How I Faked Natural Window Light for a Photo Shoot
I definitely love do-it-yourself projects, especially those that help me out with a project in a niche way.
I definitely love do-it-yourself projects, especially those that help me out with a project in a niche way.
When I was in college, I lived for a while in a crappy little rental house next to a cemetery. Neither I nor my roommate, Brad, knew how to cook anything, and we ate bologna sandwiches pretty much all the time. Eventually, someone gave us a cookbook so simple that even a half-starved English major could learn a few basic dishes--the first page actually had step-by-step instructions, with pictures, for making toast in a toaster.
The Macro Room YouTube channel is quickly becoming a PetaPixel favorite. It started with dissolving pills, moved on to burning steel wool, and now the channel is revealing the odd textures and patterns of everyday objects when you look at them up close.
This foreground bokeh look is actually a setup I played around with a few times many years ago. I thought it would be a good, fun setup to share, as you can get some interesting results whilst playing around the much-loved bokeh.
Our friend Roger Cicala over at LensRentals recently put the highly-praised Nikon 105mm f/1.4 through its paces, and it seems the world's fastest 105mm lens may also be the world's sharpest f/1.4 lens. MTF charts don't lie.
Adobe announced an update to Photoshop CC today that brings a collection of new features and enhancements that photographers can use to improve the way they work.
Reuters and Adobe have teamed up to beef up the content available through Adobe's stock content service. The world's largest international multimedia news provider is making its editorial content and 60+ million asset archive accessible through Adobe Stock.
If you want a neat example of creativity in action, look no further than photographer Andrew Tihi's recent portrait adventure. Watch as he uses a backlit bus stop advertisement to help him capture a glowing portrait against a white backdrop.
The 100mm f/2 lens spotted yesterday isn't the only new lens coming soon from affordable camera gear maker Yongnuo. It seems the company accidentally outed another lens in one of their product images: an 85mm (probably) f/1.8.
Here's a simple composition tip that promises to help add depth and impact to your images. Instead of thinking of light and lines separately, try to combine the two by having your strongest light source and your leading lines work together.
My name is Timothy Jones, and I'm a Bristol-based photographer currently serving as a British Army Photographer. I was also just awarded Photographer of the Year by the Army Photographic Competition 2016 for my photos showing military life over the past 12 months.
I am a street photographer currently based in Manila, the Philippines. I prefer to photograph the streets alone or with a non-photographer, but on the occasions when I do shoot with fellow photographers, I tend to find myself painfully trapped in conversations about gear.
Low quality photos and videos are often referred to these days as being "potato quality," or so bad that they look like they were taken using a potato. But for photographer Colin Lowe, "potato quality" is a spot-on description for some of his photos because they were literally taken with a potato.
Ouch. Reviews don't get much worse than starting with "The GoPro Karma is unquestionably, inarguably, unarguably, without a doubt, the worst drone I have ever flown." And it only went downhill from there...
It is estimated that over 99% of all species that have lived on Earth have gone extinct, and a number of notable ones have disappeared just over the past century. Thanks to the existence of cameras, however, we have a more accurate visual record of what some recently extinct animals looked like.
I just got back from Batanes as part of a large group of bloggers and other media people who were there to try out the photography features of the Asus Zenfone 3 line of mobile phones, courtesy of Asus Philippines. I was there mainly as a resource person on shooting the Milky Way, but I was intrigued about the possibility of pulling off Milky Way shots using a mobile phone.
Earlier this year, after researching photo editing tools, I shared a list of 104 photo editing tools you should know about. After receiving a great deal of interest and feedback from the photography community, I've created one final ultimate list of 148 photo editing tools and photography apps.
If you've ever dreamed of spending even just 15 minutes floating around the International Space Station—of staring out at Earth through the Cupola with a DSLR in your hand—then NASA's got a Holiday season treat for you.
CSSCO is a new free and open source project that offers VSCO-style retro photo filters made and used entirely with CSS.
I recently returned home from my trip to Egypt, and with my wife due any day now, I had some time to squander on lens hunting. A local craigslist post revealed that one of the camera shops in town was having a yard sale to clear out all of their old stuff in preparation for moving to a new location. I wasn’t about to pass up on a camera shop yard sale!
This is what 20,000 miles of hard travel by thumb, foot, van, and train does to a camera.
The New York Times is launching a big project to bring its journalism to the world of immersive 360-degree videos. With "The Daily 360," the Times will now be sharing one 360-degree video per day to report on stories around the world.
The ability of art to influence humanity’s collective consciousness has somewhat been masked in a veil of uncertainty. While it has been widely agreed upon among scholars of art history that art has always held an important role in the influence of beliefs, as in religion and popular opinion, it is important to try and understand art’s role in that influence.
The world of the fantasy, fine art photographer typically involves a healthy helping of Adobe Photoshop. But if digital art and crazy composites are on one end of the spectrum, then photographer Adrien Broom is on the other—no Photoshop, just incredibly intricate hand-made props and sets.
Photographer and CreativeLive founder Chase Jarvis dropped a serious truth bomb in this short clip from one of his classes. And the bomb is this: you will never turn a $500 client into a $5,000 client... the best thing you can do is move on and find a new, $5,000 client.
