So Getty Images has made some waves with the announcement of its embedding "feature" to allow non-commercial use of their images without a watermark. This move is bound to kick off some interesting discussions on the state of photography in a digital sharing age.
The relatively new Sony A7 and A7r are in the news again, only this time it's not for a good reason. It seems a good number of users are experiencing light leak issues, so many that Sony has actually come out and officially admitted there is a problem and a fix is in the works.
The saying goes, "your cell phone has more computing power than all of NASA in 1969. NASA launched a man to the moon. We launched a bird into pigs."
Thankfully, in addition to launching furious balls of feathers into evil swine, we also use our phones for taking photographs. And just as our phones have more computing power than all of NASA in 1969, our phones also have better imaging capabilities than many of the astrophotography endeavors of the past.
Light painter Jason D. Page recently got in touch to show us an impressive series three years in the making that he has just completed. It's called 'Icons,' and it features a set of psychedelic light portraits Page calls 'Light Prints' that are done entirely in-camera.
Almost a year after Zack Arias first announced that he was working on an educational project called DEDPXL (pronounced dead pixel), the project has gone live on the web and is ready for you take a look at.
According to Photo Rumors, one of their readers spoke to a Sigma rep at the Photography Show in Birmingham and was told that the much-anticipated 50mm f/1.4 Art series lens will make landfall in about two months time.
In what is quite possibly the creepiest photo-related ruling we've ever run across, the Supreme Judicial Court in Boston has ruled that 'upskirt' photographs taken in public by sneaky perverts are actually 100% legal.
Last night, Getty Images made a huge announcement that could forever change the way high quality images are shared on the Internet. Like Flickr before it, Getty is introducing an embed feature, essentially creating an "easy, legal, and free" way for people to share the majority of the agency's images in a non-commercial context.
Update: The original version of this post quoted a flight attendant in the intro, when it was in fact the author's girlfriend who made the remark that he was annoying people. This was an editorial mistake on our part, and has been fixed.
"The sound of your shutter clicking is annoying the people around you." said my girlfriend, sitting next to me. "I know," I replied "I don't care at the moment, I'm shooting some crazy unique footage!"
Last week I was lucky enough to shoot the world's first sunset hyperlapse sequence from an airplane, here's how I did it.
Although there was plenty to be happy about for us photographers last year, 2013 was statistically a very bad year when it comes to camera sales. And now, thanks to an infographic and accompanying video put together by LensVid, we get to look back and find out exactly why that is.
No matter how long you've been shooting or what level you're at in your photography endeavors, there will always be those moments where you walk away from a shoot unsatisfied with how some of the images turned out. It happens to the best of us.
Thankfully, photographer and retoucher Glyn Dewis has created a great tutorial that shows you how to turn an OK -- or even bad -- shot into an awesome one with the help of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
Although it is a niche market to say the least, the world of super telephoto lenses is a rather demanding one, with both sports and wildlife photographers depending on this massive and expensive glass to capture crisp images from far away.
Canon users seem to get a bit better treatment in this department than most, with prime glass ranging from their $11,000 400mm f/2.8L IS II to their $13,200 800mm f/5.6L IS. However, today's point of interest is going to be the glass that falls smack dab between those two, the 600mm range.
Here's a set of fun and funny self-portraits to get you through the rest of your Wednesday with a smile on your face.
Created by literary translator, editor and grad student Kaija Straumanis, the Headshots series is more frequently referred to these days as "Stuff Being Thrown at My Head" -- a deceptive title since nothing is actually being thrown at Straumanis' head at all.
At a time when digital production workflows are becoming more and more ubiquitous within Hollywood, the news of a director utilizing an analogue workflow on a big production always seems to strike a chord with those who appreciate the aesthetic and feel of film.
Thankfully, for those of you who do enjoy such news (myself included), two major directors are choosing film over even the highest-of-res digital for their upcoming (and already released) blockbusters.
"Just because it isn't happening here, doesn't mean it isn't happening." That's the tagline of one of the most powerful, shocking ad campaign we have ever run across.
Put together by Save the Children UK, this campaign uses the popular 'second per day video' lifelogging concept to drive home an anti-war message in the most stark and unsettling way, focusing on how war affects children.
This is a photo of an atomic bomb milliseconds after detonation, shot by Harold ‘Doc’ Edgerton in 1952 through his Rapatronic (Rapid Action Electronic) Camera.
The photo was shot at night through a 10 foot lens, situated 7 miles away from the blast, atop a 75 foot tower. Edgerton systematically turned on and off magnetic fields acting as the camera’s shutter, as opposed to a conventional, mechanical close.
How fast was the magnetic field shutter? 1/100,000,000th of a second.
In the latest bit of news that would show up on our version of 'REALLY!? with Seth and Amy' if we made such a thing, Leica has teamed up with none other than adult entertainment giant Playboy and kid-friendly icon Hello Kitty for its most recent ultra-limited edition Leica C camera.
