If you're into shooting high-quality portraits with minimal studio equipment, here's a 6-minute video from photographer Manny Ortiz that explains how you can take great, dramatic portraits with just a single studio light.
DJI has just announced a brand new drone, the Mavic Air, at an event in New York City. The new drone sits between the foldable Mavic Pro and the ultra-portable Spark and combines some of the best features of both worlds.
Adobe today announced the release of Photoshop version 19.1 for Windows and Mac. One of the big new features is the Select Subject tool teased back in November 2017. Photoshop can now help you make a selection of a subject with just a single click using artificial intelligence.
There are plenty of new digital camera unboxing videos these days, but they're generally not like this one. Lazy Game Reviews got its hands on an Epson PhotoPC and created this 11-minute video showing what it was like to unbox and use a digital camera back in 1995.
This post is dedicated to all the people who have completely lost their sense of common decency. I have a destructive humbleness that most people do not understand (myself included). I do not have a Patreon page, I do not run ads on my website, I have never asked for donations. However, for some reason, I get the feeling that this leads people to believe I do everything for free. This could not be further from the truth. You want to use my work? Great! How about you pay me for it? No? Of course …
Photographer Caitriona Dunnett has spent years doing background research for her photography project Mass Paths, which depicts the old trails used by Irish Catholics for attending "forbidden mass." The photo technique used is the "digital contact negative."
As a photographer that isn't associated with any news media, it can sometimes be difficult to get access to certain opportunities. With space, this is especially true, since access normally means the ability to place a camera near a launchpad in areas that are heavily restricted. This is a story of how it can never hurt to ask for permission.
Have a camera body cap lying around collecting dust? Did you know that you can easily turn it into a do-it-yourself pinhole lens? Matt from Blue Mantle Films created this 1.5-minute video tutorial that shows how.
Check this out. The folks over at Photolemur have created a comprehensive "ecosystem map" that can help point you to the brands, organizations, services, websites, and applications you need as a digital photographer in 2018.
Photographers Anita Sadowska and Alex Hutchinson recently did a "film versus digital" comparison through a fashion photography shootout. They photographed the same subject with Sadowska using a digital Canon 5D Mark IV DSLR and Hutchinson using an analog medium-format Pentax 67 as a comparison of film vs digital.
In my opinion, there’s an extra layer of believability -- a tangibility, if you will -- to using practical effects as opposed to relying heavily on post-production. Post work is limited by the breadth (or lack thereof) of imagination, which is why I try to get as much as I can in-camera.
I love DIY props and big scenes in photography that are well designed. Not many of us photographers have the place or money to create our own stages so I wanted to challenge myself to make one in our living room with a very low budget.
If you want to quickly and easily use your Lightroom presets in Adobe Photoshop, there's a new tool that can help you do so. It's called Preset Brewery, and it hopes to fill a small gap in the needs of photographers.
Episode 248 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
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Featured: LUMIX Ambassador, PhotoJoseph
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get my hands on the brand new Panasonic Lumix GH5S in time to start shooting for our new short film 4:17 AM. The shoot was going to take place mainly at night and early morning, so when I heard about the GH5S, I thought it would be the ideal testing bed for the new camera.
Many Sony shooters rave about their cameras but rant about the menu systems within them. Camera reviewer Maarten Heilbron has some ideas on what's wrong and how things can be improved. Here's his 11-minute video "rant" on the subject.
The chief photographer of the University of Tennessee Athletics Department is now under investigation and on paid leave after a state investigation found that he photographed athletes from other schools for those schools while on the job.
Art Rangers is a new non-profit art project that aims to support US National Parks with fine art photography. Purchase beautiful artworks showing the national parks, and 100% of proceeds will go straight towards preserving them.
A man sharing a photograph of his father online has apparently stumbled upon the last known photograph of legendary war photographer Gerda Taro, who's regarded as the first female to shoot on the front lines of conflict (as well as the first to die while doing so).
Update: It turns out this was a hoax that spread quickly through the photography blogosphere.
Instagram is rolling out a new Activity Status feature that you may or may not be comfortable with, depending on how much privacy you like to have on social networks. It allows people you follow or have previously chatted with to see how long ago you were last on Instagram.
Professional photographer Tyler Stalman recently tested out the iPhone X extensively to see its camera capabilities. In this 9-minute video review, Stalman shares his findings on how the iPhone X performs in the real world.
This is clever: the "Chairpod" is a soon-to-be-released photography product that helps you stabilize both your camera and your butt. It's a tripod that has a built-in seat so you can shoot blur-free photos for long periods without your legs getting tired.
Photographer Joseph Ford and knitter Nina Dodd have spent 4 years working on a creative project called "Knitted Camouflage." Ford shoots portraits of subjects wearing custom, carefully hand-knit sweaters by Dodd that blend them into very, very specific locations.
