While chilling on his balcony in Bondi Beach, Australia, drone pilot Matt Woods launched his drone to take some aerial footage. What he didn’t expect was seeing a spear fisherman and a shark lunging towards him. Woods called the lifeguards and helped them prevent what could have been a shark attack. While shark attacks are not as common as people think, Woods says that this particular shark seemed angry. “I spotted the shark straight away as there was a big bait ball of fish,” the drone pilot told Daily Mail....

The mirrorless market is undoubtedly getting stronger and stronger. Some photographers argue that this will soon kill DSLR, while the others claim that DSLR won’t be dead any time soon. If you’re just buying a new camera, or your first one ever, it can be tough to decide. In this video, David Manning discusses whether you should buy a mirrorless or a DSLR in 2020. He believes that “you’d be crazy to buy a DSLR in 2020,” so let’s see if you agree with his arguments....

Nik Collection users rejoice: DxO has announced that they’re acquiring the Nik Collection assets from Google. The current version is available for free on DxO’s website. But they plan to go on with the development, and there will be “Nik Collection 2018 Edition” released mid-2018. Jérôme Ménière, CEO and founder of DxO, says they’ll continue to revolutionize the image processing market with Nick’s tools. The new version of their flagship software DxO OpticsPro (as of now available under the new name DxO PhotoLab) is the first embodiment of this acquisition....

Why artists need to market themselves? So that, you the artist, wouldn’t starve to death. No, but seriously. Otherwise, you risk ending up like Vincent Van Gogh who (in the words of Steven Pressfield) “produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.” A lot of artists have this notion that they’re the creative person, and marketing belongs to the business world. Some even think it’s evil or dirty to promote themselves, and they don’t want to have anything to do with this” filthy” world....

Elle Germany has recently come under fire after publishing a “racially insensitive” issue. The November 2019 issue contains a tagline reading “black is back” along with a feature of models of color. Furthermore, there’s a photo of a black woman against the wrong person’s name, so the publication was accused that they “can’t actually tell models apart.” Instagram account @diet_prada posted a few photos of Elle Germany’s November 2019 issue, dedicated to models of color, but full of mistakes....

Although some historians are not happy about upscaling and colorizing old footage, there are still many people, including me, who enjoy watching videos like that. NASS has recently published one from the 1930s, showing the vibrant streets of Los Angeles in the 1930s. Upscaled and colorized, it gives a new life to the footage and it’s a real treat for everyone who likes this kind of video work. NASS enjoys restoring and upscaling old videos with neural networks and modern software tools....

Recreating a 17th century painting in the 21st century by using only stock photos would be an interesting project under any circumstances. But doing this with “The Concert” is a more than just interesting. First, it is one of the iconic paintings of Johannes Vermeer, a Dutch painter most people know by “Girl with a Pearl Earring”. And second, the story behind this painting is quite mysterious, since it went missing and it has never been found....

Last year, NASA announced that it would open the International Space Station (ISS) for tourists. Estée Lauder decided to hop on board with one of its products. The cosmetics company is sending ten bottles of its skin serum to space for a photo shoot, and it’s reportedly paying NASA $128,000 for this unusual advertising campaign. According to Bloomberg, Estée Lauder’s skin serum is going to be a part of the Northrop Grumman Antares rocket’s cargo....

The circumstances of this situation remind me of the Obama “Hope” poster. Photographer makes a photograph, photograph gets appropriated, then remade as a stylised artwork. The Associated Press sued artist Shepard Fairey on the photographer’s behalf, and the matter was settled out of court. The story here starts off somewhat the same. In 1981, photographer Lynn Goldsmith made a photograph of the the artist still then known as Prince. Three years later, Warhol then allegedly took this photograph and made a series of new pieces using the photograph as “inspiration”....

Food photography can get expensive. Not only do you need the right camera equipment, but you also need a variety of props to make your images stand out. From different backgrounds to plates and dishes, things can quickly get out of hand. And that’s before you factor in the cost of the food you’re shooting. Of course, professional commercial food shoots generally have big budgets to spend. They will often be able to hire prop stylists, food stylists and more to help run the shoot....

I’ve become a big fan of Feelworld’s monitors over the past few months. While they don’t always offer the bells and whistles of some higher-end field monitors, they’re excellent value for money, especially if all you need a monitor for is to check composition and focus. But Feelworld has stepped up their game now with the new LUT7 monitor, offering a touchscreen UI, waveform, vectorscope, and LUT support. We stopped by their stand at IBC 2019 to find out more about it....

Feelworld’s range of entry-level monitors have become quite popular over the last couple of years. Although they don’t offer all the bells and whistles we might find on monitors from Aputure and SmallHD, they’re plenty good enough for many hybrid shooters and specific use cases where those bells and whistles might be overkill. The Feelworld F6 has been a very popular monitor, but Feelworld was showing off a new F6 Plus at NAB 2019, so we spoke with them to take a closer look and find out more....

Granted, it’s not much of a pocket camera once you stick one of those L mount Art series lenses on it, but the Sigma FP is still a pretty tiny camera. It represents Sigma’s first L mount camera in the Sigma/Leica/Panasonic alliance announced at Photokina 2018. It’s not quite the full-frame Foveon beast we hoped for, but it still looks pretty good. We caught up with Sigma at PhotoPlus 2019 to find out more about the Sigma FP and what it can do....

Since Fuji finally opened up its lens X mount to 3rd parties, we’ve seen a lot of great and interesting lenses popping up. Sigma’s finally started expanding its range to include Fuji shooters, as well as Tamron, Tokina, Zeiss and more. One company that’s been offering a lot of autofocus lenses for Fuji is Viltrox, with seven lenses having been released. Now, it seems there’s a new one on the way....

One of the bigger personal projects I’ve been working on recently is my Cinematic Studio Lighting course. During the process of writing the accompanying notes and shooting promotional images for the event, I’ve done a ton of research on how cinematographers and directors of photography work, think and plan their shots. I originally thought the two worlds of photography and cinematography would be fairly similar, but I ended up learning a lot more than I thought I would and I think that’s down to how cinematographers approach the setup of their image compared to many of us photographers, especially those of us who primarily shoot in a studio....

Both black and white and color photography have their charm, but it takes some skill to master when and how to shoot or edit in black and white. In this video, Jamie Windsor shares nine quick and very useful tips for all of you who want to raise your black and white photography to a new level. These tips will help you brush-up your skills, and Jamie also shares plenty of example images to illustrate his points....

When our loved ones pass away, we’re left with memories and photos of them. Sadly, sometimes it’s only photos we have if they leave while we’re too young. Dakota Deady’s father, Jones, was only a toddler when his dad passed away. So, he was only left with vague memories and one photo of him. But thanks to Dakota and two 8mm film reels he found, Jones was able to see his dad for the first time....

One of the things that the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us it that many more people can work from home than most of us previously thought. It’s brought online video conferencing to the forefront of our minds, but with everybody buying up webcams, the decent ones are pretty much impossible to find now. Chances are, demand for webcams will say high for a while, too. Well, Fuji has now launched its new Fujifilm X Webcam software for Windows....

George Mendonsa, the “kissing sailor” from Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous photo, died on Sunday at the age of 95. Mendonsa was photographed kissing a nurse on 14 August 1945 during the celebration of the end of the Second World War. The photo was published in Life magazine and it became one of the most influential images of all time.Advertisements Mendonsa’s daughter, Sharon Molleur, confirmed her father’s death to the Providence Journal....

With the trend for retro-looking cameras and lenses over the last few years, I’m surprised it’s taken a company this long to come out with a matching retro-styled speedlight to go with them. I mean, how awkward is it when you’re out with your hipster friends with your Leica M or Nikon Z fc and a fancy modern flash on top? Well, now, Godox has the answer in the form of the Godox Lux Junior, a 1980s-styled speedlight that actually looks quite useful, if I’m completely honest....