Miscellaneous

Google is shuttering Panoramio, the location-centric photo sharing service it acquired back in 2007. The service will officially be ending on November 4th, 2016.

Planetary Resources, the company behind the ARKYD Kickstarter that promised you the chance to take a 'space selfie' for just $25, announced today that it is cancelling the project and will refund all $1.5 million raised in 2013.

We're pleased to announce that the PetaPixel Photography Podcast is now available on Spotify.

As many of you have noticed, we had a few hours of downtime this morning. We made some changes that didn't sit well with the server. Things seem to be stabilizing now. Sorry about that.

We launched a major redesign of the PetaPixel website this week. Thanks for all the feedback you've provided thus far, from the angry complaints to the happy compliments -- we appreciate hearing them all. Now we'd like to hear more of your thoughts on what you'd like to see.

As you can probably tell, last night we launched the biggest site redesign so far in the history of PetaPixel. While change is often hard and controversial, there are some big ones that we've made in response to reader feedback and needs over the years.

Sony's CMOS sensors are widely used in digital cameras and smartphones these days, and the company's latest sensor shows why. The new IMX318 sensor is designed for smartphones and features 22.5 megapixel photos, 4K videos, hybrid autofocus, and built-in 3-axis image stabilization.

PetaPixel is a free-to-read blog, so we rely almost entirely on advertising to stay in business. In the past couple of weeks, however, readers have been reporting intrusive and annoying ads that redirect you to other websites while reading PetaPixel on mobile.

National Geographic today announced the winners of its 2015 International Photography Contest for Kids. A total of 17,530 entries were submitted from young photographers from around the world (between the ages of 6 and 14). There was also simultaneously a US-only contest.

Here's some amazing nature footage captured with GoPro cameras by filmmakers Cristian Dimitrius and Fran Hutchins, who traveled to Bracken Cave near San Antonio, Texas. The cave is the summer home of the world's largest bat colony, with millions of Mexican free-tailed bats living there for about 6 months of each year.

The Oakland, California-based photo software company VSCO is on a roll. After raising a whopping $70 million in venture funding -- $40M in 2014 and $30M in 2015 -- the company just announced that it has passed the 30 million user mark.

As 2015 winds to an end, here's a look back at the 10 posts that received the most views.

PBS NewsHour recently aired this 6-minute feature of the life and work of Scott Schuman, the photographer behind The Sartorialist and a pioneer of the street fashion photo blog. Schuman has been the subject of many similar videos over the past half decade since the rise of his blog.

GoPro has released a new update to its iOS app that turns the Apple Watch into a remote control for GoPro action cameras.

Instagram has been a big deal since it was launched in 2010. Here's an indication of how influential the photo sharing app is: young parents are now naming their babies after Instagram's photo filters.

Sigma's reputation has skyrocketed in recent times after the introduction of its highly regarded Art series of lenses for a number of mounts. It looks like the success has attracted the attention of at least one major suitor.

The benefits of shooting film sometimes, unfortunately, get lost amid the playground fight between film and digital devotees. The plus points – and believe me there are plenty – get drowned out.

Back in July, Panasonic announced an upcoming feature called "Post Focus" that allows photographers to select their focal point after photos are shot. Instead of using light field technology like Lytro or an array of cameras like Light, Panasonic's feature uses rapid-fire focus bracketing.

Leica today unveiled the new Leica M (Typ 262), the fourth model in the Leica M lineup alongside the Leica M (Typ 240), Leica M-P (Typ 240), and the Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246). The new Leica M (Typ 262) is a stripped-down camera that "focuses on the essentials of M rangefinder photography."

John Green of vlogbrothers made this interesting 2-minute video in which he talks about his favorite photo: a picture titled "Young Farmers" by German photographer August Sander. Upon first glance, it may look like a simple snapshot of three nicely dressed men walking along a road, but there's so much you can learn about the photo by examining it closely and by looking at the cultural context.

Here's a little tip for those of you who shoot with Fuji Instax film while out and about: once you're done exposing a pack of film, you can use the empty plastic pack as a container to hold your Instax photos.

Voigtländer may have just tapped out of the film rangefinder game, but the brand will still live on through new product lines. The brand, currently manufactured by Cosina, announced today that it'll be launching a brand new line of Sony E-mount lenses in Spring 2016.

20-year-old Hugo Cornellier of Canada has been taking one selfie a day before the word "selfie" became a thing. He started his daily ritual 8 years ago, when he was just 12 years old. This past weekend, Cornellier published the 2-minute above that shows himself growing up from age 12 to age 20.

Apple selected our new PetaPixel Photography Podcast as a "New and Noteworthy" podcast, and it's currently being featured on the podcast front page! We're also holding steady as one of the top podcasts in the Visual Arts category.

Ever since PetaPixel was founded back in May 2009, it's strictly been a blog that's enjoyed through your browser. That changes today. We're pleased to announce the launch of our all-new PetaPixel Photography Podcast, a daily twice-weekly news show about the wonderful world of photography.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina ravaging the city of New Orleans. Photographer Seph Lawless was recently commissioned by The Guardian to use his camera to explore and document the aftermath of the storm as it appears a decade after its landfall.

Tice Ledbetter was flying his DJI camera drone over a pier at Pacific Beach in San Diego this week when something bizarre happened: a fisherman on the pier noticed his drone, cast his fishing line at it, and hooked the quadcopter right below one of the propellers. The whole thing was captured by the drone in the video above.

What are photo editors really looking for from professional photographers? And how can you make connections with potential clients and land gigs? We asked a number of photography trailblazers to share their best tips for how to get hired as a photographer.

Sigma today announced a new lens to its highly-acclaimed Art lineup: the 24-35mm f/2. According to the company, this is the "world's first large-aperture full-frame wide-angle zoom lens offering f/2 brightness throughout the zoom range."

When the Calbuco volcano in southern Chile erupted earlier this week, a number of photographers in the region pulled out their cameras and shot photos and videos of what was going on for the world to see. One particular tourist, on the other hand, managed to snag something quite special: footage of the exact moment the eruption occurred.

Back in May 2011, Nikon filed a lawsuit against Sigma, accusing the company of using patented Vibration Reduction (VR) technology in Sigma lenses. In March 2014, a court in Japan recommended that Sigma pay Nikon roughly $14.5 million in damages.

Country music star Brad Paisley pulled an unusual camera stunt at a live show last year. While playing a guitar solo, Paisley grabbed the GoPro of a fan in the front row, held it against his guitar, and played a slide guitar solo with the camera as the slide.

Canadian freelance photographer Jesse Yardley created this mini documentary about the current state of film photography in Calgary. Worried that analog may be a "dying art," Yardley did interviews with some notable photographers in the area to find out if film still has a chance.

Travel photographer Jimmy McIntyre created this short 3-minute video tutorial to share a trick for adjusting the brightness of specific colors in your shot without affecting their saturation.

Twenty20 is a new stock photography service that just launched to the public after months of beta testing. It claims to have the world's largest crowdsourced commercial image catalog -- one that contains 45 million photos from 250,000 photographers based in 154 countries.

The British government is scrambling to keep a rare photo album from the 19th century from being sold to a foreigner and exported from the nation. It announced today that it has placed a temporary export ban on the book, which contains seventy photographs by Swedish photography pioneer Oscar Gustave Rejlander.

Back in 1966, renowned photographer Jay Maisel purchased a giant 6-floor, 35,000-square-foot, 72-room building at 190 Bowery in Manhattan for $102,000. The former NYC bank became his family's home for the next half century, and the purchase has been described as possibly "the greatest real estate coup of all time".

Less than a week ago, we shared how photographer Brandon Stanton had raised well over $1 million for a struggling Brooklyn school after a chance encounter with a 13-year-old boy named Vidal.

Here's one of the stranger copyright controversies we've come across. It all started with a photo contest and an accusation of copyright infringement.

When you think of icebergs, you probably think of those large white objects you see in movies and pictures. In rare situations, they can also be seen in a different form. When the iceberg gets flipped upside-down, it looks like a giant shiny piece of ice that's the color of the surrounding water.

23-year-old freelance news photographer Andrew Flinchbaugh was arrested late last week in Lacey Township, New Jersey after capturing video of an accident and then refusing to hand his camera over to police as potential evidence for the crash investigation. The 10-minute video above is Flinchbaugh's recording of the confrontation that transpired.

We've come to the end of yet another year of covering the latest and greatest in the wonderful world of photography. Before we head into 2015, here's a look back at the 10 most popular stories published on PetaPixel over the course of 2014.

A pair of high school sweethearts named Kevin and Molly got engaged this past week after being together for 7 years. To document his proposal, rather than hire a photographer or task a friend with hiding in the bushes, Kevin chose to take his unsuspecting girlfriend into a photo booth that captures both photos and video. The video above is what resulted.

JPEG is a remarkably resilient file format. Despite having many upstart formats attempt to dethrone it over the years -- including JPEG 2000 and Google's WebP -- the JPEG is still used by nearly 70% of websites and is holding strong in popularity.

We're a bit late this year, but here's the latest edition of our holiday gift guide! Unlike other photography gift guides you might find this holiday season, ours is more lighthearted and geared more toward novelty gifts than serious gear.

Contact sheets often provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind of photographers, showing final shots among outtakes that were left on the cutting room floor.

When the New York Times’ Molly Wood received two review units of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus from Apple, she wanted to see how they fared in the hands of a truly great photographer. So she shipped the two devices off to trusted NYT photojournalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Todd Heisler.

Artist Tom Leveritt recently ventured out into the world of ultraviolet photography -- or more specifically videography -- to help us take a closer look at the skin we’re in and how sunscreen is a vital tool towards protecting it.

It’s been roughly a month since Apple announced it’s discontinuing its professional-level photo management and editing software, Aperture. Today, Adobe has officially taken its stance on the situation, making two-and-a-half new announcements.

Japanese artist Koshi Kawachi has created a interesting series of work that combines photography and music to create an experience, rather than only an aesthetic. Titled Note Drawing the series transposes the silhouettes of city skylines into musical notation. It’s with these notations Kawachi then turns these cityscapes into actual music, which then accompanies the individual pieces.