It seems Sony's intent on raining all over Leica's parade. First, the company releases the A7 and A7R -- AF-equipped mirrorless full-frame alternatives to Leica's cameras -- and now Sony is supposedly working on a black & white-only full-frame shooter of its own to compete against the M Monochrome.
Self-portrait time-lapses are few and far between, because the patience required to create one of note is immense. Most of them are picture-per-day time-lapses that require the subject to maintain their dedication to the project for months on end, and the subject him or herself has to go through some amazing change or do something really cool --like lip synch a Queen song... for example -- in the meantime.
One of the most simultaneously exciting and vague photography announcements to come out of CES this year was the official confirmation that Nikon's new flagship D4S is on the way. And even though very few details were revealed -- find out about those here -- attendees were given the opportunity to stare longingly at a D4S that the Nikon folks had brought with them to their booth.
It’s a pretty popular opinion these days: taking photos keeps you from experiencing the moment. It’s why concert venues …
Although it might not seem like much, the photo above might just be the most extraordinary image you have ever seen. Not because of crazy high megapixel count or amazing composition or even subject matter -- we've seen images of planets orbiting stars before -- but because it is the first ever image of a planet and its star over 63 light years away.
Admit it, you've always wanted walk around a rainforest hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger using your cool thermal vision and shoulder cannon, and now you can... sort of. While the shoulder cannon is still pending, and your chances of getting Mr. Schwarzenegger to a rainforest of your choosing are slim, a new smartphone case dubbed the FLIR ONE will turn your iPhone into an awesome thermal camera of your own.
Thanks to CES, this week has been filled to bursting with new gear announcements that are either exacerbating your Gear Acquisition Syndrome (G.A.S.) or simply exhausting you. After all, how many "world's first [this]" and "world's lightest [that]" can you take before it all starts to blend together?
So today, although we have more cool gadgets and gizmos from CES 2014 to share with you, we thought we'd start the day (well, in the US it's the start of the day...) by reliving one of the biggest parties of the New Year in time-lapse.
Unfortunately, what with major changes at the helm and making sure that we hit 2014 running, we weren't able to make it to Vegas for CES this year. And I say unfortunately because, not only does it mean we'll have to wait a minute to get hands on with some of the new releases, but it also meant missing cool demonstrations like the ones you see above.
There's something awesome about vintage ads. This rings especially true for photography ads, because while technology ads of the past for things like computers or other gadgets might seem comically archaic, the text in something like this Leica M4 ad could very well be seen in the next Pure Photography-like campaign.
In the most recent installment of police officer vs. photographer, a UK man who began taking pictures near the scene of a car accident was approached by an irate officer who yelled and cursed at him, confiscated his camera and threatened to arrest him and make his life a "living hell."
Samsung was the first to announce some of its new offerings pre-CES, but the company didn't let all of its cats out of the bag right away. In addition to the NX30, Galaxy Camera 2 and 16-50mm f/2-2.8 premium lens already announced, Samsung yesterday also refreshed its SMART camera lineup with a few point-and-shoots and two superzooms, one of which packs dual grips and monstrous 60x zoom.
One of the cool, though not all that useful, announcements to come out of CES yesterday night was of Lexar's new "world's fastest memory card." The announcement is cool because, well, it's the world's fastest memory card. It's not useful (at least not yet) because chances are very good you don't own a camera that can take advantage of it.
The CES announcement train keeps on rolling with another one we saw coming thanks to the ever-increasing accuracy of rumor sites. Nikon has officially launched the consumer-level D3300 -- complete with a few hardware upgrades and a new kit lens -- as well as the long-rumored 35mm f/1.8G full-frame lens and a few new CoolPix models.
After many a rumor indicating that this very thing would happen, Nikon has officially announced that the followup to the flagship D4, the D4S, is in development and will be on display at the company's booth at CES in Vegas over the next few days.
It's a good year for glass at CES in Vegas. First Samsung debuts its first premium 'S' lens, then Fuji comes out with the 56mm f/1.2R, and now Sigma is joining the fray by releasing two new lenses: an all-new 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art series lens and a significantly updated 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM Macro lens.
We've said it before, but it bears mentioning again: smartphones might be bludgeoning the compact camera market, but that doesn't mean camera companies aren't putting up a fight. Fuji's new superzoom lineup is kind of a case in point, but a better example are the three new point-and-shoots just released by Canon.
We've known since late 2012 that the Instagram logo lookalike Socialmatic camera would go from concept to reality, and since early 2013 that it would arrive with Polaroid branding, but now Polaroid is giving us specs and announcing that the Socialmatic will arrive in stores this Fall.
