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Posts Tagged ‘Caught’

Huawei caught using DSLR images to promote smartphone cameras (again)

21 Apr

Huawei has once again been caught using an image captured with a DSLR to promote its mobile cameras. This issue was discovered on Chinese social media website Weibo, where Huawei published a video that contained multiple images allegedly snapped using its smartphones. According to the South China Morning Post, some of the images were traced back to a 500px user.

The issue was first spotted by photographer Huapeng Zhao, who recognized some of the images and traced them back to a 500px user named Su Tie. Rather than having been captured with a Huawei smartphone as the company’s promotional video claimed, Su Tie’s 500px account indicates the images were captured with a Nikon D850.

In a post on the matter published on Weibo, Huawei said that a ‘negligent editor’ had ‘incorrectly marked that [the DSLR images] were taken with a Huawei smartphone.’ The company thanked Huapeng for spotting the issue and apologized to the community. An updated version of the video without the DSLR images has been posted on Weibo.

This is not, however, the first time Huawei has been caught passing DSLR content off as images captured with its mobile phones.

In early 2019, for example, Huawei used stock images of a volcano captured with a DSLR to promote the zoom lens capabilities of its P30 Pro smartphone. Before that in 2018, the company was caught using an image captured with a DSLR to promote its Nova 3 smartphone. Sadly, this practice isn’t limited to Huawei — Samsung has also been caught passing off DSLR images as mobile images.

In 2018, Samsung Malaysia was caught using an image captured with a DSLR on the website for its Galaxy A8 Star handset, failing to state on the page that the image was not captured using its mobile camera and software. Before that, Samsung Brazil was caught using selfies captured with a DSLR to promote its Galaxy A8 model.

At this point in time, it’s unclear whether Huawei had received permission from Su Tie to use the images in its promotional video. The discovery highlights the importance of taking manufacturer promotional images with a grain of salt, particularly ones that look too good to be true. Though mobile camera technology, including both hardware and software, have improved considerably over recent years, they’re still no match for expensive professional camera systems.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Samsung Malaysia caught using DSLR image to advertise Galaxy A8 Star ‘Portrait Mode’ feature

04 Dec

Samsung has again been caught using an image captured with a DSLR to advertise its mobile camera capabilities. The discovery was recently detailed on DIY Photography by writer and photographer Dunja Djudjic, who took the image and made it available for sale on EyeEm.

After receiving an alert that the image had been sold, Djudjic used a reverse image search and found the image on Samsung Malaysia’s website, where it features a different background and is used to advertise the Galaxy A8 Star’s Portrait Mode feature.

Samsung Malaysia displays two iterations of the image on its website, one with a sharp background replacing the original, another with a blurred background supposedly demonstrating the handset’s Portrait Mode capabilities.

Djudjic contacted EyeEm in an attempt to confirm whether Samsung purchased the image, but the company hadn’t yet received the sales data and was unable to confirm the buyer. Getty, which is partnered with EyeEm, was also contacted to determine whether the sale took place through its platform, but didn’t respond to the inquiry.

Djudjic attempted to contact Samsung Malaysia and Samsung Global, but was unable to get a response about the image’s use.

This isn’t the first time Samsung has been caught passing off stock images to advertise its mobile camera capabilities. In August, Samsung Brazil’s Twitter account tweeted two stock images advertising its Galaxy A8 camera capabilities, but later removed them after being called out.

Competitor Huawei was also previously caught using images captured with a DSLR to advertise its mobile camera capabilities. In 2016, the company used an image captured with a Canon 5D Mark III to advertise its P9 smartphone’s camera. Later in August 2018, the company published a video with images seemingly taken by the nova 3 and nova 3i, but that were later revealed to have been captured with a Canon DSLR.

In addition to EyeEm, Djudjic’s work can be found on Flickr and Behance.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Huawei caught trying to pass off DSLR images as smartphone photos…again

20 Aug

It appears Huawei hasn’t learned its lesson. Two years after the Chinese smartphone manufacturer was busted for trying to pass off a DSLR image as a photograph captured with its P9 smartphone, it’s under scrutiny yet again.

