I might’ve mentioned this before, but a lot of drone videos are starting to look kind of samey. It’s always the “cinematic” (basically a 2.4:1 aspect ratio) slow flyby over some landscape or other, with no real story. Just a bunch of vaguely connected clips of a location. A few people are pushing themselves and trying to come up with something different and interesting. One such person is filmmaker Chris Castor, winner of the narrative category at the Los Angeles Drone Film Festival with his short film, Cardboard Cadet....

If you are new to film photography, chances are that you will get into shooting black and white sooner or later because you have been inspired by the masterpieces of our great geniuses. But before you become the next Henri Cartier-Bresson or Sebastião Salgado there are a few things you should know. Seeing the world in Black and White is the main struggle for everyone at the beginning but like with everything else, it can be learned and practiced with a simple understanding of how colors are translated into BW....

7Artisans has been showing off a couple of new APS-C lenses on Chinese social media platforms. One is a very wide angle ultra lightweight 4mm f/2.8 lens designed for use on drones while the other is a slightly less wide (but still pretty wide) 12mm T2.9 cinema lens. Both lenses appear to be manual focus lenses but beyond that, there isn’t much information available about them yet. We do know what mounts they’ll be available for....

When we think of shooting landscapes, typically it’s with pretty wide lenses. Most landscape photographers I know rarely shoot with anything that isn’t at least as wide as a 24mm on a full frame body. But does that mean you have to only shoot landscapes with a wide angle lens? In this video, Toma Bonciu challenges himself to shoot landscapes with an 85mm lens, typically used more for portraits, and the results are pretty spectacular....

The number of new drone owners I’ve seen showing off on social media the last few days is crazy. It’s obvious a lot have been given out over Christmas. While some new drone users have already hit a spot of bad luck, one thing many will have to do is register with the FAA. A lot of the tiny toy drones won’t need it, but if you’ve got a Mavic Pro, Phantom, or similar sized drone, it will....

This weekend, a moose drowned in Vermont because of people who were taking photos of it. The crowd scared the animal into the water, and it drowned from exhaustion, according to the reports. According to The Grand Isle County Sheriff’s Department, the moose had most likely already swum a few miles to cross Lake Champlain from New York state. Sheriff Ray Allen says that the animal made its way out of the water and it was exhausted....

DJI Mavic II has been rumored for a while, and DJI recently announced an event in New York where they would present the drone to the public. However, a photo of the new DJI Mavic Pro II has leaked online, and it suggests that the drone will have 360-degree obstacle avoidance and a removable gimbal. The new drone will officially be named “Mavic II” instead of “Mavic Pro II.” This may indicate that this is the basic, and not the Pro model, so it can possibly leave room for another DJI Mavic drone....

The Universal Serial Bus has come a long way as a technology; it is now a standard in today’s electronics and gadgets for work and play. Computers and peripherals interact through USB ports. As you can see here, legacy serial and parallel ports once dominated the scene. Under this setup, a keyboard, mouse, external monitor, printer, and all other PC accessories have a corresponding custom port to communicate with the computer....

Netflix has launched a new original documentary TV series every creative can watch to get inspired. Abstract: The Art of Design follows some of the most innovative designers in different disciplines: graphic designers, photographers, illustrators and architects. It follows their art, creative process and all the challenges they face in through their work. Also, it helps the viewers discover how the innovative designs of these creatives have affected our everyday lives....

Stock photography website Fotolia is coming to an end. After Fotolia was acquired by Adobe, Adobe Stock was launched in June 2015, with its core asset collection coming from Fotolia. Adobe Stock is now natively integrated with Photoshop and the Creative Cloud, and there just doesn’t seem to be a need for Fotolia anymore. So, it’s disappearing. Specifically, the Fotolia website will close on November 5th, 2019. Fotolia’s members will transition to Adobe Stock on a voluntary basis, but they’ll only have until November 5th, 2019 to access their Fotolia account....

