Photography News

Today the Sony Digital Imaging team announced their latest lens addition, the FE 50mm f/2.8 Macro for full-frame E-mount cameras. Shipping at the end of September, the new lightweight macro lens will offer a 1:1 reproduction and 6.3-inch minimum focusing distance. See all the specifications here as Fstoppers gets a first look at the FE 50mm f/2.8 Macro.

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.

Today DJI is adding an upgrade to their Osmo handheld gimbal with the new Osmo Plus. The Osmo+ features a 3.5x optical zoom camera with an extra 2x digital lossless zoom (while shooting 1080p), which gives it a 22-77mm focal length. Now available for $649 on the DJI website, the Osmo+ is an $80 increase of price over the regular Osmo handheld gimbal.

Canon has announced what's probably the most anticipated camera in years: the 5D Mark IV. Chock full of improvements and some remarkable new features, it looks to be a worthy successor to the 5D Mark III. Along with it come two new lenses, the EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III USM and the EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM.

Due to be released in the fall of 2016, Wine Country Camera’s Filter Holder System is a smartly crafted piece of equipment that is seeking to go beyond anything else currently on the market. I never realized that filter holders could be so awesome until seeing what this could do.

Those of you who work with video will have heard the name Edelkrone passed around in regards to video and photography equipment, particularly in the compact market that's small in size, easily transportable, and reliable. Recently though they announced the release of their newest piece of gear they call, The Edelkrone Wing, marketed to achieve "perfect camera slides with no rails."

The FTC seems to be continuing its watchful eye on sponsored posts via social media as influencers and celebrities get paid to post about their favorite brands. So beware if you are one that is taking products or collaborating with a brand as an ambassador, or simply as a partner. As photographers, many of us bring on relationships with companies and camera brands without knowing the rules fully. Not disclosing these partnerships can result in fines from the FTC.

It's been going on for decades. Film chemicals that coat the film and react with the various colors coming through the lens weren't made to cope with a diverse set of skin tones.

The latest list of inductees to the 2016 class of the International Photography Hall of Fame reads like a who's who of top tier photographers and industry pioneers. Gracing the list are the likes of Annie Leibovitz, Sebastiao Salgado, Ken Burns, Tom and John Knoll, Ernst Haas, and Steve Jobs. Wait, what? Steve Jobs?

Announced today, Nikon has updated their popular entry-level D3xxx series of cameras with the new D3400. Highlights of the new DSLR include always-connected Bluetooth for automatic sharing with mobile devices, double the battery life of the previous D3300, and image quality that is a step up from mobile photography. The D3400 will come with a new Nikkor DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR kit lens and cost $646.95, with the option to also add on the new Nikkor DX 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED for a total of $996.95.

In September, Samyang will ship a new full-frame 14mm f/2.8 autofocus lens for Sony E-mount. The lens will have Ultra Multi Coating, be compatible with contrast and phase detect autofocusing, and be shorter in length than the non-AF version. With the popularity and image quality of their 14mm f/2.8 manual focus lens, this is a welcomed addition to their lineup.

Brevitē has announced two interesting bags, the Rolltop and the Rucksack. Designed to minimize the appearance of being a camera bag with expensive gear inside, they offer a great alternative if you're looking to be a bit more discreet or fashionable.

CheeringTech, the China-based company behind the original CASE Remote and CASE Remote Plus, are back again with another CASE Remote update and this time they're hoping to drastically improve performance while reducing the physical size of the unit. All this while offering the same features as the industry leader CamRanger. To achieve this, they're launching the CASE Remote Air.

Released today as a free upgrade for existing users, Astropad 2.0 brings major performance improvements and new features to the popular iPad-to-Mac graphics tablet app. Described as a “Wacom Cintiq alternative,” the app allows for a stylus-wielding iPad user to perform photo retouching in a way that many prefer over clicking with a mouse.

If you were impressed by Getty Images' table covered by high-end Canon DSLRs and lenses, then you should definitely check this out.

Today, Instagram announced a new feature rolling out over the next couple weeks called Instagram Stories. Appearing at the top of your home feed, you can now watch and create your own temporary stories that do not appear on your profile grid.

