Getting high quality film scans usually means taking your film to a local lab or sending it to a not-so-local one if there's not a lab nearby. But there is a way to get high-quality scans done in the comfort of your own home using a flat bed film scanner; it's called wet mount scanning.
Fans of free have something to celebrate. The popular open-source RAW photo processor RawTherapee has received a massive update to version 5.0. The update including a bunch of new features, performance enhancements, some bug fixes, and much more.
The smartphone camera landscape is getting crowded with high quality cameras these days, but the Google Pixel and Apple iPhone 7 Plus are two of the front runners when it comes to popularity and publicity. We did a simple shootout to pixel-peep at how the cameras in these two smartphones stack up against each other.
1 terapixel equals 1 million megapixels, or 1 trillion pixels. And San Francisco-based satellite startup Planet plans to capture 50 of these terapixels each day starting later this year. Specifically, they plan to capture one 50 terapixel image of our entire planet every single day.
Mark Seliger is one of the best-known editorial portrait photographers in the U.S., and his career spans over twenty years. He succeeded Annie Leibovitz as the designated “chief photographer” for Rolling Stone Magazine and has photographed over 125 Rolling Stone covers.
You can't avoid crop factor these days. Whether your camera sports an APS-C, Micro Four Thirds, 1-inch, or some other size sensor, there will come a time when you'll have to calculate a "full-frame equivalent" and that's when the mmCalc Crop Factor Calculator will come in very handy.
If a tree could write its own Requiem, its own death song, what would it sound like? It seems like an absurd question, but the folks at camera gear manufacturer Syrp collaborated on a strange, beautiful ecological shoot that revealed the answer.
Street photography is an addictive calling—the more you do it, the more you want to do it. You crave more people, more places, more action. Plus, it’s one of the most dynamic and exciting types of photography to share on social media, with an active community around the world.
Nikon's stock price fell nearly 15% today after the company revealed yesterday that it was hit with an "extraordinary loss" during the last 9 months of 2016.
Arguably the most iconic prop from the Star Wars universe is... a camera flash. It's not a joke, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader's lightsabers (the handle, not the glowing, cut your hand off part) were both made from vintage camera flash guns.
There are two important lessons in this simple, short, inspirational tips video by photographer Moose Winans. The first is how to use complimentary backgrounds to create separation and make your subject "pop"; the second is that you should go out and shoot, even when conditions are crappy and you don't think you'll get anything.
To call Sigma's Art series of lenses a "hit" would be quite the understatement. Sigma's premium lens line has taken the photo world by storm, often giving photographers significantly better lenses for a lot less money. And now, it sounds like two more Art lenses are on the way.
What better way to explore the far reaches of New Zealand ... uhh, I mean Middle Earth... than with Tolkien's Gandalf as your guide? That's what photographer Akhil Suhas was thinking when, while planning his 6-month trip across the country after university, he packed a Gandalf costume... just for fun.
One of my goals as a photographer is to always improve. Regardless of how well others may think my work is I am always trying to learn and grow as a creative.
If you're a serious Capture One Pro user, the folks at Phase One have a real treat in store for you. It's called the Capture One Pro keyboard: a customized color-coded keyboard that brings 107 useful shortcuts to the surface and helps you turn your workflow up to 11.
In my previous article on the difficulty FujiFilm’s X-Trans sensor has preserving fine color detail, I used the free software Darktable to process the RAW examples. I showed how, specifically in terms of color detail, Darktable was able to do a better job than FujiFilm’s own processing.
When I go to a photography exhibit or show, I find myself looking at similar work: photographs made from an inkjet printer that are just stylized archives. Be it a photo of a bird, a dress, a subject or event. Whatever it is, it’s just a photograph. A photograph that can be easily duplicated with the simple press of a button. A print on a piece of paper, nothing more, nothing less.
Nikon dropped a couple of very troubling bombshells today. The first was a "Recognition of Extraordinary Loss" due to company-wide restructuring; the second was the cancellation of the much-delayed series of Nikon DL compact cameras announced in February of 2016.
If World Press Photo assigned a theme to their annual competition, this year's might have been "Tragedy." Death, imminent death, fear, loss, pain—these are the true subjects of the images that won this year's top prizes, highlighted, at the very top, by a photo of an assassin brandishing a murder weapon.
Episode 150 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
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Featured: Zeiss Ambassador, author and educator, Brian Matiash
One of the often recurring discussions among professional photographers is whether or not we should ever work for free. I’ve been known to rail against those who do and against clients who request free pictures... so why did I recently waive my own rule?
Now that the Internet is saturated with timelapse and drone videos, one of the next big frontiers may be combining the two. Timelapse photographer Artem Pryadko shows what's possible in the gorgeous 2-minute "DroneLapse" above.
For years, airline pilots have reported seeing unusual lightning phenomenon that we don't get to witness from the ground. Luckily for us, astronauts on the International Space Station have a perfect vantage point, and one of them did capture "blue lightning" while orbiting the Earth.