What do you get when you mix time-lapse photography, lip syncing to a Queen song and an insane amount of dedication? We imagine you get something like Day 1 by Matt Perren: a one photo per day time-lapse video that took him THREE YEARS to make.
The final pre-CES announcement from Fuji is completely unexpected, but one that the company is nevertheless very excited about. It's called the Instax Share SP-1 Printer, and it's a compact wireless Instax printer that you can carry around with you, basically giving your smartphone the ability to act like an instant camera.
The black version of the X100s wasn't the only camera Fuji decided to announce ahead of CES. Four other cameras are making their official appearance today: three superzooms, one of which is the world's first weather sealed bridge camera, and a new rugged compact.
Despite many a rumor of a new X-Series camera coming at CES, Fuji didn't have a brand new shooter up its sleeve -- at least not that we know of. Instead, the company is debuting the much-requested all-black version of the X100s, and a super fast "portrait perfect" XF 56mm f/1.2R premium lens.
As a website, we're trying to move away from sharing rumors and the like, or at the very least be much more selective. This is happening for a few reasons, but one of them is that, unless you are very selective, you're bound to share something blatantly wrong. And worse yet, in your rush to be one of the first to report on it, you might do serious damage to your credibility.
Which brings us to a recent 'photo leak' that supposedly showed a full view of the rumored Fuji X-W1 sitting on a park bench.
We're starting to suspect that wild animals the world over are collecting action cams for some nefarious plot... well, either that or wild animals like carrying away shiny objects, but we prefer our first theory. We've seen birds, cheetahs and hyenas all make away with GoPros, and now it seems the crustaceans are getting involved too.
Apple might be intent on making high-speed burst mode a 'thing' in future iPhone models, given that the Cupertino tech giant just acquired a one-man startup known for building an app that could push the iPhone to 20-30fps burst without sacrificing resolution.
Earlier this week, when stumbled across this two-hour presentation by iconic portrait photographer Greg Heisler, it took all the will power we had not to share it with you right away. In our world, being the "first" to report on a story is often very important, and it's an impulse we often have to resist because we're intent on getting the story right.
In this case, however, it had nothing to do with getting the story right and everything to do with sharing it at a time when we felt the majority of our readers would have enough time to watch the video from start to finish. Two hours is a long time to listen to one photographer speak, but in the case of Gregory Heisler, we think you'll find it's not nearly long enough.
Build-it-yourself cameras can be both fun and educational. For photography types, a camera like the Konstructor or the Last camera makes for a fun weekend project that you can then take out on occasion when your inner hipster is calling, or give as a gift to a budding photo enthusiast.
Similarly, there's a large community of people who love pinhole cameras, which they've made using everything from LEGOs to dumpsters. So what happens when those two worlds collide? You get the Original Pin.
DigitalRev's Cheap Camera Challenges are a big hit here at PetaPixel. Watching a pro use a less-than-capable camera to try and create something worthwhile is both hilarious and educationally valuable. Case in point: check out what cinematographer Phillip Bloom was able to do with a Barbie Camera and some creativity.
The last couple of days have seen the east coast battered by a huge blizzard known as winter storm Hercules. Thousands of flights have been grounded and many schools were closed yesterday as entire cities began digging themselves out of snowfall that ranged from just a few inches to almost two feet in some areas.
Of course, being there is the only way to truly experience and understand the magnitude of the storm, but this satellite image gives us a small inkling by capturing the blanket of white Hercules left in its wake.
In our State of the Blog Address, we asked you what you want to see more of on PetaPixel, and one of the suggestions that came up most often was Tutorials, Behind the Scenes videos and other helpful educational content like that.
Well, we were listening. And so, we invite you to spend 15 minutes this lovely Friday watching professional photographer Karl Taylor at work in his studio.
Photography is hardly a cheap hobby to pick up, but even within photography, some branches are more expensive than others. And ranking pretty close to the 'most expensive' side of that line is astrophotography... at least the kind that will yield incredible photos like the one you see here by photographer Mike Hankey.
This'll video will wake you up... or at least make you feel like your Friday isn't NEARLY as exciting as it could be. As part of their Hero3+ Adventure Series, GoPro teamed up with zoologist Kevin Richardson (better known as the Lion Whisperer) to show the special bond he shares with the big cats and shed light on the dilemma of habitat loss.
It turns out the rich, famous and powerful of today bear a striking resemblance to the rich, famous and powerful of yesteryear -- at least if you trust the photo series Iconatomy by George Chamoun and the followup series Then & Now by Marc Ghali.