After sharing Paul Trillo's double exposure-inspired music video for "Be Around" by the folk duo The Peach Kings, several commenters here and on Facebook pointed out that the opening titles for the HBO show True Detective make use of the same technique.
And so we checked them out, and were blown away by the execution on this awesome video. We can see why one reader said that it's the only show she doesn't skip over the titles on.
Is it okay for a professional photographer to try and crowdfund a new camera? It seems like the answer to that is No, if you go by the response to pro wedding photographer Stephen Yanni's recent GoFundMe campaign. A campaign that raised no money, but a whole lot of outrage, before being ultimately pulled.
A couple of weeks ago, one of the National Park Service's remote cameras struck gold. Installed to check up on some cubs the park hadn't seen since tagging them at 3 weeks old, the camera did one heck of a job and returned over 350 high-quality images of the two cubs and their momma feeding on a deer carcass over two days in Malibu Creek State Park.
If you're worried that spending hours upon hours staring at a computer post-processing thousands of photos will damage your eyeballs, rest assured: it won't. And the video above by the folks at DNews explains why that is.
It's a sad day for the Internet... according to Trend Micro's security analysts, it's been discovered that photographs of both sunsets and -- even more heartbreaking -- cats being shared across the web contain malware capable of getting into your bank accounts.
From NYC-based filmmaker Paul Trillo, whose work we've featured a couple of times before here on PetaPixel, comes a new visual journey in collaboration with Los Angeles-based soul-folk duo The Peach Kings.
To the world of lens mount adapters comes a new creation by Adaptist. Called the Pentax K+ Multi-Mount, this adapter takes a unique approach to the mounting system allowing you to attach Nikon F-mount, Olympus OM-mount, Contax/Yashica C/Y-mount and Konica AR-mount lenses (in addition to the standard K-mount, of course) to your Pentax DSLR, all within this one integrated solution.
We're fully aware that the term 'epic' is overused to the point where it means almost nothing. But in this case, we can't help ourselves... because if this selfie doesn't qualify as epic, then we're not sure any selfie can.
Fuji's retro-styled X-Series camera's aren't known for their customizability. In fact, it took a whole separate announcement for Fuji to release a black version of the X100s.
But now, users in the UK can go way beyond that with select models thanks to a Fujifilm X Signature program that will let you wrap your beautiful shooter in any number of different colored leatherettes.
“While there’s life, there’s hope.” That was the original motto of a magazine that for more than 100 years documented …
Quietly announced alongside the Nikon D4s is a new pair of accessories from Nikon. Partnering with BlackRapid's Ron Henry, Nikon has created a series of "Quick-Draw Straps" that the company hopes will blow away the standard straps that come with most DSLRs.
What exactly makes one landscape, milky way time-lapse stand head and shoulders above the crowd? In a genre so over-saturated that some people have lost faith in it altogether, how do you create a time-lapse worth international attention?
We're not entirely sure, but we do know that the video above fits the bill just right -- it is, in a word, spectacular.
The 'lyric-lapse' isn't new. But creating one takes so much time and dedication that we still don't see them crop up very often.
Just over a year ago, we featured an awesome project by photographer John Deprisco called The Photo Bus. Combining his passion for vintage vehicles (particularly VWs) and photography, Deprisco created quite an incredible combination that put a photo booth inside of a VW bus.
Everybody takes photos of their family, trying their best to keep a chronicle of their children as they grow up. They capture moments both mundane and momentous and store them away in what later becomes the family album (although it seems that might soon be a thing of the past).
But while everybody might make an effort to capture these memories, photographer Alain Laboile does so with an expertise behind the lens that has turned his own personal family album, a series called La Famille, into a heartwarming viral sensation.
In Google's continuing effort to take over visually document the entire world, they've teamed up with Polar Bears International and taken Street View cameras to Churchill, Manitoba, more commonly referred to as the "Polar Bear capital of the world."
Until today, the Nikon D800E stood at the top of the DxOMark totem pole with an amazing sensor score of 96. But the champion has been unseated, and not by some Canon or Nikon full-frame camera or one of the impressive new APS-C shooters we've seen recently. No, the D800E has been decidedly put out of first place by the RED Epic Dragon video camera.
Enthusiasts of bitcoin, the electronic cryptocurrency, have more ways than ever to spend their digital cash. But should professional photographers try to take advantage of the growing popularity of bitcoin and similar systems by accepting it as payment for their work?
A few photographers say so, but first, what is bitcoin and how does it work?
We've seen milk used as a prop in photoshoots before, but never quite like how Paris-based photographer Alexander JE Bradley goes about using it. Profiled in the latest The Weekly Flickr installment, Alexander goes around splashing people with milk and capturing silly, moo-ving images in the process.
