One of the most frustrating things I see is photographers limiting their knowledge of light to one modifier. So much so, that there are people who can build whole portfolios with just one single type of light. While this is not wrong, it must get boring for the viewer after some time. That is why I went searching for some of the most unusual light shaping tools.
Photographers and editors regularly get overlooked when it comes to a wide range of products. Computers, accessories, you name it, we usually end up buying something originally made for someone else. Never has this been more the case than with our chairs.
Every day, the PetaPixel Instagram account is sharing excellent photography from our readers and those who inspire us. Here’s a look at some of our recent favorite posts and the photographers behind the lens.
The monotonous propeller noise of Air Greenland’s Dash-8-200 had been roaring in my ears for more than an hour as we began our approach to Ilulissat.
The camera industry suffered a massive blow at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but began to recover just in time for the global supply chain to collapse. Very few want to openly discuss this problem, but the industry is currently in a tough spot.
Some of the earliest photographic portraits taken in America were recently discovered in an unheated shed on Long Island. The historically significant find contains photographs from some of the first experiments with the daguerreotype process.
A new bill proposed by four lawmakers aims to strip Section 230 protections from algorithm-based recommendations like Facebook's newsfeed and hold social media companies accountable for what is fed to its users.
Omnar is a new lens manufacturer based in the United Kingdom that recently teased that it was producing a new lens using a custom design and repurposed Canon AF-10 optical elements. The lens can now be pre-ordered and will begin shipping in December.
Photographer Ken Lee enjoys the mystery and excitement of nighttime photography as he explores abandoned sites when most are asleep. His latest series features an abandoned water park that had plenty of photographic opportunities.
Cosina has launched the Voigtlander APO-Skopar 90mm f/2.8 for Nikon's F-mount. Cosina says that the lens has been designed to bring the appearance of chromatic aberration to as close to zero as possible.
New Swedish company CRDBAG has set out to create better storage solutions for photographers and videographers. Its system is based on a set of durable bags that can eventually be laid out on a studio wall for easy access.
Photogenic Supply is offering pint glasses that feature a genuine 35mm film canister permanently embedded into the glass. The company's founder Pano Kalo says he collects the discarded cassettes from local film labs and then recycles them into what he calls "beautiful, durable hand-made pint glasses that celebrate a passion for film photography."
Over 20 of the most highly acclaimed photographers and creative brands from around the world have joined forces to raise money for charity, and creatives like you are benefiting. Serge Ramelli, Mads Peter Iversen, Alexander Stemplewski, Karlie Place, Peter Hurley, Phlearn, KelbyOne, and Fstoppers are amongst the notable contributors to a digital bundle of tools and resources purposed to save photographers thousands of dollars while raising millions for deserving charities.
Isaac Wright was arrested in January for operating the Instagram account DrifterShoots, where photos show him trespassing and breaking into multiple buildings to capture dramatic images. He is now selling those photos as NFTs.
Facebook has announced that it will remove what it calls "severe sexualizing content" that targets public figures, and specifically points to sexualized photoshopped images among other targets.
Two Nikon patents have surfaced that show the company has designed two large-aperture zoom lenses presumably for its mirrorless Z-mount camera system: a 35-50mm f/1.2 and a 50-70mm f/1.2.
Flipboard’s first Photographer in Residence is Ryan Mense, a wildlife photographer and PetaPixel contributor. Ryan’s been instrumental in helping Flipboard develop the ultimate destination for photography enthusiasts looking to hone their craft and keep up with essential news from PetaPixel and other voices in the industry.
Diffused and soft light are often used interchangeably among photographers. Indeed, to an untrained eye, the two can sometimes appear to be the same. Furthermore, modifiers such as softboxes that give both soft and diffused light make it hard to spot the difference. Nonetheless, diffused light is not necessarily soft, and soft light is not necessarily diffused.
Apple will hold its second fall event on October 18 and multiple rumors point to a refreshed MacBook Pro equipped with the new "M1X" processor, a mini LEDs display, and more.
Episode 352 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
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Featured: Photographer Hugh Mitchell
Vivo believes it has a smartphone worthy of being the best in the industry, and the results from its camera system lend some credence to that claim.
Photographer and filmmaker Will Ferguson has shared how he took his passion for long exposure light painting to the next level with the help of a drone and a small LED light.
Delta Airlines is the latest in a long line of companies who have egregious overreaching rights grabs baked into a program that uses Instagram hashtags. The company claims massive rights to any images that are tagged using #SkyMilesLife.
