February 2016

Fujifilm's Instax brand of instant film has seen a boom in popularity in recent years -- it was the #1 selling product in Amazon's "Camera" category last Christmas season.

Want to add some flexible LED panels to your lighting kit without breaking the bank? This 19-minute video tutorial by DIY Perks is for you. It's a step-by-step guide on how you can assemble your own LED panel for about $60 by buying high CRI LED strip lights (~$25), a PWM LED dimmer (~$8), an articulating DSLR camera arm (~$18), some faux leather for the backing, some wiring and a solder gun.

If you enjoy do-it-yourself photography hacks and projects, here's an interesting one for you to try: buy an old Soviet MIR-1B camera lens for about $45 on eBay, open it up by unscrewing the front, and reverse the front lens element. The result is a "reverse globular lens," photographer Mathieu Stern says.

Over the years I’ve done a lot of travelling, but I always came back to my home country, the Netherlands. Being completely flat, having no mountains, no rocks, no skyscrapers, no good weather (usually), no super dark skies at night because of light pollution, I always feel a bit down when I come back from "spectacular" countries.

TIME photojournalist Christopher Morris was apparently choke-slammed to the ground today during a Donald Trump rally in Radford, Virginia, by a US Secret Service agent.

Skier Nicolas Vuignier recently shared a viral video in which he created "bullet time" footage of himself skiing by swinging an iPhone 6 around his head using a special contraption he built himself.

One of the big stories in the photo industry this month was news that the US government is suing the camera superstore B&H Photo Video for discrimination and harassment of its workers.

"When you push the shutter and take a photo, you're a photographer... but are you an artist?" asks photographer Roger Ballen. "As an artist, I use photography as a medium to express my artistic vision." …

As you can probably tell, last night we launched the biggest site redesign so far in the history of PetaPixel. While change is often hard and controversial, there are some big ones that we've made in response to reader feedback and needs over the years.

A few months ago I was working on putting together a still life shoot with a fantastic stylist and a friend of mine, Kiki Tse. She had come up with this beautiful idea for a shoot: to represent a person in a still life context by the use of some of their personal effects.

Things haven't been going well for B&H Photo Video, one of the biggest names in the photography retail industry. Just months after being slammed with accusations of mistreatment and discrimination and seeing its workers protest and unionized, B&H is now being sued by the US government for discrimination.

Let me begin by saying that I’m not a hunter. But I am surrounded by hunters because I live in Minnesota. I’ve heard countless stories about deer hunting from co-workers and friends, but the most interesting story was from a seasoned hunter who told me that now he only hunts for a “trophy buck” because he’s hunted everything else and he’s only interested in getting “the big one”.

Ian and Erick Regnard are two Mauritian-born photographers who have won big awards for their underwater 4x5 Polaroid photos.

Almost everything I do as a photographer comes back to this challenge: seeing light as a cinematographer would on set. I was recently reminded of this in conversation with a friend and fellow photographer as I was trying to think of the best advice I could give to someone wanting to step up their lighting game. So I’m sharing one of my lighting journals from film school, it was my sort of “ah ha” moment after several semesters of confusion and frustration when it came to lighting.

Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom paid a visit to the Pope at the Vatican yesterday. The photo sharing tycoon and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church chatted about the power of photography.

Tablet selfie stick not ridiculous enough for you? Check out the Macbook Selfie Stick. It lets you mount a Macbook (or any laptop, for that matter) at the end of a long telescoping pole for easy self-portraits with the built-in iSight camera.

I was recently contacted by my cousin because a group was looking for volunteers to photograph 10 cancer survivor children. Without any hesitation, I contacted the person in charge and booked the shoot.

If you're completely new to taking pictures with an iPhone, here's a 4-minute video that'll help you hit the ground running. MacRumors put together a number of basic tips and tricks you can use to take a step beyond simply tapping the on-screen shutter button.

Jianmin Huang, better known as Jimmy on the Run, is a fashion and street photographer based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The 7-minute video above by Wytse Koetse is an inspiring look at the life and work of this passionate photographer (note: there's a bit of strong language and nudity).

The Coffee Drip Printer is a curious contraption created by RIT photography professor Ted Kinsman. It can print out your digital photos, but instead of buying pricey ink for the prints, all you need to do is give the machine some coffee.

Cameras are one of the key features consumers look for in smartphones, so phone makers are constantly working to break new ground in smartphone camera features, specs, and quality. Dual camera systems are starting to appear, OPPO just unveiled the first sensor-baser image stabilizer for smartphones.

I write an annual article to help photographers with one of the toughest parts of their job: pricing their work. In the 2016 version, I’m going to add some new elements such as a little advice for photography buyers. Another section I’m most excited about is the question and answer portion at the end. Each year I receive many questions about photography rates in the comments. This year, I address some of the common and interesting follow-up questions I have received over the past few years.

4K video recording is appearing on many new digital cameras these days, but it appears Panasonic is itching to take the industry to the next level. A new report says the company is planning to launch a new 6K mirrorless camera during its fiscal year 2016 (a period that ends March 2017). This would likely be the world's first 6K-capable consumer-oriented camera.

Journalism is under threat from all sides. The last few years have been some of the most dangerous in history for journalists around the world; they have been killed, injured and detained in record numbers. But journalists are under threat from within as well, as some media companies seem content to eat their own.

