Photography has been a medium of limitless possibilities since it was originally invented in the early 1800s. The use of cameras has allowed us to capture historical moments and reshape the way we see ourselves and the world around us. To celebrate the amazing history of photography and photographic science, we have assembled 32 photographic ‘firsts’ from over the past two centuries.
When photographing the world around us, the property of color is likely something most people tend to take for granted. We expect our cameras to portray the visible light spectrum accurately. However, in a world so engrossed with color, we sometimes forget how long it took to get to this point in time and how many photographers and scientists viewed the concept of color photography as a pipe dream.
Some photographers live by a set of rules: they follow the standard conventions of exposure and image development to produce realistic photographs that correctly reproduce the world around them. Others, however, see the world through an entirely different lens. They are the rebels; they are the alternative photographers. Today, we throw aside convention to look at five alternative processes and how they can be used to foster entirely new perspectives.
The first known photograph was captured in 1826 when light reacted with a particular type of asphalt known as Bitumen of Judea. Since that first natural light photo, photographers have introduced artificial flash lighting to photos through all kinds of different ways. In this post, we're taking a look at a brief history of the camera flash -- from its humble beginnings with explosive powder and burning metal up through the latest LED lights -- to see how far it has come.
The folks over at Luma Labs have released the third generation of their ‘Luma Loop’ camera sling, a piece of equipment that aims to be incredibly accessible and stable, yet out of the way when not needed. Designed and manufactured with premium materials here in the United States, Luma Labs says every component is custom made exclusively for their production. We are taking a look to see if all that extra work has resulted in a product that is truly worth it.
The innovative folks at DJI continue to design drones that push the limits of aerial photography (and empty the wallets of eager onlookers). A new edition of the Inspire 1 with an added Micro Four Thirds camera system recently arrived on the scene, and we just had a chance to test it out. Let’s see if it lives up to the high demands of its price tag.
Personal videos have long been an integral part of our lives, allowing us to share and cherish memories with our friends and family. Apple’s recent release of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ have introduced ultra high-definition 4K video recording to a massive new audience. With such a powerful device, you may want to tweak your footage before you share it. Today, we are taking a quick look at five different editing solutions for your iOS device.
Back in May 2015, the Lewisville Independent School District in Texas issued student Anthony Mazur a notice to take down any photographs from his personal Flickr account that had been captured with school equipment or face a threat of suspension. After much debate with the school board, Mazur won the battle thanks to US copyright law and support from his local community.
The school isn't backing down from its policy, though: it's now requiring students to sign a "work for hire" contract to use district-owned camera equipment and, as a result, surrender all of their copyright protection. Mazur recently posted the new contract on Twitter for everyone to read.
Drones present an exciting new world of possibilities for photographers looking to explore and capture their world. Never before has aerial photography been as accessible to the masses as it currently is thanks to companies such as DJI. However, to quote a line from Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Drones can be dangerous if not used properly, and it is important to know the basics before taking off with your drone.
Capturing a collection of photographs and assembling them into a physical photo book can sometimes seem like more trouble than it is worth. Different sites present interfaces with varying levels of efficiency and generally force you to alter your workflow for print optimization. However, did you know that you can create an book directly in Lightroom? Today, we are taking a look at the built-in option available within Adobe’s Creative Suite.
Aputure's latest Light Storm LS 1c is a powerful accessory for any photographer looking to light up their workspace. Today, we're taking a look at how well the system handles, along with some of the unique features it has to offer including built-in wireless control and DMX light controller compatibility.
Lucas Blalock is an artist who has a love for the surreal and …
Every day, NASA releases a photograph from their collection that allows us to admire the great blue and green planet we call Earth. Recently, the agency released a picture of a group of small island cays in the Bahamas. The most interesting aspect of the photo is not the location, but a little bit of detail that reveals itself when you closely examine the photo.
You’ve spent the last few hours working on the perfect photo shoot and everything went better than you could have possibly imagined. After importing the RAW files to your PC and making a few edits in Photoshop, it is time to save your masterpiece. But, what file type do you select? With over twenty different file types to choose from, we are here to break down some of the most popular and tell you a bit about their strengths and weaknesses.
‘Sallie Gardner at a Gallop’ is sometimes considered to be one of the earliest films ever produced when it was released on June 15th, 1878. Twenty-four photographs of a horse and its jockey were played rapidly in succession, creating the illusion of motion when viewed through an old-time zoopraxiscope.
Since then, filmmakers have broken out their creativity and established a number of essential shots for depicting emotion through a lens. Today, we are taking a look at a number of these typical cinematic camera shots and angles to learn how they could be incorporated into still photography.
What is the largest photograph you have ever taken? Ask professional photographer David Bergman that question and he will proudly tell you he shot and produced a 20 gigapixel -- or 20,000 megapixel -- image of Yankee Stadium this year for Canon EXPO 2015. By stitching together 825 Canon 5Ds R images with a resolution of 50MP each, the result is a gigantic photograph with stunning detail.
The 3.5-minute video above is a behind-the-scenes look at how the photo was made.
One of the modern day cruces of video filming is smooth stabilization. While many of us carry around smartphones with exceptional video capabilities, everyday moments seems to remain plagued by shaky footage. Now, a new German-based company has hit Kickstarter with the solidLUUV: the world’s first all-in-one stabilizer for smartphones, action cams, and compact cameras.
A new patent filed by Facebook suggests that the social networking giant is working on giving user cameras a unique digital fingerprint. Looking for ways to identify fraudulent accounts and evermore establish what connections you may have with others, the new technology means that your future photographs will be tracked at levels previously unimaginable. For photographers, however, it may be an excellent way to prove that you truly own an image.
Integrated Wi-Fi is quickly becoming a standard for many camera manufacturers who are trying to stay up to date with the latest trends. It took a while for the two giants, Nikon and Canon, to get on board, but most of their latest cameras have been rolling out with wireless connectivity.
If you shoot with a wirelessly-connected Nikon camera, Airnef is an open-source utility for transferring your photos to a Windows, OS X, or Linux computer.
Samyang Optics has announced two new lenses due out this October under their Rokinon branding. The first piece of glass announced is a 50mm f/1.2 lens, while the second is a 21mm f/1.4. Both products are compatible with Canon EF-M, Fujifilm X, Micro Four Thirds, and Sony E mounts. The lenses are entirely manual focus but feature aspherical elements, with the 21mm housing an extra-low dispersion element, for increased image clarity.
Here at PetaPixel, we receive quite a number of review requests daily, and picking what we feel is unique and interesting can prove to be a difficult task. But when we recently got a slightly more unusual request to review custom-branded wooden boxes from a company called ‘Woody Woodclick’ we had to give it a try. Producing custom wooden boxes and engraved flash drives, the company aims at premium packaging for photographers.
We're in the dawn of a new camera drone age in which aerial units are readily available from a number of different manufacturers. In addition to taking to the skies, companies are also looking to take drone exploration in the other direction: to the depths of the seas. OpenROV has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Trident: a submersible drone geared toward the general population.
Peak Design is a photographic accessory company that never seems to run out of new and exciting ideas to improve the everyday lives of photographers. Recently, Peak Design announced their latest product, the CaptureLENS: a double-sided rotating mount for quickly storing and switching out your lenses while on the move. We got a chance to test out the CaptureLENS system to see if it lives up the Peak Design standard.
Snapchat has amassed hundreds of thousands of users since it launched in 2011, and it has largely stuck to its formula of simple, self-destructive photo sharing. Yesterday, the company announced a new "Lenses" filter feature and the ability to replay 3 photos or videos for $1.
The promise of truly immersive, virtual reality headsets for the masses is just around the corner with Oculus Rift launching its consumer version in 2016. In the meantime, a number of alternative solutions have been introduced including Google’s Cardboard, Samsung’s GearVR, and Carl Zeiss’ VR ONE headset. We’ll be taking a look at the latter to see if one of the world’s greatest optics manufacturers has what it takes to jump into the virtual reality space.
Startup Overlab has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund Hobie: a personal time lapse tool with the heart of a kitchen timer. Hobie utilizes an actual ordinary kitchen timer at its base to rotate the camera mount perched upon it. Simply dial-in the time on the base, insert your smartphone into the circular mount, and begin capturing easy time lapses. As a bonus, when the base finishes rotating, it rings loudly to let you know the process is complete -- and that your eggs are done boiling.
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.
At the turn of the century, the Joint Photographic Experts Group created what they considered to be the next generation of JPEG image compression. Suitably named JPEG 2000, the standard promised better compression performance with improved image quality. However, despite the standard being released fifteen years ago, why do most photographers only glance over the option when saving in Photoshop? Today, we explore the advantages and disadvantages of a file format that already seems to have become a footnote in history.
YouTube star Ryan Higa recently decided to parody the popularity of “hover boards” that have been flooding the consumer market. In the creative "infomercial" and stop-motion video above, he throws aside an expensive ‘FloBoard’ to find more fun with the cardboard box itself.
Watch the result of Higa and his team taking four days to craft an epic stop motion that transforms a simple piece of cardboard into a true hover board, a jetpack, and even a fighting robot. The stop motion fun begins at 2:20.
As the new NFL season is getting underway, Sports Shooter Academy has posted …
The sun can be a photographer’s best friend: it is a constant source of light that lasts all day and doesn’t require any power from your end to keep it up and running. However, knowing how exactly to work with a source of lighting that changes over time can be a bit difficult. In the 6-minute video above, director of photography Jon Salmon and his team show us how to use the sun during various times of the day to obtain the ideal lighting during a shoot.
SteadXP, which we first wrote about in September 2014, is a small box that is promising to stabilize some of your most problematic videos. By using an external system that tracks where in space the camera is currently positioned at any given time, stabilization software can do a more efficient job at making your video nice and smooth. No bulky steadycam or gimbal is needed for this lightweight solution.
DJI today announced their new ZENMUSE X5 series of Micro Four Thirds Cameras for the Inspire 1 drone system. Featuring increased dynamic range, interchangeable lens compatibility, remote focus and aperture control, and lossless 4K RAW video recording, the ZENMUSE X5 series is ready to take on the high-performance world of aerial photography with two distinct models.
Last year, Sony controlled around 40% of the $8.7 billion image sensor market. Now, Sony is looking to take on a new challenge: building small high-resolution sensors for the mass-market that can capture images at 1,000 frames per second. If this sensor makes it to the market, Vision Research's Phantom high-speed cameras may have some stiff competition on its hands.
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.
Shenyang-based camera lens manufacturer Zhongyi is taking to Facebook to give a sneak peek of its latest creation, a Mitakon 25mm f/0.95 pancake lens for Micro 4/3 cameras. The new lens will be one of the fastest lenses available for the system: matched only by Voigtlander's Nokton series of f/0.95 lenses. The Mitakon looks to have the edge with a more affordable product in a much smaller package.
When particles of dust and debris get on your camera sensors, they can cause frustrating spots in your shots that ruin entire batches of photographs. Thus, many photographers like to regularly give their sensor a cleaning to make sure it's free of spots. In the 10-minute video above, PhotoRec Toby offers a detailed look at how you should go about dry and wet cleaning your image sensor.
The composite photo above shows the International Space Station zipping across the face of the Sun on September 6th, 2015. Traveling at 5 miles per second and carrying 9 crew members, the Space Station appears as nearly a tiny silhouette in the transit.
British car manufacturer Land Rover has introduced an interesting new technology that uses multiple cameras to make trailers “disappear” from an LCD rearview mirror while you're driving. By combining video feeds from both the existing rear view and side view cameras with a digital wireless camera mounted on the back of the trailer, the system creates the impressive illusion of transparency.