After tasting some success selling their budget 50mm f/1.8 and 35mm f/2 lenses, Yongnuo is adding another piece of glass to its ultra-affordable arsenal. Earlier today, they announced the arrival of their YN 100mm f/2 lens, and it'll only cost you $170.
Questions on the subject of lens choice are as limitless as lens choice itself. Show me 10 photographers and I’ll show you at least 11 divergent opinions on which lens is right for a particular type of photograph.
Inspired by a costume idea we first saw way back in 2011, photographer Bryan Troll turned himself into a fully-functional Nikon DSLR this Halloween. His 'costume' has a working flash, takes pictures, and even displays the results on an LCD!
At the time of my takeover of the Visit Faroe Islands account, my own account was around 5k followers. To briefly run and manage a page that has surpassed 100k was a great learning experience. Here are a few things I learned along the way that might help others.
We don't usually recommend taking a band saw to your $2,000 lens... in fact, we still don't recommend it. But that's what it took for nerd hero of Mythbusters fame Adam Savage to get a broken filter off of his friend's Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II lens.
Episode 120 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
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Featured: Kevin D. Liles, Photojournalist and President of the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar
Back in 2014, San Diego-based startup Lume Cube unveiled its eponymous cube LED light that can output 1,500 lumens while small enough to fit in your pocket. Now the company is launching its next product, a followup light called the Life Lite.
Ernest Brooks was the first official photographer appointed by the British military, and he ended up shooting over 1/10 of all official British photos made during World War I. The 8-minute video above is a look at photography during the "Great War" and the life and work of Ernest Brooks.
Fossil's Q smartwatches contain a feature that lets you take pictures with your smartphone camera by simply pressing one of the watch's buttons. To promote this watch and feature, Fossil created the above followup to the Instagram Husbands video that went viral last year.
Here's an inspiring video in which renowned adventure photographer Cory Richards discusses why he believes vulnerability is the key to making great art.
Facebook will soon be updating its mobile app camera to include filter features popularized by apps such as Snapchat and Prisma.
At the core of every Nikkor lens, is Hikari glass. The company's factory in Japan's pristine Akita Prefecture churns out the lens elements that make or break the quality of your Nikkor lenses, and this short video gives us a peek at how it's done.
A trio of scientists from MIT's Media Lab decided to get creative for Halloween ... and just maybe scare the pants off of you. So if you're wondering how Kermit turned into undead Kermit, meet the aptly-named 'Nightmare Machine.'
Selective color, bad HDR, over-sharpening, we've all seen (and if we're honest, probably made) these Photoshop mistakes... but are you sure you're still not committing some Photoshop faux pas? In this video, Nate Dodson of TutVid covers 10 common novice mistakes you should avoid.
While living in Hanoi, Vietnam, photographer Loes Heerink became fascinated by the city's street vendors and the mobile art they created atop their bicycles every single day. So she set out to capture this beauty in an interesting, maybe even unique way. That's how Vendors from Above was born.
Photographer Manuel Ortiz went out and did something many of us have been considering a lot lately: he bought himself a cheap, vintage Soviet lens. And now, we get to join him to see how this awesome old portrait lens performs when it's attached to the very modern Sony A7R II.
The FAA's lithium ion battery regulations can be a real pain to deal with for photographers, but there's a good reason the agency is worried about that battery—be it in your drone, your DSLR, or your Galaxy Note 7. It can cause some serious damage, as NASA found out back in June.
I’m a big fan of the portrait. It’s even better when the portrait is about more than the photographer’s skill, but about the life, challenges, and successes of the subject. “Skin Deep” by Steven Burton is one such project that caught my eye.
Apple's new MacBook Pros feature a retina display Apple is calling their "best ever." 67% brighter with a 67% higher contrast ratio and 25% more colors, it's no slouch. But if you want the ultimate display experience for your new MacBook Pro you'll have to buy... an LG monitor?
Say hello to the "Rolls Royce" of camera drones. You can now buy a DJI Phantom 4 that's plated with 24 karat gold for the low, low price of about $24,000.
Apple has just announced its latest generation of Macbook laptops. In the week that marks the 25th anniversary of the company's first notebook, Apple is trying to redefine the modern notebook again with the introduction of a new "Touch Bar" secondary display above the keyboard.
After being acquired by Twitter in 2012 and launching to the public in 2013, Vine became a pioneer of the idea of sharing short videos socially. Now its famous 6-second video loops are coming to an end: Twitter announced today that it's discontinuing the Vine mobile app.
Photographer Jess Findlay was shooting in the mountains of Costa Rica when he came upon several beautiful fiery-throated hummingbirds. His photos captured the dazzling colors of the bird's plumage.
Remember #TheDress? It's the viral Internet photo from early 2015 that divided public opinion: some people thought it was a photo of a black and blue dress, and some people thought it was a white and gold dress. Now there's a new viral image that has people talking. It's called #TheLegs.
The human eye is incapable of seeing infrared light, so infrared photography is truly a way to show your audience something they can never see with their own eyes. Here's a guide to getting started with digital infrared photography.