I’ve been a professional photojournalist for 24 years and I’ve seen major changes in my industry. I’ve gone from film to digital. I’ve seen the reduction of staff, the reduction of print pages, and even the complete shut down of newspapers and magazines. And I’ve been at the forefront of the explosion of the World Wide Web and digital content.
Aurora Aperture has just announced what it claims is the world's first variable graduated neutral density filter. It's a family of filters called the Aurora PowerGXND.
Episode 247 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
Download MP3 - Subscribe via iTunes, Google Play, email or RSS!
Featured: Commercial portrait and fashion photographer, Adam Lerner
What do you get when you pair an extremely high-end cinema camera with an extremely low-end still photography lens? LA-based filmmaker Gene Nagata of Potato Jet wanted to find out, so he mounted a $48 Yongnuo 50mm f/1.8 lens onto a $12,500 Scarlet-W RED Dragon 5K camera.
The Fotorgear Magilight is a new all-in-one light painting stick that aims to be "the easiest and most professional tool to improve your light painting photography." Incredibly, the project blew past its $30,000 funding goal on IndieGoGo within just 2 hours of launching on the website.
Apple sparked worldwide controversy and issued an apology in December 2017 after it admitted that the company has been quietly throttling performance in aging iPhones in order to prevent the weakened batteries from causing unexpected restarts. Apple has now revealed that an upcoming update will allow this "power management" to be disabled.
You see the crowd cheering, but you don't hear a single word. You're not punched in the chest by every firework explosion that goes off in Central Park. It's the calmest chaos I've ever experienced in my life...
A friend recently posted an X-ray of his ankle replacement on Facebook, which led me to wonder “who owns the copyright” to that image? …
An Ohio couple is publicly accusing a wedding photographer of "fat-shaming" them after discovering that some of their engagement photos had been Photoshopped without their consent to make them look skinnier.
Cascable, the iOS app that provides software tools for "modern day" photographers, has just added "Recipes" to the app's list of features. These are automation tools for mobile photographers.
A former US Department of Energy photographer is accusing the US government of firing him for leaking photos of a private meeting between energy secretary Rick Perry and a big coal CEO.
National Geographic has been publishing its magazine since 1888, so this year marks the 130th anniversary of the publication. Here's a 2-minute timelapse video that shows every single magazine cover over those 130 years.
Photojournalist A. M. Ahad was at a train station in Bangladesh when he came across a group of photographers pointing their cameras at a young man who was leaning out of a window and striking a prayerful pose.
Want to get a good grasp of Photoshop's Blend modes? Here's an 8-minute crash course on the subject by the Photoshop Training Channel. They may be one of the least understood features, but blending modes can be extremely useful when creating composites and retouching.
A UK reality TV star has rubbed the photography community the wrong way after it was revealed that he has been asking wedding photographers to shoot his upcoming wedding in exchange for social media exposure.
Google's Art & Culture app has been around since 2016, but the latest update harnesses machine-learning technology for an interesting purpose: it can now help you find your doppelgänger in the art world using a selfie photo.
Jin-Woo Prensena is a Los Angeles-based fine art photographer who shoots gorgeous aerial photos from a top-down perspective. Instead of using a drone, as is popular these days, Prensena hangs out of helicopters while wielding a Phase One XF 100MP medium format camera for 100-megapixel photos.
The word "selfie" exploded into the mainstream over the past 5 years, but self-portraits have obviously been around much, much longer. Sarah Burton of BuzzFeed recently set out to discover the origins of the selfie. In this 7-minute video, take a trip through the history back to the birth of the selfie.
Kodak announced at CES in January 2016 that it would be bringing back the famous Super 8 camera as a film camera with digital features. Now, two years later, Kodak has just released the first footage captured with the camera in the 1-minute video above.
Leica has announced two new prime lenses for its Leica SL-System: the APO-Summicron-SL 75mm f/2 ASPH and APO-Summicron SL 90mm f/2 ASPH.
Nikon's upcoming full frame mirrorless camera may not be compatible with F-mount lenses without the use of an additional adapter. A new report suggests that the company has developed a new "Z-mount" for its professional full frame mirrorless system.
I just developed a roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 shot at 6400 ISO. I've been wanting to try this little experience for a while now. Some films are known for handling push processing very well, and Kodak Tri-X 400 is one of them. Many photographers I know are even shooting by default at 1600 ISO but I wanted to push its limits 2 stops further.
CVS has just announced that it is banning Photoshopping of its beauty images. More specifically, the pharmacy chain will stop retouching in ways that "materially alter" the subjects in photos.
Live cam feeds can lead to hilarious photobombs. Emmy award-winning meteorologist Mark Tamayo of Oakland, California's KTVU news station was doing his weather report last week when a bird decided to enter the frame.
Update: The policy is reportedly less restrictive than the original report claimed. See update below.