How does renowned portrait photographer Albert Watson light his photos? With a foolproof three-light setup that makes his photos look amazing, of course! Except... he doesn't. In fact, setups are very far from what professional photographers do when they light their work. Here is what mindset photographers have when they light.
Thanks to advancements in modern technology, photojournalists can have a near-instantaneous connection with agencies and outlets with very little downtime between when a photo is captured and when it is published. But it wasn't always like this.
Film photography retailer Analogue Wonderland has announced the launch of its very own women-led processing lab, aptly named the Analogue WonderLab.
Astropad has announced Luna Display 5.0 which adds support for PCs and allows the use of an iPad as a wireless display with windows devices.
Nikon has published its second Z9 teaser that spends its short 30-second run time showing off a hint of video expectations: limitless 8K recording.
In 2014, curator Simon Njami engaged Ethiopian artist photographer Aïda Muluneh to interpret Dante’s Inferno for an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art entitled The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists. Muluneh’s “The 99 Series” featured a model set against a light grey mottled background, with her body and face covered in white paint, and her hands dipped in red.
Sony has built up its G Master series of premium lenses as being the pinnacle of lens design for their customers. So what happens when that lens design begins falling behind after five years on the market? Hit refresh.
Sony has announced the second-generation 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master lens that it says has excellent performance packed into the world's lightest large-aperture telephoto zoom lens.
Fujifilm has announced the Instax Link Wide Smartphone Printer. The Link Wide prints images in a larger format, specifically on Instax Wide instant film, a first for the company's smartphone printer lineup.
Nikon has announced the Nikkor Z-mount DX 18-140mm f/3.5-6.3 VR zoom lens for APS-C mirrorless cameras. Nikon positions it as a high-power zoom lens that is extremely compact and easy to carry, making it an ideal travel or everyday lens.
The Natural History Museum has announced the 2021 winners of its 57th annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.
To help buyers navigate the messy backpack landscape, a group of Reddit users has built a service called BAQPA that collects backpack recommendations from across the internet, filters and aggregates them, and then presents summarized results in a short and easy-to-read form with an overall rating.
Tile has announced a new lineup of Bluetooth tracking devices including the first-ever tracking tag that supports Ultra-Wideband (UWB) for both iOS and Android devices. It also leverages an augmented reality interface to make finding it with a smartphone easier.
Adata has announced that it will be producing a line of SD Express memory cards, following Lexar which did the same earlier this year. It's unclear who these cards are for, however, as no manufacturer currently supports the spec.
I have a good friend that uses Facebook as his photography business’s digital platform. I have multiple friends that use Instagram as their portfolio. This also goes for, yes to a lesser degree, using Behance, Tumbler, Model Mayhem, Imgur, and Flickr as a portfolio destination.
In ways much like the chicken and the egg, it is tough to distinguish which came first, my love of photography, or my obsession with optics.
Chances are, if you’ve ever tried to document your travels with a camera, you’ve taken some cliché, if not really cheesy travel photos. I certainly have, and I’m embarrassed to show those photos to friends and family after my trips.
The founder of lutify.me has launched fylm.ai, a modern AI-powered and browser-based approach to motion and stills color grading that helps users easily match and extract color, emulate print film, share and collaborate remotely, and more.
Adobe has announced that RAW photo editing support is coming to its Photoshop iPad app through a teaser video it has published to its YouTube channel.
A scientist from Halifax, Canada, has recovered a seal-mounted research camera lost in the ocean three and a half years ago. The camera was found to hold 19 hours of valuable research footage he never thought he would see.
Researchers have developed a new way to shoot atomic resolution footage that has allowed them to watch the never-before-seen details of salt crystal formation and confirm long-held theories on the process.
Should photographers sell their unedited RAW files to a client? Is there any benefit in doing so? These questions are discussed in this eight-minute video from David Bergman and Adorama.
Google hasn't had the best time thus far keeping the Pixel 6 under wraps since it was leaked with dead-on accuracy in May and more last month, but it isn't getting any better: a product listing has fully revealed the smartphone a week before its official launch.
Pergear has announced the new 10mm f/5.6 fisheye lens for Fuji X-mount, Micro Four Thirds, and Sony E-mount.
The character Colin Creevey in the Harry Potter universe is Harry Potter's biggest fan and a boy who loves taking pictures. It turns out the Muggle actor who played Creevey in the hit movies has grown up and become a real-life professional photographer.
Samyang has released a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens for Sony E-Mount that not only features autofocus but is also parfocal, a rarity in stills lenses and especially at the sub-$1,000 price at which it is currently listed.
Instagram through its parent company Facebook has announced that it will introduce a way to nudge teens away from harmful content and encourage them to "take a break" from using the app altogether.