We talked today about film photography and its magic that just can’t be recreated digitally. If you shoot film or you want to try it, there’s a new 35mm film that seems like a real treat. Kosmo Foto’s Agent Shadow is a black and white film perfect for shooting in low light and a real treat for all fans of the Film Noir look. Agent Shadow is an ISO-400 panchromatic black-and-white 35mm film and you can push it all the way to ISO 6400....

Film photography has been (re)gaining popularity over the past couple of years. However, the renowned film photography hype just isn’t enough to keep some film types alive. According to the latest report from Japan Camera Hunter, the latest 35mm film to be discontinued is popular and super-cheap Agfa Vista. In his blog post, Bellamy Hunt writes: According to Hunt, the stock of Agfa Vista in Tokyo has decreased “to Sumatran Rhinoceros numbers....

Watching some photographers’ behavior in nature makes me wonder – are they into wildlife photography, or into becoming a lunch? This guy was incredibly close to getting bitten by an alligator, but did it stop him from shooting – nope, it didn’t. YouTube user Ben Boukari posted two videos of this persistent man who was trying to get the shots of an alligator from up close. The animal started chasing him a couple of times, it bit his tripod and lied on his camera bag – but he just went on shooting....

Nature is a mixture of equal parts of wonder and hilarity. If anything personifies this statement, it’s these gorillas, who were captured singing during dinner by an animatronic ape camera, designed to blend in and be accepted into their family for the upcoming PBS series Nature: Spy in the Wild 2. It’s the same series for which the Hummingbird drone was developed. It would see a beautiful side of gorilla hierarchy, offer some insight into their personalities and interactions, monitor their behaviour, perhaps observe things we haven’t seen before....

Contests requiring people to submit photos to enter are often seen as something of a rights-grab. You enter and give whoever’s running the competition a universal, worldwide, irrevocable license to do whatever they want with your photos. Most people don’t realise this, as it’s buried deep in the terms of entry, but more people are starting to realise. Apple launched a new Shot on iPhone Challenge last week, and the “winners” would see their images featured on billboards, Apple retail stores, and online....

New York-based photographer Robert Barbera is suing pop star Ariana Grande for posting one of his photos to her Instagram without permission. Sounds familiar? It’s because the singer has already been sued for posting a photo of herself without licensing it, and she was sued by the same photographer.Advertisements Not even a year ago, Barbera sued Grande for sharing two of his paparazzi photos with her fans on Instagram. He sought $25,000 for each and according to The Fashion Law, the young singer paid up for image use retroactively....

Photoshop is a complex program, so it’s “normal” to have minor bugs and small issues. But, while minor bugs are usually forgiven, deleting files, even on rare occasions, is not something that should ever happen We’ve found a somewhat rare occasion that can delete your file – and this is not a minor issue, this is a horrible fail. If you are on a Mac and you are using the APFS file system*, you can recreate it by following these steps....

The photographer who won the 2021 Buglife Bug Photographer of the Year Award has been vilified on social media for his apparently unethical methods to keep the insects from moving while he photographs them. Extreme macro photographer Steve James from Northampton, UK was announced as the winner of the award last Thursday. Whilst the award is only in its second year, it is recognised as an important niche competition in insect photography circles and is sponsored by the insect conservation non-profit organisation Buglife....

I get a lot of emails from people asking how I manage to bring in so many new clients as well as keeping the ones I have to build my business. One thing that I wanted to share here is the basics of how you might view winning a client and the actual reality of things from the client’s perspective. To be successful, you need to be able to give your clients what they want; you may perceive that to be a set of amazing images....

At the end of 2016, Bellus3D announced taking a selfie game to a new level. They planned to do it with a 3D face scanning camera for mobile devices, which should enable users quick, high-quality and cheap 3D face scanning. At CES 2017, they demonstrated it. It’s the camera that makes extremely accurate 3D face models on a budget and in a matter of seconds. And as soon as this year, they are planning to make it available for the masses....