has published its own up-close photos of the explosion.

There are deadlines and then there are deadlines… this is the latter.

Arizona State University’s advertising campaign is one that I have now shot for 10 years. It is one that I always use to push the logistical boundaries that I had previously been inflexible towards, for the sake of art and knowledge. Photographing it is a practice in embracing the unknown and evaluating previously conceived notions of what is possible and what is not. This year’s photoshoot existed well within the impossible…

Want to see how the great-grandfather of Canon DSLRs compares to the company's latest and greatest camera? Photographer Jim Goldstein got his hands on the "ancient" Canon D2000 from 1998 and decided to pit it against the new Canon 5DS R in a shootout. The 10-minute video is a look at how a 17-year-old 2-megapixel DSLR stacks up against a 5-month-old 50-megapixel DSLR.

B&H workers have unionized after passing a 200-to-88 vote yesterday to join the United Steelworkers (USW) union. Last month, nearly 200 workers launched a protest and unionization campaign, accusing the photo retail giant of subjecting employees to long hours, unsafe work environments, inadequate training, and discrimination.

Lytro today announced Immerge, a new camera that may revolutionize how virtual reality content is captured. The company calls it "the world's first professional light field solution for Cinematic VR."

"Tilbakeblikk" ("retrospective" in Norwegian) is a fascinating photo project that shows how Norway's gorgeous landscapes have changed over the past century. Decades-old photos are faithfully re-captured by figuring out exactly where the original photographer stood.

DJI announced today that is has acquired a minority stake in Hasselblad, forming a strategic partnership between a well-known brand in high-end cameras and the best-known brand in camera drones.

The Sony Alpha mount is alive and kicking. Less than a month after Sony UK told photographers that there are "no A-mounts planned," Sony Europe today announced the new Sony a68, an APS-C A-mount camera that boasts "4D Focus."

It’s always impressive when photographers and filmmakers capture mind-blowing shots in-camera rather than resorting completely to Photoshop, CGI, and …

Remembrance Sunday is this week in the UK and the Commonwealth, and public figures are expected to wear remembrance poppies on their clothing to commemorate soldiers who have died in war. Prime Minister David Cameron is finding out the hard way this week that Photoshopping a poppy isn't viewed in the same way as actually wearing one.

Facebook yesterday announced that it's working on new artificial intelligence technology that can describe photos to people who can't see them. The AI would allow the blind to interact with the world of photo sharing in ways that aren't currently possible.

Here's a friendly piece of advice: if you bet on sports, never post a photo of your winning ticket online. That's what an Australian woman found out the hard way yesterday. After sharing a photo of herself with her winning ticket on Facebook, someone used the photo to claim her $825 prize.

Sony's rollout of uncompressed 14-bit RAW continues: the company announced today that it will be releasing a new firmware update for the Sony a7 II on November 18th that adds the ability to the camera.

After my Star Wars photo-manipulation went viral, I was contacted by a fellow in Hong Kong who wanted to surprise his wife with a bit of Wonderland. He gave me some photos of him and his bride, and then graciously gave me artistic freedom to create the photo above.

Canon conducted an interesting experiment on the power of perspective in portrait photography. The camera company enlisted the help of 6 photographers and asked them each to independently shoot portraits of a man named Michael. But there was a twist: each photographer was told a different thing about Michael's background.

Want to see what Lytro’s light field camera technology is all about? You can now take the plunge for …

National Geographic is laying off 9% of its 2,000 employees as it prepares to finalize its "expanded partnership" with 21st Century Fox, a $725 million deal that turns the iconic yellow-bordered magazine into a for-profit publication. The roughly 180 layoffs reportedly represent the largest reduction in the 127-year history of the Society.

The company behind Polaroid cameras has filed a new lawsuit against GoPro, claiming that GoPro ripped off the design of Polaroid's cube-shaped action cameras by launching the GoPro Session back in July.

Last month, I covered an NFL football game in which I had freedom to roam once what I shot what I needed for ESPN the Magazine (that story to be published this month).

I was done with my pregame shoot and portrait session the night prior, and so I had a decision to make: drive four hours home or spend four hours over four quarters making pictures at a game that, in the terms of the NFL this season, was a little off the grid.

I have yet to be let down by Sigma's highly respected Art series of lenses. Sigma is now set to release the widest f/1.4 lens on the market, with the upcoming 20mm f1.4 DG HSM Art lens to be released in the latter part of the month.

Sigma is courting the wide-angle photographer in all of us with this new lens, and we were given a rare pre-production model to get a feel for what is now the fastest 20mm lens on the market.

Update: O'Neil has apparently deleted all of her social media content, including the video and photos that were originally in this post.

18-year-old model and Instagram star Essena O'Neil has the world talking after posting the 17-minute video above on why she's quitting Instagram and social media (warning: there's some explicit language). She says that posting photos to her hundreds of thousands of followers consumed her and made her miserable, and that the luxurious life she showed online was all "edited and contrived."

