A Casual Review of the Fujifilm X100T

For the last 21 days I have been in Japan putting Fujifilm's new X100T through its paces.

This review will not cover every technical aspect of the X100T, but rather how it feels to shoot with it every day and how it fits in with my workflow.

This Just In: Peter Lik’s Record-Breaking Photo Sale May Constitute Torture

(Newswire, December 13th, Las Vegas) -- A group of leading photographers, curators, and general taste arbiters has determined that Peter Lik's sale of a photograph may constitute torture under the Geneva conventions.

The photograph in question, an open edition of a mundane Southwestern landscape, sold recently for $6.5 million, the largest figure for a photograph in history.

ScanMyPhotos Can Scan Your Prints a Priority Mail Boxful at a Time

Have a ton of old prints lying around but not enough time or energy to scan them? Since 1990, Southern California-based ScanMyPhotos has helped customers scan over 250 million physical prints. As digitizing old family photos is catching on as a trend, the company's most popular service is something it pioneered: the USPS prepaid box deal.

It's a flat rate option for scanning large quantities of photos. Pack as many photos as you can into it, send it in, and receive digital versions of every photo.

Maha Kumbh Mela: The Largest Peaceful Gathering in the History of the World

In February 2013, Hindus from around the world made a pilgrimage of faith to bathe in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India. The event was called Maha Kumbh Mela, a particular festival held once every 144 years, and an estimated 100 million people visited the site over a period of days. It was likely the single largest peaceful gathering of people in the history of the world.

BPG is a New Image Format That Wants to Replace the JPEG with Equal Quality at Half the Size

JPEG is a remarkably resilient file format. Despite having many upstart formats attempt to dethrone it over the years -- including JPEG 2000 and Google's WebP -- the JPEG is still used by nearly 70% of websites and is holding strong in popularity.

Now there's a new competitor in the ring. It's called BPG (Better Portable Graphics), and it's a format designed and advocated by notable French programmer Fabrice Bellard (creator of FFmpeg and QEMU).

Stephen Colbert Transformed by Photo Shoot Into Characters from ‘The Hobbit’

The Colbert Report is coming to an end on TV, and The Hobbit trilogy will soon come to an end in theaters. Knowing that Stephen Colbert is a huge fan of JRR Tolkien (author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings), Entertainment Weekly invited Colbert to write a cover story about the movies and pose for a series of portraits as characters from the trilogy. He agreed.

Depict is a Giant and Gorgeous 4K Digital Frame That Does Photos Justice

Digital picture frames often steal attention away from the photos they display -- the quality and resolution on most displays don't always do photos justice and end up detracting from the viewing experience. Depict is a new frame that wants to revolutionize the experience of displaying and viewing art digitally.

It's a giant and beautifully made frame that can display high resolution photographs in 4K.

A Hyperlapse Tour of Toronto’s Rapidly Changing Skyline

Toronto-based time-lapse photographer Ryan Emond has released an impressive new video that takes you on an tour of the Toronto skyline, hyperlapse style. The project is titled, "Toronto Skyline Porn," and features gorgeous shots captured high overhead, with many of the shots seamlessly zooming into the following ones.

Touchscreen LCDs Coming to Nikon DSLRs Starting with the D5500 in January 2015

Canon and Nikon DSLRs have traditionally been neck and neck in terms of feature sets, but one thing that Canon has offered since the T4i in 2012 is a full-fledged touchscreen interface.

There's good news for Nikon shooters, though: the gap is set to close in the very near future. Nikon's new D5500 will reportedly be announced in January 2015, and the camera will feature a touchscreen LCD.

14 Things I Have Learned From Being a Photographer

I am not at the top. I’m not even skating the middle, but I have been doing this photography thing for a while, and there are some things I've learned along the way that I thought I would put out to the universe. Mainly because these things were bouncing around in my head and it’s nice to put things out there... so here they are.

PetaPixel Photography Gift Guide 2014

We're a bit late this year, but here's the latest edition of our holiday gift guide! Unlike other photography gift guides you might find this holiday season, ours is more lighthearted and geared more toward novelty gifts than serious gear.

