Well, if you're gonna put a portrait of your mug on Instagram for the whole world to see, this is the way to do it. Taken from outside the ISS during one of the two spacewalks required to replace a faulty water pump, this selfie-like portrait (it is NOT a selfie, contrary to just about every headline you'll read) was uploaded to NASA's Instagram account yesterday.
If you live in a place that's not likely to see snow this winter, or you're bitter that the white Christmas you've been dreaming of decided to remain a dream, these stunning photos of the European Alps by Swedish photographer Jacob Sjöman will either ease the pain, or make you incredibly jealous. Either way, they're worth a look.
A few days back, the folks over at Egami spotted a new Canon PowerShot patent that, unlike most, piqued many photographers' interest. That's because this patent seems to show plans for a 100x (or rather almost 100x) superzoom camera.
Almost one hundred years after a group of explorers set out across the frozen landscape of Antarctica to set up supply depots for famed explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, a box of 22 never-before-seen exposed but unprocessed negatives taken by the group's photographer has been unearthed in one of those shacks, preserved in a block of ice.
It may be hard to believe at first, but the photographs in this post are just that: photographs. Though they might look like beautiful abstract paintings, they are actually photos of volcanic rivers taken by Russian photographer Andre Ermolaev from way up in the air.
A few days ago, we shared the tragic news Reuters freelancer Molhem Barakat, who some were claiming was as young as 17-years-old, had been killed while photographing a battle in Syria. Since then, Reuters ethics and business practices have been called into question by an outraged journalistic community that has even gone so far as to start a Change.org petition demanding that the news organization take responsibility for the young boy's murder.
There's no doubt the ubiquity of fake and mis-reported content on the Internet has turned many of us into big-time skeptics. Whenever we see something that seems incredible or outlandish, our knee-jerk reaction is to call it fake and begin searching for evidence of that fact, using our confirmation bias as a guide.
One video that elicited such a response from many of the people that saw it was this recent Sony ad that showed an a7R lens change happening in mid-air during a skydive.
Two weeks ago, Instagram released its annual top 10 lists of the cities and locations that were photographed most often using the photo sharing service. But this year, Google has seen fit to one-up them by releasing a heat map that gives us a more visual representation of the most photographed places in the world.
It's difficult to fathom, but there is massive segment of the population who remember nothing of film photography. The idea of not having your images instantly available for review and deletion, or having to go to a shop to have a roll of film developed, is as foreign as the floppy disk and the VHS.
BuzzFeed is trying to remedy this somewhat in the video above, which they have dubbed "Film Photography Explained to Modern Kids."
"Don't be afraid to be different." That is the moral of this video. Usually you save the moral for the end, but it is stated, restated and demonstrated so well with this shoot that it's worth starting the post with. Don't be afraid to let your creativity break the barriers of the proverbial box and try something different, because you might just stumble onto an idea as unique and creative as "Love Sick" by Simeon Quarrie of Vivida.
The holidays are a great time for gift giving, which also normally means they're a time for cleaning out closets and camera bags. Every year, I find myself needing to get rid of old stuff that has been replaced; or dealing with the thoughtful but odd and/or useless gifts given to me by well-meaning family and friends.
But what to do with that redundant lens or knitted camera cozy? The simplest answer is to return or re-sell it, but sometimes there's no gift receipt to be found or the gizmo in question is too beaten up to be sold for any real value. Fortunately, there's plenty of ways to find a use for your used gear.
The much-anticipated 150-600mm f/5-6.3 lens from Tamron, which replaces its current 200-500mm, has officially gotten a US …
It being the day after Christmas, it's only appropriate that we share an awesome story that involves the giving of an amazing gift. If we can throw in a behind the scenes look at a complex classic car photo shoot, well, that's just a bonus.
The popularity of Instagram as a place where you can buy or sell goods (both legal and otherwise) is well-established, but we were still surprised to find out that Leica Brazil has begun selling one of its cameras straight through the photo sharing site.
Fresh rumors fueled by a contest currently underway on Nikon's Middle East & Africa Facebook page have many speculating that Nikon might be preparing to release a D4 followup, or even the long-awaited D400.
Sixty-one years ago, when Dorothy and Donald Lutz got married, there was one conspicuous absence as they recited their vows: the wedding photographer... he never showed up. And while they can't go back in time and right that wrong, granddaughter-in-law and event planner Lauren Wells recently made sure that they would have a photo album worth envying.
Olympus' decision to put all its chips on the mirrorless market seems to be paying off, with the once-troubled company finally poised to register a profit next year after several quarters of losses.
Many of you are familiar with the website PhotoStealers, which acts as "a wall of shame... dedicated to photographers that feel that it's okay to steal others work and post it as their own." Photo theft is expertly weeded out and exposed by the site's creator, who has taken on some big names including Jasmine Star and Doug Gordon.
