Above is a full 50-minute documentary from 1998 about the life and work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, the legendary photographer who's considered to be the father of photojournalism. It's titled "Pen, Brush and Camera."
The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) recently conducted a study that compares public perception of professional photographs versus amateur ones. The main conclusion was that, yes, people can tell the difference between the two, and that professional photographs are generally more memorable than their counterparts.
Countless photographs have been captured by numerous photographers over the course of Super Bowl history, but only four photographers have covered all 48 Big Games since Super Bowl I in 1967: John Biever, Walter Iooss, Mickey Palmer and Tony Tomsic.
American photojournalist W. Eugene Smith was widely praised for his devotion to photography and for pioneering the use of the photo essay to tell stories. He is said to have "created at least fifty images so powerful that they have changed the perception of our history." …
Would you say the above photograph has any compression artifacts? Compressed too much, not enough, or just right? What exactly is “just right” anyway. This post will explore the concept of compression, why and how do we do it, and how aggressive we should be in either reducing the file size or increasing the image quality.
The photo illustration above shows what a photo of a sunset here on Earth would look like if the sun were replaced with Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in our "neighborhood." …
If you've invested any significant amount of money in your camera gear, it's a good idea to make sure it's insured against loss or damage. If you've never really explored this subject before, here's a helpful video that can bring you up to speed. It's a 13-minute overview by the folks over at DSLR Video Shooter on the best services and solutions out there for making sure your gear is insured and recoverable.
What you see above is the first satellite photo of the contiguous 48 states of the United States. It was created in 1972 for NASA by a US agriculture department division, and comprises 595 cloud-free photos captured by NASA's first Earth Resources Technology Satellite.
Ten years ago, on January 14, 2005, NASA landed its Huygens probe onto the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. To commemorate the event, NASA released the above video that takes us on a 1,000,000,000x journey from a zoomed out photo of Saturn and the moon and into the closest photos captured by Huygens.
Weighing just 1.66 pounds, Nikon's newly announced 300mm f/4 is the world's lightest 300mm full frame prime autofocus lens. It's also the first Nikon DSLR lens to feature the company's new Phase Fresnel (PF) technology, which is the main reason the lens can be so small and lightweight.
Men who share selfies online are more likely to exhibit psychopathic tendencies. That's what researchers are saying after conducting a lengthy study on the link between selfie-taking and certain personality traits.
If you'd like a primer on the technologies found inside Canon's EF line of lenses, look no further than this 12-minute introduction created by Canon. We learn about things like aspherical lenses, fluorite lenses, diffractive optics, USM, lens coatings, and more.
What are the most popular cameras used in the Flickr community? Now that 2014 is in the past, the photo sharing service has done some serious crunching on EXIF data to figure out which cameras were the most popular among its users over the course of the year. Here's a look into the findings.
Of all the millions of historical photographs held by the US National Archives, the photo above is the single most requested. It was captured in the Oval Office on December 21, 1970, and shows Elvis Presley meeting then US President Richard Nixon.
NASA has released the largest and sharpest photograph ever made of the Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest spiral galaxy to ours that contains an estimated 1 trillion stars. The new image (above is a crop showing a portion of it) weighs in at 1.5 gigapixels (i.e. 1.5 billion pixels); it's so big that you would need 600HD televisions to display the entire digital photo.
Before Canon and Nikon became juggernauts in the world of DSLRs, Kodak actually created one of the first DSLRs by modifying the Nikon Pronea 6i film SLR. Called the Kodak DCS315, the camera was the world's first DSLR to feature an image preview LCD and JPEG processing in the camera itself. It was launched in 1998 and boasted an amazing (at the time) 1.5 megapixels.
How does your daily schedule compare to the 24-hour routines of some of the most famous creative individuals throughout history? Podio created the chart above using info from the book "Daily Rituals: How Artists Work" by Mason Currey. Though there aren't any photographers on the list here, it's an interesting look at how creative minds of the past approached things like work, sleep, and play.
Here's an interesting look at the magic that goes into making movies look the way they do. The video above shows how scenes in one particular movie looked straight out of the camera compared to the finished version after color grading. It's like the video equivalent of the before-and-after post-processing examples photographers often share on the Web.
The Nikkor 400mm f/2.8E FL ED VR is a new $12,000 lens for sports and wildlife photographers. One of the new features to appear in the lens is a vibration reduction mode called VR Sport. The video above offers a look at how VR Sport compares to VR Normal and no stabilization.
What is the current state of the professional photography industry in the United States? Back in April 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released statistics about the photography profession from May 2013. The data offers an interesting look into where photographers are living and how much they're earning.
Israel-based astrophotographer Gadi Eidelheit recently managed to capture the International Space Station crossing the moon on camera. In the video above, we see how fast the ISS appears to travel when seen by an observer here on Earth (it spends less than 1 second in front of the moon).
Photography enthusiast Steffen Ross works as a radiologist in Switzerland who operates a CT and MRI scanner for autopsies. When he's not using the machine to look into dead bodies, Ross has been placing camera equipment in the scanner to peer inside them.
The next time you're taking a group snapshot, cut the "cheese" and tell everyone to say "cheeks" instead. This two letter change can help create more genuine smiles on the faces in your shot.
Want to know how much work goes into an old fashioned stop motion animation movie? The short clip above will show you. It's a short extra scene that appeared during the end credits of the 2014 film "The Boxtrolls." …
The Thomas Walther Collection at the Museum of Modern Art is a set of 341 photographs by 150 artists captured from between 1909 and 1949 -- a period in which photography "came of age." …
There are now a number of smartphone tripods out there that are designed to fit inside your wallet when not in use. Before you buy one, though, here's a random little tip: if your wallet is thick and sturdy enough, you don't even need a separate accessory -- your wallet itself can do just fine.