The Beauty of Norwegian Landscapes

Last summer I visited Norway for the second time. I had been in Oslo once before, but that was many years ago. This time I wanted to experience the famous scenery while driving through the mountains with a camper.

My travels took me from Oslo to Geiranger, Dalsnibba, Trollstigen, Ålesund and Atlanterhavsveien. This was for sure one of my best journeys so far.

Photographer Asks Strangers to Pose for Portraits While Wearing His Tiger Suit

Photographer Adam Rabinowitz's Tiger Suit project is like Humans of New York crossed with Tigger from Winnie the Poo. Like HONY's Brandon Stanton, Rabinowitz photographs strangers on the street and jots down interesting blurbs from their conversation. There's one big difference in the projects, though: Rabinowitz's subjects must agree to put on his tiger suit.

I Discovered a Treasure Trove of Unpublished Rock and Roll Photographs

About 6 months ago, I put an ad on Craigslist trying to sell a 2x12 guitar cabinet. The next day I got a response from a nice guy named PJ who was interested and the transaction was soon under way.

While at my house to pick up the equipment, PJ noticed my Canon 7D and various other camera gear sitting on my desk. He then proceeded to tell me that he too was a photographer and that he used to take a lot of photos of bands on the East Coast in the mid 70s early 80s.

How I Shot a Time-Lapse of a Large Thunderstorm Rolling Through Sydney

Shooting time-lapse is fun. Watching a big storm devour a city is fun. Doing both at the same time is 'super' fun.

Sydney has been getting hit with unusually big storms for this time of year over the past week. This past Sunday my girlfriend and I went out to shoot one of them. As it happened it was one of the bigger ones! In this post I will explain a few things about the capturing and editing, as well as thought processes behind certain editing decisions.

The Polluted Waters of NYC’s Gowanus Canal Turned into Colorful and Abstract Art

Peer into the Gowanus Canal in New York City, and you'll see what is widely recognized as one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States. The contamination is so bad that the canal has been designated a Superfund site.

When photographer Steven Hirsch looks, he sees something more: fine art. His project “Gowanus: Off The Water’s Surface" is a series of photographs that explore the abstract explosions of patterns and colors seen on the surface of the water -- sights reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock painting.

The Most Expensive Photo in the World, or the Best Marketing Stunt?

The airways and Internet tubes have been filled with news that Peter Lik has sold a black and white photo of Antelope Canyon for a record setting $6.5 million, raising eyebrows amongst many photographers. This tops the previous record holder, Andreas Gursky, by nearly $2.2m.

From Above: Astronaut Don Pettit on the Experience of Photographing Earth from Space

Check out this gorgeous short film in which NASA astronaut Don Pettit shares what it was like to photograph Earth from orbit in the International Space Station. During his time aboard the station, Pettit became one of the most prolific astronaut photographers in the history of space exploration -- one time he clogged up data transfers for three days with photos from a 30-minute shoot.

Graphing the Dominant Colors in Photos of Europe

A friend (Eric) and I were hanging out one Sunday and we decided to do something fun with EyeEm data. We obtained and then graphed the predominant photo colours for every photo uploaded or tagged in Europe. We then generated these pretty pie graphs for each country.

Bound by Law: A Comic Book That Will Teach You the Basics of US Copyright Law

Want to learn the basics of US copyright law without having to spend eons going through imageless websites and backbreaking textbooks? Check out Bound by Law. It's a comic book that translates abstract and confusing copyright laws into easy to understand "visual metaphors."

By the time you're through with the 72-page comic, you'll know quite a bit about the basics of copyright law, including fair use, infringement, and public domain.

Kenji Yamaguchi: The Tinkerer Who Builds Custom Gear for National Geographic Photographers

Here's a fascinating short video that offers a look into the workshop of Kenji Yamaguchi in the basement of National Geographic. He has worked there for 32 years after being sent by Nikon to train the original technician over 3 decades ago.

Anytime a National Geographic photographer needs some kind of custom gear, Yamaguchi sets to work and builds it on his camera part-laden workbench. His mission is simple: help the photographers accomplish their goals.