A Look at What Top Cloud Storage Services Say About Your Photo Rights

In the age of digital photography, many of us turn to online cloud solutions to help us backup our precious moments. However, the question that many of us want to know is what permissions a perspective service has with our content. With a form of hysteria sweeping the Web, we have decided to take a look at the industry’s top storage solutions and what their terms of service say about the files you upload. By using any of these solutions, you are automatically accepting their terms.

Yongnuo to Launch Thrifty Nikon 50mm and 35mm Prime Lenses Soon

Last year we reported that Yongnuo is planning to expand its third party lens lineup to include Nikon lenses by the end of 2015. If you've been eagerly waiting to get your hands on a cheap (and possibly look-alike) Nikon lens, your wait will soon be over. The company is planning to launch 50mm and 35mm lenses for Nikon cameras in the coming months.

From the Streets to the Gym: Photographing ex-Gang Members Lifting Weights

Ever since I photographed basketball in Rwanda, I have been fascinated and almost obsessed with ways sport and fitness can improve culture and society. In particular, my fascination has revolved around impoverished regions. Last June, in Rwanda, where genocide, poverty, and disease devastated the small country and, a few months ago, in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester.

A Photographic Journey with the Legendary Canon EF 1200mm Lens

Someone, somewhere, recently decided to bid a fond farewell to one of the most legendary telephoto lenses ever made, the Canon EF 1200mm f/5.6 L USM. Now that it is at the B&H SuperStore, a group of photographers from B&H were given the opportunity to take this optical giant out for a unique shooting experience.

Aerial Photographs of London Glowing at Night

After photographing a number of US cities at night through the open door of a helicopter, photographer Vincent Laforet has taken his Air project across the pond to shoot aerial shots of European cities. His first stop: London.

Adobe Calling It Quits on Photoshop Touch

After a three year run, Adobe is retiring Photoshop Touch, its current horse in the mobile photo editing race. The company announced today that the iOS and Android app will be removed from app stores on May 28th. The software will still be usable on your device if you've downloaded it already, of course, but there will be no further updates.

Photographer Carter Warden Shares How He Got His Flickr Photos into National Geographic

Carter Warden is a photographer very similar to the rest of us; he captures the world with a lens to his eye because it is a hobby that brings him joy. However, Warden had a bit of a surprise recently when he discovered that National Geographic was interested in paying for and publishing two of his underwater photographs.

To learn more about this experience, we interviewed Warden to learn where he began, how National Geographic has affected his life, and where his plans for the future lay.

Adobe Sneak Peek: Retouching a Giant 50MP Photo in Prototype Mobile Software

Adobe wants to be the 800 pound gorilla of mobile photo editing. Today the company released the 2-minute sneak peek video above showing off some mobile retouching features its currently developing. In the clip, Photoshop product manager Bryan O'Neil Hughes shows how effortlessly photographers will be able to edit 50.3 megapixel Canon 5DS photos in the app.

Bundle: A Smart App That Groups and Backs Up Your Best Mobile Snaps

There are a great number of storage options out there for your photographs, but a new app called Bundle believes they can bring something to the table that others cannot. Using advanced machine learning algorithms, the service helps to easily arrange your images into ‘bundles’ and then upload them to the cloud for safe backup from both Android and iOS devices.

GekkoPod Camera Mount Uses Flexible Legs to Latch Onto Anything

Zuckerim Inc. has launched a Kickstarted campaign to fund their new product, the GekkoPod. Modeling its design off of gekko feet, the GekkoPod aims to be a flexible phone and camera mount for all of your favorite devices. Similar to JOBY’s GorillaPod, the GekkoPod serves as a nifty little solution for photographers on the move. However, Zuckerim’s product may have a few advantages over the competition.

Shooting Son Doong in 360°

As me and my team left for Vietnam this January, we had a goal: to make an interactive reportage about the world’s largest cave for National Geographic. This included several things no one had ever attempted before: lighting up and capturing the largest caverns that exist on this Earth. In 360 degrees.

What could go wrong, right?

High School Forces Student to Remove Online Photos Under Threat of Suspension

Imagine assembling a portfolio of over 4,000 photographs and then being forced to make it disappear or face life-altering consequences; that's the situation sophomore Anthony Mazur is currently facing at Flower Mound High School in his Texas hometown. After discovering the love of sports photography, the Lewisville Independent School District is now claiming that Anthony’s photographs are theirs and that he has no right to use them.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Be Inspired by Your Photos

I think, as an industry, photographers talk about inspiration a lot. We are either trying to find it, discover it or attempting to evoke it. I’ve recently found inspiration in the last place I would expect it: in my own work. More than the work, actually, the inspiration is from the subjects. And the inspiration that affected me has nothing to do with photography. Over the last two years, I’ve stumbled into photographing more athletes and fitness enthusiasts, and it has, in great part, inspired me to take better care of myself.

Lumy Arrives on Apple Watch to Put Golden Hour Reminders On Your Wrist

Last September, we featured Lumy, an elegant iPhone app that's designed to help photographers track golden hour and other times of the day with ideal natural light. Today, the company released an update that brings the app to the new Apple Watch, allowing photographers to be reminded of certain lighting conditions with notifications on their wrist.

Achieving Black Backgrounds in Macro Photos

One of the most important aspects of fine art macro photography is capturing a non-distracting background so your subject stands out. I tend to like clean and colorful backgrounds, but there are situations where dark backgrounds may be desirable. This article will showcase one method of how to capture black backgrounds in macro photography. We’ll take a look at using flash falloff.