If you enjoy seeing experimental photo projects and unique homemade cameras, check out this "Straw Camera." It was created by filling a wooden box with 32,000 drinking straws for light to pass through.
It seems that Canon will be breaking with tradition for an upcoming camera by releasing an entry-level model number that's not a multiple of 10. A not-yet-announced Canon "77D" has appeared in leaked photos and specs.
A small study out of Europe is confirming what many of us probably knew intuitively already: while plenty of people love taking their own selfies, most people have no interest in looking at anybody else's.
An iPhone cannot compare to a $30,000 100MP Hasselblad camera. It's like comparing a Chevy Nova to a Bugatti Veyron. But there is a way to make this comparison "fair," and that's what Usman, the lead photographer at Sonder Creative, did in this intriguing comparison video.
“Street photography is dead”, declare forum threads and thinkpieces far and wide. The Internet and phone cameras have watered the quality down. The uniformity of the modern world means nothing is interesting anymore. Privacy and security issues make it immoral and dangerous. From a lot of angles, it seems, the photographic discipline I love is under attack.
Roger Cicala—the founder of Lens Rentals and one of the most entertaining and informative voices in the world of optical testing—has some news for you: zoom lenses are never as good as primes, and they vary so much from copy to copy that you should probably never trust a zoom lens review.
I’m always searching for interesting personal projects—ideas that are worth the effort and time it takes to make it visible.
Here's a neat little animation from Harman Technologt, the folks behind the Ilford brand of film, that breaks down exactly how a basic film photography SLR (single lens reflex) camera works.
It's time to give some long-overdue love to two cheap films in price, but by no means in quality. It can be tempting to go for the expensive films when you're out buying rolls of 35mm, but let's not forget about the bottom of the shelf.
Yongnuo has been making decent Canon knockoffs for a while now, so when it was discovered that an 85mm f/1.8 Canon clone was in the works, we got excited. Now, we get to find out if the Yongnuo, at half the price of its Canon counterpart, can keep up.
I had a few hours to kill before work one morning, so I decided to head down to a public garden a few miles from my house and take some pictures.
DJI has announced the winning photos of its 2016 SkyPixel Photo Contest, which honors the best aerial and drone photos captured around the world using DJI camera drone equipment. The grand prize winner this year is the photo above, titled "Fishermen close the net" by Ge Zheng.
Moving down the aisles that are carved between each row of seats, the line slowly edges on. A choir of no more than three people -- woman and two men -- expel their voices gently and slowly, serenading the churchgoers as they inch forward toward the pulpit where they receive their bread and wine.
Hungarian fine art photographer Balint Alovits recently completed a new project titled "The Time Machine." It's a collection of photos showing the Bauhaus and Art Deco staircases found in buildings around Budapest.
Pixlplay is a new hardware and software combo that transforms your smartphone into a special camera designed for kids.
Buying a car is a stressful, time-consuming task for the average American. So when I was asked to create imagery that shows the fun, functionality and ease of purchasing a car in the digital age by Edmunds, it was a tall order to say the least.
Apple's next top-of-the-line iPhone may cost over $1,000 -- enough to buy two entry level DSLR kits with a chunk of change to spare.
It's often said that a camera adds 10 pounds to a person being photographed. SciShow made this 2-minute video exploring reasons why cameras play tricks on our eyes when it comes to apparent weight.
How much of an impact does light pollution have on how we see the night sky? Photographer Sriram Murali has created a new video that aims to show us the answer.
Episode 149 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
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Featured: Parachūt co-founder Melissa Niu
How many times have you rolled your eyes at those "zoom... enhance... zoom in closer... I SAID ENHANCE!" scenes on television shows? Well, Google is attempting to unroll your eyes with a pair of neural networks that can intelligently "enhance" images using a source image that is just 64 pixels.
Vincent Moschetti of One Year with Film Only has developed a fun little "tool" that will help film beginners find their perfect 35mm match. It's called "Film Dating," and it's basically a 5-step questionnaire that tries to narrow down the qualities you like in a film stock and suggest the best option for you.
The world of iPhone lenses is heating up, and Moment doesn't want to be left behind. The company—known for its high quality smartphone lenses—just launched a Kickstarter to fund a new wide-angle lens, a slim mounting case, and a battery case that features a two-stage shutter button.
Improved optics, improved stabilization, improved autofocus, there's not much that isn't improved about the new Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS II. Maybe that's why Kaiman Wong calls it "Canon's best lens" in his latest gear review.
Former White House photographer Pete Souza has been making headlines lately, but not the way he usually does. Souza, it seems, is using his old Obama photo archives to comment on, mock, and otherwise troll the new Trump Administration.
There are a lot more music photographers than there are music photography jobs — that’s just how it is in this corner of the industry. It's a port of entry for many hobbyist photographers, and the result is saturation of the market. A lot of budding photographers are willing to work for free, making the gigs that are out there even tougher to get.
Need a home studio for some product photography? COOPH has some great ideas for you. In this inspirational little video, the magazine shows you how to build a DIY photography studio at home using mostly household items.
