Two of big names in the photography industry joined forces today as Shutterfly Inc announced its acquisition of premier photography and videography gear rental service BorrowLenses.
In 2012, New Jersey-based writer Emily Helck was one of the several thousands of women under 40 diagnosed with breast cancer. Knowing that the following year of chemo and surgery would be harrowing, she decided to document it by taking photos of herself every week for a full year.
The resulting video, which went up online at the end of September, has turned into an inspirational viral sensation that has accumulated over 700,000 views.
Two days ago, the late great Robert Capa would have turned 100 years old. There was quite a bit of revelry surrounding what would have been the iconic photographer's centennial, but even though gallery openings and the like all paid homage to the great conflict photographer, one particular release is perhaps most special of all.
Thanks to an incredibly fortuitous set of circumstances, the International Center of Photography has managed to get its hands on and release a copy of an incredibly rare interview Mr. Capa gave back in October of 1947 -- affording anyone who didn't know him the first ever opportunity to hear his voice.
Shortly after Sony announced the mirrorless a7 and a7R full-frames, rumors broke that Nikon had a new full-frame of its own coming in short order. As release dates and spec lists have begun to fly, anticipation has understandably grown; and now, Nikon is adding fuel to that fire by releasing a short teaser video for a "pure photography" camera.
One of the great things about photography is that inspirational stories aren't hard to come by -- whether it's tragic circumstances that are being brought to light by a daring photojournalist or a success story about a young photographer who is just discovering his passion for this industry.
Street photographer Flo Fox's story is yet another kind of inspirational. It's a story of overcoming unimaginable adversity, and a rock hard determination not to let any of life's curveballs get in the way of doing what you love.
It's hump day, and what better way to start the second half of the week than with a little bit of good old fashioned GoPro insanity... well, GoPro and Red Bull, which is a match made in action camera heaven.
Photographer Jordan Matter's Dancers Among Us photo series and book has earned him the kind of viral fame that many a photographer dreams of, but more inspiring than his success is his attitude and the joy he seems to take in his work.
We've found reason to share Czech astrophotographer Miloslav Druckmüller's breathtaking work once before when we showed you his composite of a total solar eclipse. Now he's back with another composite image that shows a nightscape the likes of which you've probably never seen before.
In addition to announcing the Nokia Camera app and RAW support for the Lumia 1020 and 1520 (read about that here), Nokia made one other camera-centric announcement that had us perking our ears up: the company also introduced a Lytro-like refocusing camera app called Nokia Refocus Lens.
We first shared photographer Carli Davidson's ridiculously cute SHAKE series back in 2011 before it had gone quite so viral. This week, her high-speed photographs of dogs making hilarious faces while shaking off water have been released in book form, accompanied by the above super slow motion video of the puppies in action.
Earlier today, Nokia let fly a slew of announcements at their Nokia World event in Abu Dhabi. And, as you might expect from the people that brought you the 41-megapixel PureView smartphone camera, a few of them have to do with pushing mobile photography to the next level.
Update on 12/16/21: This video embed has been removed by its owner. You can still watch it here.
It might be hard to believe in retrospect, but it turns out that Steve McCurry's most famous photograph, the iconic 'Afghan Girl,' was almost passed over for the cover of National Geographic in 1985.
In an attempt to show off just how powerful its Snapdragon 600 processors are, Qualcomm decided to go all Matrix on the people of Venice, CA and New York City. They did this by putting together an impressive 130-smartphone 540° bullet time photo booth using only HTC One smartphones.
There are a total of six piece types in the game of Chess, and Italian photographer Francesco Ridolfi has managed to bring each of them -- in both black and white versions -- to life in his creative fine art portrait project "Chess Portraits."
There's a belief that being successful as a photographer these days runs the possibility gamut from difficult to almost impossible, but examples like Wyn Wiley seem to run contrary to that belief. Wiley is a very successful 21-year-old photographer, and in the Lincoln Nebraska TEDxYouth talk above, he blows minds by sharing his incredibly optimistic and inspirational world view.
There's no denying that the Sony a7 and a7R made quite the splash in the photographic industry both before and after their official arrival. With full-frame sensors, a mirrorless design and price tags that make at least the a7 cheaper than even the most affordable full-frame alternatives, Sony hit the trifecta.
But a new rumor seems to indicate that Nikon, at least, wants to get in on some of the action by releasing a new retro-styled full-frame that will compete directly with Sony's offerings.
Every two years, the lighting of the Olympic Flame amidst the ruins of the Temple of Hera is a pretty interesting performance. The torch is lit from the light of the Sun, using a parabolic mirror to focus the Sun's rays on the fuel in the torch and set it ablaze... but what exactly is that fuel? By the looks of it, at least a small part is a piece of
Photographer Richard Renaldi's 6-year-long project Touching Strangers has been an incredible success. From viral Internet fame to a full-fledged photo book that exceeded its Kickstarter goal eight times over, there's something profoundly moving about complete strangers posed together, sometimes quite intimately, on the streets of NYC.
