Industry

In a bid to remain competitive against the likes of Amazon, eBay has announced that it will price match thousands of items. This includes some camera gear, too.

Adobe has received criticism ever since it first announced its Creative Cloud subscription program. But business has been booming since the launch, and that trend doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. In fact, it's on a clear upwards swing.

To commemorate 100 years since Arsène Gitzhoven founded the French company, Gitzo has launched two limited-edition premium tripods: the 100th Year Anniversary Edition, with 1917 pieces available worldwide, and the extremely exclusive Arsène Gitzhoven Edition, with only 100 pieces available.

If you’ve heard of Bitcoin, then you’re peripherally familiar with blockchain. Blockchain is a distributed database technology that creates a public ledger of every transaction within the system – perfect for cryptocurrencies that lack a central issuing bank.

In April this year, rumors started to appear that the parent company of Pentax, Ricoh, may have to kill off its camera arm. Now it's 2 months later, and Ricoh is reportedly facing its biggest crisis to date.

It’s not exactly a camera that can slip in to a coat pocket, but the RED Weapon 8K can capture both 8K motion footage as well as 36MP still photos. Photographer and director Vincent Laforet believes the camera is a harbinger for the future of photography.

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.

Magnum Photos, one of the most prestigious photographic agencies in the world, is celebrating a storied 70-year history this year, but it is a history that has not been without financial trouble. The agency has recently announced that they will be taking outside investment for the first time to help them grow and innovate in the digital age.

When Facebook took over Instagram, it was clear it would adopt the same changes seen in Facebook news feeds that are known so well. Algorithms push certain stories higher in feeds, rather than displaying them in chronological order. Now, sponsored posts will be clearly labelled in a bid to out paid product placement on the platform.

In a long anticipated move, Verizon has now confirmed its acquisition of Flickr and other Yahoo assets in a massive $4.48 billion deal. Rumors started back in 2015 that Flickr was for sale, and now the day has come that this is a reality for its users.

Best Buy already does price matching with Amazon, but it'll soon be launching another weapon in its fight against the giant online retailer: a try-before-you-buy program for electronics. For photographers, this will mean you'll have the opportunity to rent camera equipment before you buy it.

Amazon is tightening its belt when it comes to its cloud data storage services. The company has just announced that its $60 a year plan for unlimited data storage is being abruptly discontinued. For that same rate, you'll now only be able to store 1TB of data.

Zwelethu Mthethwa, a well-known South African photographer, has been sentenced to 18 years in jail after being found guilty of the 2013 murder of a sex worker in Cape Town.

Following the winding down of its business, Triggertrap has followed through on its promise to open-source its mobile apps and hardware. This could mean that the product will live on, despite Triggertrap’s demise.

It looks like there are many photographers who want an intelligent camera assistant that helps determine optimal camera settings. Arsenal, the camera add-on that promises to offer just that, has just blown past the $1 million mark in crowdfunding on Kickstarter.

There have been some legal rumblings in the camera industry over the past couple of months. It's an ongoing patent dispute between Nikon and two other companies involved in camera technologies: Carl Zeiss and ASML. The latest news is that the United States has opened an official patent infringement investigation into Nikon's products.

Oliphant Backdrops are iconic backdrops used in portrait photography. You've probably seen these backdrops in photos by Annie Leibovitz and many other famous photographers. Art always comes with a price and rightfully so, and the biggest question many people ask is how much the backdrops cost.

Android co-founder Andy Rubin and his new startup company, Essential Products, just launched its first product: a powerful smartphone called the Essential Phone. Its photo-related features include dual 13MP cameras, 4K video, and a dedicated monochrome sensor for "true" black-and-white photography.

A new copyright protection service called Binded just launched this week. It's actually a rebrand of the company formerly known as Blockai, and the purpose remains the same: using the Bitcoin blockchain to protect photographers' copyrights.

As Triggertrap continues winding down its business, their Triggertrap Mobile Dongles are becoming increasingly difficult to find. But there's some good news now: the company has decided to open source the hardware, making it is possible to build your own dongle.

The German start-up behind the Panono panoramic ball camera has filed for insolvency proceedings in Berlin, making it very unlikely that backers of their $1.25 million Indiegogo campaign will ever get their hands on their camera.

Citing a “potential safety issue”, Profoto is recalling the battery of their powerful B1X monolight, which was announced only 10 days ago.

Photokina—the world's leading trade show on photography, videography, and imaging—is making some big changes. Starting in 2018, the show will begin to happen every year (currently, Photokina happens every other year); it also plans to 'reposition' itself to cover a broader range of products.

Imagine, if you will, that the photography industry is a very large swimming pool. Not one of those backyard models, but rather an Olympic sized pool. And this very large pool is filled with photographers. However, we will call them swimmers, as that’s how analogies work.

Here's the crazy corner Nikon is in: they can claim a modest 7% increase in operating income for the fiscal year that they just finished, but had far lower net sales and, with restructuring costs, had a significant loss. Nikon predicts that they'll recover to profitability next fiscal year, but with lower sales.

Google announced this week that they are releasing a new certification standard that they are calling “Street View Ready”. This certification will be used for 360° cameras that are able to publish to Street View, and are guaranteed to support the level of quality required for Google’s 360-degree mapping service.

Snap Inc., the parent company of image and video sharing app Snapchat, reported their quarterly financial results for the first time since going public on Wednesday, and it isn’t pretty. Snap’s user growth slowed down and revenue was below Wall Street expectations for the quarter.

I was sitting in my dorm room at Arizona State University. To my left I had my XBox on (as it was pretty much 24/7) with some racing game on pause. In front of me I had my future, for I was entering a photography competition that I believed would make me famous and rich beyond my wildest dreams.

The Lighting Channel made this rapid-fire 1-minute video with examples of 10 different ways you can light a face to create different moods and themes, from "horror" to "1920s beauty."

ME: I don’t want to be a dick but could you please stop using my image on your website?

THE INTERNET: Why?

After years of declining sales figures and the requisite reporting on the industry's "imminent" collapse, it seems the camera market has finally plateaued. The latest CIPA numbers show modest growth in some areas and neutral numbers elsewhere, hinting that a long sales slump might finally be over.

Just days after Instagram announced that they had reached a whopping 700 million users, PBS NewsHour headed over to Instagram Headquarters in Silicon Valley to have a chat with CEO and Co-Founder Kevin Systrom.

We tend to treat the ethics of taking photographs in a very much black and white fashion. We judge "He should never have shot that" or alternatively "She is on firm ground shooting that, it is OK" and then arguments revolve around that, never resolving anything.