In an opinion piece I authored last weekend, I wrote: "Attracting and supporting professional shooters should be the priority." A commenter asked what I meant, since pros are not nearly as numerous as average photographers, so why do they matter more?
On Tuesday morning, a day before the R1 was announced, I was finalizing our coverage and looking over the materials Canon prepared. "The Canon EOS R1 is Ahead of the Game," a header in the press release promised. I scratched my head in confusion.
In this industry, perception matters -- a lot. Side by side, spec for spec, the Canon R1 is obviously improved versus the R3 but not to the degree that feels like an entirely different camera line.
In some of PetaPixel's images of the Canon EOS R1, you may have noticed that the logo wasn't visible. In some cases, that was due to electrical tape blocking it, which is common practice for pre-release hardware that may be seen in public. In other cases, it's because the "R1" logo actually fell off.
Since Nikon announced the Nikkor Z 35mm f/1.4 lens last week, I have been asking myself -- and Nikon -- a lot of questions about it. What about the 35mm S-Line lens on the roadmap? Is this new lens a sign of affordable f/1.4 lenses to come? What's Nikon's overall strategy?
For the past several weeks, photographers have been expressing a recurring sentiment online: the lack of supply for highly sought-after cameras like the Fujifilm X100VI, Ricoh GR III, or Pentax 17 is actually a strategy to "build hype." That's absurd.
Earlier this week, Nikon announced the Z6 III to considerable fanfare, and for good reason. It packs so many features into a $2,500 system that it manages to be a camera that is more than a compromise, even at that price. But the Z6 series has always been accompanied by the Z7 series yet this time, that wasn't the case.
Last week, Canon clarified that while the aperture control rings on its 24-105mm f/2.8L Z and 35mm f/1.4L VCM don't work in photo mode with its existing cameras, that will change with any camera announced after June 2024. That's really weird.
Another week, another public relations nightmare for Adobe. While not every controversy is Adobe's fault, each is understandable in the larger context: Adobe lost people's trust a while ago, and everything it does is under a microscope.
While preparing PetaPixel's coverage of Canon's impending Cinema EOS launch this week -- which included a corner of an unknown RF-mount cinema camera -- I realized just how little support the line has gotten since the launch of RF mount.
Electronic shutters no longer harm peak dynamic range performance in the way they once did, at least not with modern image sensor architecture. It's time to change course on an earlier story and see where I went wrong.
This week on The PetaPixel Podcast, Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake give their insight into camera press trips and whether or not they believe they allow for ethical evaluation of equipment.
In the days and weeks after the launch of the new iPad Pro from Apple, I noticed quite a bit of discourse responding to critical reception of the tablet that boils down to this: If iPadOS is so bad, why are so many creators using nothing else?
Following in the wake of Fujifilm's massive week of announcements, I've noticed a trend in the commentary online that basically boils down to this: "Why would I pay that much for an X-T5 lite?" These same people seem almost angry that the X-T50 appears to be selling well.
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has been in charge of Adobe for nearly two decades and in that time has rarely done interviews. However, he has been making the rounds lately to pump up AI's tires, including an interview published this week with The Verge's Nilay Patel for the publication's Decoder podcast. There, Narayen said some interesting, if not disconcerting, things.
I use my iPad Pro every day. I have used it every day since I picked up the first generation of the device years ago. There is certainly value in the iPad, but now you can now easily spend more on one than a full-fledged MacBook Pro.
There have been murmurs of an "EOS R1" camera for more than three years now -- since before Canon announced the EOS R3. The camera has been in development for at least five years and a lot has changed in that time.
For nearly as long as I've been taking pictures, I've loved photographing loons. They have offered countless hours of joy behind the lens, taught me lessons about photography and ecology, and helped me find weaknesses in the cameras I've spent my career evaluating.
This week, director Steven Soderbergh took part in an interview where he discussed the making of Presence, in which he revealed it was filmed on a Sony a9 III... which he gleefully referred to as a DSLR.
In one of her most famous quotes, the photographer Dorothea Lange said that "the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera."
"I have the perfect camera for you," my dad Tom told me when I said I needed one for my film photography class at Gonzaga University in 2008. "Take my Nikon FTN, it was always my favorite," he said. "But you can't keep it. I want it back."
Nikon's surprise acquisition of RED Digital Cinema this week represents a seismic shift in the cinema camera space. It also has far-reaching consequences not only for Nikon and RED but also for the rest of the digital camera industry, including Nikon's biggest competitors.
This past week, the PetaPixel team came across an opinion on a photography blog that we didn't think was fair. In short, it argued that all "small sensor cameras suck," which is just not true.
A child's online privacy has long been a concern for parents and guardians, and even law enforcement. It is a topic mired in debate, and it's also an ever-changing technological landscape thanks to new AI tools. Wading into the complicated situation is freelance writer Hannah Nwoko in a new piece for The Guardian.
In 2016, Adobe developed a technology that was best described as "Photoshop for audio." It would be able to change words in a voiceover simply by typing new words. Sounds scary, right? It was, and Adobe never released it -- for good reason.
Samsung often touts its ecosystem of devices as a boon to productivity, especially when you combine its smartphones, tablets, and laptops together. But how truly effective is it? And is it too intricate to be more adaptable?
As photographers flip their calendars over to 2024, waving goodbye to a year of great gear and hopefully even better photos, it is time for shutterbugs to usher in the New Year with top-notch -- and totally realistic -- New Year's resolutions.
After wrapping our awards, PetaPixel's staff turned its attention to another annual project, "Bold Camera Predictions." The 2024 edition arrives later this week with the help of a special guest, but ongoing internal discussions birthed the camera of my dreams, a Sony RX1R II replacement.
Much of the focus on the potential hazards of generative AI technology has understandably been on how it impacts artists and copyright ownership, and how it could affect people's jobs and wages. New research shows that the dangers of generative AI go much further and may be catastrophic for the environment.
Sony's new a9 III is the first full-frame interchangeable lens mirrorless (ILC) camera to use a global shutter, which unlocks some serious performance like 120 frames per second shooting. It doesn't however, have support for the latest CFexpress specification.