Back in June, we reported that some Flickr users had taken to the service's forums to complain about increasing compression hurting the image quality of their photos. We did some tests of our own and found that there was indeed significant file size and image quality differences -- at least compared to photos uploaded back in 2012.
iPhones may not be very good at photographing lunar eclipses, but apparently they're just fine for television news broadcasts. A local TV news station in Switzerland has ditched standard TV cameras to go 100% iPhone.
What's the current state of photojournalism, and where is the industry headed? That's what a major survey recently attempted to answer, and the result is a massive 76-page document that was just published today. It's an interesting and in-depth look at the state of news photography.
Instagram announced in a blog post today that the photo sharing service has rocketed past another major milestone: 400 million users worldwide.
Remember that copyright controversy last year between photographer David Slater and the money that took selfies with Slater's camera back in 2011? PETA is joining in on the fracas.
Want to see what it was like to work as a photographer at a major newspaper back in 1983? Check out this blast from the past: it's a 20-minute video by photographer Hugh Wesley, who spent 28 years at the Toronto Sun before retiring as the director of photography in 2001.
The New York Times published an article about brands using user generated content (UGC) without explicit permission. When a woman named Shereen Way posted a photo of her daughter to Instagram with the hashtag #crocs, Crocs pulled the photo and posted it to their website with other user photos.
Vox has published a short 5-minute video that tells the story of how early film stocks in photography were designed with light skin as the ideal skin standard, and therefore sometimes had problems rendering darker skins -- especially in photos that showed both darker and lighter complexions.
Heads up: Eugene Richards, one of the great American documentary photographers of our time, has joined Instagram. If you're tired of staring at cats and selfies, @richardseugene may be an account you should start following today.
I proudly ordered an Instacube in August 2012 amid significant press hype over a device that would display your Instagram feed with a large 6.5” screen. Finally... the digital picture frame that I actually wanted. The initial goal of $35,000 was quickly smashed, and the Kickstarter campaign ended up raising over $620,000.
Virtual reality is one of the trending technologies that tech companies are pouring vast amounts of time and research into, and one company that wants in is Flickr. The photo sharing company is working on a virtual reality photo viewing experience that may be integrated into its service in the future.
Qualcomm is the driving force behind a number of smartphones with its Snapdragon brand of mobile processors. Soon, however, Qualcomm will be powering quite a bit more. The company has announced their new high-end Snapdragon-powered performance platform aimed at advancing consumer drones.
Among professional photographers, Instagram can be a bit of a black sheep; however, those holding this belief may want to rethink their stance. We have spoken to numerous photographs who have gotten paid work through Instagram, and now, Getty Images has awarded three photographers $10,000 in grants to further their work.
Apple and Adobe sparked some unintended controversy yesterday after unveiling and demonstrating the new iPad Pro. Adobe mobile design director, Eric Snowden, took to the stage and showed off a new app called Adobe Fix, which offers powerful face detection features for mobile photo retouching. This is the mobile Photoshop app that was previously referred to as Project Rigel.
Photographers are used to being behind the camera, but the prominence and rise of photography – particularly through social media – has created emerging opportunities for photographers. No longer relegated to pimping camera gear and workshops, the contemporary photographer has many more possibilities to endorse everything from cars to credit cars.
Advertisements on Instagram aren’t a new concept, but the folks at Facebook are working to open their image sharing platform to even more businesses around the globe. Beginning on September 30th, small businesses will be able to run advertisement campaigns on the network in more than 30 countries around the world.
Since 1888, National Geographic magazine has been the official journal of the non-profit National Geographic Society headquartered in Washington, D.C. Starting today, however, the magazine won't be non-profit like the society is.
Nikon recently registered two new trademarks: “C Nikon” and “V Nikon”. According to the information provided from the official US federal trademark (USPTO) database, both items appear to be for upcoming pieces of software (sorry gear junkies!). The trademarks were filed earlier this year in July along with the proposed logos for each item.
Yesterday, Canon made a splash by announcing the development of a new 250-megapixel CMOS sensor -- the highest resolution for a sensor smaller than 35mm. That sensor is geared towards industrial applications (e.g. surveillance), but if you're dying to get your hands on a monster-resolution Canon DSLR, the company has some good news for you too.
Europe's largest newspaper, the Bild of Germany, has published an unusual print edition that left out all photographs from its pages. The bold move is apparently a response to reader backlash after the paper published photos of Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian refugee who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.
Jason Kirby is a photographer and entrepreneur who is working on building Togally, a new online marketplace for connecting photographers and those who need photos shot. We had a chat with Kirby about his new venture.
Photographers are up in arms this week over an online battle between a DJ and a wedding photographer. At the center of the controversy is the question of whether or not a DJ should be able to shoot and share wedding photos when the photographer has an exclusivity agreement with the bride and groom.
PayPal today announced PayPal.Me, giving people personalized links for getting paid. If you've ever wanted to send a PayPal money request to a photography client in a single, easy-to-remember URL, that wish has now been granted. But first you'll need to reserve your name before someone else grabs it.
Exclusive photo ops are sometimes only available to those who win an application lottery. The McNeil River bear sanctuary in Alaska is one example -- photographer John Daley recently shared about his experience with that. Here's another one: CERN.
Only a Luddite would still categorize Apple as a computer company. Indeed, the company officially changed its name in 2007, dropping “Computer” and simply settling for “Apple, Inc.” Still, most people probably think of Apple as the maker of the iPhone and iPad, and to a lesser extent as the company that makes MacBooks and iMacs.
Back in July, writer David Sikorski and photographer Kristina Bakrevski gained quite a bit of attention online after publishing engagement photos of Sikorski and his one true love: the burrito.