Astronaut and photographer Chris Hadfield recently paid a visit to the At-Bristol science center in the UK. In the 8-minute video above, Hadfield shares a little about what it's like to photograph the world from the International Space Station. He also attempts some recreations of his space photos using various objects and a macro camera kit.
There are two lens terms that have similar sounding (and potentially confusing) names: fluorine and fluorite. Apparently quite a few people have trouble distinguishing between the two, so here's a quick look at what they each are.
If you've never picked up a rangefinder camera before and have always wondered how it differs from single-lens reflex cameras, here's a short video that may be of interest to you. In it, photographer Craig Semetko discusses the basics of rangefinder photography -- in this case he's using a Leica M -- and its advantages compared to SLRs.
Canon shooters have a bit of 400mm excitement right now. The biggest news, of course, is the release of the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II lens, replacing the original version that's had a very long, successful run.
There have been a few film versus digital articles here and there on the interwebs, but seems like very few have approached the subject in a scientific fashion or with the advice of both film and digital experts.
Here's a term that most of you have probably experienced before, but some of you may never have heard before. It's called "focus breathing" (or simply "breathing"), and it refers to the shift in angle of view that often occurs when you focus a lens. If you've ever carefully composed a shot, refocused, and then discovered that your composition changed, you've been a victim of focus breathing.
If you're a photographer today, you're probably sharing your photos everywhere from Facebook to Flickr. Your photos are being seen on every device possible: iPhones, Samsung Galaxys, crappy Dell office monitors, and Mac Retina Displays. Each online service, each device, even each web browser handles color differently. If you're putting your photos up online, you really need to think about how you output files for the web. If you accidentally save to the wrong color space, you can really change …
Did you know that your ordinary DSLR camera has the power to detect planets orbiting other stars? You don't need a high-powered telescope to look through either. All that's required is a DSLR, a telephoto lens, and a special contraption that helps your camera track stars.
How have camera sales changed over the past 60 or 70 years? The chart above offers an interesting look at this question. It shows camera production between 1947 and 2014.
Back in 2012, the George Eastman House released a series of six videos showing six photo processes used in the history of photography. This month, the museum re-released those six videos alongside six new ones. It's a video series that now spans 12 videos showing major processes spanning from the Daguerreotype all the way up through digital photography.
Camera shake could one day be used to help track down people who record footage anonymously. Researchers say that footage captured by wearable cameras contain a "motion signature" that's unique to the wearer -- a hidden "fingerprint" of sorts.
Want to learn the basics of US copyright law without having to spend eons going through imageless websites and backbreaking textbooks? Check out Bound by Law. It's a comic book that translates abstract and confusing copyright laws into easy to understand "visual metaphors." …
Pine (Bluffs), Wyoming lay at the extreme south-eastern corner of the state, a stone’s throw from Nebraska along the Old Lincoln Highway and I-80. My visit to Pine was late in the year with my dog Henry. Over the course of several months we’d seen Henry begin to slow and knew he’d begun his journey home. Not wanting to miss any opportunities with him I took the Jeep this trip, knowing he’s more comfortable than in the front seat of the Subaru.
A new ad campaign in the UK is using interactive posters to inform parents that they can easily check their child for eye cancer using flash photography.
What would the night sky look like if the closest spiral galaxy to us were as bright as the moon and visible in its entirety to the naked eye? The photo above offers a pretty accurate look (Click the image for a larger version).
…And we’re back! After a much-needed summer hiatus, it’s that time of the year again when my comrades in the SNL Film Unit all reconvene on the 17th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza for another season of filmmaking speed-drills.
You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who knows as much about ZEISS as Bernd K. Otto. From the company's entry into the photography world in 1890, to its long-lived history and reputation throughout the 20th century, Otto’s knowledge and passion for the company led him to create Carl Zeiss Kamera-Register 1902–2012, the most comprehensive anthology of ZEISS cameras in existence.
Time-lapse photography seems pretty straightforward, right? You just capture a stream of images over a designated time frame and put them together in post-production to create your video. But as simple as that may sound, there are a few basic elements to the post-processing of your images that can greatly alter what the final product will look like.
You might think that Thanksgiving day has always consisted of football, the Macy's parade, and copious amounts of tryptophan, but as these old photos from deep within the Library of Congress' archives show, 100 years ago, Thanksgiving was something else entirely.
Schlieren flow visualization and photography is one of those things that is just too cool. Using an optical trick, it allows a camera to capture, "small changes in the index of refraction in air." In other words, it can see anything that affects airflow: heat, sound waves, or just plain old air currents themselves.
Lately, I have been seeing lots of memes and writings for photographers that try to justify the rates we charge to potential clients who seemingly do not understand what they are paying for or what the value of our work really is... from Cost of Doing Business (CODB) calculators to detailed lists of lenses to tediously explaining how long it takes to set up a shoot and pack all the gear.
Two years ago we dubbed photographer Thomas Shahan ‘the Bob Ross of bug photography.’ Today, we’re back with a video from the macro master in which he dives into his workflow in the field, dropping bits and pieces of useful knowledge as he goes through a daily shoot.
Long before high-sync speedlights were ever a thing, there was a bleeding-edge technology that forever changed the way people photographed subjects. It was called magnesium flash powder.
Maybe the 'it's not the gear, it's the photographer' is the proverbial dead horse that's occasionally given a beating, but it's a message that we never tire of sharing with a gear-loving, often gear-obsessed, photography world.