The most recent PhotoStealers post, however, might reach even more epic proportions than the Star/Gordon shame-fest. It involves one Christopher Jones of CJ Photography and, before long, might involve a defamation lawsuit as well.
Snapchat, famous for dealing with the problem of rising attention spans by whittling the life of a photo down to 10 seconds, has gotten a little more time-friendly with an update that includes a limited option for re-viewing images later.
Everybody is coming out with their editor's choices and best of's and holiday gift guides, but The Camera Store added another facet to their "best of 2013"... the "worst of 2013." From lenses, to still cameras to video cameras, take a gander at what was really good and, inevitably more entertaining, what was really bad.
A while back I wrote a post I humbly called Roger’s Law of New Product Introduction, complete with the graph shown below. The release of the Sony A7R has demonstrated the accuracy of that post as few other releases have.
Just incase @29_JL @hullcityteam your not sure the ball is the yellow thing.... not the £6k camera (photo al walter) pic.twitter.com/op6zGrUBVX— Richard Heathcote (@rheathcote) December 21, 2013
Professional sports photographers know their equipment is always at risk, but British Getty Images shooter Richard Heathcote was still surprised and more than a bit miffed when his DSLR bit the dust at Saturday's Hull-vs.-West Bromwich Premiere League soccer match.
Over the years I've tried to get better about reflecting on my work and life at the end of each year. Sure lots of people will claim to do this, but that usually just boils down to reviewing their Facebook page for a quick ego boost.
I'm talking about going in-depth. Go pull up those photos you loved at the beginning of the year and try looking at them again with a newly critical eye, do it when you're free of the fresh-born-photo sentimentality all photographer's (and really artists in general) suffer from. Try to figure out what went wrong in your failed work and what went right (purposefully or accidental) in the work that turned out good. Regardless of the conclusions you arrive at I can guarantee you'll be a better photographer as a result.
I don't have kids just yet, so I can't say from experience, but it seems one of the benefits of having a child is the ability to feature the adorable little guy or gal in creative photography projects. Examples abound: from Queenie Liao's wondrous naptime photos, to Nagano Toyokazu's series My Daughter Kanna.
Now, another great project has popped up on our radar. This one is called Cardboard Box Office, and it's the result of a parenting duo's creativity, an excess of packing materials and the addition of a baby boy to the family.
A young photographer who was freelancing for news agency Reuters chronicling the ongoing clash between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Syria was killed Friday while covering a battle at a hospital in Aleppo.
Once you've gotten to a certain level of proficiency as a photographer, it's easy to forget how rough things looked when you first started out. Of course, that forgetfulness might be a good thing, but there's a site out there that wants you to relive those moment by sharing them with the world.
There are all sorts of statistics we can look up to tell us how the photography industry is doing and whether or not smartphones really are going to steamroll the market (spoiler alert: it's not as bad as some make it out to be). One source of information that probably doesn't cross your mind, however, is Amazon's Most Wished For lists.
Where statistics on cameras shipped give us an idea of what the companies want, Amazon's list gives us a glimpse of what the customers want, which might just be a good indicator of how the big players in the industry are really doing.
Reuters' photographers captured some incredible photographs in 2013, and now that the year is wrapping up, it's only fitting that they compile the best of them into a Photos of the Year slideshow that will hopefully inspire you to take on your photographic goals with renewed vigor in 2014.
Carli Davidson's photos and slow motion video of dogs shaking off water and spittle have been a huge hit with people all over the world. In October, the photos were even immortalized in a book by the same name, and while she was working on that book, Nikon caught up with her at her Portland, OR studio.
Editor's Note: There is a bit of strong and suggestive language used in a few of the scenes.
The Pro Photog Cheap Camera Challenge is one of our favorite segments that the folks over at DigitalRev put together. Beyond just proving the point that it's the photographer, and not the camera, that makes great pictures, the episodes are fun to watch and often very educational.
In the past they've put everyone from David Hobby to Vincent Laforet to the test, but this time they decided to up the ante. The victim this time around is world-class cinematographer Phillip Bloom, who will be embarking on this challenge with a not-so-capable Barbie camera in tow.
Here's a cool holiday chart that only us photo types will appreciate. It was put together by Sigma Jack and Sigma's in-house 'design wiz' Emi Erata, and shows the entire Sigma lens lineup arranged by size and placed next to some to-scale objects so you can visualize just how large some of these behemoths are.
When it comes to iconic imagery, there are few individual photographers who can best NASA. From the pale blue dot, to the blue marble, to the amazing photo of Bruce McCandless II floating out into space on the first ever untethered space walk, NASA's got quite a repository of amazing imagery.
One of those iconic images, dubbed AS8-14-2383 but better known as Earthrise, is about to turn 45 years old on Christmas Eve. And so NASA thought it appropriate to share the story of how luck and teamwork helped the astronauts of Apollo 8 capture this photo.
