For my recent trip to China, as I’ve done before, I planned and I planned… and I planned. I made detailed maps, took notes on locations and hints as to the best vantage points. I scoured everything to ensure that my time there was incredibly well-invested in capturing the best images I could manage within the time I had. And frankly, I feel that this was a great practice, for me.
Vanity Fair created this tongue-in-cheek 4.5-minute video in which actress Emilia Clarke recreates some of the most generic business stock photos.
Godox recently released its new EC-200 extension head (AKA Flashpoint eVOLV 200) for the Godox AD200 TTL Pocket Flash (AKA Flashpoint eVOLV 200). Celebrity photographer Markus Klinko decided to combine four extenders and flashes into this unusual-looking quad-flash.
Infrared photos and videos have an instantly recognizable look to them that you're probably familiar with. But do you know the reasons things look the way they do? Here's an interesting 4-minute video that explores the subject through infrared views of the "invisible" side of London.
I recently shot a wedding with just one lens, a Rokinon 35mm t/1.5 on a Sony a7S II body. This was completely unplanned and wasn’t done to prove any point.
Time-lapse photography artist Tyler Fairbank just released this beautiful 3-minute short film titled Safari Botswana. It's a 4K "flow motion" timelapse that captures the sights and sounds of the African country.
Photographers Tony and Chelsea Northrup were shocked when they discovered one of their photos being used on a product's packaging without their knowledge or permission. They then sued the photo thief and collected AU$60,000 (~$45,000) for the offense. Here's a 26-minute video in which they share the story of how it all happened.
Heads up if you're a drone-flying photographer in the United States: the government may soon require a physical license plate on the outside of your drone.
Fujifilm has announced the X-T100, the latest mirrorless camera model in the X Series lineup and an even more affordable sibling of the $900 X-T20.
Wildlife photographer Kevin Ebi was out shooting a few days ago when he witnessed and photographed a crazy sight: a bald eagle and red fox fighting over a rabbit... in midair.
The camera bag brand Langly has unveiled a new weatherproof jacket designed for professional photographers called The Langly Field Jacket. The design was inspired by the US military's iconic M-1965 (AKA M-65) field jacket.
Here's an enlightening 7-minute video by Fstoppers that explains why "lens compression" is a misconception that's actually "perspective distortion".
Apollo is a new "immersive illumination" iPhone app that lets you edit 3D lighting in Portrait mode photos. The app uses the depth map created by dual camera iPhones, allowing you to post-process photos as if they were 3D renders.
Renowned NASA photographer Bill Ingalls set up a remote DSLR camera pointed at the launch pad yesterday during the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch. When he went back to retrieve the camera afterward, this is what he found.
Google Photos is taking another step towards being a social photo sharing app that can compete with the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr. Google has unveiled the ability to "star" and "heart" photos.
Photographers often reminisce about the glory days of magazines, when they were given huge budgets, freedoms, and paychecks to create images. Here's one crazy example of what things were like then: People magazine once paid $10,000 for exclusive rights to a photo it didn't even want... just to keep it away from competitors.
Sony has unveiled a new three-year plan for its business segments under new CEO Kenichiro Yoshida, and it's clear that one of the company's primary goals is to dominate digital photography.
Photographer William Drumm of Denver, Colorado, has been traveling to Socorro Island over the past two years in hopes of swimming and capturing images of the world's largest manta rays. This 2-minute video shows some of the beautiful encounters Drumm has had.
The camera companies RED and Lucid have unveiled a new 8K 3D/4V camera that's designed to work with the RED Hydrogen One modular holographic phone.
There's a viral video floating around that appears shows a photographer accidentally dropping what looks like a Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS lens into a swimming pool while crouched at the edge.
Instagram's decision to move away from a simple chronological feed to an algorithm-based stream can make it difficult to keep track of whether you've seen everything "new" from people you follow. But help is on the way: Instagram is now testing an "All Caught Up" message to let you know when you're up to speed.
Shutterbug has announced that it's ending its photography print magazine after 45 years, moving forward as an entirely Web-based publication.
The royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle captured the world's attention this past weekend, and one particular photo received a huge amount of praise and viral popularity. Now the photographer has revealed details of how the picture came to be.
Here's a 6-minute educational video by Shutterstock in which filmmaker Todd Blankenship discusses the basics of diffusing light and introduces three cheap options for doing so... including a $5 shower curtain.
It's extremely difficult to predict when and where a tornado will form and touch down, so stormchasing photographers rely on long days of chasing and waiting for luck. But luck is exactly what Mike Olbinski met with recently: he captured a tornado forming and touching down while shooting a timelapse.
