January 2016

The LensCoat LensHide is a new portable blind for wildlife photographers that helps you become invisible to the wild animals you're taking pictures of. LensCoat calls the product "the best-engineered portable blind in the market."

If you're a fan of the late musician David Bowie, there's a good chance you've seen these police portraits before. Often referred to as one of the best celebrity mugshots, the photos are mistakenly believed to be staged promotional photos. But they're not: they are official mugshots taken after Bowie was arrested for marijuana possession back in 1976.

The Los Angeles-based sketch comedy group Mommy created this humorous 6.5-minute "behind-the-scenes video" about the world's first feature film that was shot entirely with a Toyota Prius backup camera.

If you live in a remote area with dark skies, you are one of the lucky ones; the lucky ones that get to look up on a clear dark night and see a thick band of glowing light stretch across the sky.

A photographer has launched a copyright infringement lawsuit against Twitter, claiming that the social media company failed to remove a photo of hers that was posted without permission, and even after she sent multiple DMCA takedown requests to have the posts deleted.

If you want to see a photojournalist who cares deeply about the subject they're covering, watch this 3-minute National Geographic video. In it, photographer Charlie Hamilton James discusses his photos of vultures -- one of the fastest declining families of birds in history, and what James calls "the world's forgotten environmental disaster." …

There's more bad news in the photojournalism industry today: Sports Illustrated has laid off Director of Photography Brad Smith, Photo Editor Claire Bourgeois, and Photo Director John Blackmar. This comes almost exactly 1 year after the magazine laid off its entire roster of staff photographers.

For their latest film The Hateful Eight, director Quentin Tarnatino and cinematographer Robert Richardson shot on 65mm film using Ultra Panavision 70 and Kodak VISION 3 film stocks -- the biggest use of this film format in over two decades.

If you're a casual photographer, you probably don't have so many tripods that you have a hard time storing and organizing them. But if that is a problem that you or your studio struggle with, here's a clever solution: you can use a snowboard rack as a tripod storage solution.

When people ask me what lens they should get after buying their first camera, I always tell them to buy a 50mm f/1.8 lens because it's one of the cheapest and one of the coolest lens you could buy. I have an old 50mm which is a little bit dirty and also quite old so I don't use it that often. But recently, my girlfriend bought me a brand new 50mm lens, so I fell in love with using the 50mm again.

Reporters Without Borders just released this new video, titled "War Reporters," as part of a new campaign to raise awareness and support for conflict photographers.

A couple of days ago, we shared a leaked photo that showed Olympus' soon-to-be-announced retro mirrorless camera, the PEN-F. New photos just leaked, and now we have a better idea of what the camera looks like from each direction.

Chris Dixon is a 25-year-old photographer based in Sydney, Australia. When he's not photographing weddings, he's often standing in shallow ocean water and shooting fine art photos of waves breaking on the coastline.

PBS NewsHour just published this short interview with photographer Ken Van Sickle as a segment in its "Brief But Spectacular" series. It examines the question "what makes a photographer when everyone is taking pictures?"

Fujifilm has a sense of humor. At its major press event today, company Vice President Toru Takahashi made an unusual argument for the benefits of its professional mirrorless cameras over traditional DSLRs: he pointed out that DSLRs weigh 2 cans of beer more than Fujifilm flagship camera.

Sharing a photo on Facebook usually doesn't result in you getting 15 years in jail. That is, unless the photo is a gun selfie and you're a convicted felon.

Fujifilm has announced its new XF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR lens, a telephoto zoom lens that was seen on the company's road map last year.

The Oakland, California-based photo software company VSCO is on a roll. After raising a whopping $70 million in venture funding -- $40M in 2014 and $30M in 2015 -- the company just announced that it has passed the 30 million user mark.

In a world obsessed with views, likes, and viral hits, it can be discouraging to feel like no one is paying any attention to the art you make. If that describes your photography, then you should watch this fantastic 10-minute video essay titled "Painting in the Dark: The Struggle for Art in A World Obsessed with Popularity." …

Fujifilm today unveiled the new X-E2S, a premium rangefinder-style mirrorless camera that sits on a tier under the new X-Pro2.

Fujifilm just announced its new X70, a premium fixed lens camera that sleek, portable, and versatile.

Fujifilm today announced the X-Pro2, its new flagship mirrorless camera, and the world's first with Fuji's Advanced Hybrid Multi Viewfinder.

Photographer Albert Watson has shot some of the most memorable photos of some of the world's most famous people over his lengthy photography career, from Alfred Hitchcock to Steve Jobs.

Manny is a gray tabby cat that's attracting attention for his special camera skills. More specifically, Manny is quite skilled at shooting selfies of himself, and now tens of thousands of people are following his photos on Instagram.

