Planning is key to capturing the best Milky Way images. Unlike other types of photography, shooting our galaxy requires you to consider many astronomical factors, like the sunset, the moon phase, and the Milky Way’s location in the sky.
It almost sounds like a cliché at this point to say it, but 2020 wasn't easy for anyone and the wedding industry was hit particularly hard depending on where in the world you were.
Crash! I tentatively turn my body in the direction of the sound already aware of its cause. There, a few feet away in the rocks, lay one of my cameras, its lens akimbo.
DPReview just released its annual camera industry predictions video where Chris and Jordan discuss what they think will come from the leading manufacturers. I think that, for the most part, they're right on the nose.
Recently, we had a private Facebook group member ask what others thought about buying a used digital camera. The response was around 70% for and 30% against.
This was the best year of our lives.
In 2018 with some trepidation I bought my first mirrorless camera, a Nikon Z7. It wasn’t because I thought it was better than the DSLR I had been using but because my old muscles were spasming with the weight of the camera I was using and I hoped that a package a pound lighter would help me keep on working.
When I look back on 2020 in 5 or 10 years, I don't think I'll remember it as the year when a pandemic brought the photo industry to an economic standstill. I don't think I'll remember the CIPA numbers, or the R5 overheating debacle, or any of the virtual product launches. I'll remember 2020 as a year that helped us rediscovered the importance of photography.
Before I picked up a camera and discovered the potential for documentation, I had (still have) a first love: being a bass player. For those not in the know, the bass is the instrument that isn’t the guitar, isn’t the drum kit, and isn’t the vocals.
The Texas Monthly has published a story highlighting an issue many photographers in the state are struggling with: being forced to choose between making money and putting themselves in harm's way.
Recently, the more I study my photographs, the more I feel that bokeh is cheating me out of a more substantial image. I really like photographs with a lot of visual complexity -- well presented, not chaotic, but a clear arrangement of multiple elements.
I never set out to make this book nor did I have a plan for the images as I was making them. The photos were a way for me to process what was happening in front of me. This story is about my grandparents, it's about loss, and it's about dementia.
With all the attention AI Photo editing software has been getting lately, specifically Skylum's Luminar AI, I felt compelled recently to share my own thoughts on the software and what I believe it means for the photography industry as a whole.
As more people gain access to the tools to manipulate images – and as those tools become more accessible – a new study says that the public's trust in the photos they see online has been significantly harmed.
It happens to the best of us... and in 2020 it happens all the time: creative block. Whether it's a lack of inspiration, a lack of motivation, a lack of free time, or some combination of all three, we've all hit that wall where it feels like every one of our ideas is stale, everyone else is better or more prolific than us, and there's no real reason to keep trying.
Today Adobe publicly announced native support for Apple Silicon, which means you won't have to emulate with Rosetta 2 to edit photos if you have a new M1-equipped Mac. But is there a noticeable improvement over emulation, or even over Intel-based machines? After testing, we have some answers.
AI is the #1 buzzword in the digital photography world. Skylum, which has ridden the AI photo editing craze better than any company, is about to release Luminar AI. ON1 now offers ON1 Portrait AI. DxO announced DxO DeepPRIME, which it describes as “an artificial intelligence technology dedicated to editing photos in RAW format.”
One of the best ways to broaden your horizons and inject a little inspiration into your photography is to explore subjects outside the world of photography. To study painting or take a course in graphic design, for example. But I recently discovered a fount of photographic inspiration in an unusual place: a neuroscience lab.
Just the other day, a tall metal “monolith” was discovered in the Utah desert. From what I have learned, this tower of shiny metal was placed in a very out-of-the-way location sometime in 2016 (based on its sudden appearance in Google Earth images in that time frame.) In the ensuing week, this object has created quite a public stir and generated even more theories about its origin.
I first came to the hospital back in June, having decided that the stories and experiences of the front line staff shouldn’t be forgotten. We’d all seen inside the Italian hospitals, but when the virus hit the UK, there was nothing coming out of the UK, so I made it my mission to gain access and document the life and death struggles going on behind closed doors.
When the mirrorless race began in earnest at the end of 2018, nobody knew who would come out on top. Three years and more than 10 full-frame mirrorless camera bodies later, the answer is obvious: Canon is winning big, and they've done it by going "all in" on the RF Mount.
Sony recently published multiple promotional videos for its latest sensors aimed at the industrial space, and while it's unlikely all of the features shown have consumer applications, some might find their way to consumer cameras.
Let me ask you a question. Is this photo real or fake? This might be a difficult question because the answer depends on what you define as real or fake.
The ability for individual photographers to have any kind of cultural impact feels diminished and diluted when you consider just how many are working towards the goal of producing meaningful work.
Late last week, Apple unveiled its most consequential product in at least a decade. 10 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days after Steve Jobs took the stage to unveil the first iPad, Tim Cook announced the release of three new Macs powered by Apple's own M1 system on a chip (SOC)... changing the industry forever.
Instead of giving users an edit button, Twitter instead today rolled out a new feature called Fleets. Fleets are a knockoff of Instagram Stories, which are of course a knockoff of Snapchat Stories. Time is a flat circle.
