When I was a kid, the Kodak Instamatic 25 was our go to camera for family stuff. Sure, my dad had a fancy Olympus OM-1, but the Instamatic went with us everywhere. My mother recently found that camera and gave it to me. Ever since then it’s sat on a shelf, in the hopes that one day somebody might start producing 126 film again. Well, 126 film still hasn’t become available, but we do now have another option....

In his recent video, Kai Wong showed you five 50mm lenses you can buy for less than $100. This time, he shows you a Chinese “bokeh master” – Kamlan 50mm f/1.1 manual focus lens for APS-C bodies. It’s a bit more expensive ($170), so it didn’t get onto the previous list. But judging from Kai’s review – it’s a keeper. Don’t let the price fool you. While it really doesn’t cost much for such a fast lens, it doesn’t necessarily mean it sucks....

Every once in awhile I find myself somewhere where there is a large number of people watching a sunset – and where there are people watching a sunset, there are people taking photos of it. One interesting trend that I have noticed over the years is that as soon as the sun drops below the horizon, everyone puts their cameras away. That’s it – show’s over – good job nature, nothing more to see here....

Remember when Yashica raised $1.28 million on Kickstarter for their Y35 digiFilm camera a few months ago? Well, now they’re back with a few crucial updates to satisfy their backers’ requests. It now includes a bigger sensor (which is unfortunately still not APS-C size), and a f/2 lens among other changes. The Yashica Y35 is technically a digital camera that looks like the analog classic Yashica Electro 35. But what makes it different from others is that it lets you use faux film cartridges to apply film effects to your images....

We have reported before that Kodak could bring their Ektachrome film back this year. As the end of 2017 approaches, we’re anxious to hear the news regarding this launch. According to a comment they posted on Twitter, they’ll be officially launching a limited amount of the film at the beginning of 2018. Judging from the tweet from the official Kodak’s profile, they could have a supply of the film available for testing by the end of this year....

There is no doubt that Kodak has brought a revolution into the world of photography. So, the American Chemical Society (ACS) has proclaimed Eastman Kodak the National Historic Chemical Landmark. This title honors George Eastman and Kodak, and their role in making photography available to everyone. “When photography was in its infancy, it was a complicated and cumbersome process accessible to a select few,” ACS writes in the announcement. “But thanks to innovations that began in the late 19th century, George Eastman and the Eastman Kodak Company made photography feasible for everyone....

Venus Optics has announced the new Laowa 6mm f/2 Zero-D lens, the widest rectilinear lens available for Micro Four Thirds. It’s essentially a photography version of the Laowa 6mm T2.1 cine lens announced back in February. It uses the same optical makeup but in a more handheld-friendly package. And while this one lacks the 0.8 MOD gears of its cinema counterpart, it does feature electrical contacts to pass EXIF data to the camera body....

You may remember Laowa fully funded their new 12mm f/2.8 lens kickstarter within 30 seconds of going live last month. Thanks to the claims of high quality and “Zero Distortion” (or really close to it), people took notice and they pre-sold over 700 lenses. At the time of the campaign launch, one of the videos for the new lens didn’t seem to get much notice. It does, however, show off a very cool feature of Laowa’s lenses....

We’ve spoken about saturation vs vibrance before, but I think it’s a topic that still confuses a lot of people. While that post looked more at Photoshop’s vibrance adjustment layer, this 3-minute video from Evan 5ps concentrates more on how it works in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) & Lightroom. There are some subtle differences between the way Vibrance works in Photoshop vs ACR/Lightroom. I’ve seen these differences for myself with my own images....

Although this won’t be of much to iOS users, Lexar has announced a new 512GB 633x (100MB/sec) A2 microSD card for smartphones. Designed for lots of fast read and write operations per second, this card is ideal for Android smartphones. Especially those used by photographers and filmmakers shooting lots of photos and footage. Since Lexar’s move from Micron to Longsys, their future has been in doubt. But it looks like they’re finally back and ready to get serious....

Advertisements Unsplash has teamed up with 13 notable institutions from all over the world. They include the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the British Library, and Europeana, to name just a few. And you can find pretty much everything: from historical images of soldiers in the First World War to baroque paintings. David Leonard, President of the Boston Public Library, commented: Co-founder and CEO of Unsplash, Mikael Cho, said that the impact of photography has never been greater than today....

Like I mentioned, this hard-&-soft-light-combined is a very simplistic concept at its core and once you see it in practice, you’ll quickly see how you can develop it further with other modifiers and setups. So although I don’t use this particular method myself any more today, I used it a ton when I started to play with it many years ago for headshots and hair campaigns. To understand the benefits of lighting with hard and soft light combined, let’s first look at what isolated hard and soft light means to us as portrait photographers....

Litra has announced the newest addition to their mobile “action lights” range; the LitraTorch 2.0. The new light brings double number of LEDs up from 8 on the original LitraTorch to 16 in 2.0. Litra says they’ve also made improvements to the CRI (which was already very good), and the LED optics. It’s not much of a secret that I wasn’t always a fan of these tiny lights when they first started to become a thing....

This is a story about their decisions and its beauties and challenges. It’s certainly an unusual lifestyle that takes a lot of bravery. In this nine-minute video, you’ll hear their story and see some of their great photos – and minutes will feel like seconds. At one point, Elia and Naomi they traveled so much that the thought was inevitable – what if we didn’t live anywhere? They started thinking of simply traveling full-time....

British photographer Tim Flach traveled the world for almost two years and captured endangered animals in close, intimate portraits. His project titled Endangered took him across the globe for almost two years while he photographed the animals that may soon disappear forever. You will have heard of some of them and seen their photos, but most of them are not so widely known. Still, all of them are beautiful and unique, and Tim captured their personalities and all their beauty in his images....

Photographers often talk about advancing themselves, and improving their craft. Rarely do they talk about why. At first it appears obvious. They want to shoot great pictures. Becoming proficient with the technical side of photography is pretty easy, though, thanks to digital. There’s a wealth of information online on every photography technique and principle you could imagine. But what happens next? What’s the reason you want to be good at photography?...

Road trips are a great way to take some gorgeous photos while also making memories. In this video, Tajreen and Chloe of Tajreen&Co will give you some quick, but useful tips on how to capture your road trips and create more great content. 1. Shoot with what you have When Tajreen and Chloe visited Joshua Tree and Big Bear, they shot with DSLRs, smartphones and Instax cameras. The point is – don’t obsess over your gear....

I love digital analogue hybrid processes in photography, I find them absolutely fascinating, and this video from photographer Nick Carver helps to show why. There is, of course, another message in this video. If you like your images, print them. Print them big and show them off. I couldn’t agree more. I still shoot both film and digital, so I’m often scanning in negatives so I can look through images without having to go through the hassle of setting up a lightbox, dealing with loupes, or actually having to make a wet print before deciding if I really even like the image....

At the beginning of the year, me and fellow DIYP writer and photographer John Aldred, and our good friend and model Ambellina decided at the last minute, to go out to the Lake District in Cumbria and shoot. There was no planning really, it was a last-minute, let’s just get and see what happens kind of shoot. When you are the type of person who continuously plans every shoot, sometimes it can be fun to throw caution to the wind and just do something without planning!...

Advertisements “Le Violon d’Ingres” shows the model’s bareback with black f-holes painted on them, suggesting her body as a musical instrument. It is, without a doubt, one of the most iconic photos of the early 20th century. So, it’s probably no surprise that there was quite a battle to buy its print. As ART News reports, a drawn-out bidding period for this print lasted nearly 10 minutes during Christie’s New York auction dedicated to Surrealist art....