Photography News

The Lily Drone Is No More, Refunds Promised

Despite $34 million in pre-orders, the Lily drone will not see the light of day. After three years of development, the team has announced that they have run out of funds and will be refunding anyone who pre-ordered the device.

Steadicam Volt Smartphone Stabilizer Blows Kickstarter Goal Out Of The Water

Have you ever been interested in creating professional looking videos but haven’t been able to justify the cost of dedicated professional video gear? You’re in luck considering the remarkable video quality that is achievable using the most current smartphones. Combine the latest smartphone video recording capabilities with stabilization technology developed by the originators of the Steadicam and you’re now able to capture professional looking video easier than ever.

Sigma Offers $60,000 in Prizes to Celebrate Its 60th Anniversary

To celebrate the company’s 60th anniversary, Sigma is offering eight prizes of $7,500 to four photographers and four filmmakers. Entry — which is free — is open to any resident of the U.S. who is enrolled in a photography or film course.

The FAA Is Developing a System for Remote Identification of Drones

Consumer drones continue to grow both in capabilities and sheer numbers at a rate that seems to be outpacing the government's ability to find a way to properly integrate them into the national airspace. As the FAA works to catch up, their newest proposal could be a big step forward.

MAC Cosmetics Posts Images With Unedited Facial Hair

Cosmetic companies are known for using high levels of retouching in their images. MAC Cosmetics is the latest company to ditch the Photoshop in some recent posts, and the Internet is divided about it.

Buying Gear? Why Using This Card at B&H Could Save You Hundreds

Recent changes to sales tax laws have opened the door to online retailers having to collect sales tax for out-of-state customers. B&H has just launched a product they say will instantly reduce the amount you owe on taxable purchases. Let’s take a look at how it may work and whether it is worth getting.

dji-matrice-600-drone-ronin-mx-gimbal

If you're like me and you've already purchased a Ronin-M gimbal, hearing news of its replacement is terrible news. Luckily, the new Ronin-MX brings new features to the table, and it's a whole new beast.

Wacom Says MacOS 10.13 High Sierra Support Coming by Late October

Despite nearly four months passing after Apple released the MacOS 10.13 High Sierra developer beta on June 5, Wacom apparently needs more time to sort out their tablet drivers for the new operating system. High Sierra was released today to the public, however Wacom is advising not to upgrade just yet to keep your tablets working.

Re-Sharing Feature Is Coming to Instagram, and You Can Turn It Off

Before, to share someone's post on Instagram, you had to use third-party apps to download the photo and upload it to your account, usually with the source account's username and profile photo embedded in the corner. It sounds like the ability to share a post is finally coming, but probably not the way you expected it to.

Sony Warns Coronavirus Could Severely Impact Camera Industry

Officials are still working hard to get ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, and while the situation is having a serious impact on global health, Sony is reporting that an unexpected effect may be a serious disruption of the camera industry, as the quarantine in China will affect the company's production and sales supply chains.

Olympus Announces the New 12-200mm Lens, and It’s Tiny

Olympus has just announced the launch of a new lens, the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 (35mm equivalent 24-400 mm). It features the highest range of zoom of any lens available for mirrorless systems, giving users more than 16 times magnification. At just $899, it goes on sale at the end of March.

OWC Releases 2,800 MB/s ThunderBlade External SSD

NAB 2018 seems to be the year of ultra-fast NVMe solid state drive releases. Now, OWC's newest ThunderBlade external SSDs fit for editing 8K video are available to ship today in capacities from 1 TB to 8 TB.

50mm f/0.95 for Canon RF, Nikon Z, and Sony E: The Mitakon Speedmaster Mark III

2019 certainly seems to the year for f/0.95 standard lenses. Shortly after fans were teased with Nikon’s Noctilux at the CP+ event in Japan, bokeh geeks (bokeeks?) were treated with an announcement from Zenit, and now Chinese lens maker ZY Optics has launched the Mitakon Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 Mark III for Sony E, Canon RF, and Nikon Z mounts.

Locations of Reggae Album's Vinyl Sleeve Photos Traced and Rephotographed

Alex Bartsch has done the incredible. Through a lot of research and after climbing over fences and onto roofs, he sought out 42 locations where reggae artists had photos taken for their album artwork. He even got into the living room of former Trojan label owner Marcel Rodd in Hampstead to take a photo in front of the fireplace. His work documents an era of London's reggae scene between 1967 and 1987.

Bartsch's series looks like it took a lot of hard work. Either the artists, label owners, or photographers had to be tracked down to get...