August has arrived, so it's vacation time for a bunch of fellow photographers out there. It's finally time to enjoy some well deserved rest while getting mentally (and financially) ready for Photokina 2016. We'll have to wait another month for the big stuff, in the meantime let's see what Nikon has prepared for your summer.

Have you ever wanted to go on an adventure with no vehicles, but still be able to carry and use your electronics right through the trip without having to worry about battery life? Soon, we'll be able to use the Rokpak Pioneer Series. It's a waterproof box that uses solar-charged batteries to charge your gear via USB and Micro-USB cables.

This Cinemagraph time-lapse was made using only 12 JPEG images. The software allows photographers to create motion within a static photograph. You need to upload each image to the website, and then you design the movement within each image. Once you get a moving image "flowing" you can render it out and import it into Adobe Premiere Pro to create the final time-lapse.

A team of researchers recently placed study participants in different situations such as a bus tour, a museum, or a simulation of a live event. Some participants were allowed to take photos, while others were not. The team consistently found that those who were allowed to take photos enjoyed the experience more and showed higher levels of engagement with the material.

If you had the opportunity to shoot a presidential nominee for a year knowing that the rest of your photography business would die, would you take it? Ray Reynolds of RAYzor’s Edge photography did. He’s been shooting Donald Trump for the past year after a fellow photographer invited him to shoot an event last August. Reynolds seems thrilled about the chance to shoot these historical campaign events, but laments “My photography business is dead... Nobody will use me for photography now.” Well that’s a shame for Ray, especially if Trump loses.

Photographer Carol Highsmith has filed a suit against Getty Images seeking damages of $1 billion, alleging "gross misuse" of her photographs and copyright infringement.

You might remember a recent story in which an athletic sponsor was forbidden from referencing the Olympics when reporting on one of their athletes. It seems the US Olympic Committee is now clamping down all the more, issuing very stringent restrictions.

This is a wild claim to make. The camera is one of the most used apps on the iPhone, and most of the photos shared online are taken with one. So, why would this app beat the iPhone’s camera app? According to the video, Microsoft Pix is a smart camera, and looking at the features, it seems like they might’ve developed something quite great.

B&H is having two amazing deals that beat out any competitive price right now. For the next few days, you can get the incredible Canon EOS-1D C Camera at 38% off with a savings of $3,000. If you're in the market for a new laptop, there's also a big sale on the Apple 12-inch MacBook, giving you the option to save $550.

Nikon has announced the AF-S 105mm f/1.4E ED. Yes, that wide aperture is real. And yes, at $2,196.95, it's as expensive as anyone thought it might be. The good news is that optical quality is supposed to be at the top of its segment. With a relatively long focal length of 105mm, the f/1.4 maximum aperture is impressive regardless of the price. Also featuring Nikon's latest nano and fluorine coatings, this is bound to be a new favorite lens for many portrait and wedding photographers.

Today, Adobe has announced Lightroom for Apple TV. Featuring integration with Adobe's cloud services, it makes for a fun and interesting way to browse and show off your photos.

Aputure has released their latest LED panel, and it’s nothing like what they’ve created before. The panel is tiny, cheap, and looks like a very handy gadget to have on set.

Score one for the good guys. When they realized their boat was being stolen, two Washington teenagers handled it in the coolest way possible: they called the cops, then they put their drone in the air and chased down the thieves, guiding police to their position and capturing video evidence in the process.

The smallest unit of light is a single photon. Consumer cameras could never dream of detecting just one, but a recent study has shown that the human eye itself is capable of such a feat.

If you are a member of the United States and you own a drone, you know that some rules were made. Thankfully these rules didn’t kill us, they didn’t stop us from flying for commercial use, but they did give us a reasonable way to deal with drones in all kinds of different situations.

This is one of the more interesting strobes we've come across. Priolite has begun a Kickstarter campaign for their MBX500HS Ultra, a battery-powered monolight that promises to be able to shoot at any shutter speed available to your camera and at any power setting.

Have you ever been editing a photo within the Instagram app or just finished adding the perfect caption paired with the correct user tags only to get booted out and brought back to the news feed? Ugh, it's the worst! Thanks to the social media gods for building in a feature to save drafts within the app in the final stages of an upload. The feature doesn't seem to be available to everyone so take a look at how it works below!

