When veteran SI photographer Michael J. LeBrecht II got an email from a DOP at Sports Illustrated offering him the chance to shoot “an A-List Celebrity,” he immediately said yes. It wasn’t until a later, on the phone, that he hear the catch: “we would like you to try and shoot the cover with a Smartphone.”
The iPhone 7 Plus—and many other high end smartphone cameras these days—can capture some really impressive photos and video. If you were doubting that, just watch this comparison by Parker Walbeck of Fulltime Filmmaker. He compared the iPhone 7 Plus against his $50K RED Weapon, and was “blown away” by the results.
My name is Jeff Cable, and I’m a photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I previously spent many years of my life as Director of Marketing at Lexar dealing with the ins and outs of the memory card business. And in all that time, I have never written about the do’s and don’ts of memory cards. Now that I am not on that side of the business any more, I feel that I can write this objective piece for you without any conflict of interest.
Social media have so thoroughly infused our everyday lives that calling them “ubiquitous” seems inadequate. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and others take up an astonishing amount of our time, bandwidth, and attention, and have become indispensable business and marketing tools as well.
Simon Roberts, a London-based animator and designer, has created a great photography resource for beginners that is both simple and useful. It’s called Photography Mapped, and it allows you to play around with and better understand the manual settings you’ll find on a DSLR.
The 50mm lens has been the ‘standard’ for street photographers for ages, but is it the best option available? Maybe not. Kai wanted to find out, so he pit the 50mm against a 35mm and 28mm, and went out shooting to find out which he liked best and why.
Asian cultures have ways of giving thanks that may seem unusual to those living in the Western world. At one photography school in Thailand, there’s an annual tradition of giving thanks with an impressive altar of DSLR camera gear.
One of the ongoing pain points of being a photographer is the time we spend editing. Don’t get me wrong, I love turning a flat image into something breathtaking, but it does take a while to get through a batch of 1000+ photos from a wedding or concert.
This photograph of Boulevard du Temple in Paris was made in 1838 by Louis Daguerre, the brilliant guy that invented the daguerreotype process of photography. Aside from its distinction of being a super early photograph, it’s also the first photograph to ever include a human being. Because the image required an exposure time of over ten minutes, all the people, carriages, and other moving things disappear from the scene. However, in the bottom left hand corner is a man who just so happened to stay somewhat still during the shot — he was having his shoes shined.
Back in December 2015 I saw a rumor report online about a 600w/s Chinese monolight with onboard battery, TTL, and built-in radio. After doing some research I found they had a TTL speedlight that worked within the same system, and I became very excited.
I entered the world of photography when digital cameras where already on the rise, and as a result, I learned photography on digital. That being said, I am a sucker for anything analog… the sensation of using real organic materials to produce photographs excites me.
Another year is coming to a close, and the data crunching team at Flickr has just uncovered the top photos, cameras, and tags in the Flickr community in 2016.
When Sony released the A7s, they did something strange. While everyone else was adding megapixels, they took them away for the sake of low light capability. Well… Casio just took that strategy to the extreme with their new 1.9MP EX-FR110H action camera.
“A cry against the terror of perfection and youth.” That’s how photographer Peter Lindbergh describes the 2017 Pirelli calendar he was asked to create. Once synonymous with nude supermodels, the 2017 calendar instead oozes class, raw emotion, and women’s empowerment.
Apple, we had a good run… Through the many iPads, iPhones, MacBooks, Mac Pros, heck, even the Apple Watch, it was a good run indeed. However, times have changed, and that beauty that was once your innovation has now been covered up with the makeup that is nice marketing.
I’ve been doing this long enough that I honestly can’t remember why or how I started. I mean, I remember my origin story… but as an adult I also know that is probably a distillation and summary of what exactly went on. There are no easy lessons now.
One of the most amazing camera shops in all of the world is London’s Grays of Westminster. The place is absolutely iconic—it has its own coat of arms for crying out loud! It also houses one of the most incredible collections of rare Nikon gear in the world. Now you get to see it up close.
Since elementary school, I’ve been told that things had to match. If I wore Sean John pants, then I had to wear a Sean John shirt. If I wore anything Nike, then I had to have the matching shoes to correspond. This was a mindset that I held throughout most of my life.
Then-and-now photo recreations have become extremely popular online over the past several years. Especially with rephotographed family photos from decades past, the concept offers a fascinating look at how people have changed over the years.
Once Syria’s largest city, Aleppo has been the worst-hit city in the country since the Battle of Aleppo began in 2012 as part of the ongoing Syrian Civil War. Now a series of before-and-after photos reveals just how much the once-vibrant historical city has been marred by war.