Facebook has rolled out a new feature that may make privacy-wary Internet users cringe. It's a link called "seen by" that shows up under photos posted to groups. The link reveals a box that shows exactly who has seen the photographs -- timestamps and all.
Over the past year, Instagram has been the most talked-about photo sharing service and one of the most talked about social networking services. Logically, more and more brands are joining it and trying to figure out ways to reach potential customers through filtered photos.
Would you shoot a wedding professionally with your iPhone and Hipstamatic? If you want to stay in business, probably not. But what if you were asked to do so, and paid for your work?
It's not every day that a camera company goes public, but that's what GoPro is reportedly trying to do.
Scott Schuman, or The Sartorialist, made it big in the blogging, photography, and fashion worlds by having his fashion street photography blog become an Internet sensation. If you think he's unique in his subject matter, however, boy are you mistaken: he's simply one of the most famous.
Ever since Instagram began its meteoric rise into social media superstardom, companies have sought to use the photo sharing platform to promote their brands. The New Yorker magazine has spent the past six months using the service to broadcast images found in its issues.
We've seen some very heavy-duty gear lugged out to cover the Olympic games in London this year: some robotic rigs, an 800mm lens that could easily weigh more than the average lady gymnast, and of course, the usual suspects in a packed camera bag. But Guardian photojournalist Dan Chung is traveling light: he's covering the games with a simple iPhone setup.
The photography industry isn't the only one transitioning away from film and into digital; Hollywood's undergoing the exact same thing. Side by Side is an upcoming documentary film produced by Keanu Reeves that offers a look into this major transition that's underway …
The deadline to put up initial bids for Kodak's 1,100 patent sale is Monday, and The Wall Street Journal reports that the two biggest contenders, Apple and Google, are forming "coalitions" with other companies in preparation for the all out patent brawl. The last time this happened, an Apple/Microsoft alliance ended up winning the battle against Google, that time over a patent sale by Nortel Networks.
In 2011, photographer Michael Wolf was awarded Honorable Mention in the World Press Photo 2011 contest for screenshots taken from Google Street View. It immediately sparked a debate regarding whether or not the work should even be considered "original photography". The Independent has an interesting article about a different Street View "photographer": Jon Rafman, whose work we've featured here before.
Mobile photo sharing powerhouse Instagram announced today that it has passed the 80 million mark for registered members. The service has grown by a whopping 30M since being acquired for $1 billion by Facebook in early April.
The New York Times has an interesting article examining how retouching has spread beyond fashion and advertising photos into editorial photography, conditioning the public to accept images that are "heightened versions of the truth". One reason is pressure from celebrity subjects: …
Kodak's ongoing request to dole out millions of dollars in bonuses to executives in the midst of its bankruptcy struggles has been met with plenty of criticism, but perhaps none more so than from former employees who are anxiously waiting to see whether their pensions and benefits will be affected. The Wall Street Journal writes, …
Polaroid the company was named after the inexpensive polarizing film developed by founder Edwin Land back in 1929. Over the years it became an iconic brand name associated with easy-to-use cameras and instant photos. After the company went bankrupt in the early 2000s, the brand name was sold off to a holdings company, which began licensing the name to third parties.
Hey Internet... Flickr heard your plea for improvement and has responded with its own standalone page titled "Dear Internet". The page is an open invitation to the Internet to help make the service better by applying for a job. We hear the site is looking to expand, and is looking for new rockstar employees to help it do so.
Flickr users have made quite a commotion in the past couple days begging new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer to make the photo sharing site "awesome again", but how does one go about doing so? Mat Honan of Wired says that one of the site's big weaknesses is user engagement, and conducted a test to prove his point: …
Last October Ricoh sealed the deal with Pentax, buying out the company for a sizeable $124-million. Since then we haven't seen any major changes as Pentax has gone about its business as usual. That, however, isn't going to be the case for much longer. According to the President of Pentax Imaging Ricoh, Noboru Akabane, there is a major change on the way: Pentax will be dropping compact, fixed lens camera development all-together, leaving all of that to Ricoh.
An interesting headline spotted over at Yahoo News: "More Americans Becoming Serious Photographers". In the article, analyst Chris Chute of research firm IDC says that more people in the US are identifying themselves as "enthusiasts": …
One of the most difficult things I found at the beginning of my professional career was discussing money. I’d happily accept anything that came my way and was pretty short-sighted at the implications it had, not only for myself but the local working community and the economics around that.
My mind is a strange and dangerous place. I shouldn’t go in there alone after dark. But the other night I was thinking, just me and myself, about all the new camera releases this year. Which had made the biggest impact? Was it the Canon 5D III with that world-class autofocus system? The Olympus OM-D bringing mirrorless cameras up a notch in image quality and usability? Should I mention the excellent Samsung NX20, just because no one knows it’s really good? Give the Fuji X-Pro an award for …
Most people already know that one of the ways Kodak tried to dig itself out of its sizable financial hole was to sell the Kodak Gallery to Shutterfly, and the service officially shut down just a few short days ago. Most Kodak Gallery users probably won't be too upset with the move, but unfortunately, it looks like even the 2-million active users (the Kodak Gallery had a total of about 75-million) will have to go a few weeks without access to their photos as their accounts are transferred over.
