Report: GoPro Plans to Start Making Its Own Camera Drones Next Year

DJI better watch out, because the camera that is commonly attached to its most popular line of Drones might soon have a drone of its very own. That's right, we're talking about GoPro, and the Wall Street Journal claims the company is planning to release its own line of drones next year.

Sony Officially Announces the a7II in the US! Will Ship in Time for Christmas

The Sony a7II and its impressive 5-axis in-body stabilization has generated a ton of well-deserved buzz since it was officially announced. There's only one problem: it wasn't officially announced in the US yet.

The main announcement was made in Japan and no US release date and pricing has been available... until today! The news just dropped, and American Sony fans can enjoy Thanksgiving tomorrow knowing they can have the a7II in time for Christmas.

This Sports Photographer Missed an Incredible Catch and Got Fired… Except He Didn’t… and He Didn’t

"I got fired on Twitter last night." That's how NJ.com photographer Andrew Mills starts his side of a story that went viral on social media two days ago. Thanks to a photo that seems to show Mills missing what might have been one of the greatest photos of his career, social media tagged him with the tongue in cheek caption "this guy used to be a sports photographer."

Except that he did get the shot, or at least a shot... and the shot he got is a testament to how good of a sports photographer he really is.

Canon Patents a Body Cap that Cleans the Contacts on Your Lens Mount

Here's a cool patent that gives new purpose to a camera accessory you don't hear talked about much: the body cap. Chances are you don't give your camera's body cap much thought, but the body cap Canon just patented would serve a dual purpose by not just keeping your sensor protected, but also cleaning the contacts on your lens mount in the process.

Power Hungry: Poignant Photos Compare the Meals of the Rich and Poor Throughout History

Approximately 40% of food is thrown out in America each year. This amounts to roughly $165 billion (with a ‘b’) worth of food, which could feed half of the 50 million Americans who struggle to put food on the table.

It’s tough statistics like these that inspired photographer Henry Hargreaves and his friend and food stylist Caitlin Levin to create the series Power Hungry: a poignant set of photos that illustrates the inequality between the rich and the poor by comparing what each class's meals have looked like throughout history.

The Vela One is 100x Faster than Conventional Strobes, Can Stop a Bullet In Its Tracks

High speed photography is all about fast-flash; the faster your flash, the faster the instant you can adequately freeze on a digital sensor. Modern strobes are pretty good at this, with flash durations as fast as 1/20,000 of a second, but a Bristol-based company Vela Labs is about to take high-speed photography to unheard-of heights.

Introducing the Vela One, ‘the world’s first high speed LED flash' that boasts a flash speed starting at 1/2,000,000 second, or 500 nanoseconds.

Beautiful Photographs of Microscopic Plankton that Look Like Photos of Outer Space

When you look at the photographs in her series Into the Umbra, photographer Julia Bennett wants you to think you're looking at outer space. And then, just as your mind is struggling to expand to encompass the far reaches of the solar system where the image was captured, that's when she wants you to realize that you're looking at something you could find in any old liter of Sea Water.

Her images weren't captured with a telescope peering into the heavens, but a microscope that peers into the micro worlds inside droplets of seawater.

Reuters Layoffs Continue as the Company Continues to Rework Its Photography Department

In August of 2013, we shared the news that Thomson Reuters had dropped all of its freelance sports photographers in North America in favor of a deal they struck with USA Today Sports Images. But it appears that sad move was only the beginning.

Earlier this week, more members of the photography staff at Thomson Reuters were let go in the multi-national media company’s ongoing effort to downsize and focus its workforce, especially in the imaging department.

Hasselblad Unveils the Stellar II: A Luxury Item ‘Not Intended to Be Judged Against Other Cameras’

Minutes ago, Hasselblad officially unveiled the Stellar II, another Sony rebrand that will likely draw some ridicule from the photo community -- except that Hassy has changed their approach a bit with this camera.

Right in the first line of the press release, they're making one thing clear: this camera is "not intended to be judged against other cameras," but is, "rather, conceived and crafted exclusively for Aficionados, Collectors and Connoisseurs."

