Educational

PetaPixel's editorials are in-depth stories, thought-pieces, and opinions on the photography industry led by the minds of our editorial team.

Learn the Science of Deep Focus and Hyperfocal Distance

Hyperfocal distance is a tool often used by certain genres of photography to render an entire scene in focus. It allows you to capture the foreground through to the background, keeping the whole image sharp. But how does it work? This 12-minute video by Filmmaker IQ looks at the science behind hyperfocal distance.

Torture Test: See the Moment a Canon DSLR Shutter Dies

DSLRs generally have life expectancies based on how many "actuations" (i.e. openings and closings) their shutters can handle before they die and need to be replaced. To see what happens when a DSLR "dies" in this way, ContinueCrushingTech decided to torture test a Canon 7D Mark II with non-stop shooting until the shutter fails.

Why Exercise Makes You a Better Photographer

I was nervous and excited. I had just left my 9 to 5 cubicle career and jumped head-first into full-time photography. Over the next 2 months, I would be traveling all over the world with a friend in order to build my portfolio. At this point, though, my sedentary lifestyle had caught up to me and I was about 25lbs overweight.

Schlieren Photography Lets Us See an Invisible World

Have you ever wondered what a gale-force sneeze would look like if you could see air currents, temperature gradients, and differences in pressure and composition of the air? Or, less disgustingly, the strike of a match? This fascinating 6-minute video demonstrates Schlieren photography, which makes the invisible visible.

This is How Smartphone Cameras Have Improved Over Time

I was curious about how resolution (megapixels), aperture sizes, and sensor sizes have improved on smartphones over time. With the advent of phones with two back cameras with different focal lengths, like the iPhone 7, LG G6 and ASUS ZenFone 3 Zoom, I also wanted to look at how the number of camera modules on a device has increased.

How the First Camera Phone Photo Was Shot in 1997

Believe it or not, there was a time when photo sharing was a lot slower than in the age of digital photography, smartphone cameras, Instagram, and Snapchat. In the mid-1900s, instantaneously capturing and sharing photos online was unheard of. Then in 1997, the first camera phone was born.

The Bright Flashes During NBA Games You May Never Have Noticed

Here's something you might not be able to "unsee" if you've never noticed it before: during an NBA basketball game, whenever there's some exciting action around the rim, there's a good chance you'll also see a bright flash of light illuminate your screen for a split second. These are the powerful strobes installed high overhead by photographers.

10 Sneaky Tricks Used in Food Photos

The foods you buy in the store and at restaurants are never as tasty as they look in advertising photos, but what many people might not know is that you probably wouldn't enjoy eating the foods seen in those pictures. The reason is because commercial food photographers use all kinds of non-edible products to cleverly make food look delicious in front of a lens. Here's a 9-minute video on 10 of those tricks.

Here’s a Checklist for Learning How to Retouch Photos Like a Pro

If you are a photographer or fledgling retoucher opening Photoshop for the first time, it is a daunting experience, to say the least. There is a wealth of knowledge, free and purchasable online, but how do you know what to search for if you don’t know what you don’t know?

How to Prep Your Photos for Print in Photoshop

If you have never printed your own work before, you might not know that some careful preparation is needed to make sure the colors in your print match what you see on your screen. This 20-minute video from photographer Michael Woloszynowicz will teach you how to print your images with confidence.

A Closer Look at the Dolly Zoom

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.

Photographing the ‘Great Migration’ in Tanzania

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.

My Visit to the Abandoned Radioactive City of Pripyat

Before you read the rest of the article, and it will be a long read, please allow me to share a few thoughts with you. Visiting the abandoned city of Pripyat and the disaster site of Chernobyl was an experience that I was looking forward to for a very long time.

How to Capture a Bold Wine Bottle Photo with a Single Speedlight

If you're interested in product photography, Dustin Dolby's channel workphlo is definitely worth a bookmark. Using minimal equipment, he's able to capture distinct looks like this makeup shot, and in this tutorial he'll show you how a single speedlight can produce a bold beautiful wine bottle photo that looks 100% pro.

A $16,000 Photo Scanner vs. a $500 Scanner

I recently had a few prints made from some medium format negatives. The prints are for a specific purpose so I wanted them to be of the highest quality possible, this meant taking them to a local specialist where the film was scanned with a $16,000+ Hasselblad Flextight X1. The Flextight is about the best quality scan you can get before moving up to dedicated drum scans that can be messy, time-consuming, and expensive.

The 3 Basic Techniques for Lighting… Everything

There are three basic types of surfaces, as far as lighting is concerned: reflective, transparent, and neutral. In this video, you'll learn about the 3 basic techniques for properly lighting each of these—in other words: the 3 techniques for lighting ... everything.

Aurora Photos: Reality vs. Expectation

We just had a beautiful Aurora Australis hit New Zealand recently. I was fortunate enough to catch a quiet spot to myself where I could take in the atmosphere and shoot a few images.

The Evolution of Canon EOS Cameras Over the Past 30 Years

The Canon EOS (Electro-Optical System) ecosystem was born 30 years ago with the introduction of the Canon EOS 650 35mm SLR on March 2nd, 1987. Since then, over 70 EOS cameras have been launched. Here's a 1.5-minute video by Digital Camera Warehouse that shows the evolution of EOS cameras over three decades.