Photo agency Getty Images is on the auction block, in a second round of bids that are climbing towards $4 billion for a potential sale. Investment firm KKR & Co. and private equity investment firm TPG are on the list of at least five interested bidders, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Hong Kong model Angelababy lost her contract with Panasonic after leaking a photo of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF5 on Instagram in March of this year. And now: a legal mess that could cost millions.
Smartphone cameras have gotten to the point of being able to stack up well against digital cameras -- at least when viewing the photos at smaller sizes. Zoom in, and there's still a pretty big gap in quality due to the smartphone's smaller lens and sensor. BuzzFeed's John Herrman writes that the emergence of ultra-high res displays displays is converting people back to digital cameras: …
If you're at all familiar with Lytro cameras and their light field technology, you'll have heard of founder and CEO Ren Ng. However, he won't be holding the title of CEO much longer. Two days ago Ng announced via blog post that he would be stepping aside as the CEO of Lytro and moving into the Executive Chairman position previously occupied by Charles Chi (who, incidentally, is now the interim CEO).
You'd think the biggest name in DSLR online buyer satisfaction would be someone like Nikon or Canon, but according to J.D. Power and Associates, it's actually Pentax. J.D. Power and Associates released their 2012 DSLR Online Buyer Report a couple of days ago, and it was Pentax that took the crown, scoring 899 our of 1,000. The runners up, in case you're interested, were Nikon with an 891 and Canon with an 888.
When Picnik bit the dust several months back, it handed the web-editor baton, in large part, over the the Aviary photo editor. Since then Aviary has been running on all cylinders making consistent improvements and otherwise trying to get you to forget about that one Pic-something editor -- and it doesn't look like the company will be stopping any time soon. Having launched full-blown Android and iOS apps less than two weeks ago, Aviary has now secured $6-million in capital from several …
Ritz Camera and Image LLC officially filed for bankruptcy last Friday for the second time in three years. And while bankruptcy and financial trouble in general are, unfortunately, not uncommon in the world of photography these days, Ritz is making headlines because of their major unsecured creditors. Amon the biggest names on the list are Nikon, Sony and Fuji, all of whom stand to lose quite a bit of money as Ritz prepares to restructure.
Ever since their financial scandal, Olympus has been looking to bring on a big name investor to help get them out of trouble. Earlier this month that investor seemed to be Panasonic, but when that fell through everybody looked to the remaining three possible investors -- Sony, Fujifilm and Terumo -- to see if anybody was going to make the leap. According to Japanese business daily Nikkei, that investor is Sony.
Do professional photographers belong in delivery rooms? More and more of them are showing up there. The New York Times has an interesting piece on the rise of birth photography as a up-and-coming niche:
It seems like every month another company is acquired by Facebook; be it Instagram, Lightbox or now Face.com, it's clear that Facebook is looking to make some serious improvements on the photo side of things, and we certainly won't complain about that. Face.com's facial recognition IP has been very well-received so it's no surprise the people over at Zuckerberg Corp Facebook have decided to snatch up the Israeli-based startup before anybody else does.
Scalado is a big name in imaging, having come up with some pretty phenomenal ideas like the Rewind and Remove apps -- the first of which made a big splash when it was demoed as part of RIM's BlackBerry 10. And now it seems someone is finally trying to move in and steal Scalado all for themselves: Nokia.
There are currently 22 "generic" top level domains (e.g. .COM, .NET, .ORG), but that's about to change. ICANN, the authority behind the Internet's domain name system, began accepting applications for new gTLDs, meaning we may soon see web addresses that end in things like .PARIS, .FERRARI, and .KIDS. Yesterday was "reveal day" -- the day on which the full list of domain proposals and applicants was published. The reveals some pretty interesting clues on some photo-related domains that might …
Did you know that more photos are created every two minutes than in the entire 1800s? HighTable created this infographic that gives a quick overview of the state of the photography industry and the rise of mobile photography.
With most camera companies moving towards robotic assembly lines and online storefronts, it shouldn't come as a shock that the one company resisting this revolution is Leica. Not only do they still make many of their products by hand, but they also recently released plans to increase the number of worldwide Leica retail locations from 37 to 200 by the year 2016.
Recent news coming out of Rochester yesterday points to the fact that Kodak will be selling off its two massive patent portfolios sooner rather than later, and regardless of any progress made in the suit against Apple and RIM. In accordance with the June 30th deadline outlined in their lending agreement, Kodak has already filed a motion with the bankruptcy court -- to be approved at a hearing on July 2nd -- petitioning for a closed bids auction due to the "special nature of the assets."
