They say to never work with children or animals. Personally, though, I rather enjoy working with animals in the studio, and I know many photographers who adore working with children. Mixing the two, though, is often fraught with risk, especially for children who aren’t used to being around animals. This is what photographer Mercer Harris is discovering after announcing his Easter sessions to Facebook this week. The photographer has now gone on to receive death threats both online and over the phone....

In February 2020, actress and singer Hilary Duff publicly called out on photographer Darryl Wilkins calling him “a creep.” Now the photographer is reportedly suing her for defamation, along with talk show host Wendy Williams who sided with Duff on her talk show. If you missed the story, here’s a short overview. Hilary Duff approached Wilkins who was taking photos at her kid’s soccer game. She was filming the encounter with her phone and asked the photographer who he was with, to which he responded: “I’m here with me....

I’m not happy to say that people can get very creative when coming up with scams. And it looks like an old one has been going around again lately. So, be extra careful when taking jobs and don’t disregard anything that looks like a red flag. Redditor laddphoto warned the community of the scam as he received an email with a “job offer” that has red flags all over it....

This year’s CES has brought us some interesting news. Polaroid is one of the brands that launched a new product at CES 2017. After Snap and Snap Touch, they bring another instant camera that combines analog and digital technique. Only this one produces 3 x 4“ prints, unlike the previous two models which produce smaller, 2 x 3“ prints. According to their official press release, Polaroid Pop brings the best of both worlds....

My first paying photo gig was a product shoot. It ended up turning into a regular thing for a couple of years. It wasn’t what I was passionate about, certainly not as passionate as Peter McKinnon is in this fourteen and a half minute video, but it was a lot of fun. It taught me a lot about light, shadow, reflections and perspective, and I’m so glad I had this opportunity early on in my days with a camera....

I’ve been fascinated with the idea of incorporating the moon into photos whenever possible. And so, with the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s moon landing on July 20th, I was excited by the possibility to shoot something special for the occasion: Putting a man on the moon. The man here is Ty Johnson, a paramotor pilot, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. As NASA will tell you, getting a man to the moon is harder than it looks....

I did not plan on writing a dedicated article on RAW vs JPEG. Why? I thought this ship had sailed long ago and the time of heated debates over which format is better was well into the past. But, what I realized in teaching photography is that this topic is still confusing and unclear for every generation of newcomers who decide to join the exciting and wonderful realm of photography....

It might be a good time to study law. Or copyright law, at least. Researchers have released a study that proves that AI image generators can and do, copy existing images that they’ve ‘looked at’ during the machine learning process. This means that there is a chance that anything spat out by the software could be an exact replica of a copyrighted image. This debunks the favorite argument that AI machines are no different from humans’ learning processes and that everything they sample is merely ‘inspiration’ to create something new....

Even though they didn’t really start to take off as a camera manufacturer until after they bought Minolta in 2006, Sony’s been in the digital camera game for quite a while. They were one of the first companies to release one to general consumers and if memory recalls, they actually weren’t too bad for their time. This one even has a selfie mode! Of course, the 25-year-old Sony DSC-F1 can’t keep up with their new A1 flagship, as evidenced in this retro-review by Gordon Laing....

Rode has finally entered the headphone market with the announcement of its new Rode NTH-100 closed-back over-ear headphones. Rode says that they offer “exceptional sonic performance and superior comfort” with custom-matched 40mm drivers to deliver an “incredibly accurate” frequency response with “ultra-low distortion”. Rode says that the new NTH-100 headphones are designed for professionals and are equally at home uhh… at home, in the studio or in the field whether it’s for music production, podcasting and live streaming, location recording or video editing with a natural sound “akin to open-backs” but with the advantages of closed-back headphones to block out external noise and minimising spill....

Røde have been teasing us with this one since January, but now it’s finally here. The Røde VideoMic Pro+. It offers some pretty significant upgrades over the original Røde VideoMic Pro, such as a Lithium Ion Battery with up to 100 hours operating time, automatically power on and off with your camera, locking connector cables, and USB power. The VideoMic Pro+ shares a lot in common with its predecessor, but really takes things to the next level....

Røde Microphones has just announced the new Wireless GO, the world’s smallest digital wireless microphone/receiver combination. It’s a tiny and lightweight system which will make life easier for various types of content creators, from journalists to vloggers. The dimensions of the transmitter and the receiver are around 1.7 x 1.7 x 0.7 inches, and both weigh only 1 ounce. The transmitter acts as either a quick and easy clip-on wireless microphone, or as a belt-pack transmitter for a lavalier microphone via the 3....

Portable power for use on location is always a fascinating topic. Over the last few years we’ve seen more battery-powered portable strobes from companies like Godox and Profoto, USB power banks are ridiculously cheap, and we’ve even seen ones that can put out 120-240v AC. Some of us also have our own solutions for powering gear on location. But have you thought about building your own portable power station you can take out on location to charge or power your kit?...

Something tells me the owner of this drone was not quite expecting to capture what he saw when he reviewed the footage from this flight. While filming a local church at the city of Torzhok, in the Tver Oblast region in Russia, the drone’s camera accidentally caught a couple having sex in the church’s steeple. It seems as though the couple were blissfully unaware of the drone’s proximity, as they didn’t appear to slow down until they were interrupted by a tourist coming up the stairs....

Samsung’s Galaxy S9 family of phones have been rather popular since their release, particularly with regard to their cameras. But despite being near the top of their game, they’re not resting and waiting for the competition to catch up. Announced in 2013, Samsung’s mobile sensors today largely use their ISOCELL technology. Now, thanks to new material developments from Fujifilm, Samsung have been able to improve this technology to offer more sharpness and colour accuracy, while improving low light performance....

A group of MIT researchers has come up with a way to recover lost details from your blurry images and even videos. They have developed an algorithm that recognizes and automatically recovers blurred parts in your videos and stills. The algorithm is called a “visual deprojection model” and it’s based on a convolutional neural network. The scientists trained the algorithm by feeding it blurry images and their high-quality counterparts. This way, the algorithm “learns” a pattern that allows it to recreate the blurry bits and make them sharp....

When Nikon announced its new 105mm f/1.4E ED lens last year, it got a lot of attention. And it’s easy to see why. 105mm is an ideal portrait focal length for many photographers, and personally it’s where I find I spend the most time for portraits, too. One photographer who was particularly interested in checking it out was Texas based portrait shooter Keydrin Franklin. Keydrin is a big fan of long lenses on location for full length portraits....

IBC is one of the world’s largest trade shows when it comes to video production. It takes place in Amsterdam each September, coupling nicely with NAB in April. For 2020, though, neither of those shows is going ahead, as IBC announces that they have also cancelled this year’s show, originally scheduled for September 11-14th. The news comes just days after Panasonic announced their intention to withdraw from the IBC 2020 show....

This week our news feeds were flooded with two simple words: #MeToo. This trending hashtag has raised awareness regarding how devastatingly widespread sexual harassment and assault are in today’s society. The campaign began after activist Tarana Burke launched metoo.support, a website that supported and amplified the voices of survivors of sexual abuse, assault, and exploitation, and Alyssa Milano later shared the following: If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet....

An example of my teammate Clinton Lofthouse showed us how a single photo can cause a flood of hilarious trolling on Facebook. This happened recently in a houseplant hobbyist group after a guy posted a shirtless selfie with an orchid he’d just bought. This quick snapshot caused some users to get dramatic over “posting porn to the group.” As a result, other members started trolling them by posting their own nude selfies with houseplants....