For Canon, Nikon, and Panasonic, 2018-2019 was the first year where they all truly "went for it" when it comes to full-frame mirrorless. All three released full-frame mirrorless cameras, and all three seemed to have different priorities with those releases. In this first of three segments, we're going to take a look at each of these companies in their first year and evaluate where each of them stands today in what is now a very competitive market.
After a Nikkei report (and, later, an official press release) revealed that Panasonic would officially be selling off its semiconductor business, many people wondered what would happen to the joint venture with TowerJazz that constituted Panasonic's image sensor business. Now we know.
The image sensor industry just lost another big name as Sony continues toward global domination. Panasonic is reportedly tapping out by selling its money-bleeding chipmaking business to a Taiwanese tech company.
Olympus has issued an official statement in hopes of putting to rest once and for all rumors that the company is considering selling or shutting down its sputtering camera business.
I know how easy it is to be upset at Adobe. Trust me, I feel like I'm in a constant state of that feeling for one reason or another, and for years I have been very hard on them repeatedly.
The back and forth between Olympus and the public continues, and the news is grim. After officially denying rumors of an imminent imaging business shut down, Olympus' CEO backtracked on some previous comments today, implying that the company's camera business may be up for sale.
The New York Attorney General has filed a major lawsuit against photo and video gear retailer B&H Photo alleging that the retail giant has dodged millions in sales taxes over the past 13 years. B&H calls the lawsuit "outrageous" and says these claims are "flat wrong."
Instagram has officially expanded its "test" of the removal of public-facing like counts worldwide. The expansion was announced this morning on Twitter, where the company also attempted to reassure "creators" (read: influencers) that the company is not trying to take away their livelihood.
A few days after online speculation sent the Micro Four Thirds world into a panic, Olympus has come out to officially deny rumors that it's planning to shut down and/or sell its camera business within the next year... or ever.
Apple's recent attempt to invalidate one of RED's most important patents has failed. Earlier this week, a US court dismissed Apple's challenge to RED's main RAW video patent, allowing RED to maintain some control over Apple's ProRes RAW codec.
Over the weekend, an admin on the Personal View forum published the shocking claim that "closure is near" for Olympus' camera division, writing that the company's camera business was less than a year away from being shut down. The claim has sparked a firestorm of speculation and rebuttals.
The digital camera industry has been nosediving as of late, and Nikon is feeling the pain. In its latest financial results, Nikon revealed some grim numbers and an even darker forecast. The company's business of selling cameras and lenses will no longer be its biggest revenue-generating segment.
Adobe generated considerable hype when it teased "full" Photoshop for iPad last year. The app officially launched to the public this week, and it hasn't exactly lived up to the hype. In fact, it's been quite the opposite: early reviews from users have been terrible.
Patrick Hall from Fstoppers and Pye Jirsa from SLR Lounge recently sat down for an in-depth conversation about how photography is changing in 2019. In a fascinating and insightful discussion that lasts almost 45 minutes, they ultimately try to tackle one question: is photography as we know it dying?
Fujifilm China "welcomed" Xiaomi into the 100MP club with a social media post that's almost certainly a tongue-in-cheek troll of the tiny 108MP image sensor found in the company's recent CC9 Pro/Mi Note 10 smartphone.
Kodak released its Q3 revenue report yesterday, and while the company is reporting a year-over-year loss of $5 million on total revenues of $315 million, there's a very interesting bright spot in the finances: revenues for Kodak's film business grew by 21 percent year-over-year for Q1 through Q3.
Getty Images has announced that it will be transitioning all of its creative stock photography offerings to a Royalty Free licensing model and ditching Rights Managed licensing entirely—a move that will be more convenient for customers, but worse for photographers.
Adobe has launched Photoshop on the iPad, a fully rebuilt application on the real base of Photoshop that purportedly runs smoothly and efficiently despite being on the pseudo computer that is the Apple tablet. Normally, this achievement would be seen as a gigantic accomplishment, but multiple stories over the past year have put a damper on what would otherwise be a celebrated announcement.
Over four years ago in 2015, when we were all still optimistic about the Canon 5D Mark IV, Sony released the a7R II. This was a 42.4MP full-frame camera that also offered the ability to shoot 4k video using the full width of the sensor. This camera took many photographers by surprise because almost no one was expecting Sony to release such a camera. Sure, it had lots of flaws and it was somewhat of a beta release; but still, it put Sony on the map.
A report by Digital Camera World earlier this week initially claimed that Canon was ditching JPEGs, replacing them with 10-bit HEIF files in the upcoming Canon 1D X Mark III, and possibly beyond. And while Canon eventually clarified that they are not getting rid of JEPG, the format may be (ought to be?) on its last legs.
Canon has announced that it's shutting down Irista, the cloud-based photo storage solution it launched for photographers back in 2014.
Adobe accidentally exposed private details of over 7 million Creative Cloud accounts to the public, putting those members at risk of targeted phishing scams.
Last night, in a short post titled "Everything Changes" on the Red Hydrogen Forums, 70-year-old RED founder Jim Jannard shocked the RED community by announcing both his retirement and the end of the Hydrogen smartphone project.
Canon has more-or-less confirmed what many had hoped, and rumor sites had already been reporting: in-body image stabilization (IBIS) and dual card slots will both be included in the "high-end" EOS R model that the brand is "considering" (read: has in development).
One of the world's leading independent experts on Leica has announced that he's saying "farewell to the Leica world." He states that because of recent decisions and developments at the company, "the soul of Leica products has been eradicated."