Forget gold plating and celebrity altruism -- the rarest Leica camera of them all may be made entirely out of plastic.
Those who see iPhoneography as some kind of barbarian invasion may want to give their DSLRs an extra hug after hearing this: The venerable British Journal of Photography has launched a new e-magazine all about smartphone photography and available only as an iPhone app.
In order to make a little bit of money on the side, Toronto-based portrait and wedding photographer Alex Neary does some nannying, but she probably never expected that her nannying gig would be her ticket to viral photography success.
You see, for the last year and a half, she's been looking after a ridiculously cute and creative toddler named Henry, who one day decided that he wanted to turn the camera around and photograph Alex for a change. Thus was born the adorable photo series Henry's Concepts.
News flash: You can't believe everything you see on Twitter. We know, we were shocked too.
Such was the case with this striking sepia-toned image that started lighting up the mediasphere yesterday billed as "the Earliest Photograph Taken of New York City - Broadway, May 1850." (And immediately started attracting comments in the vein of: "And they haven't fixed the potholes since!")
When it comes to the film vs. digital debate, many people are fairly entrenched on one side or the other. But can you really tell the difference between RAW digital footage and film footage? What about when the digital footage is made to look like film using filters in post? PBS Digital Studios wants to put you to the test.
A couple of weeks ago, we shared a video that showed a guy dropping his brand new $2,300 24-70mm f/2.8L lens as he demonstrates how to quickly swap your lenses out "just like the pros." Some people thought it was real, some thought it was fake, but whatever the case it definitely WAS a big fat fail.
That is 100% not the case with the epic Sony ad above, which is titled simply "A7R," but ought to be called "THIS is How You Change a Lens Like a Pro"... feel free to substitute "bada**" for "pro."
Well, your last chance to order something online and get it in time for Christmas pretty much came and went already, and yet us lazy PetaPixel editors (okay, not us, just me) have yet to put together a holiday gift guide. Well, I offer my hardiest apologies, and what we'll call our 'Holiday Exchange Guide.'
You think 41 megapixels is a lot? Try 1000 megapixels! That's how much resolution the camera attached to the ESA's Gaia satellite is packing; a satellite that, as of yesterday, has left the Earth in its quest to photograph things that have never been photographed before at a resolution as of yet unheard of in space photography.
As if people up in the Nordic countries don't have enough gorgeous scenery to hold over our heads (my chances of seeing the aurora borealis in Alabama are far slimmer) we now have yet another thing to envy them for: light pillars.
Sigma is on a tear when it comes to releasing amazing glass. From the groundbreaking 18-35mm f/1.8 for APS-C cameras to the 24-105mm f/4 that had people pretty excited, Sigma glass is quickly becoming synonymous with phenomenal quality and affordability.
And now, the newest murmurings to come down the rumor pipeline have another exciting Sigma lens in the works, this one a 16-20mm f/2.
Editors note: Be advised, the video below contains some strong language that might not be to the liking of all our readers.
There have been a lot of viral attacks on the retouching industry lately -- from these striking ads created by a student to this funny tongue-in-cheek version of another viral anti-retouching video -- but the cherry on top of the Photoshop-hate sundae came in the form of the South Park Season 17 finale.
Yesterday night, Yahoo! took yet another step forward in the Flickr renaissance, although we doubt all photographers will see it this way. In a bid to make the service more share-friendly, Yahoo! has introduced new, cleaner embedding capability to the photo sharing site.
The folks at Custom SLR are in the holiday spirit, there's no doubt about that. After all, why else would you take on the pointless (but awesome) task of creating the world's largest camera tripod Christmas tree?
Fans of Sony's QX10 and QX100 lens cameras -- you know, the ones that use your smartphone as a controller/LCD but pack all of the important bits in an external unit -- have reason to rejoice today, because it looks like there's a major update coming to both versions.
From no Photoshop straight to excessive yet awesome image manipulation, we're all over the spectrum today. Although general belief (at least among purists) is that it is always better to create something in-camera than in post, there are certain things that just can't be done in-camera... and architecture photographer Víctor Enrich did ALL OF THEM to this one hotel in Munich.
For a recent project, Montreal-based photographer Benjamin Von Wong wanted to do something interesting: he wanted to create 'world within a world' style photographs WITHOUT using any Photoshop to achieve the final effect. It took some creativity and help from some very talented set designers, but in the end they pulled it off!
One of the most popular camera apps on iOS is Camera+. In fact, it's so popular it currently ranks at #33 on Apple's top paid apps chart. But that number is likely to jump after today, because version 5.0 has just been released, and this update is a big one.
It's common knowledge that the Giottos Rocket Blowers and the TSA don't get along. In the past we've told you to just leave it at home unless you want it confiscated with no more reason than "it looks like a bomb." But the reason photographer and Canon Rumors forum user Surapon got was a whole lot more entertaining than that.