Educational

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

Visiting the World’s Largest Digital Camera

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is a telescope that will contain the largest digital camera ever built. Here's a 4-minute video in which the folks at Gizmodo pay a visit to the 3.2-gigapixel camera that's the size of a small car.

The Story Behind That IKEA Photo of Amsterdam

VILSHULT is an IKEA ready-to-hang photo of Amsterdam that has been sold over 427,000 times. After many of my friends asked me why I bought such a "mediocre" photo for my living room, I decided to find out how this photo was made and how it ended up on IKEA's shelves and in almost half a million households. What I learned was fascinating.

I Shot Ultra-Macro Video of the Wet Plate Collodion Process

Normally I use videos to document my work. This time the video is the main outcome of my work -- I shot an ultra-macro video that shows how the crystals/salts change during the wet plate collodion process.

How to Use the World’s Largest Polaroid Camera

Back in its heyday, Polaroid made seven 20x24-inch instant cameras, and only six of them are known to exist today. Marco Christian Krenn of Analog Things recently paid a visit to the camera found at Supersense in Vienna. In this 10-minute video, Krenn shows how this ultra-rare camera is used.

This $23,000 Nikon DSLR Kit on the ISS Had a Delivery Fee of $130,000+

The astronauts onboard the International Space Station get new cameras delivered from time to time -- 10 Nikon D5s arrived in late 2017 after NASA ordered 55 of them. But did you know that it's extremely expensive to stock the ISS astronauts' camera arsenal? That camera kit you see above cost at least $150,000 to send to the space station.

The Story Behind Ansel Adams’ Iconic ‘Moonrise, Hernandez’

The Ansel Adams Gallery made this 4-minute video about Ansel Adams' Moonrise, Hernandez, a photo the gallery calls Adams' "most famous and iconic image." Sales director Brittany Moorefield shares the story behind the photo while presenting an ultra-rare mural-sized print from the early 1970s.

How Geotagged Photos are Harming Natural Landmarks

With the rise of digital photography, social media, and geotagging, picturesque natural landmarks that were once relatively undisturbed are now swarming with more and more visitors every year. Vox made this 5-minute video on how geotagged viral photos are having a huge impact on nature.

An Exclusive Tour of Adobe’s Offices

I'm Johnnie Behiri, the co-owner of cinema5D. Adobe is a well-known company in the filmmaking and photography industries (and beyond). But for me personally, it was time to ask what lies behind just the name, so I reached out with the request to visit some of their facilities in the United States, intending to “create a face”, asking who this huge company actually is.

How to Use Your Camera to Calculate the Speed of Earth’s Spin

Earth is spinning... and fast! It was during my first nights in astrophotography that it became very concrete for me. By taking pictures of the stars, one quickly obtains a change of star physiognomy that confirms the rotation of the earth. In this article, I describe how to use this phenomenon to measure the rotational speed of the earth with a simple camera.

Canon vs Sony: Skin Tones in Portraits and How to Correct Them

After years of shooting portraits with Canon cameras, photographer Sean Tucker recently switched over to Sony gear. After many people warned him that his portraits would suffer from Sony's "terrible" skin tones, Tucker decided to put the cameras to the test himself in the 20-minute video above.

Bokeh is Overrated: Blurry Isn’t Best

When I read or watch reviews of lenses by folks in the photographic community, it often seems like one of the most important qualities to them is how the lens renders bokeh. It’s often made me wonder, do we sometimes forget that bokeh is just background? And is this fixation healthy? Or most importantly, how much does it matter to an average person who has never heard the term “bokeh”?

Are You Colorblind, and How Good is Your Color Vision?

In this article, we're going to briefly look at the subjectivity of color. This is a colossal subject, but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on how color is perceived by each of us and whether it's really that important.

Rare Photos Inside the United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus

In September 2018, I was asked to travel to Cyprus and photograph the Buffer Zone (or Green Line) in Nicosia. It was an exclusive opportunity since this area is not accessible for civilians -- it's a demilitarised zone (DMZ), patrolled by the United Nations.

Canon EOS R Teardown: A Look Inside Canon’s First Full-Frame Mirrorless

The Canon EOS R is cause for controversy. After all, we’re in the middle of The Great Mirrorless Camera War. Tensions are bound to rise, turning sibling against sibling, camera tech against camera tech, and photographer against photographer. Despite this, I will do my best to describe the form factor and internal construction of the EOS R in a fair and unbiased manner.

Subject Isolation: Finding Innovative Ways to Draw Attention to Subjects

I have no idea where I first heard this, but it’s extremely true: “the main difference between painting and photography is that the painters need to work hard to put things into their images, whereas photographers have to work hard to take things out of their images.”

A Teardown of the Canon EOS R

Want to see the internals of Canon's first full-frame mirrorless camera? Roger Cicala over at LensRentals disassembled the new Canon EOS R to look at the design and engineering going on inside.

Why Kodak Died and Fujifilm Thrived: A Tale of Two Film Companies

The Kodak moment is gone, but today Fujifilm thrives after a massive reorganization. Here is a detailed analysis based on firsthand accounts from top executives and factual financial data to understand how and why the destinies of two similar companies went in opposite directions.

This is Why Lighting Height and Angle Matter in Portraits

How you light your subject is one of the key decisions you'll need to make when shooting portraits. The Koldunov Brothers published this 9-minute tutorial showing the impact the height of a light source makes and some typical mistakes photographers make in placing and angling lights.

The US Army Combat Cameraman

Here's a 1.5-minute video published by NATO about the role of US Army combat cameramen who document soldiers in peace and war, at rest and in combat.

Neuroaesthetics: Where Science Meets the Art of Photography

Art is something we all enjoy in one way or another. We assume it is a subjective subject, but there may be an objective angle that we can observe art from. Perhaps art isn’t subjective at all? Neuroaesthetics is a scientific approach to art in the way it is both produced and consumed, and this gives us a basis for figuring out what makes art… art!

How a Fun Guy Goes to the Woods and Photographs Glowing Mushrooms

I often hear my students lament about how if only they could travel to the rainforest they would find something really interesting to photograph. I tell students “look around where you live – there are wonderful things to photograph everywhere”. The photographers that work with local species often obtain shots that are unobtainable from casual travels.

Is Sony’s Color Science Really That Bad?

One of the biggest complaints I hear quite regularly about Sony mirrorless cameras is that their color science is horrible. Many photographers don’t seem to like how Sony interprets colors from any given scene. This it seems, to be especially true for portrait photographers. In stark contrast, color science is one of the major positive points for Canon cameras.

This is What a Drone Strike Would Do to an Airplane

As drones continue to explode in popularity, there have been more and more stories of operators flying way too close to airplanes. Now new research is revealing just how much damage a direct drone strike would do to an airplane's wing.

Nikon Z7 Teardown: Inside Nikon’s 1st Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera

Our brand new Nikon Z7 full frame mirrorless camera arrived at the office this week, and we immediately got down to business. Four years ago, Sony fired the first shot of this battle with the A7 and continued to release one iteration after another, each improving on the last, and did so completely unanswered by the competition until August 23rd of this year when Nikon announced the Z7 and the Z6.