Just like Nikon did with the D4s, Hasselblad announced their CMOS sensor-toting H5D-50C before they... well... announced it. Revealing little in way of details, the company said that the camera would become official in March -- and today, they fulfilled that promise.
Queue up Queen's Another One Bites the Dust, because it's time to mourn the loss of two more analog films. Despite talk that certain segments of the analog market are doing well, specific types of film that are having a hard time selling continue to kick the bucket.
The most recent of these are Fujifilm's Neopan 400 PRESTO 35mm black-and-white and Fujicolor PRO 400 120 color film.
In the (slightly paraphrased) words of rapper and former Pimp My Ride host Xzibit, "Yo dawgs, we heard you liked the Nikon D4s, so here's a video about the D4s, shot on a D4s".
Last night, thanks to a little star-studded tweeting, Ellen DeGeneres managed to break Twitter with a selfie... a selfie that has gone on to break the previous photo retweet record three times over, proving once and for all that all you need for a good photo these days is a smartphone and some of Hollywood's biggest stars.
Pardon me, did I say good? I meant popular.
When you hear the term flower photography, it probably doesn't inspire a particularly powerful reaction. There are plenty of gorgeous images of flowers -- from wildflower fields to beautifully-lit bouquets -- and so the genre isn't somewhere we usually look for inspiration.
That is, until we ran across photographer Mo Devlin's stunning shots of frozen flowers.
We've featured plenty of Pro Photographer Cheap Camera Challenges over the years, all of them informative, educational and entertaining to varying degrees. What we've never had before is the photographer's perspective. What's it like to be on the program? How does it go down? How much planning goes into it?
Thanks to Benjamin Von Wong and Silistudio we now have an answer to all of those questions and more.
Update: Mr. Hamilton has gotten in touch with us to tell his side of the story, filling in some of the missing pieces that help explain his actions. Read the full update at the bottom.
Think before you post. This should be the message greeting all of us when we open up our social network of choice. Before we get a chance to do anything else, a big bold ALL CAPS message reminding us that our social media comments have consequences should appear front and center.
Maybe if they had, Australian photographer Mark Hamilton wouldn't be embarrassed, apologizing for a Facebook tirade in which he threatened to release racy photos of a model because she had 'liked' a post that insulted him.
News in the photo world isn't always uplifting -- what with all the layoffs and copyright scandals -- but once in a while you stumble onto one of those 'renew your faith in humanity' stories that just make you smile.
That's the uplifting story told by Imaging Resource Editor-in-Chief Dave Etchells, who recently lost $7,000 on a bullet train in Japan, only to have it found and returned to him with nary a piece missing.
Spoiler Alert: The first paragraph of this article gives away a major part of the movie 'Gravity.' Skip past it if you haven't seen the movie yet.
"You should see the sun shining on the Ganges. It's amazing..." says George Clooney in the movie 'Gravity,' as his character floats through the cold vastness of space, cool as only a very George Clooney-ish character can be when facing insurmountable odds and indescribable beauty all at the same time.
But while Sandra Bullock's character had more important things to worry about just that second, chances are anyone reading this doesn't. And so, ahead of the Oscars where 'Gravity' is bound to take home at least a few of the golden statuettes, NASA has released a beautiful photo series to remind us what the view really looks like from space.
In yet another impressive (and sexual innuendo-filled... you've been warned) DigitalRev Cheap Camera Challenge, Kai has Benjamin Von Wong try to create some of his epic fire imagery using nothing more than a crappy Ricoh point-and-shoot that was probably bought at a Best Buy... on clearance... five years ago.
Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
In a bit of contrast to the RAW Beauty Talks portraits featured yesterday, today we have an interesting before and after Photoshop comparison of the hosts of the TODAY show
With the help (if you can call it that) of Cosmopolitan's "Photoshop experts," Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker and Natalie Morales were given a substantial post-production makeover.
Almost a year to date after the digging up and opening of Oklahoma City's Century Chest, researchers are getting a rare glimpse at early 20th century Oklahoma City thanks to the help of a Kodak Vest Pocket Camera and eight negatives found in "pristine condition" buried inside the time capsule.
Watch out aerial videographers, you may soon be replaced by birds with cameras. A few weeks ago we shared some great footage captured by a bird who got his beak on one of the BBC's egg cameras and took flight over a group of penguins. And today, we show you what a pelican can capture when his human helps him 'hold' the camera.
What's the best thing about a 365 project? Some would say it's that you develop the habit of shooting every single day. Others that you develop your skill because you're shooting more than you probably ever have. But for photographer Aliza Razell, the best thing about a 365 project is the ability to experiment.
And it's experimentation that led her to create the stunning images you see above and below. Images that combine watercolor and photography into something greater than the sum of its parts. Images that, as you probably already guessed, are spreading like wildfire.