The U.S. Copyright Office has officially started the clock on a significant fee change that will impact how photographers protect their work. On July 14, 2026, the office submitted its final proposed fee schedule to Congress. This triggers a statutory 120-day review period, meaning that unless Congress intervenes, a new set of higher fees will automatically go into effect in mid-November 2026. For working pros and serious enthusiasts who regularly register their images, this policy update shifts the baseline economics of their practices.

If you have spent any time reading about camera settings, you have heard the advice to keep your ISO as low as possible for the cleanest image. The lowest normal ISO setting your sensor is built around has a name: base ISO. Understanding what it is, and why files shot there look better than files shot anywhere else, is one of those small pieces of knowledge that quietly improves every photo you take. It explains why your daylight shots look so crisp, why your dim indoor shots get grainy, and when it is worth chasing the lowest number versus letting it climb.

For my photo tour in Iceland, I wanted to go lightweight. I had my eye on the new Think Tank FocusPoint 30L because it just looks great. Amazingly, my gear did fit in this compact photo backpack, and I took it with me to Iceland. Let me tell you about my experiences.

About six months ago, PolarPro sent me their new Portra filter. On their website it states, "Inspired by the look and feel of Portra 400 film… the Portra Filter blends color tone, diffusion, and glare reduction into one optical filter for a finished look." Hmm, sorry, it looks nothing like Portra 400 film. And I hadn't even put the filter on my camera at this point. I simply looked at the sample photos on their website, and thought about all the photos I've shot on Portra film.

"Adolescence" pulled off something most productions only pretend to do: four episodes, each filmed as a single continuous take, no stitched cuts hiding in the shadows. The internet split over whether the show cheated, and the answer sits right in the gear the crew chose to carry.

Nikon sells three different 35mm prime lenses for the Z mount, and picking between them comes down to details that specs alone won't reveal. The gap between the Nikon 35mm f/1.4 and the Nikon 35mm f/1.8 S is smaller than the labels suggest.

Movie stunts that look impossible almost always come down to a physical problem someone had to solve, whether that meant building a 330 ft miniature bridge or strapping an actor to a helicopter at 75 mph. 

One of the strangest things about photography isn't the endless debate over cameras, editing software, or artificial intelligence. It is the quiet assumption that mastering one photographic discipline somehow grants authority over every other one.

Walk past a certain bus stop near Meta's London headquarters and you see a glossy campaign shot: Kylie Jenner in a pair of the company's smart glasses. Step to the side and the poster becomes a black-and-white X-ray of her face under the words "We're always watching."

Flat light gets a bad reputation. The moment the sky turns from blue to a sheet of gray cloud, a lot of photographers pack up, assuming the good light is gone for the day. That instinct is backward. Soft, flat, overcast light is one of the most forgiving and flattering kinds of natural light there is, and the only reason it disappoints people is that they treat it as a finished product rather than a starting point. Learn a few simple ways to shape it, and a dull gray day becomes some of the easiest portrait light you will ever work with. This is about natural light specifically: no strobes, no flash, just the daylight you already have and a couple of inexpensive tools to bend it your way.

Netflix just spent real engineering time making its biggest show look worse, on purpose. It's not the only surprising analog bet this summer — Christopher Nolan shot a $250 million blockbuster entirely on physical film — and neither is nostalgia. It's a signal about what audiences want that every photographer and videographer should notice.

Travel is one of the best ways to learn history, to experience new foods and cultures, and to find inspiration. But when a photographer travels for personal fulfillment, it can be tricky to balance the "photographer" and the person.

An 800mm equivalent lens that fits in a hand and a 1,000mm equivalent monster share the same day out on the Welsh coast. That kind of reach used to mean carrying gear you could barely lift, and the shift toward smaller sensors covering it is one of the more interesting developments in wildlife photography right now.

Most wedding shooters carry a 24-70mm and a 70-200mm so they never get caught without the right reach. That habit can quietly wreck the consistency of your work, and the fix has nothing to do with which lens you own.

A photographer was hired to shoot a musician for a magazine. Months later, she started selling prints from that session. The musician says she never agreed to any of that — and now a court is going to settle a question photographers normally settle with a piece of paper: who owns an editorial photograph once the shoot is over?

There is a particular kind of confidence that only exists on the internet. You have probably encountered it if you've ever published a photograph, written an article, uploaded a YouTube video or, for that matter, dared to have an opinion in public. It belongs to the person who has never shown you a single piece of their own work, yet has absolutely no hesitation in explaining why yours falls short.

Ask any printer to be cheap, good at black and white, and simple to use, and you're chasing something that doesn't exist. Anyone who has tried to pull a truly neutral monochrome print off an inkjet knows the frustration of watching subtle color casts creep into what should be clean gray.

One of cinema's most influential creators just planted his flag firmly on the pro-AI side. In a wide-ranging interview tied to the opening of his Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, George Lucas said artificial intelligence is "the future" of moviemaking and that fighting it is pointless: "There's nothing you can do about it. That's progress, it's the future."

Federal authorities have charged hundreds of people for flying drones too close to FIFA World Cup sites, and some of them were not even filming the tournament. One pilot got footage of a church, another was shooting for a real estate business, and both ended up facing federal charges.

The FAA has proposed a rule that would let power plants, dams, refineries, and other "critical infrastructure" sites ask to have the airspace above them closed to drones. By the agency's own estimate, roughly 125,000 facilities could qualify to ask. Almost no one has said anything about it — 578 public comments as of July 13 — and the window closes August 5.

Every desk has one ugly corner: the gray knot of chargers and power bricks that no cable management ever truly tames. The Anker Nano Power Strip (10-in-1, 70W, Clamp) clamps to your desk edge and swallows that knot whole, and after a month running my entire charging setup off it, I'm not going back.