The New York Daily News recently published an opinion piece by a writer named Jean Son titled “When your photograph harms me: New York should look to curb unconsensual photography of women” and I would like to address it here.
I recently watched a video on YouTube by the very popular landscape photographer Thomas Heaton. The video was titled "AI editing will ruin photography as we know it" where Thomas discusses a new photo editing program soon to be released by Skylum: Luminar AI.
Things had been comfortable for me. Growing up in the US and then moving to Beijing during my late twenties, I was used to big changes in life. No matter the circumstances, I found my solace in art.
For photographers, AI photo editing is no longer a fringe topic for ML researchers or a gimmick employed by smartphone apps. With the impending release of Skylum's Luminar AI and Adobe calling the latest build of Photoshop "the world’s most advanced AI application for creatives," it's time for the community to reckon with an important question: What does this mean for photography, photo editing, and creativity at large?
The Leica Q2 Monochrom is really good. I liked using it, I think it takes great photos, and I think people who buy it will be incredibly happy. It's just not the M10 Monochrom, and I need to stop expecting it to be.
For those paying attention, the HDR video landscape is incredibly convoluted. But before we get into that, it's important to recognize that HDR video is not the same as HDR photography, and it certainly is not related to the over-sharpened, oversaturated images popular five to ten years ago.
Since the Pro Max marks the first time in a while that Apple changed the size of its camera sensor, PetaPixel spoke to two Apple executives who outlined the company's vision and design philosophy behind camera development.
Dear camera manufacturers, I am deeply annoyed that my phone often takes better pictures than my DSLR (or any mirrorless) straight out of the camera.
When I was young, I had a vivid imagination but no real inclination towards art and creativity. I distinctly remember having trouble keeping my crayons within the lines of any coloring book I attempted. Fast forward to today and I’m 35 and have been a full-time professional photographer for seven years and a shooter for 13 years.
Many of you, like myself, have gone through the journey of putting yourself out there as a creative. It’s a part of the territory that goes into showing people your work: whether that’s having an Instagram profile and networking, or opening up a YouTube channel. Some of us may go even further and begin teaching and becoming a person that others go to for information about our craft.
An anxiety-ridden nation trepidatiously waits as November 3rd and the 59th presidential election rapidly approaches. And with so many absentee ballots already dropped off in ballot boxes or mailed — not to mention wild stories of hours-long waits for eager early voters — early voting data suggests that voter participation in this election is set to make history.
Hello photography fans. Today I am going to pit the Ricoh GR III—the reigning champ of street photography—against the new iPhone 12. I want to see if the new iPhone will be able to replace, at least to a certain extent, your camera and if it still makes sense to buy a compact camera if the street photography is your main genre.
Audience: a broad term, of course. Evokes all kinds of responses. Since this is a photoblog I am referencing the audience that sees our work. In this very odd and terrible of times, I find that having no audience for my photographs is very difficult.
Photographer Pye Jirsa of SLR Lounge recently put together a video that every budding wedding photographer should watch. It's basically his version of "7 things I wish I'd known when I first started out as a wedding photographer," and it answers some of the most common questions (and dispels some common myths) about this popular genre.
I love looking in detail at another photographer’s work. To immerse yourself in someone else’s creativity—to see what their ideas spark inside of you, what excites you, what makes you sit up and think 'Wow, that’s really cool!'—that’s all great fuel for your own photography.
I've always tried to create visual content with the highest possible quality and resolution, paying a lot of attention to detail and composition. In the beginning of my career that meant using large and medium formats, but lately, one of my favorite cameras is quite the opposite.
Face tuning apps have thrived for years in the mobile phone ecosystem, allowing users to make subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) changes to their appearance for a selfie-obsessed generation.
The iPhone 12 Pro was just announced, but today we are getting to see a few of the very first portraits shot on the latest from Apple. In a PetaPixel exclusive, this series by photographer Aundre Larrow captures friends and family that have spent most of 2020 quarantined together.
American people standing up to the Soviets! America needs Nixon! These were some of the tag lines attached to this photo during Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1960. But behind every picture, there is a story. And this is one of those photos where the story is just as good as the picture.
I first became interested in storms when I was a boy growing up in Texas, the only state in the US that experiences tornadoes, hurricane and blizzards on a regular basis. I built a scale model of a supercell thunderstorm inside a clear plexiglass box using cotton and a light bulb for lightning, and won first place in the weather category at our local science fair. Then I got permission from my mother to climb onto our roof and build a weather station.
If you’re a local business owner, you know that your number-one priority, day-in and day-out, is marketing your services and finding new customers. And in this digital age, the available options for marketing are surprisingly limited.
Do you want to switch from Canon to Sony? From Sony to Nikon? From Nikon to Panasonic? From Panasonic to Fujifilm? Well, I’m going to ask you to stop, take a deep breath, and consider doing the most boring thing: absolutely nothing. Instead of switching camera brands, you should probably stick with what you have.
A couple of years ago I was shooting Halloween yard scenes in a street photography kind of way when I realized that I wasn't really satisfied with what I was getting. Over the last two decades, Halloween has been transformed into a major U.S. holiday focused on lavish front yard displays that often look boringly the same down street after street.
It’s heavy, expensive, does not have image stabilization, and is impractical for most photographers. It also happens to be one of the best zoom lenses ever made.
