Launched in 2017, Platypod Max quickly became quite popular among action shooters and those working in rough terrain where a traditional tripod just isn’t practical. It’s essentially a metal plate with feet on the bottom, a 3/8-16″ thread on the top and a bunch of mounting holes and four adjustable feet to let you set it up pretty much anywhere you want. In 2018, they launched the Platypod Ultra, a smaller version....

Even though there’s been no official announcement on the specs for the Nikon D6 (it’s expected at some point this month), Digital Camera World reports that the Nikon D6 will be on show in the UK during The Photography Show taking place on the 14-17th March at the Birmingham NEC in England. They say that Nikon has announced this, but I haven’t been able to find a press release. But DCW is owned by Future Plc....

There is a lot of advice out there. But which advice should you take and what should you jettison? I’ve read through the books that I own (by authors and photographers including Demetrius Fordham, Haje Jan Kamps, and Lara Jade) and trawled the net and put together a summary. You can think of it as a portfolio of portfolios, if you like. Hardcopy or digital? Your first portfolio question is going to be ‘Hardcopy or digital format?...

The Light L16 is a unique oddity amongst cameras. If you’ve never heard of it before, it uses an array of 16 cameras and lenses to create “DSLR quality in the palm of your hand”. Whether that claim is true or not remains to be seen. But see we will, and quite soon now. First announced in October 2015, Light L16 will enter into its Expanded Beta phase in May, with pre-orders starting to be shipped in July....

Winners of the 2018 Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest have just been announced. This is the tenth year of the competition, and just like before, the winning images didn’t disappoint. The judges had a difficult task of selecting 31 out of 4,200 images from 91 countries. But the selected best of the best will take your breath away. The 2018 Astronomy Photographer of the Year is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, in association with Insight Investment and BBC Sky at Night Magazine....

In this gloomy time, I think we all need a bit of laughter, but also a bit of inspiration to start observing the world around us. Hong Kong-based photographer Edas Wong brings humor and street photography together. His “accidental” photos will give you the giggles I’m sure you need, but also motivate you to get outside with your camera and look at the world from another point of view....

The Fujifilm GFX 50R was rumored for a while, and ahead of Photokina 2018, it was finally officially announced. Now that we know the specs, he price and the availability of the camera, a few hands-on looks have arrived as well to show us what the camera is like in action. Here’s the summary of the hands-on videos we’ve found so far. The GFX 50R is a rangefinder style mirrorless medium format camera....

The Kodak Ektachrome E100 film is finally being shipped to distributors worldwide, and some of us can’t wait to get our hands on a few rolls of it. Photographer Peter Guttman was lucky to be one of the few beta testers of the film, and he kindly shared with DIYP some of the images he took. And just as I imagined – they’re gorgeous. Guttman is the author of eight books and an award-winning photographer....

The World Photography Organisation has announced the overall winners of this year’s Sony World Photography Awards. After announcing Open contest winners and shortlists, as well as stunning National Awards winners, SWPA now shares with us “the best of the best.” Australian photographer Adam Ferguson has won the Photographer of the Year title, but there are more photos to admire. The contest has also awarded Open Photographer of the Year, Youth Photographer of the Year, Student Photographer of the Year, as well as Professional category winners....

If you hang around other photographers enough, whether it’s online or in real life, you’ll likely encounter some of the types of photographers mentioned in this video by The School of Photography. I know I’ve certainly encountered more than my fair share of each of these. If you haven’t yet, then be careful, because it might just be you! The Purist I see these all the time. They resist any kind of post-processing, retouching or manipulation of images, and actively criticise those who use applications like Lightroom or Photoshop....

I believe that we all want to grow and become better at photography. But we also make some mistakes that hinder this growth and make it slower than it could be. In his latest video, Michael Shainblum shares the five most common mistakes that might be slowing down your growth. While he focuses on landscape photography, some of these can definitely be applied to other genres as well. 1. Not getting to know your landscape The mistake I know I’ve been guilty of is rushing things....

Playing cards are a fantastic companion on a vacation, and so is your camera, of course. Avid traveler and photographer Eric Bohring brought these two concepts together and created a set of playing cards perfect for photographers. Other than passing time, you can also learn from these cards as they double as photography cheat sheets. Just like any deck of cards, this one packs 52 playing cards and two Jokers....

While I love photos of animals, I believe that animal photography is one of the most difficult genres to master. You need a hell lot of patience and focus when working with them, even when they are trained and obedient. Jay P. Morgan has some awesome animal shots, and he shares some tips that will help all aspiring animal photographers. You’ll find his tips and tricks useful for making the photo shoot more efficient, and getting the shots exactly as you want them....

No matter how experienced we might get with editing video, it’s easy to get complacent, especially if you’re creating video content regularly for platforms like YouTube and other social media. We start to get sloppy, make mistakes, and our videos suddenly aren’t as popular as they once were. And for those just starting out, you might still be trying to figure out how you can get your videos seen and shared in the first place....

If you ask me, it’s always interesting to look at photos of animals. And if these photos show their funny, rarely seen or unusual side, it’s even better. Oregon Zoo recently shared a series of animal photos we don’t get to see every day. On their social media profiles, they published X-ray photos of animals taken during their annual checkups. And the results are amazing! The X-ray images were taken during the checkups at Oregon Zoo’s veterinary center....

Light painting has increased massively in popularity over the last few years. It’s not really surprising. Gone are the days of film where you had no idea whether you’d got the shot or not until hours or days later. The instant feedback of digital and zero extra cost of shooting a thousand photos rather than one has made its popularity pretty inevitable as more people have acquired DSLRs and mirrorless cameras....

With long exposure photography, you create unusual, surreal worlds in your photos. UK-based photographer Tim Gamble specializes in long exposure light photography and makes breath-taking artwork. One of his photos really caught our eye, so we wanted to hear more about how it was taken. We chatted with Tim about the photo he titled Love is a Burning Thing, and he shared with DIYP some details on how it was created....

You can’t beat a good DIY crazy camera and they don’t get much crazier than this. Built by Matt at DIY Perks, this particular camera features a 432mm f/5 episcope lens with an image projection circle of around 500mm in diameter. To give you some idea of scale, your average full-frame lens has an image projection circle with a diameter of at least 43mm. That’s an area of 0.015 square meters....

Almost 2,000 years ago, in the year 79, the Roman city of Pompeii was annihilated by Mount Vesuvius. Buried under ash, with many of its residents trapped and unable to escape it’s said to have killed around 2,000 people. It’s been a great source of interest ever since. Especially to archaeologists. After centuries of excavation, much of the city has now been uncovered. It can be difficult to really grasp the scale of a city like Pompeii from the ground, though....

Film’s popularity has been on the rise for a few years now, gaining more and more ground each day. And as Destin Sandlin at Smarter Every Day points out at the beginning of this video, it’s not just us photo geeks that are getting back into it, either. I wouldn’t say it’s becoming “mainstream” again, but it’s regular normal everyday people who are experimenting with film again now. The 56-minute video is the first of a three-part series in which Dustin takes us on a tour of the Kodak Factory in Rochester, New York where they still have production lines making new rolls of film to keep the growing market happy....