While riding the subway on Halloween this past weekend, Mike Furlender witnessed a …

After founding The Impossible Project to revive Polaroid-style instant film in 2008, Florian Kaps announced his retirement from the company in May 2013. Kaps latest venture is the Vienna-based SUPERSENSE, which is a coffee house, store, photo and music studio, and workshop all rolled into a single space.

SUPERSENSE today announced that it's making 20x24 Polaroid photos available to photographers around the world. Simply send in a digital photo, and they'll ship you a gigantic 20x24-inch Polaroid picture.

This post is a basic rundown of how things work behind my lens, after a big day of shooting. In this case, it's mountain biking. However, whether you're shooting a party, a bike race, a wedding or flowers in the garden, all post-production works the same way.

Post-production can be confusing, though, and it's easy to get lost in a whole bunch of windows and options, missing important adjustments and taking hours longer than you could. I hope this little guide can help you achieve what you want from your photos, in less time, and with greater confidence.

A few months ago, photographer Adam Flor and I embarked on a sweet project. The goal was to shoot items using different colored backgrounds and use focus stacking to get full sharpness while shooting with a shallow depth of field.

The process was kinda nuts, but after seeing how it was done it wasn’t so bad. First, we grabbed small household items that had tiny details to them.

"Care Deeply" is a series of photos by Thai photographer Patcha Kitchaicharoen that captures the simple fact that there are 2 sides to every emotional hug.

Do you know who the most photographed American of the 19th century was? It's not George Custer (155 photos) or Walt Whitman or Abraham Lincoln (130 each). The person with the most portraits made of them in the 1800s was Frederick Douglass, the African-American abolitionist, speaker, writer, and statesman.

A photographer in Louisiana recently shot a baby photo that was a lot more magical than she had planned. In the middle of the outdoor photo shoot, a curious deer decided to wander into the shot to see what was going on. The photobomb resulted in a remarkable and memorable portrait.

The rise of virtual reality photojournalism will get a huge boost this weekend thanks to the New York Times. The newspaper's Sunday bundle for print subscribers will include a free Google Cardboard viewer for experiencing immersive photo and video content. Over 1 million units will be shipping with the paper, and another 300,000 will be sent to digital subscribers as well.

Self-balancing scooters have become all the rage over the past couple of years, and you can now buy a small handle-less Segway-esque device for yourself for around $300 to $400. In addition to gliding around and attracting curious looks on the street, you can also use the "hoverboards" to shoot stable photos and videos.

Here's an interesting blast from the past: in 1965, the US Army released the 25-minute film above to teach the basics of photography (for military police purposes).

Paris-based photographer Mathieu Stern released this short and sweet video showing how he took a 105-year-old folding camera lens from 1910 and mounted it to a Sony a7II mirrorless camera using bellows for focusing.

"The lens is incredibly sharp for a 105 year old lady... but it also gives some strange lens flares and light leaks that are pretty dreamy," Stern says. The video contains some sample footage shot using the lens.

Ellis Island in Upper New York Bay was the busiest immigrant inspection station in the United States at the dawn of the 20th century, with millions of immigrants arrived in the United States via the island by boat.

Amateur photographer Augustus Sherman was the Ellis Island Chief Registry Clerk for a number of years in the early 1900s, and he used his special access to shoot portraits of many of the immigrants who passed through the station.

When shooting in colder environments, one of the things that can plague your photography is condensation forming on your gear. Photographer Mark Peter Thorpe has a cheap and simple hack for avoiding this problem: heated hand warming packs.

How do the shutter sounds of popular camera brands compare with one another? Which cameras are loud, and which …

When you're just starting out in photography, you may not have a lot of money to invest in putting together a high-end arsenal of studio lighting equipment. By being resourceful, however, you can do a lot with a little.

In the 23-minute video by the lighting brand Sekonic, photographer Tony Corbell demonstrates how you can create 10 completely different lighting scenarios in the studio for products and portraits with a single large softbox.

Ringo Starr is best known as the rock star drummer of the Beatles, but he was also a passionate …

Want to make some realistic fake blood for a creepy Halloween photo shoot? Here’s a short video tutorial by …

Warning: This comic contains some explicit language.

Cartoonist Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal struck a chord with photographers and other creatives a couple of days ago by published a new comic titled "You're Doing it for the Exposure."

We all know Uncle Bob: the man, the myth, the photobombing, shot-blocking, wedding-wrecking legend! Turns out, when he purchased his first digital camera back in 2001, he also launched a blog!

For your enjoyment and inspiration, here are a few excerpts from the personal blog of Uncle Bob, Uncle Bob’s Camera.

This past May, photographer Grant Mallory and his girlfriend Maria celebrated Maria's college graduation by embarking on an epic road trip around the United States. Mallory wanted to capture each National Park's scenic locations in a unique way, so he brought along an LED hula hoop and had Maria pose for light painting portraits.

picsbuffet is a new visual image browsing system that lets you explore and search millions of photographs through an interface that feels like Google Maps.

Want to see a super early example of a photo being faked through compositing? Look no further than this circa 1902 photo, titled "General Grant at City Point." It appears to show General Ulysses S. Grant posing on a horse with a large number of soldiers in the background, but it's actually the combination of three different photos.