The development of curved image sensors may be the biggest advance in camera technology in decades, allowing for simpler, flatter lenses with larger apertures as well as dramatically better image quality. Canon, Nikon, and Sony are working on the technology, and now Microsoft Research has developed a sensor with three times more curvature than previously achieved.
Episode 181 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
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Featured: Commercial and documentary photographer, Sam Comen
There have been some legal rumblings in the camera industry over the past couple of months. It's an ongoing patent dispute between Nikon and two other companies involved in camera technologies: Carl Zeiss and ASML. The latest news is that the United States has opened an official patent infringement investigation into Nikon's products.
Oliphant Backdrops are iconic backdrops used in portrait photography. You've probably seen these backdrops in photos by Annie Leibovitz and many other famous photographers. Art always comes with a price and rightfully so, and the biggest question many people ask is how much the backdrops cost.
Pinhole photography is still alive and well in the digital age, and this new pinhole lens from Thingyfy is the first to offer a variable aperture. Available through their Kickstarter campaign at about $50, the lens is a relatively cheap way to experiment with camera obscura.
"Giants" is a beautiful set of black-and-white underwater photos by Australian photographer Jem Cresswell that offers an intimate look at the beauty of humpback whales.
Retouching isn’t just for portrait photography — it can make a huge difference when you want to clean up distractions from an image. This video from Phlearn will teach you in 30 minutes how to utilise various Photoshop tools to remove objects and blemishes from your environmental photos.
Emmy- and Grammy-award winning comedian Kathy Griffin and photographer Tyler Shields are in hot water this week due to a photo shoot showing Griffin holding a bloodied Donald Trump mask that's made to look like the decapitated head of the president. The photo has sparked outrage and even a public response from Trump himself.
Adjusting colors of specific elements in a photograph can be used to bring harmony to an image or to add creative flair. Here’s a 5-minute video that shows how to match colors in Photoshop.
Nikon has just unveiled 3 new wide-angle lenses: the AF-S NIKKOR 28mm f/1.4E ED, AF-P DX NIKKOR 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR, and AF-S Fisheye NIKKOR 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED. The 10-20mm is a budget-friendly wide-angle zoom for DX-format cameras, and the 8-15mm is Nikon's first ever fisheye zoom lens.
Halide is a new ‘premium camera for your phone’ that provides advanced control over camera settings along with a gesture-based interface that aims to become muscle memory, like the dials of a camera.
We've shared some impressive work by photo colorizers who use Photoshop skills and hard work to add realistic colors into historical monochrome photos. If you're wondering how its done, check out this 7-minute video by Vox that discusses the process. (Note: there's a bit of strong language.)
Android co-founder Andy Rubin and his new startup company, Essential Products, just launched its first product: a powerful smartphone called the Essential Phone. Its photo-related features include dual 13MP cameras, 4K video, and a dedicated monochrome sensor for "true" black-and-white photography.
There’s a new cringeworthy video making the rounds that shows what can happen when a wedding guest’s attempt at capturing the perfect photo goes very, very wrong.
The Sony a9 is supposed to be a game changer in the world of sports photography, but now a new potential issue is threatening to disrupt those ambitions: photographers are reporting that the camera's overheating indicator is turning on after relatively short periods of use in ordinary conditions.
Starting in 2011, photographer Stan Chang and his family embarked on a 3-year journey through 30 European countries. Chang has since taken the photos captured during this trip of a lifetime and turned them into gorgeous time-lapses showing the beauty of Europe.
Nikon is reportedly gearing up to launch a number of new products this week, and one of them is said to be a new Nikkor 28mm f/1.4 lens.
The "dolly zoom," also known as the "Hitchcock zoom" or "Vertigo effect," is a filmmaking technique that involves changing a zoom lens' angle of view while moving the camera toward or away from a subject to keep their relative size in the frame the same. Here's a 4-minute video by Now You See It that explains this technique and how (and why) it's used.
Google received praise from photographers last year when it made its $150 Nik Collection of popular photo editing software 100% free. But alas, all good things come to an end: Google has quietly announced that it will be abandoning the Nik Collection from here on out.
Photons to Photos has updated its Photographic Dynamic Range versus ISO Setting test database with results from the new Sony a9, and it found that the a9 holds its own against the flagship Nikon D5 and Canon 1D X Mark II DSLRs.
For the past few years, Chicago-based photographer Angie McMonigal has been working on a project titled Urban Quilt. Her goal is to capture her city's buildings as a patchwork of colors, textures, and materials.
Let's say you spent pretty much all of your camera budget on a shiny new $1,400 Sony a6500 mirrorless camera, yet you want a super telephoto lens for getting way up close to subjects. Here's a thrifty option you could consider: buy a cheapo 500mm lens, Sony adapter, and 2x teleconverter for just $80.
Every 53 days, NASA's Juno spacecraft flies close to Jupiter and travels from the giant gas planet's north pole to and past its south pole, shooting photos along the way. The eye-opening 2-minute video above was created using a set of these still photos.
If you're a Canon photographer and you've been longing for a full frame DSLR with an articulating LCD screen, your wait will soon be over. The upcoming Canon 6D Mark II will reportedly be the company's first camera of that category to offer the flexible display.
Bristol, UK-based Sam Hobson is a wildlife photographer with a difference from others: he primarily shoots wildlife that he can find in and around cities: foxes, badgers, deer, toads, squirrels, herons, ravens, pigeons, goshawks, falcons, gulls and others.
Family homes provide a multitude of possible backgrounds and framing opportunities for wonderful photographs. But it’s easy to end up with cluttered-looking shots if you get the background wrong. Choosing your location carefully can make all the difference.
Episode 180 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast.
Download MP3 - Subscribe via iTunes, Google Play, email or RSS!
Featured: Photographer and filmmaker, Michael Shainblum
Sony is touting its new a9 camera as a sports camera with blazing fast autofocus and shooting speeds. If you weren't impressed with the camera tracking a pole vaulter at 20fps, check out the demo in the video above: the camera accurately keeps its focus locked on a basketball being tossed back and forth near it.
A new copyright protection service called Binded just launched this week. It's actually a rebrand of the company formerly known as Blockai, and the purpose remains the same: using the Bitcoin blockchain to protect photographers' copyrights.
Tanzania is one of the best places in the world to see nature and wildlife as it has been for thousands of years. The 947,303 square kilometer country holds some of the most famous national parks and nature reserves in the world with diverse landscapes and dense population of wildlife like the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater.