News

National Geographic Lays Off 9% of Staff to Begin Its New Life Under Fox

National Geographic is laying off 9% of its 2,000 employees as it prepares to finalize its "expanded partnership" with 21st Century Fox, a $725 million deal that turns the iconic yellow-bordered magazine into a for-profit publication. The roughly 180 layoffs reportedly represent the largest reduction in the 127-year history of the Society.

Instagram Star Quits, Reveals How Photos Are Edited, Contrived, and Paid For

Update: O'Neil has apparently deleted all of her social media content, including the video and photos that were originally in this post.

18-year-old model and Instagram star Essena O'Neil has the world talking after posting the 17-minute video above on why she's quitting Instagram and social media (warning: there's some explicit language). She says that posting photos to her hundreds of thousands of followers consumed her and made her miserable, and that the luxurious life she showed online was all "edited and contrived."

Supersense Can Turn Your Digital Photo Into a Giant 20×24 Polaroid Picture

After founding The Impossible Project to revive Polaroid-style instant film in 2008, Florian Kaps announced his retirement from the company in May 2013. Kaps latest venture is the Vienna-based SUPERSENSE, which is a coffee house, store, photo and music studio, and workshop all rolled into a single space.

SUPERSENSE today announced that it's making 20x24 Polaroid photos available to photographers around the world. Simply send in a digital photo, and they'll ship you a gigantic 20x24-inch Polaroid picture.

NYTimes to Bundle 1 Million+ Google Cardboards for VR Photojournalism

The rise of virtual reality photojournalism will get a huge boost this weekend thanks to the New York Times. The newspaper's Sunday bundle for print subscribers will include a free Google Cardboard viewer for experiencing immersive photo and video content. Over 1 million units will be shipping with the paper, and another 300,000 will be sent to digital subscribers as well.

Photographer Recreates Couple’s Wedding After the Hired Shooter Flaked

Matt and Heather Koehler got married in Michigan back on September 12th. Shortly before walking down the aisle, the couple was devastated to find that their wedding photographer was a no-show. The "professional" they had hired to document their special day was nowhere to be found, so the couple was forced to go through with the wedding without the official photos they had planned and paid for.

Humans of New York to Top NYTimes Bestseller List a Second Time

If you want to see an example of a photographer "killing it" in the Internet era, just look at Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York. In the short span of 5 years, Stanton's portraits and interviews of strangers have grown into a global phenomenon with tens of millions of faithful fans.

In addition to having 15+ million followers on Facebook and 4+ million on Instagram, Stanton will be the man behind two New York Times bestsellers after this weekend.

This $5,900 Workstation Lets You Post-Process Your Photos Lying Down

Sitting for long periods of time has been shown to be bad for your health, leading more and more people to adopt other positions for working at a computer. If you've always dreamed of being able to stand, sit, and lie down at the same workstation while post-processing mountains of photos, the new $5,900 Altwork Station is for you.

This is the First GoPro Camera Drone Video

Earlier this year, GoPro announced that it will be launching its own camera drone in the first half of 2016. While details of the quadcopter's specs, features, and design have been sparse, GoPro just published the teaser video above to show what the drone is capable of.

Surveillance Video Shows Dangerous Photo Incidents on Train Tracks

Network Rail published a warning this week about the dangers of taking photos on railroad tracks. The company, which operates most of the rail network in England, Scotland, and Wales, also released a surveillance video that shows multiple dangerous photo incidents at a rail crossing that happened on in one day.

Canon Profits Down 21% as Mirrorless Cameras Cut Into DSLR Sales

Canon announced its quarterly earnings today, revealing that its operating profit for the quarter (~$665 million) has fallen 21% compared to last year and that total revenue fell by 4.5%. At the same time, Canon increased its full-year earnings estimate due to a drop in the value of the Japanese yen.

This is a 3D-Printed Pistol Grip for the Olympus Air

The Olympus Air camera is the commercial version of the Olympus Open Platform Camera (OPC), which people are making all kinds of hardware and software projects for.

A strange new one is the Open Platform Grip, a 3D printed gun-style grip that lets you point and shoot a "camera pistol" to take pictures.

PSA: Canon Selphy Printer Cartridges Contain Copies of Your Photos After Use

Canon's Selphy line of compact photo printers use cartridges that contain both paper and ink, allowing you to use your digital camera or smartphone like an instant camera while you're out and about. There's one thing you might not know about the cartridges, though: empty cartridges contain faint copies of the photos that were printed.

‘Prix’ is the First Short Film That Shows the Power of a QuantumFilm Sensor

Back in 2010, we reported that a California-based startup called InVisage was working on a new image sensor technology called QuantumFilm, which uses "quantum dots" to make sensors that are several times more sensitive to light than traditional sensors.

Now, 5 years later, the first short film shot with the technology has been released. You can see what the sensor can do in the 7.5-minute short above, titled "Prix."

XCraft Raises $1.5M from Shark Tank for Its Next Gen Camera Drones

The drone company XCraft has successfully raised $1.5 million at a $6 million valuation after appearing on the ABC reality TV show Shark Tank. The two founders convinced all 5 "sharks" to invest in the company, which builds next generation camera drones that go beyond your standard quadcopter.

Photographers Get Swarmed by Football Team After Crazy Finish

Georgia Tech pulled off a crazy 22-16 win over the #9 ranked Florida State football team this past Saturday after a field goal attempt for the win was blocked and returned 78 yards for a touchdown with no time remaining.

A number of photographers found themselves in the end zone as the memorable play unfolded -- some got shots, while others got swarmed.

Sony Shows Off a New Ultra-Sensitive CMOS Sensor Called ‘STARVIS’

Sony just launched a new image sensor called the STARVIS that excels in capturing images in low-light environments. Designed for industrial applications -- surveillance cameras, for example -- the new backside-illuminated CMOS sensor boasts extremely high sensitivity that can capture usable images at night.

Astronomers Unveil a 46-Gigapixel Photo of the Milky Way That Took 5 Years to Make

Last year, NASA released a 20-gigapixel photo of the Milky Way that was made up of over 2 million infrared photos. Back in January, NASA published a 1.5-gigapixel photo of the Andromeda Galaxy. If you thought those were big photos, get this: German astronomers have created the largest astronomical photo ever made: a ridiculously big 46-gigapixel photo of the Milky Way that took 5 years to make.

What Do You Do When ISIS Steals Your Photo?

The Internet is teeming with copyright infringement these days, and there are various ways for photographers to get stolen photos taken down and paid for by the offenders. But what happens when the offender is a UN-designated terrorist organization?

That's a real situation that photographer Brian McCarty found himself with earlier this year. Known for his photos involving children's toys, McCarty found that ISIS had stolen and repurposed one of his toy photos for their propaganda.

National Geographic Indonesia to Publish First Photo-less Cover on Climate Change Issue

National Geographic Indonesia is attracting attention this week after revealing the cover of the November 2015 issue. The special edition issue is about climate change, and it will be the first issue of National Geographic Indonesia to be published without a cover photo or illustration.

Instead, the cover is dominated by stark text that roughly translates to: "Sorry: There are no beautiful images of climate change. Can we survive?"

Phase One XF Feature Update #1 Adds Seismographic Vibration Delay and More

When Phase One announced its new XF camera system back in June, the goal was to unleash a new high-tech camera that can stay relevant long into the digital age. The company today announced the first firmware update that helps to fulfill that promise. It's a feature update that brings a number of exciting new features to the XF, including one called Seismographic Vibration Delay.

Canon’s L Lens Red Ring Spreads to Printers with the imagePROGRAF PRO-1000

The "L" in Canon's L-series lenses stands for "luxury," and the professional-grade lenses can be easily recognized by the distinctive red ring found near the end of the barrel. Canon is now expanding that red ring to the world of high-end photo printers.

Today, the company announced the new imagePROGRAF PRO-1000, a 17-inch professional fine art inkjet printer that features a red line across its body to indicate the quality of the prints you'll get with it.

Lensbaby Announces the Composer Pro II with Edge 50 Optic

Lensbaby today announced the new Composer Pro II with Edge 50 Optic, the latest product in the company's creative effects lens stable. It's a manual focus 50mm f/3.2 lens with a metal body and a tilt design that lets you control your depth of field in-camera.

Janet Jackson is Getting Instagram Users Deleted for Sharing Concert Shots

Janet Jackson doesn't just have a strict concert photography policy when it comes to professional photographers -- she's cracking down on fan shots as well. Instagram users are reporting that their accounts are being deleted by the service after they posted photos and videos of Jackson during her Unbreakable concert tour.