Surprise! The PetaPixel Podcast team got together one more time for the true Season 4 finale! Grab a glass of eggnog, don your Santa hats, and pull the pole out from the crawlspace, because it's time for the annual airing of grievances!
In mid-December, as the winter sun drifts across Cairo’s skyline, a new kind of exhibition opens its doors, built not from the work of gallery veterans but from the pockets of everyday people. Each image is a reminder that the world is full of stories happening in the margins of daily life. And increasingly, these stories are being captured through a device nearly everyone carries.
As photographers, we often concentrate on technical perfection and the compositional layout. However, arguably more important than either of those is adding meaning to your photos. It can be challenging, but adding meaning can genuinely elevate your photos to the next tier.
Just ahead of Christmas, here's an inspiring story about David Hurn, a 91-year-old photographer who has captured some of the most iconic images of the past century, including the instantly recognizable portrait of Sean Connery as James Bond.
Master winter wildlife photography with expert tips on camera settings, gear, composition, and field strategies to capture stunning images of animals in snowy landscapes.
A grizzly bear was filmed having a peculiar and unexplained reaction to a motion-sensor trail camera in Yukon, Canada.
Photographer Ari Rabin-Havt has always wanted to get a picture from inside a shark's mouth, looking out.
OM SYSTEM's Holiday Savings Event runs through January 11, 2025, and the deals are compelling. The Micro Four Thirds system has always offered a distinct advantage: professional-grade performance in a package that weighs half as much as full-frame equivalents. With savings up to $500 on flagship cameras and lenses, this is an ideal time to build or expand a travel-ready kit without compromising image quality.
Nikon's 2024 acquisition of RED bore its first major fruit this year, but the RED-infused Nikon ZR is far from the only great product the legendary Japanese company released in 2025. Nikon launched three cameras and five lenses, nearly all of which proved impressive.
DJI has released a significant firmware update for the Osmo Action 6 action camera, bringing 8K video recording and a suite of workflow and creative enhancements.
7Artisans has announced the Floral Bloom 57mm T2.9, a full frame cinema lens designed for PL mount cameras and built around a deliberately unconventional optical signature. Rather than aiming for neutral rendering, the lens embraces a strong stylistic identity, producing a pronounced radial bokeh effect intended for highly expressive, story-driven filmmaking.
The first public trailer for Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher Nolan's upcoming epic, "The Odyssey," has arrived. The movie, shot on Kodak 65mm film and IMAX film cameras, is slated to make cinematography history and required the use of over two million feet of Kodak film.
Every professional photographer understands the frustration of a complex mask. When you’re dealing with fine hair against a busy background, the sheer fabric of a wedding dress, or even highly detailed product shots, traditional selection tools quickly become a time-sinking ordeal. Hours spent painstakingly refining edges in post-production translate directly into lost studio time and increased labor costs. It’s a tedious, manual bottleneck that hinders the creative flow.
The National Park Service is seeking information on a pair of visitors, including a photographer, who were recently caught on camera throwing rocks at resting seals at Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California.
Mt. Olivet, Kentucky -- named after the biblical Mount of Olives -- is a hamlet in the smallest county in Kentucky. Population estimates vary, from 155 in 2023 to a bit higher number in the 2020 census. Photojournalist Michael Swensen, based in tiny Mt. Olivet, gets big-time assignments. His work has been seen worldwide via The Associated Press, Getty Images, The Washington Post, and more.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced late Monday that it would add DJI to its "Covered List," effectively banning all future DJI drones from the United States. A disappointed DJI says it remains committed to the U.S. market despite the ban.
A little-known tax law in Mexico has the potential to trip up photographers visiting the country if they are carrying more than two cameras or even lenses.
A study has found that when left to their own devices, AI image generators converge on a limited set of photo styles no matter what the original prompt is.
Researchers from California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have released a year-end video showcasing some of the most remarkable deep-sea wildlife encounters captured in 2025 using the institute’s advanced underwater camera systems.
This was a busy year for Canon, highlighted by a very good video camera in the Canon EOS C50 and an even better hybrid camera in the EOS R6 Mark III, PetaPixel's Camera of the Year. But Canon's 2025 included much more than just these two cameras, so let's take a deeper dive into Canon's year, how it transformed the EOS R landscape, and how it sets the stage for more excellence from Canon in 2026 and beyond.
A wedding photographer’s images gained widespread attention after a passer-by -- who turned out to be a popular influencer -- lent his Aston Martin for a couple's photo shoot in the Scottish Highlands.
As part of Germany's rearmament, the army is recruiting an unusual creature for warfare: a giant Madagascar hissing cockroach.
A camera was stolen in broad daylight from a media and film training center for people with disabilities in California.
A photographer has taken to social media to allege that a rock band used her concert photo on merchandise without her consent.
A harrowing documentary explores the life of photographer Anja Neidringhaus, who died in a targeted assault in Afghanistan while covering the 2014 presidential elections.
A photographer has captured an incredible interaction between a skunk and a mountain lion on one of his trail cameras.