We try to stay away from sharing too much of the same thing (although, admittedly, we've occasionally slipped up and shared the EXACT same thing more than once) but with 2013 officially in the rearview, it seems only right that we share at least one "one second per day" video from this past year.
Forget Times Square, the place every photographer wishes they were on New Year's Eve 2014 (or is it 2013?) was Dubai. Why, you ask? Because this year the city set the world record for the largest fireworks show, and captured the entire thing on camera for posterity's sake.
Wrapping up the announcements from Samsung today were two new pieces of glass, at least one of which might just get your Gear Acquisition Syndrome acting up. The new lenses are a 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 Power Zoom and Samsung's first ever Premium 'S' lens: a 16-50mm f/2-2.8.
The second and final major camera announcement out of Samsung today was the successor to the Android-powered Galaxy Camera, aptly named the Galaxy Camera 2. Although it boasts many of the same specs as the first Galaxy Camera, the new shooter is a more powerful and lighter version that's sure to score points with lovers of the first model.
You can expect a bunch of camera and gear announcements to go live ahead of CES, and breaking the ice for all of the other companies is Samsung, who today officially released the much rumored and speculated about NX30 Compact System Camera.
You're probably already familiar with Karen Cheng (better known as "that one girl who learned to dance in a year and made an awesome video of it") and her motivational startup Give it 100 that is all about helping you achieve your goals by having you upload a video of your progress every day for 100 days and beyond.
It's already a phenomenal way to set a goal and stick to it -- if you miss a day it's obvious to everyone following you -- but Cheng and partner Finbarr Taylor have come up with something special for New Year's. They've set up a win-win challenge that lets you put your money where your mouth is when it comes to your New Year's resolutions.
Uh-oh... this isn't good. Just as Snapchat's star seemed like it would continue rising indefinitely, the company has suffered a massive setback in the form of an information leak of massive proportions. Taking advantage of a recently-revealed vulnerability, hackers were able to pull 4.6 million usernames and phone numbers from the service and publish them online for the whole world to see.
First things first: Happy New Year! Whether you're in Berkeley, CA, Bucharest, Romania or Shanghai, China, it's now 2014 for everyone, and we want to start off the new year by thanking you all for a phenomenal 2013. You guys and gals are the reason we get up in the morning and stay up nights wracking our brains to figure out how we can make this site the best photo blog in the world.
In the Spring of 1980, just a few weeks before the infamous Mount St. Helens eruption that would take his life along with 56 others, photojournalist Reid Blackburn captured the volcano as it looked before it exploded.
The folks over at Nikon Rumors have been hard at work keeping everybody up on what you can expect from Nikon, but if you're like us, you just don't have the time to follow rumors day in and day out. So here's a roundup of what the most exciting and plausible rumors that should give Nikon lovers some idea of what to expect in the next couple of months.
In 2011, former AP president Tom Curly had the ambitious idea that the AP should establish a bureau in North Korea, and the photographer the agency ended up sending to the country is a man you should, by now, be very familiar with: David Guttenfelder.
Guttenfelder's images, both in newspapers and on Instagram, have given the whole world a peek behind North Korea's own Iron Curtain, and in the video above he explains the power of photography as if pertains to this secretive and isolated world.
Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
About a week ago, Reuters put together a powerful video featuring what it considered to be the "Photos of the Year" as taken by Reuters photographers.
If you've never seen a 3-axis brushless motor gimbal in action, this video might seem out of this world... or fake. But it's not fake, just the magic of advanced camera stabilization technology that'll cost you several thousand dollars to wield for yourself (unless, of course, you have the engineering know-how to build one yourself).
Our quest to improve dogs' standing in the world of photography continues today thanks to an awesome photo series by LA-based photographer Lara Jo Regan that's bound to put a smile on your face. The series is called "Dogs in Cars," and if you like what you see you'll be happy to know that it's being made available as a 2014 calendar.
#اینستاگرم فیلتر شد - #ایران #فیلترینگ #iran @ListenToUs @HassanRouhani pic.twitter.com/NnIDry4jsf— Soheil Gonzalez (@soheilr7) December 28, 2013
In most countries around the world, it's taken for granted that if you'd like to share a photo of your lunch or cat (even if, just maybe, you shouldn't) Instagram is ready and able to help you accomplish your goal. Of course, that's not true everywhere, as the people of Iran found out yesterday.
Here's a little funny to get you through your Sunday afternoon: a flowchart that can help you decide whether or not that photo you're thinking of taking is actually worth going through with.
When National Geographic not only picks up your time-lapse, but also insists on interviewing you about it, you know you're doing something right. Then again, when you're time-lapse master Michael Shainblum, you probably don't need reminding.
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.