Instagram cracked the restrictive barriers of its iconic square format yesterday, announcing to the world that it intends to remain the dominant platform of the visual content world. Initially created so that the every picture could be seen full screen on any device and any orientation, the square frame also incidentally made reference to the Polaroid format, adding another touch of the nostalgia that made Instagram so popular. So why change it?
After reading Stephen Mayes’ TIME essay on the end of photography I couldn’t help but respond. To begin with, his main proposition is that “in the future there will be no such thing as a ‘straight photograph’” to which I’d add that I’m not sure there ever really has been much of a ‘straight photograph’ although in recent decades the public has become increasingly aware of this.
Adobe Photoshop is ubiquitous on the desktop computers of photographers around the world, but the company has yet to win the same amount of love on mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones. After calling it quits on Photoshop Touch earlier this year, Adobe will be bringing a full-featured version of Photoshop to iOS this October.
Here's an interesting rumor that has emerged in the camera world: Leica may soon offer a camera that competes directly with the likes of the Sony FE system. The company is reportedly planning to announce an interchangeable lens followup to the new Leica Q. It would be a full-frame, non-rangefinder mirrorless camera with autofocus lenses.
Facebook has deleted a controversial page called "Project Harpoon," which posted photos of plus-size models and celebrities next to Photoshopped versions showing what they would look like if they were thinner. The page gained thousands of fans during its short existence, but it also attracted a loud outcry from the public and from the women seen in the photos.
Earlier this month, the photo sharing service 500px rolled out a new version of its iOS app that focused on sleekness, simplicity, and social sharing. Media outlets immediately pointed out how similar the new app's look and feel is to other services, particularly Instagram.
Facetune is one of the most popular photo tools in both Apple’s iOS App Store and Google’s Play Store -- to such a great degree that Apple officially branded the app as an “Essential” download a short while back. Facetune is known for its ability to smoothen skin, emphasize eyes, fill bald patches, reshape facial structures, brighten teeth, and much more. Now, the Jerusalem-based company behind it, Lightricks, is ready to go a step farther after securing $10 million in new venture …
Earlier this year, artist Richard Prince sparked a huge controversy by taking people's Instagram photos, making very small changes to them, and selling the prints as fine art for $100,000 a pop. Now there's a new website that's following in Prince's footsteps, on a larger scale but with smaller prices.
Sony and Zeiss are two brand names that appear together on many of Sony's cameras and lenses. For the past two decades, the Japanese and German companies (respectively) have had a fruitful partnership in designing and manufacturing gear.
Lens Rentals Canada is calling it quits after years of being one of the prominent gear rental services serving photographers in Canada.
If you're a film photographer, here's something you should be aware of: many film processing services at major drug and retail stores will no longer return your original film to you after developing and scanning it.
The 21st century appears to be all about speed: order a pizza from your phone with a tap of your finger, dispense your favorite coffee with a push of a button, and now with a simple text message, you can order a customized photo book with all your favorite moments.
At some early point in my 4-year stint as a film student at the University of Miami, in Florida, an advisor explained I’d have to dual-major in a field outside the school of communications. This seemed a perfectly reasonable request of the school to make; after all, the advisor said, as communication students we needed something to communicate about.
It looks like the idea of sharing front- and rear-camera photos at the same time isn't lucrative enough to be big business. After raising a whopping $4 million from investors, the unusual photo-sharing app Frontback is now announcing that it will be shutting down on August 15th, 2015.
Drone manufacturers don’t seem to be in short supply, particularly with new ‘revolutionary’ prototypes showing up on Kickstarter almost every other month. GoPro has announced plans to launch its own camera drone by next year. Now Sony wants a piece of the action. The company's mobile division today announced plans to create “autonomous aerial vehicles for image capture combined with cloud-based data processing.”
Camera drones have opened a whole new world of possibilities for photographers looking for a way to capture aerial images, but the meteoric rise in drone adoption has also opened up Pandora's box as well. Now a new industry is emerging alongside the booming drone industry: anti-drone defense systems.
Flickr is bringing back Pro memberships. Today the photo sharing service announced that paid subscription plans are returning for both existing and new members. This change is in response to "a high amount of requests" from photographers in the Flickr community.
GoPro has reason to celebrate, as shares of the company’s stock rose 1.23% and revenue for their second fiscal quarter increased by 72%. The company is looking to build upon this momentum with ambitious new initiatives: GoPro has a mobile video editing app in the pipeline, and it's also launching a content licensing portal that helps GoPro users monetize the content they create.
If you've ever had the misfortune of having your Instagram account deleted... this article is for you.
Taylor Swift's concert photography contract recently came under fire for being overreaching and for threatening to destroy photographers' equipment, leading some publications to boycott the contract and obtain photos by other means.
Lomography began as an art movement in the early 1990s after a group of Viennese students discovered the LC-A, a camera manufactured by Russian imaging company LOMO. The fixed lens 32mm f/2.8 compact camera produced unique images that were off-color, vibrant, and soft. On a mission to advocate the use of these creative cameras and experimental film, photographers quickly formed the Lomographic Society International in 1992.
500px today announced that it raised another $13 million in venture funding in order to continue growing its photo sharing and licensing services. The fresh cash will help the company battle against bigger companies in both spaces, including Flickr and Getty Images.
It's out with the old and in with the new: Google today announced its plan to shut down its Google+ Photos service after the launch of Google Photos back in May.
Heads up, photographers: major changes to US copyright law may be just around the corner, and you may or may not like what's being proposed. The US Copyright Office recently published a report titled "Orphan Works and Mass Digitization," which examines and recommends potential solutions for the issues of orphan works (i.e. the use of copyrighted images when the owner cannot be found) and mass digitization (i.e. projects like Google Books that digitize vast amounts of copyrighted works).