Using Printed Video Game Screenshots to Creatively Juxtapose 1790s and Modern Day Paris

Then & Now style photo series are anything but uncommon, but what if the "then" you want to compare to "now" happened before the invention of photography? You would think that would be a deal-breaker, but one computer graphics manager and gaming enthusiast found a way around this issue.

For his 'Then & Now' series, Damien Hypolite printed out screenshots from the game Assassin's Creed Unity -- which is based during the French Revolution -- and then went around holding them up against modern-day Paris.

Flickr Taking Heat from CC Photographers for Selling Their Work as Wall Art Without Compensation

Flickr -- a site that sometimes seems like the punching bag of the photo community -- is again taking heat from photographers, this time over their recent announcement that people can select from millions of Creative Commons-licensed photographs to buy as wall art.

The photos are being sold for profit, but none of that profit will go to the photographers who took the shots, and some of these photographers are speaking up about what they see as an injustice.

Impressive Product Photograph Captured with a Smartphone, a Lamp, and a Few Flashlights

Inspired by Alex Koloskov's popular iPhone vs. Hasselblad whisky glass video, photographer Tilo Gockel decided to give cheap gear professional product photography a try of his own -- and he knocked it out of the park.

Using just an old iPhone 4s, an IKEA lamp, two LED flashlights, and a few Translumfoil cards (you can use parchment), he captured the photograph you see above.

Creative Underexposure with Nikon DSLRs

With the release of the D750, much has been made of its ability to recover shadow detail. Given the range of talents that the D750 has it is strange that this has been singled out given that the D800 and D4, released in 2012, outperform it in this regard, and the cheaper D600 (also from 2012) is able to match it at base ISO. And the old guard, the D700, D3 and D3s, weren’t too shabby at recovery either!

With news of incredible shadow recovery typically there comes two responses: the hyperbolic “That’s amazing! I want one NOW!” and the cynical “you wouldn’t need shadow recovery if you exposed right.” There is, of course that third response: ‘I wish the 5D MkIII could do that’ but I won’t get into that here…

Dixie Dixon Tells the Nightmarish (Now Funny) Story Behind One of Her First Huge Production Shoots

It's easy to assume the successful photographers in the industry have always had it figured out. Commercial shoots fell in their laps and they took to the experience like they were born with a Hasselblad in their hands. But that, of course, is not always the case.

In the episode of Behind the Glass above, Nikon Ambassador Dixie Dixon tells the tale of one of her first major campaign shoots... and how it almost went terribly wrong.

Reports Confirm that the 5-Axis Stabilization on Sony’s a7II Works with All 3rd Party Glass

Just four days ago, Sony announced its a7II: the world’s first full-frame digital camera with 5-axis image stabilization build into the body. But as impressive as we know the image stabilization could be, no one was quite sure what glass said stabilization would work with.

The news, however, is all good. New reports are confirming that the a7II’s stabilization will work with all(!) 3rd party lenses.

Polish Photographer Shares Her Passion for Pooches with Extraordinary Puppy Portraiture

Alicja Zmyslowska is a Polish photographer with a passion and a gift for capturing puppies... lots and lots of puppies. From family portraits of pooches and their siblings to sports photos of dogs running through courses, she photographs anything and everything that has to do with man’s best friend, and manages to make her photos stand out from the plethora of dog imagery out there.

Rumor: Two 50MP Canon DSLRs in the Works, One With and One Without a Low Pass Filter

As 2014 draws to a close, the Canon rumor mill is beginning to buzz louder about some potential cameras that are supposedly in the works -- foremost among them the high-megapixel DSLR that we've been hearing about for over two years.

But according to the most recent rumors, we might not have one, but two new 50MP DSLRs to look forward to.

See Airflow on Camera in This Awesome Harvard Demonstration of Schlieren Optics

Schlieren flow visualization and photography is one of those things that is just too cool. Using an optical trick, it allows a camera to capture, "small changes in the index of refraction in air." In other words, it can see anything that affects airflow: heat, sound waves, or just plain old air currents themselves.

And the video above, uploaded at the beginning of this year by the Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations YouTube channel, is one of the most fascinating demonstrations of Schlieren optics we've ever seen.