Well, it was fun while it lasted. We reported over the weekend that iPhone users have been enjoying free and unlimited original-quality photo backups through Google Photos thanks to the ultra-efficient HEIC file format. Google is now calling it a "bug" and saying that it will be fixed.
Flickr has announced that it's tripling the maximum display size for Pro members' photos, increasing it from 2048 pixels on the long end to 6144 pixels, or 6K resolution.
When the Google Pixel 4 was announced this week, it was revealed that it would be the first Pixel phone to not provide all users with free unlimited original-quality backups on Google Photos. But in a strange twist, thanks to a "loophole," owners of newer iPhone models do get free unlimited original-quality storage in the Google cloud.
Right now if you head over to Kickstarter and search for "camera bag," three active choices pop up. That's three more camera bag ideas vying for your attention in addition to the tons that have hit Kickstarter over the years and the hundreds more made by larger brands like Lowepro, Manfrotto and Think Tank.
It's a sad day for the photo industry. Imaging Resource, one of the most respected and uncompromising camera review websites in the world, is shutting down. The news became official earlier today when founder Dave Etchells sent an email to some of his friends and colleagues in the industry.
Sigma officially released the Sigma fp today, confirming the leak we reported earlier this week. Available to pre-order today, the world's smallest full-frame mirrorless camera will cost $1,900 for the body-only, and will begin shipping to customers on October 25th.
One year ago, cine lens and photo accessory brand NiSi revealed that it was working on a 75mm f/0.95 manual focus lens for stills shooters. Now, recently leaked images of the lens reveal that it may be called the "NOCT-master," potentially setting up a trademark dispute between NiSi and Nikon. [Update: NiSi is refuting this report. See update below.]
On October 1st, inventor of the smartphone photo filter Hipstamatic made its grand return to the spotlight by releasing Hipstamatic X: a free iOS camera app that hopes to "bring all the joy, quirk, and randomness of film photography to your pocket."
It is now exactly 2 years since I started uploading stock photos to Unsplash, the "slightly" controversial stock photo platform where everything is free for everyone. I thought this would be a good occasion to share what I've gained from my presence on Unsplash.
The New York-based camera gear and electronics superstore Adorama has rolled out a revamped logo and new modernized website design.
Polaroid Originals—the artist formerly known as The Impossible Project—made a sad announcement on its blog yesterday. After determining that the wide-format Polaroid Spectra cameras out in the wild "are now coming to the end of their useful lives," the company has decided to discontinue production of Spectra instant film.
Yesterday, Sony quietly released the specs for a new 47MP Micro Four Thirds image sensor that it claims is for "Surveillance, FA cameras and Industrial cameras." But the image sensor—which can record 10-bit 8K/30p video with a with a 17:9 crop—might actually show up in the successor to the Panasonic GH5S.
In the heyday of film photography, Kodak was a major advertiser in magazines -- people flipping through all kinds of publications would see ads for its film. But over the past several years, both the camera film and the magazine industries have struggled to adapt to a changing and increasingly digital world. So news of a new Kodak film ad in a print magazine may seem anachronistic, but it's real.
It's a day for development announcements! On the same day as Fuji revealed its upcoming Fujifilm X-Pro3 rangefinder, Ricoh broke its long silence to reveal that it is developing a brand new Pentax flagship APS-C DLSR to replace the KP.
Three hours ago, during the Fujifilm X Summit in Tokyo, Fuji officially announced the development of the X-Pro3 rangefinder. This camera, which was a long time coming, promises better performance in a more durable and lightweight package that should particularly delight street photographers.
Apple showed off slow-motion selfies at its iPhone 11 Pro unveiling this week and jokingly referred to them as "slofies." But it turns out the company was more serious about the term than you may have thought -- it has filed an application to trademark it.
DxOMark has announced an update to its smartphone camera quality testing methodology that adds two new scores for each phone: Night for dedicated low-light modes and Wide for ultra-wide lenses.
Photokina is still the world's leading imaging expo, but changes to its structure and a struggling industry may be pushing participants away. In a press release published to the expo's website, the trade show's organizer Koelnmesse revealed that Nikon, Leica and Olympus have all chosen to skip Photokina 2020.
PhotoPlus 2019 is only a month and a half away, meaning the exhibitor list and floor plan should be all-but-finalized. Which is why it was shocking to discover that there is no Sony booth on the floor plan, and the company is not listed as an exhibitor either. However, Sony tells PetaPixel that they WILL be at the show.
Google announced a couple of updates to Google Photos today, including an intriguing new partnership with Walmart and CVS that will allow users to order and pick up 4x6 prints of their photos from over 11,000 U.S. locations. Users will also be able to order wall art directly from Google.
Sigma has officially announced its intention to stop producing lenses for the Pentax K-mount. Due to the dwindling number of Pentax users, says Sigma, the brand will shift focus and resources towards developing lenses for mirrorless cameras.
Robert Frank, one of the most influential documentary photographers of our time, passed away on Monday on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. He was 94 years old.
Last year, during a panel discussion at one of the yearly industry conferences, I said that my hope was for DSLRs to soon vanish... I said this not because I haven’t enjoyed the incredible strides made in photo technology during the era of the DSLR -- both as a camera store owner and a recreational photographer -- but because, despite our attachments, we must embrace a mindset of “out with the old and in with the new.”
A British Columbia-based wedding photographer is out $4,600 after falling prey to something called the "overpayment" scam—an insidious scam that often targets wedding and event photographers, and has allegedly cost its victims nearly $5 million this year alone.
Peter Lindbergh, the German fashion photography icon who is was credited with ushering in "the rise of the supermodel," passed away yesterday at the age of 74. The announcement was made earlier today through Lindbergh's official Instagram account.