In the video above we get a behind the scenes look at how Renaldi does what he does, and how his subjects, sometimes reticent at first, often wind up feeling at ease and connected to this perfect stranger they didn't know existed 10 minutes ago.
In the digital age, having your photos stolen usually indicates copyright infringement by someone who decided to use your work without permission online. But for Ukranian-born photographer Aleksandr "Sasha" Onyshchenko, the term recently took on the old definition: two of his prints were literally stolen right out of the gallery they were being displayed at in broad daylight!
If you've followed PetaPixel for a little while, you'll already know that a laser pointer's focus lens can be put to good DIY use helping you take macro photos with your smartphone.
And even though you can simply find a way to secure the lens against your phone, a new Instructable shows you how to build a microscope stand/macro photography rig that will eliminate that particular problem altogether... and for only $10!
Late in 2012, photojournalist Daniella Zalcman moved from New York City to her new home in London. Zalcman adores both cities for, among other things, their photogenic nature. And so she decided to mix the two together into a creative series of double exposures dubbed New York + London, using her smartphone.
It's always nice when a company with plenty of exciting, brand new technology continues to support their older models in a big way, and that's what Fuji did yesterday when it released version 2.0 of the X100 firmware.
Here's a little bit of funny to get you through the rest of your Friday and send you off into the weekend in a good mood, because nothing helps alleviate stress like watching other people get the crap scared out of them... photo prank style.
Each year, London's Natural History Museum hands out awards for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, and the winner of this year's competition brought home top prize with an ethereal, beautiful and accidental photo of elephants at a watering hold in the Northern Tuli Game Reserve in Botswana.
The NASA spacecraft Cassini has sent back some incredible imagery of the planet Saturn over the years, much of which is being put to use to create an IMAX movie. But thanks to the work of a Croatian software developer, we now have a full, breath-taking, high-resolution photo mosaic of Saturn in all its glory as it looked on October 10th.
We're losing count of all the new gear announced in October so far, but one thing's for sure: if you have G.A.S. you're in serious trouble. Now joining Nikon's D5300, Sony's a7 and a7R, Panasonic's GM1 and more are two fresh cameras from the Fujifilm camp: the X-E2 and XQ1.
Photography student and street photographer Fernando Pereira Gomes is used to practicing his craft on the streets of New York, but recently, he's taken to shooting photos on the virtual streets of Los Santos, San Andreas, the fictional city of Grand Theft Auto V.
With all of this talk of new cameras and new lenses and fake potential cameras, we thought it might be good to take a quick break and just share something awesome. So, courtesy of the good folks at GoPro and the sheer number of spare cameras they have lying around, we give you: fire-breathing in bullet time.
Now that we think about it, we should have expected this, but we just didn't see it coming. The photo above supposedly shows a new camera on its way from Hasselblad. In keeping with the Lunar and Stellar before it, the Hasselblad Solar pictured above will basically be a Sony a7 redesigned using expensive materials and sold at a much higher price.
In the midst of all these camera announcements, Nikon has taken the time to unveil a new piece of high-end glass as well. Paying homage to a lens discontinued 15 long years ago, Nikon is bringing back the 58mm prime lens, this time with an f/1.4 aperture.
When we first covered Brandon Stanton and his Humans of New York project almost a year and a half ago, he had accumulated about 3,000 portraits of people from around New York City. Now that number has grown to over 5,000, and the blog that started it all has birthed a book and the kind of viral fame the Internet it known for.
Adding to the deluge of camera announcements this month, Nikon chose today to release an update to its D5200 consumer DSLR. The new camera, the D5300, isn't a huge breakthrough, but Nikon managed to pack in a few new features that'll help the shooter keep up with competitors like the Canon 70D.
Small interchangeable lens cameras (ILCs) usually come with small sensors and a diminutive spec list. Take the Pentax Q7 for example, its 1/1.7-inch sensor was a big (or rather a small) deterrent for serious photographers who want a small yet capable camera of their own.
Fortunately for those photographers, however, Panasonic has their back with the newly-announced GM1. It's not, as previously rumored, the world's smallest ILC, but it isn't far off, and it does grab the title of smallest Micro Four Thirds (MFT) camera.
If you like the idea of having a GoPro or other action cam to capture all of your daredevil stunts but don't readily have several hundred to drop on one, the company Pyle Audio just debuted something you might be interested in.
One of the oft-mentioned pitfalls of the smartphone photography movement is that we end up with a ton of photos that just stay on our phones indefinitely, never to see the light of day. This humorous video points out some of the photos that you and I both probably have sitting somewhere on our phone and that, for one reason or another, we haven't or won't ever delete.