A couple of weeks ago, reports confirmed that Olympus ex-CEO Michael Woodford would be settling with his former employer out of court rather than taking them to task for his unfair dismissal. Woodford was let go after blowing the whistle on Olympus' financial scandal, but now it seems he will have the last laugh as The New York Times has finally put a figure to the settlement: $15.4 Million.
While celebrating its second birthday yesterday, the extremely popular camera app Camera+ revealed that it has sold over 8 million copies since its inception. The question that followed this announcement, naturally, is why hasn't the app gone the way of Instagram and been bought out for massive amounts of money yet. After all, unlike Instagram, Camera+ is a paid app that has made a profit; wouldn't that make it even more appealing to the big guys? Well it has, but Camera+'s determination to …
Due in large part to the massive accounting scandal that Olympus found itself in at the end of last year, the company hasn't been doing that great financially. And now, according to Reuters, Panasonic is preparing to jump to Olympus' aid by providing approximately 50 billion yen (635 million dollars) in capital. The move will benefit both parties, as Panasonic, who are struggling with sub-par TV sales, will become top shareholder in the company and hopefully add a new stream of revenue to their …
After rolling out a similar mobile update a few weeks ago, Facebook is now bringing the "bigger is better" mentality to their standard news feed as well. In case you don't use Facebook mobile, what this translates into for you is bigger, browser-filling photo previews that should make it that much easier to determine whether or not it's worth scrolling through all 200 of your friend's newly uploaded vacation pics. This minor overhaul should start hitting news feeds over the next couple of days.
Late last year, during the Day of Photography in Amsterdam, PhotoQ interviewed nine photographers about the challenges facing them and photography as a whole from both an economic as well as social perspective. The resulting videos offer nine different perspectives on the business of photography, how it's changed, where it's headed, and how to adapt. Some viewpoints are more negative and others more positive, but in the end you can tell that each of these photogs love what they do, and just …
In a recent interview with Fujifilm CEO Shigetaka Komori, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine dived into some pretty intense financial conversation. Much of what was said didn't pertain directly to photography -- discussions about Fuji's involvement in the medical field and cosmetics for instance -- but certain parts of the interview were very interesting indeed.
Just yesterday news broke that Michael Woodford -- the former Olympus CEO who blew the whistle on the now-infamous scandal and was subsequently fired -- would be suing his former employer over unfair dismissal for a whopping $60 million dollars. And today, in an altogether not unexpected turn of events, Olympus is said to be preparing to settle out of court for a smaller (yet still massive) amount of money -- "only" $15.5 million.
The fact that UK camera retailer Jessops has been struggling financially is pretty well established; what's now under debate is whether or not Canon is going to make a sizable invest to bail them out. Just how sizable are we talking? Ten million pounds, or roughly 16 million dollars. According to an article in The Sunday Times ( in which no source was named) Canon is set to pull the trigger on the hefty investment in order to keep Jessops, the only specialized camera retailer in the UK, in …
Wanting to shed its image of being "old media" and "old fashioned", Getty Images has unveiled a new watermark that does away with the annoying logo in favor of short links. Rather than plaster the words "Getty Images" across the front of photos, the new watermark is actually useful: it provides a short link that directs viewers to the webpage for that particular image and also gives credit to the creator of the work. Inspired by the plaques found at exhibitions, the new watermark is offset to …
When it comes to photography agencies, Getty Images reigns supreme. Founded in 1995 by Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein, the Seattle-based behemoth in many ways took stock and editorial photography into the digital age, causing the slow decline of "former-rulers" like the AP. Between Getty's editorial supremacy and the rise of an era where photojournalists find themselves replaced sometimes by average Joe's with smartphones, the last few years have consisted mostly of the AP trying to staunch the …
Over the last couple of days Google has been hosting the "Hangout In Real Life" Google+ Photographers Conference in San Francisco, and if anything has come out of the conference at all, it's that Google is intent on making Google+ the photo sharing service of the future.
Kodak has been selling off its assets left and right as it tries to dig itself out of its financial hole. Most recently, it "successfully" sold its Gallery business to Shutterfly. But Kodak's most prized possession, and the sale it was hoping to make up the most ground with, is its massive collection of patents split into two portfolios.
It's certainly not as strange or unexpected as their possible move into the world of cosmetics, but rumors are now floating around that Nikon is getting serious about making video cameras. In an interview with TechRadar, a spokesperson for Nikon UK said that Nikon "is not a broadcast company... yet." He went on to imply that they may be breaking into broadcast depending on the feedback they continue getting from their friends in the industry.
News recently broke that the 30 minute (or rather 29 minute and 59 second) time limit on DSLR video may soon be a thing of the past. Interestingly however, the reason for the potential change has nothing to do with updated hardware or software. The only reason DSLRs don't already shoot longer video is because camera manufacturers want to bypass the 5.6% duty applied to video cameras, and the time limit allows them to avoid being classified as such.