Enjoy looking at lighting diagrams to see how photographers light their photos? Check out the way photographer Joey Hernandez shares his. Instead of sharing simple 2D layouts showing his gear and placements, Hernandez shoots behind-the-scenes photos of his shoots and overlays helpful (and humorous) labels across important (or random) things in the shot.

Launched back in 2012, the Impossible Instant Lab is a device that prints out your iPhone photos as Impossible instant photos. But what if you want to use the Instant Lab itself as an instant camera instead of an instant printer? …

It seems the Melissa Click saga has come to an end. A few months after being filmed confronting a photojournalist during a student protest at the University of Missouri, the mass media professor was fired yesterday for infringing on the student's rights.

National Geographic photographer Cory Richards was recently shooting at Franz Josef Land in the Russian Arctic, just 560 miles from the North Pole, when he was charged by a polar bear that spotted him in the distance. You can see footage of the scary encounter in the 2-minute video above.

"The Irrational Fear of Nothing" is a new short film by director Paul Trillo. It follows a paranoid, neurotic man named Terry as he wanders about on the streets of Manhattan. "Past memories and his irrational inner thoughts soon plague his every move," the synopsis says. "By channeling a form of mental time travel, he attempts to overcome these past anxieties." …

Recently I've been trying to get better at bracketing, where you take overexposed and underexposed photos and then merge them together. It can create a very neat effect when done correctly. It can also be abused, as many photographers tend to do, which results in unrealistic looking photography.

Want the benefits of cloud photo storage combined with the simplicity and security of having possession of the physical hard drive? A new gadget called Monument aims to deliver just that. It's the world's first desktop device that uses artificial intelligence to provide a "personal cloud" that you can use to backup your photos and access them from anywhere.

Taiwanese model Heidi Yeh was 2 years into her career when she signed on for an advertising photo shoot for a plastic surgery clinic. What she didn't know at the time was that the resulting photo would damage her life and ruin her career.

Beachgoers in Argentina sparked outrage around the world last week after purportedly killing an at-risk baby dolphin by passing it around for photos. Now a similar video has emerged from Palm Beach, Florida, and this one is sparking new debate.

Want to teach your dog a new trick? Try training it to do studio photography. That's what a few dogs over in Japan were taught to do recently. You can see the results in the 3.5-minute video above, titled "PhoDOGrapher."

The Chinese electronics company OPPO yesterday announced that they've developed the world's first sensor-based image stabilizer for smartphones. The SmartSensor, as the technology is called, is also the world's smallest image stabilizer across all devices.

Here's a short video clip showing a Formula 1 photographer doing a brief photo shoot with a car and driver during recent pre-season testing. We see how a backdrop is quickly wheeled into and out of the scene for just a few moments of shooting (and before the photographer gets a little scare from the driver).

Leica wants a piece of the smartphone photography boom. The iconic German camera company and Chinese telecom giant Huawei announced today that they're teaming up in a long-term technology partnership to reinvent smartphone photography. The goal is a "visual world renaissance," the companies say.

One of the exciting new trends in smartphone photography is the emergence of the dual camera. LG just launched it in the new G5, and Apple will reportedly include it in the upcoming iPhone 7.

In a surprise decision in the US court system, a federal judge ruled last Friday that photographing and filming police officers isn't always protected by the First Amendment.

Film’s not dead, we know that. I love the nostalgia of instant film. The look of surprise when you can give a physical photo to your subject. The stories of photos the way they were when we were young. The way people over a certain age shake it while it develops.

Tether Tools today unveiled a new product for photographers called the Case Relay. The company says it's the world's first system that lets you provide uninterruptible power for a DSLR or mirrorless camera using any standard 5V USB battery pack or a wall outlet.

In order to tell you this crazy story, we have to go back to May 2015. As you may have read, my brand new $1,600 L lens fell to the ground after I got it out of my backpack. The glass didn’t have any scratches, however, the focus was completely broken and all photos turned out blurry. Although it was a huge shock at first, I wanted to turn this moment around and “develop the negatives”. I quickly fell in love with this broken look and created a set about broken characters with a broken …

During the Oscars this weekend, the website hosting service Squarespace will be airing a new commercial featuring photographer David Guttenfelder. Above is the extended 60-second version of the 30-second ad that will air on Sunday. "Why do I do what I do? So everyone can see what I've seen," the photographer says.

There's a good chance you've never heard of photographer Jake Olson before, but many people are learning of that name this week. He's a self-proclaimed "famous" American photographer who's now at the center of major controversy in the photography world.

On a May evening in 2005, a group of us were spending time in my parents’ garage. We’d just graduated from high school days earlier and didn’t know what to do with ourselves. One of many boring nights spent pissing the time away, high on the excitement of graduation and fear of the future; I’m quite sure I’d have forgotten all about that night if it wasn’t for the noise we heard in the driveway.

Want to learn the basics of photography for free from the comfort of your own home? There are many ways to do so these days, but a new one you might want to check out is Photoskop.

An iconic shipwrecked fishing boat in Point Reyes, California, was severely damaged by a fire yesterday, and it may have been caused by a photographer's long-exposure light-painting photo involving sparks from burning steel wool.

Australia is home to some of the most extensive areas of subtropical rainforest in the world. These protected environments are often the highlight of many international visitors who travel thousands of kilometers to experience the unique flora and fauna. The best part about these geological wonders is that there’s always something new to discover and they make ultimate subjects for nature photographers.