Perhaps the most famous person in the art of documentary filmmaking is Ken Burns. The act of panning and zooming around a still image has been coined "the Ken Burns effect"; it was made famous in his historical documentaries. Burns has been notoriously impartial throughout his career, making sure not to include his own bias in his films, but he has decided that Trump has gone too far.

"Fact is stranger than fiction" might never be more true than when it comes to deep space science. The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured images of the Abell S1063 galaxy cluster, and they give us insight deep into the past.

Imagine cameras so small they could be injected into your body via a syringe: medical imaging becomes less invasive and more capable. A team of researchers has created a camera that can do just that.

If you're in the market for some new Canon gear, now is a very good time to buy. Canon has extended their rebate on body and lens combinations until August 27. Check out our list of all eligible items!

Serif has announced that a big update is coming to their Affinity Photo software in early autumn. In a sneak peek video showing off version 1.5, we are shown the software’s new abilities such as HDR image merging, a new tone mapping workspace, and a new way to view and work with 360-degree images. The new update will arrive in early autumn, but today through July 21 you can get Affinity Photo for 20 percent off.

If you are still one of the few photographers or creatives on planet earth not on Instagram, you might want to reconsider after hearing these stats. Instagram has now reached more than 500 million monthly users and 300 million daily active users. That is outrageous to think considering the large portion of those came within the last 2-3 years. It shouldn't take much to convince you that its still a powerhouse when it comes to sharing images and connecting with an audience.

"Everything She Says Means Everything" is the name of Spencer Tunick’s latest art installation. 100 women gathered together in protest and for art in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention.

In partnership with Schneider Kreuznach, Phase One has added two Blue Ring zoom lenses to their impressive lineup of high-end imaging products. These new full-frame 645 lenses, the 40-80mm LS f/4.0-5.6 and 75-150mm LS f/4.0-5.6, promise prime lens quality with improved precision and advanced electronics. Phase One will be hosting a webinar on July 19 where you can watch a hands-on demonstration of these lenses.

For the next four days, from July 18-21, the Republican National Convention is taking over Cleveland, Ohio. There will be around 15,000 credentialed media in attendance, and according to Wired, some of the photographers will be suiting up for the worst possible scenarios.

There have been many times I've wished for a zoom lens on my drone, simply because it wasn't reasonable to fly closer to something to get the shot, whether that was because of airspace, people, or some other reason. DJI has now made that possible with the release of the Zenmuse Z3.

I really thought I was the cool kid on the block with my DJI Phantom 4; then DJI got together with Hasselblad to make this 50-megapixel, medium format monster. I'm no longer the cool kid on the block.

Great news for mobile editing fans! Lightroom for iOS and Android has taken a large step forward today, making editing on the go more versatile and capable than ever.

In the same style and featuring many of the same advancements (such as Peak Design's MagLatch) as the original Everyday Messenger bag, Peak Design is back, this time with four new bags based on a backpack (in two sizes), tote, and small sling design. If you want to get in on the best prices, you still have time to save an additional 10 dollars on early bird pricing. But the campaign is already more than 15 percent fully funded, and it's moving fast.

Two days after a heated and scary exchange in which a man almost ran over a photographer with his vehicle, there's good news: the person involved has been arrested and charged with multiple offenses.

Matterport is a new 3D camera that is designed to scan the interior of homes. The software stitches all of the still images together and creates a virtual tour of the home. Not a virtual tour as in a slideshow that realtors love, but one where you can actually walk through the home yourself. You can look up and down, left and right, move forward, backward, and so on. The technology, even in the state it’s in, is actually pretty incredible and really helps show off the home in a way we haven’t really been able to experience before.

File this one under scary and unnecessary. A California photographer had an intense encounter with a stranger who went so far as to threaten him and his client with a vehicle multiple times.

Let’s be honest, it is very rare we come across photographers who shake us instantly, make us believe in the magic of photography at its very rawest again; photographers who get engraved in our hearts from the first sight to their work. Fan Ho was that kind of artist for me. At 84, he passed away from pneumonia on June 19, 2016 at a hospital in San Jose, California leaving us a remarkably unique body of work. I came across his magical photos this winter and since then I am hypnotized by the imagery he used to create.