How To Protect Your Rights As a Photographer in the Modern World

In today’s society, it seems that no knowledge is more prudent for photographers to learn than the rights of themselves and their photographs. Here at PetaPixel, we wanted to create a comprehensive one-stop guide to your constitutional rights to capture the world around you and what you are permitted to do with those photos.

Filtered Photos Are 21% More Likely to Be Viewed

Popularized by the likes of Instagram, photo filters are divisive in the world of photography: some people love using and viewing them, while others hate what they've done to the medium. No matter which side of the aisle you find yourself on, one thing is clear: filters can have a big impact these days on how popular your shared images are.

And that effect has now been quantified: it turns out filtered photos are 21% more likely to be viewed online than their original, unprocessed shots.

DIY: How to Build a Wooden Overhead Camera Rig

Having an overhead camera rig can be useful for certain types of photography, including product shots, how-to images, and food photos. If you enjoy the challenge and joy of building your own equipment when you can, an overhead rig is another opportunity to do so. You can create one with some cheap materials and some basic workshop skills.

These Light-Paintings Are Straight-Out-Of-Phone

Photographer Keow Wee Loong of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, just got his hands on the new Huawei P8 smartphone, which has an innovative "Light Painting" feature that stacks multiple images to create single long-exposure photos.

To test the feature out, Loong shot a series of 6-7 minute exposures while light painting a model. These are the resulting unedited photos that were taken straight out of the smartphone.

Shooting on a Concert Stage in Front of 115,000 Fans

Vintage Trouble recently played their biggest gig in front of 115,000 people as the support act of AC/DCs “Rock or Bust” Tour 2015 at the Red Bull Ring in Zeltweg, Austria.

I had the once in a lifetime opportunity to join the band and work with them directly on stage. It was life changing for me and this experience once again showed me that being a concert photographer is the best job in the world!

44 Tips to Improve Your Photography

In this article, New York-based photographer Todd Vorenkamp shares 44 helpful tips you can use to improve the quality of your photography.

I’m So Over The ‘Overly-Retouched’ Argument

Ah, “photography”, you loosely defined word that everyone seems to have their own definition of. It’s amazing how polarizing you can be, isn’t it?

And one of your most polarizing aspects seems to be exactly how much retouching is considered reasonable. Purists claim no retouching of any kind is allowed (then they usually reference Ansel Adams, which is quite ironic considering the amount of dodging and burning he brought to the field), while others gladly accept Photoshop as a regular part of their photography tool-belt.

Famous Movies and TV Shows Recreated with Things Found at Home

We first featured the Cardboard Box Office project back in 2013 as parents Lilly and Leon Mackie were attracting quite a bit of attention for their creative recreations of Hollywood films with their baby boy, Orson. In the year-and-a-half since, the family has continued shooting low-budget photos, branched out into TV shows, begun doing commercial shoots with their concept, and been nominated for a Webby award.

Here's a second, deeper look at some of the work they've been creating as a family.

Olympus DSL-ARM Ad Pokes Fun at the Heaviness of DSLRs

Olympus has launched a bizarre and humorous new ad campaign to promote its mirrorless cameras at the expense of "heavy DSLRs." The ads feature a made up medical condition called DSL-ARM: "the affliction of having your arm stretched by using a heavy DSLR." Check out the 30-second ad above.

RealTimes is a New Cloud Storage Solution for Photo and Video

RealNetworks (remember them?) has announced a new cloud photo and video storage service, RealTimes, which provides an online backup for storing and organizing your favorite memories. The service will be available starting today for iOS, Android, Mac, and PC owners. As with most other services, RealTimes comes in a collection of different flavors depending on how much you are willing to pay.

7 Things I Learned from Shooting My First Wedding

My name is Oliver Ruffus, and recently I had the experience of shooting my very first wedding. I'd like to give back to the photography community by talking about the experience so that first-timers know what to be aware of. A lot of this will be redundant with other sources but hopefully something new will catch someone's eye.

A $6 IKEA Storage Box Makes for a Thrifty Collapsible Laptop Sun Shade

Need to block out some sunlight and glare from your laptop screen during outdoor photo shoots? Instead of dropping some cash on a pricey sun shade or hood, you could go a thriftier route and use an IKEA storage box instead. They cost just $6, are extremely light, and can be collapsed to not take up extra space in your bag.

Samsung NX1 Receives Firmware v1.3 with Improved Video Recording and Autofocus

Samsung’s flagship camera, the NX1, has had its firmware updated to version 1.3, bringing a collection of new enhancements and abilities. When introduced, the NX1 was poised against Sony’s A7s as both units brought to market 4K video recording. However, the Samsung NX1 was capable of recording UHD video without the need for an external recorder. Samsung’s latest enhancements focus on largely adding additional features for movie recording while also improving the still photography experience.

Dear Canon and Nikon, I Have Some Suggestions

Dear Canon and Nikon,

Last November, a spacecraft which had traveled 6.4 billion miles over ten years successfully landed on a comet. A COMET. This means we can now do ANYTHING, which is why I am writing you today with a list of suggestions, nay, improvements that I hope you will consider implementing in future DSLRs.

Here’s a Trick for Adjusting Past +/- 100 in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw

In this post, I'll share a trick I use to get some adjustments "beyond" +100 or -100 in Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw.

In the screenshot above, I like how most of the image looks -- the bird and the branches are well exposed, at least. But the blue sky got blown out to almost pure white. I already moved the Highlights slider down to -100 and it's still pretty white. I want to go past -100.