There is an ineffable allure when it comes the human mouth. The lips and tongue (and much more) help emit wonderful language, tell stories through micro-expressions, and experience the joys of how things in the world taste along with presenting another form of touching.

So what is it really like to shoot The Antelope? …

The Digital Camera Comparison Chart is a simple new web app that plots digital cameras on the market using their price and resolution.

Leica today introduced three next generation updates of classic lenses for its M series linup. There's a new Leica Elmarit-M 28 mm f/2.8 ASPH, Leica Summicron-M 28 mm f/2 ASPH, and Leica M Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH.

Vogue magazine sparked controversy earlier this month by recommending that brides say "I don't" to "hiring a professional wedding photographer." Needless to say, the suggestion didn't go over well in the photography community.

Clichés are everywhere on Instagram, and trending hashtags are an easy way for users to shoot nearly identical photos on the same topics. For their latest music video for the song titled "Clichés," Hiérophante decided to create a hypnotic rapid-fire slideshow that shows how much of what you find on Instagram is completely unoriginal. From hashtags, to locations, to celebrities -- each group of photos has an eerie level of uniformity.

GoPro has seen better days. The company just announced that it will be cutting its workforce by 7%, roughly 100 people, after seeing big declines in sales of its action camera.

Sometimes, photography is about being brilliant at lighting, or capturing a decisive moment, but often it's as much about collaborating with other talented people to realize a vision as it is about your own skills.

Here's a curious case of someone who wasn't happy with a portrait taken of himself. A fugitive recently sent a selfie to police because he hated the "terrible" mugshot the department published.

Sony has created what it believes is the world's first 48K 360-degree video. The company created a special 3D-printed camera rig that uses 12 Xperia Z5 smartphones arranged in a circle. By shooting 4K with each phone and then stitching together the resulting footage, Sony was able to create 48K video that you can explore interactively.

French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen believes that an unflattering photo of him sleeping damaged his image in a recent election, and now he's suing the dancer that snapped and posted it.

"Stages" is a photo project by 65-year-old photographer Laura Hofstadter, who recreated some of history's famous portrait paintings as creative self-portraits.

Dear young, aspiring artist, …

Hasselblad has just announced the 10 winning photographers of its prestigious Masters Awards 2016 contest. The winners were selected from thousands of images by a combination of a vote that was open to the public and votes from a professional jury composed of some of the world's most renowned photographers and experts.

French travelers and filmmakers Claire & Max have created this new experimental short film titled "Apparences." They shot 4K imagery of Paris using a Panasonic GH4 and 12-28mm lens, and then used clever editing to make the city look like a giant movie set. Real buildings are turned into facades -- fake flat fronts that are propped up with wooden beams.

Google's Street View cameras have gone to the ends of the Earth, from under the sea to desolate deserts, in order to document the world in photos. The project is grand, but its latest effort is on a much smaller scale -- literally.

Given the utter ubiquity of photography in the USA, most Americans probably don’t view photography as special. But in impoverished areas around the world, personal photos can be rare. On visits to her birthplace of Kolkata, India, Bipasha Shom frequently took portraits of people she met, and she was struck by how many people lacked access to a camera and had no family photos of her own.

Here's a look at how photographer Jaanus Ree recently captured some beautiful photos of windsurfers using off-camera lighting. By placing powerful flashes on the shoreline nearby, Ree was able to freeze the action and capture some remarkable shots.

Be careful when mounting cameras to the insides of cars -- a badly-placed mount could be hazardous to your head's health. Here's a humorous blooper reel video from a few years ago in which Top Gear co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May keep forgetting that the mount is there. They receive multiple painful reminders after leaning forward and banging their noggins on the sharp corner.

Olympus is rumored to have a new Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera called the PEN-F up its sleeve, and today we just got our first look at the upcoming camera. The leaked photo above shows what the black version of the camera looks like with the M.Zuiko 75mm lens and an optional grip attached.

One of the exciting features of the new flagship Nikon D5 is the fact that it can shoot with a native ISO of up to 102,400 and an expanded ISO of 3,280,000. If you're curious about what the D5's ISO 3.28 million looks like in photos, we've got some images that'll give you a small glimpse at the quality.

The 48Hr Classic is a new leather bag that's attracting quite a bit of interest. It has an expandable design that makes it "the urban commuter's ultimate travel, work, and photography bag."

About a year ago, photographer Peter Lik announced that he sold a print of Antelope Canyon for $6.5 million to a private investor. There has been no independent confirmation of this transaction. Many in the photography community thinks that it might be a PR stunt.

When Washington, D.C.-based time-lapse photographer Andrew Geraci proposed to his girlfriend, Alicia Pituch, (who's also a photographer) recently, he decided to get creative with documenting the memory. He captured the memory in 360 degrees in two different ways: one with the help of 10 of his photographer friends, and one with a 360-degree camera.