After an uncharacteristically prolific 2024, Hasselblad slowed down in 2025 in terms of quantity but reached new heights when it comes to quality.
There have been significant improvements in photographic technology over the last 50 years. Although it helps us get ever-better photographs, there is an essential reason for going back to basics.
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced the winning photographs and finalists of its 2025 Teen Portrait Competition, highlighting 19 works by young photographers that will be presented as part of a gallery exhibition.
We're kicking off our annual recap series with a look back at the best and most interesting Chinese lenses of 2025. From 7Artisans to Viltrox, let's remember some great Chinese glass that hit the scene in 2025.
It’s the holiday season, and Reto has come up with the perfect Christmas present for photographers. The new Kodak Charmera is a tiny keychain-sized camera that uses licensed Kodak designs and logos to incredibly popular effect. The Charmera is true to its name and is a marketing masterpiece that is almost impossible to get now. I wanted to find out if this toy camera is worth all the hype, and whether it is worth purchasing after the holiday season.
To mark the release of Steph Curry's new book Shot Ready, the publisher Random House teamed up with a creative agency to create a unique billboard that harnesses an astronomical event.
Award-winning South African photographer Shem Compion's latest photography book, "The Rift: Scar of Africa," features nearly 300 photos from Compion's more than 20 years of exploring and photographing the Great Rift Valley in Africa.
Fujifilm Corporation announced this week that it will invest approximately 5 billion yen (nearly $31.8 million at current exchange rates) into expanding its production capabilities for Instax film. Fujifilm says this move is in response to growing global demand for Instax film products amid a broader increase in demand for analog photography overall.
A camera bag isn’t just about carrying gear; it shapes how photographers move, work, and protect their equipment. Whether you’re commuting with a mirrorless kit, flying with a full production setup, or safeguarding gear between shoots, the right bag matters. Right now, B&H Photo is offering significant holiday discounts across nearly every camera bag category, making this an ideal moment to upgrade or expand your kit.
Canon's promised slate of massive firmware updates for its EOS Cinema cameras arrived this week, bringing things like open-gate recording to the Canon EOS C400 and improved operability to the C80. The Canon EOS R5 C, C400, C80, and C70 all received firmware updates this week.
Chinese company and TikTok owner ByteDance has signed a deal to transfer the majority of its U.S. operations to a group of investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX. This deal arrives after months of stops and starts, deadline extensions, and even failed deals.
Apple recently deployed more than 40 new iPhone 17 Pro Max devices to capture Red Bull motocross athlete Tyler Bereman hopping from island to island on his motorcycle.
After spending all day skateboarding in the desert Sun, photographer Travis Burke was surprisingly stressed. Why? He had the shot of his dreams to capture.
Benro has unveiled the NE1, an adjustable electronic neutral density (ND) filter system designed for photographers and videographers. Without rotating the filter, users can adjust the ND filter strength from about ND3 to ND64.
Despite Apple's impressive and successful efforts to give the iPhone 17 series of smartphones a much better front-facing camera, some iPhone 17 Pro users would still prefer to use their device's rear cameras. However, this has the drawback of not allowing you to see how a photo looks. Selfix, "the ultimate selfie case for iPhone," aims to overcome this limitation.
The winners of the annual W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography -- one of the largest grants in support of the photographic arts that opened for entries in July -- have been announced and the winner is Palestinian-American Maen Hammad, for his project Amira’s Castle, an ongoing exploration of his grandparents’ lives and his own documentation of the Palestinian present.
A trail camera captured rare footage of a "fisher" in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, marking the first confirmed sighting of the elusive species in the area since the 1800s.
Blackmagic Camera 10.0 has arrived, bringing new features and improved performance to numerous Blackmagic Design camera models, including the Pyxis 12K, Pyxis 6K, and Ursa Broadcast G2.
After acquiring CreativeLive in 2022, Fiverr announced in September that it would be shutting the platform down by the end of 2025. That plan has changed, however, as it instead has found a new owner for the platform: CourseHorse.
Around 4,100 photographers from 123 different countries entered over 23,000 photos into the World Sports Photography Awards 2026 competition. While the winners won't be revealed until next month, the finalists across the contest's 24 categories have been selected, and every single photo is incredible.
7Artisans has introduced the 6mm f/2, an ultra-wide, manual focus fisheye lens for APS-C cameras. Available for Sony E, Fujifilm X, Canon EOS R, Nikon Z, and Micro Four Thirds mounts, the new ultra-wide lens delivers a dramatic 220° diagonal field of view.
Leica has announced substantial updates to both the SL3 and the Q3 family of cameras with what it bills as "comprehensive enhancements," specifically enabling a more precise, faster, and more intuitive shooting experience for photos and video recording.
The cinematographer behind the hit Netflix movie Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery has revealed how he used lighting to give the film a rich, gothic look that changes with every scene.
A follow-up to the infamous AI-generated McDonald's Christmas ad poignantly shows how corporations have no control over their creation when using the technology.