The Triggertrap name has appeared on PetaPixel many times before: from the very early days of v1 on Kickstarter, to an interview with CEO Haje Kamps, to the release of Triggertrap Mobile and beyond. Now we have another exciting reason to write about Triggertrap, and that reason is called Redsnap.
Redsnap is the evolution of the original Triggertrap V1 that was so successful on Kickstarter, and what it provides that the v1 didn't is infinite expandability through attachable sensors. It is, according to Triggertraps description, "one of the fastest, easiest to use, and most affordable high-speed flash and camera triggers money can buy."
Back in early July, we got a chance to share photographer Pelle Cass' intriguing Selected People series with you. For this series, he combines hundreds of exposures to create what amounts to a time-lapse in one frame: showing what a particular location looks like over the course of many hours, but capturing it as a single moment in time.
Admittedly, the a7 and a7R have sort of stolen the show when it comes to camera announcements today, but those two weren't the only shooters Sony debuted. The company is also adding another camera to high-end RX Cybershot lineup. Jointing the full-frame RX1 and the popular RX100MII is the RX10: a high-performance superzoom.
After all of the anticipation, rumors and leaks we sincerely hope the announcement still has you excited, because Sony has finally made the long-awaited a7 and a7R official. That's right, the cameras once known only as the "NEX Full-Frame" have finally arrived, with full specs, press photos and a lens and accessory lineup to prove it.
In a move that is completely legal and yet already has some people wondering just how much bad press the Chicago Sun-Times is looking to absorb, the beleaguered newspaper is putting the 'striking, one-of-a-kind photos' in its archive up for sale... you know, photos taken by the photojournalists the paper sacked in May of this year.
We told you about the upcoming Panasonic GM1 back in September when the rumors first surfaced, but now we have the first leaked photos of the camera that intends to claim the title of "world's smallest interchangeable lens camera" without compromising on quality.
It turns out that it does exist: a magazine that prides itself on not altering their models' faces or bodies in Photoshop. Verily is a fashion and lifestyle magazine aimed at women 18 to 35, and even though that is prime demographic territory when it comes to Photoshop use, the whole purpose of the magazine is to at least begin reversing this trend.
We dedicate a lot of time to finding and sharing relevant, inspirational and sometimes humorous stories with you here, and once in a while, we inadvertently help make something wonderful happen.
That was the case with the Anderson family, who recently got in touch with us to tell us how a simple photo tip we shared changed their lives for the better. With their permission, we're sharing that story with you.
It's not uncommon for cameras to look similar in this day and age. Even the Sony A7 and A7r, which haven't even been released yet, are being described as "OM-D-like" by rumor sites. But at what point does "similarity" cross the line to "infringement."
Well, if you need an example, just take a look at Polaroid's iM1836, because Nikon is filing a lawsuit against the company and camera manufacturer Sakar International over just that.
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner's insane Red Bull Stratos skydive from the edge of space. As the whole world watched, Baumgartner plummeted towards Earth from a mind-blowing 128,100 feet, ultimately landing safely.
The man free fell for a total of four minutes and twenty-two seconds, and if you want to watch the whole inspirational/terrifying experience from his point of view, now you can.
Model maker/collector and photographer Michael Paul Smith is a master at recreating incredibly accurate outdoor scenes using his extensive die-cast model car collection and forced perspective.
Mixing up miniature cars, detail items and buildings into a scene whose backdrop is the real world, he shoots the gorgeous miniature vistas of the town he has created and named "Elgin Park" -- and he does it all with a cheap point-and-shoot.
It's getting harder to impress these days when it comes to music videos, because there seems to be an abundance of uber-creative people putting together really interesting takes. A great example is this simple yet moving music video filmed entirely in the reflection of an eyeball.
The band The Paper Kites went a bit more complicated when putting together the music video for their song "Young," but the results are no less captivating.
The rules might say to keep your electronics stowed during takeoff and landing, but sometimes, you just can't help yourself. And even though we certainly don't condone breaking FAA regulations, the above photograph is a prime example of one of those times when not being able to help yourself pays off.
Taken by photographer James Kastner, the snap beautifully captures the sun glinting off the One World Trade Center just as the glare on the harbor aligned with Liberty Island. It's no wonder the shot has gone viral.
Another leak sprung over the weekend -- if, that is, you believe it's a leak and not a strategic move by the company. This one, however, doesn't have to do with an upcoming camera, but rather some new glass. It's the first official-looking photo of the rumored Sigma 24-105mm f/4 lens.
In another "sign-of-the-times" type of story out of Australia, the company Tennis Australia has been in hot water with photographers for over a month now over a classified ad posted on News.com.au. The ad called for photogs with "previous experience," "a strong knowledge of tennis," and their own equipment. The pay? There is none.