Photographer Turns His Old Darkroom Enlarger Into a Large Format Camera

Photographer Chuck Baker is a self-proclaimed "camera and darkroom equipment hoarder" who can't bear to get rid of gear even when it no longer works. Having a large number of enlargers in his collection, Baker recently decided to upcycle one of them by turning it into a working camera.

The large format camera you see about is what resulted from the project.

Revisiting the Case of the Wedding Photographer Threatened with a $300,000 Lawsuit

A couple years ago, I read a story about a Washington wedding photographer that was threatened with a $300,000 lawsuit by an ex-client. The story then seemed to drop out of sight. Sometime thereafter, I decided to put on my investigative reporter mustache and do some sleuthing. Was the threat real? Did a lawsuit actually get filed? If so, what was the result?

When Pricing Your Photography, Focus on the Value of Your Images

Lately, I have been seeing lots of memes and writings for photographers that try to justify the rates we charge to potential clients who seemingly do not understand what they are paying for or what the value of our work really is... from Cost of Doing Business (CODB) calculators to detailed lists of lenses to tediously explaining how long it takes to set up a shoot and pack all the gear.

And to the layperson (or non-pro photographer) that may seem right, but I think that it misses the point totally. The point is that it is the value of the image that we are charging for. Not the amount of gear we own, and not how long it took to master an off camera flash.

Because no one, especially not your client, cares.

NASA Releases Spectacular New Realistic Color Image of Jupiter’s Moon Europa

Need a bit more awe and wonder in your life? Look no further than the newest image released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A high-res reprocessed color view of Jupiter's moon Europa as captured by the spacecraft Galileo in the late 1990s, the photo "shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution."

Inside the Warrior: Striking Portraits that Reveal the Masculine Side of Yoga

Thinking about your local Yoga studio doesn't usually conjure up images of masculinity. Yoga mats, yoga pants, yoga in general is seen as a female-dominated, or sometimes even female-only, practice. But as photographer Amy Goalen's project Inside the Warrior goes to show, that is definitely not always the case.

GoPro Survives 17 Months Bouncing Around a Riverbed After Filming Its Final Moments

GoPros exist to take quite a beating... they are action cams after all. However, as much as GoPro might put its products through the wringer to test them and ensure they’re up for anything, it’s unlikely they expect one to survive what the one in the above video did.

The functioning camera managed to survive in a riverbed for 17 months! And not only did it survive, the footage of the camera’s final moments was still safe and sound on the memory card inside.

This is What Adobe’s Cloud-Based Version of Photoshop Looks (and Works) Like

Two months ago, we told you that Adobe and Google were hard at work bringing Photoshop to the browser. Essentially, this version would run off of a server, allowing you to use as weak of a machine as you like, since the program isn't relying at all on your computer's processing power.

Up till now, that's really all we knew, but after two months of testing Adobe has pulled back the veil and given us a sneak peek at what 'Streaming Photoshop' -- as the program is called -- actually looks like.

Dramatic Black-and-White Studio Portraits of Goats and Sheep… Seriously

Finish this sentence: "I want to take dramatic, black-and-white studio portraits of _____." If you're like most people, chances are good you named a person or group of people. If you're Kevin Horan, a man with 30 years experience as an editorial photographer in Chicago, you would have said "sheep and goats."

Remotely Control the Direction and Angle of Your Off-Camera Speedlights with the Panlight

There are times when having an extra hand while on a shoot would be a huge help, especially when you’re dealing with multiple lights that are mounted high up in a stand. Thankfully, a clever contraption is in the works that will rid you of these troubles, making it easier than ever to adjust your speedlights’ positioning on-the-fly whether or not you have an assistant nearby.

It’s called the Panlight and it’s essentially a remote-controlled pan and tilt head designed to be used specifically with speedlights and third party triggering systems.

Requiem of Ice: A Thought-Provoking, Visually Compelling Ode to a Disappearing Ice Cave

In a decade's time, the Sandy Glacier Caves -- thought to be the largest glacier cave system in the continental United States -- might disappear entirely. It was this startling discovery that led filmmaker Ben Canales and his team at Uncage the Soul onto the steep slopes of Mount Hood to film a visually breathtaking short film called Requiem of Ice.