The Sony a9 has been named "Camera of the Year" by in the prestigious Camera Grand Prix 2018 held by the Camera Journal Press Club (CJPC), a 55-year-old coalition of 10 of the most influential photography and camera publications in Japan.
One way to stretch yourself as a photographer is to shoot outside your comfort zone, and the Opposite Photography Challenge is one way to do so. In this 7-minute video, photographer Irene Rudnyk shows how she carried out the challenge with a recent portrait shoot.
Episode 280 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
Download MP3 - Subscribe via iTunes, Google Play, email or RSS!
Featured: Commercial, fashion and beauty photographer, Valentina Socci
Canon is now officially in the business of selling sensors. Third-party companies can now purchase three of Canon's state-of-the-art sensors, including the 120-megapixel monster that has received a significant amount of attention in recent years.
NASA's newest planet-hunting satellite has captured its first photograph -- a dazzling one that shows over 200,000 stars.
Here's a 16-minute video in which Kai Wong shares his latest list of the 5 best full frame lenses worth investing in if you're a Nikon DSLR shooter.
A Georgia mother is filing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against a local photographer's photo company, accusing it of publishing an indecent photo of her 15-year-old daughter at a school dance.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and when it comes to “sunbursts” in photos – those points of light with rays streaking out of them – people often have polarizing views. Optical diffraction is the physical property that causes this effect. The appearance of sunbursts is more technically described as “diffraction spikes,” and it’s caused by the bending (sometimes referred to as spreading) of light around an object like the edges of your camera’s aperture.
Over the past several years, director Phil Holland has been specializing in high-res, large-format aerial cinematography. This gorgeous video titled "Above NYC" is a flyover of The Big Apple shot in 12K using a special rig comprising 3 RED Weapon Monstro 8K VV cameras.
In the 1950s, early color photography was widely scorned. Now it’s the default. What happened?
Last summer, I visited Gifford Stevens at his home in Bradley, Maine. He was one of the best teachers I've ever had. He taught English at Hampden Academy.
Have you ever pulled out your camera to shoot, only to be horrified to find that you forgot to put a memory card inside before leaving home? That's what just happened to a NASA astronaut while he was in the middle of a spacewalk outside the International Space Station.
Well-known British filmmaker Philip Bloom is accusing Google of using his work without permission or payment for an internal video that has since been leaked and published by major publications.
As a kid who grew up with a shelf filled with yellow spines, I can attest to the rhythm and general predictability of a National Geographic cover. With few exceptions (most notably those holographic covers from the 1980s), cover photography from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s followed a familiar pattern of a faraway place, strange creature, or “exotic” face in saturated color.
Canon's original EOS M flopped as the company's first contender in the emerging mirrorless camera market, but now third-party hackers are working to unlock more of its potential. And they're making progress: using Magic Lantern, the EOS M is able to shoot 2.5K raw video.
Instagram has officially launched the re-sharing of other people's posts in your stories. The feature was previously spotted by a small set of guinea pig users back in February and is now being rolled out to everyone.
Episode 279 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
Download MP3 - Subscribe via iTunes, Google Play, email or RSS!
Featured: Sony Artisan of Imagery, Tony Gale
For his project "Below the Breaking Wave," UK photographer Matt Porteous of Studio_M visited The Maldives in the Indian ocean and shot underwater photos directly beneath powerful breaking waves. The results are stunning.
February 2017. For a midwesterner like my father, this was prime time to get away. So Jon decided to acquire two tickets aboard a cruise from San José, Costa Rica to the Panama Canal. His original plan was to treat my mother to a bit of mid-winter warmth and sunshine. When she wasn't able to go, he offered the spare to me.
Is it April Fool’s day yet? Because GQ just won next year’s contest (if there were one). In jest of all the botched jobs on other magazine covers, they decided to release this cover for the Comedy Issue with the best/worst issues! How many can you spot?
Every year since 2010, photographer Clint Davis has put together a creative promotional mailer to send out to current and prospective clients. This year he got playful and created a custom LEGO kit promo mailer.
Sometimes the strangest or most mundane locations can make for compelling portrait environments. Mango Street made this short and sweet video in which it presents 9 portrait location suggestions in just 90 seconds.
Fujifilm has taken down its highly anticipated v4.0 firmware update for the X-T2, stating that "malfunctions" have been discovered. The new firmware launched about a week ago and brought internal F-log, HD 120fps, and focus bracketing to the X-T2, among other things.
About six months ago, I created a portrait series titled Ashes Fell Like Snow, photographing people affected by the Northern California wildfires and gathering their stories to share with the world. Creating this collection of portraits required much effort in a short span of time.
Ricoh has released the first-ever official software development kits (SDK) for Pentax cameras, opening the door to 3rd party apps for controlling the cameras remotely.