Meet DJI AirSense: More Safety When You Fly

One of the biggest concerns when it comes to flying drones is airspace and safety. Drones must always yield to manned aircraft and now DJI has found a way to make this process easier than ever before.

Planet Earth II - The Planet's Wilder Side

We know that if something is narrated by David Attenborough, it's going to be special. And to make it even more of a go-see, the original score is produced by award-winning Hans Zimmer who gave us the score to Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Inception to name a few. BBC used the latest filming technologies to get up close and personal to these creatures we seldom see or think about as being part of this eco-system on Earth.

AmazonTube, YouTube's Nemesis, Might Become Reality

I regularly view vlogs and how-to videos on YouTube. It's a vital resource for any photographer or videographer, and we all know that it's been a compliment to our businesses in the visual arts industries. I've noted that the vloggers don't just monetize their YouTube channels with the ads that are displayed before the video starts. No, they use affiliate links to all the gear they used to make the video in the description below the video on YouTube. What will it mean for us if Amazon starts their own video platform like YouTube?

AP Photographer Attacked After Super Bowl

While the Eagles' Super Bowl win over the Patriots was certainly a joyous occasion for the city, the night was not without a negative side, as some reports of looting, vandalism, and assaults came out of the city. One of the assault victims was an AP photographer.

Sandisk Releases Massive 400GB MicroSD Card

Sandisk continues to push forward with the release of their record breaking Sandisk Ultra 400GB microSDXC UHS-I Card. Now owned by Western Digital, Sandisk once again topped their previous record-breaking 200GB & 256GB models released in the prior two years.

Zenfolio Wants to 'Help' You Create Photo Albums, Take Hefty Commission

I'm generally not a fan of the opt-out model. It's an easy way to push unwanted features, changes, or price increases onto an end user, often without them noticing until it's too late. It's like someone slipping a steak into my all-vegetarian cart at the grocery store when I'm not looking. Unfortunately, Zenfolio just slipped a big T-bone into its users' carts.

Official Study Guide for Commercial Drone Pilot Certification From the FAA

As most of us know, those who would like to fly for commercial use (any flying where the pilot will be paid) must now pass a test from the FAA and score 70% or over to fly legally. Now, I am a few days into studying for the test and realize that there is really a decent amount to know.

Prepare Your Website, Flash Is Finally Going Away

As I wrote in a previous article, using Flash for your photography website is a very bad idea with some very negative consequences. Now Adobe is announcing end of life for Flash.

Time Magazine Celebrates the 100 Most Influential Photographs in History

Time Magazine will be counting down their selection of the 100 most influential images of all time this month. According to the magazine, the very first photograph was taken back in 1826, so they are presenting this project to coincide with celebrating the "175th anniversary of photography and the birth of photojournalism."

Nikon Continues to Market the D6 with Videos About the D5

In a slightly odd move, the page on Nikon’s website announcing the development of the company’s forthcoming flagship sports shooter, the Nikon D6, has just finished publishing a series of promotional videos — all of which focus on its predecessor, the D5.

ON1 Software Announces Photo RAW 2018

Today ON1 Software announced the 2018 version of their flagship editing software, Photo RAW. With the addition of a variety of new features, Photo RAW 2018 promises to be the most compelling version yet. Among others, ON1 has added support for HDR, panoramic stitching, and more powerful masking to Photo RAW. A free public beta of Photo RAW 2018 will be available Friday, October 6.

ZEISS Announce Milvus 35mm f/1.4 Lens for Full-Frame Canon and Nikon

This morning, Carl Zeiss have announced the tenth lens in the Milvus series for full-frame Canon and ZEISS DSLRs, boasting a new optical design that offers "practically no chromatic aberations". Previous Milvus lenses have been impressive, but often specialized, whereas this new addition is more of an all-rounder.

Researchers Record 'Photonic Boom' at 100 Billion Frames Per Second

We've all heard of sonic booms, which occur when the shock waves produced by an object traveling faster than the speed of sound accumulate to produce a giant pressure wave, but what about "photonic" booms? Researchers have just shown that indeed, light exhibits the same effect, and they used a camera that records 100,000,000,000 frames per second to show it.

Canon Announces the EOS C700 FF 5.9K Full-Frame Cinema Camera

While the video resolution war is still ongoing, there is one more battlefield: sensor size. Canon is fighting on that ground with some new heavy artillery: the EOS C700 FF cinema camera, which boasts a full frame sensor, almost a 6K frame size, and 15+ stops of dynamic range.