Huawei is now taking heat over a recent advertisement for its Nova 3 and 3i smartphones, wherein Huawei insinuates certain photos were captured with a smartphone when a behind-the-scenes photo proves that’s not the case.

The video, which is 30 seconds long, shows various scenes in which the subjects snap photos using various built-in camera features, including beauty, HDR and AI modes. Although the video never explicitly states the images were captured with a Huawei smartphone, it’s very much implied that’s the case.

A critical eye would instantly realize the images weren’t captured with the phone. But for the sake of empirical evidence, we’ll reference the above image uploaded to Instagram (and subsequently deleted) by Sarah Elshamy, the actress in the ad. In the behind-the-scenes still, pictured above, it’s clear the main actor was holding his hand out to make it appear as though he’s holding a phone, when in reality the scene was being shot with a Canon DSLR.

Again, Huawei never specifically mentions what the ad was shot with, leaving a bit of room for leniency. But it’s misleading at best, and downright false advertising at worst. We’ve reached out to Huawei for an official comment and will update this article accordingly if we hear back.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Instagram launches Mute button, tests ‘all caught up’ feature

23 May

Ever after Instagram decided to abandon its chronological feed and reorder user feeds using an algorithm, it has been difficult to keep track of what you’ve already seen. This, in turn, keeps some users nervously scrolling through their feeds to make sure they don’t miss any important posts from the people they follow. According to TechCrunch, Instagram is testing a new feature that will help alleviate this anxiety.

The feature notifies you when you’re all caught up so you can turn your attention to another app or, heaven forbid, even put your phone away. In practice, the feature will be very simple: as you scroll through your feed, you’ll get a notification saying “You’re All Caught Up – You’ve seenall new post from the past 48 hours.”

In combination with the recently announced “time spent” feature—which will give users a better idea of how much time they spend with the app once implemented—this latest function is aimed at helping Instagramers control and manage their time in a more efficient way.

Of course, one could argue that simply going back to the original chronological feed would have been the simpler solution… but we digress.

In addition to testing ‘all caught up’, Instagram today introduced a new feature that allows you to mute accounts in pretty much the same way as on parent platform Facebook. You can hide posts in your feed from certain accounts without unfollowing or blocking them, allowing for a more personalized feed.

Like on Facebook, you can still see posts from muted accounts on their profile, and will still be notified if you are tagged in a post or comment. Muted users are not aware of their status and, of course, you can always unmute an account if you’ve changed your mind.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Artist caught using stolen photos for $20,000 Calgary art installation

09 Dec
Image by Derek Besant via Avenue Calgary

A public art installation in Calgary has been removed after it came to light that the artist behind it, Derek Michael Besant, used copyrighted photos as part of the project without permission.

Besant was commissioned by the city of Calgary a couple years ago to create the $ 20,000 CAD / $ 15,500 USD art exhibit as part of the city’s 4th Street S.W. Underpass Enhancement Project. The resulting exhibit, which was located in the 4th St. S.W. underpass, featured large Polaroid-esque images showing blurred individuals with brief quotes overlaid onto them.

The individuals in the images were allegedly travelers with whom Besant had interacted in the underpass. Local publication Avenue Calgary reported in 2015 that Besant had spent a couple days in the underpass with “a camera, notepad and recorder” to get images and quotes from people who passed through. However, that lie fell apart after a Calgary traveler noticed that one of the project’s images resembled UK comedian Bisha Ali.

He sent Ali a note about it, at which point she began deconstructing the lie publicly online, pointing out that at least a few of the other images were also portraits of comedians. Ali detailed the entire saga in a long Twitter thread accessible here.

Late last month, Canadian publication MacLean’s unraveled the rest of the story, reporting that the images were swiped from the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and that the artist had recommended to Calgary Head of Community Services Kurt Hanson that the city take down the exhibition.

In a tweet on the matter dated November 29th, Ali reported that Calgary was taking down the art installation:

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photographer caught using someone else’s public domain photo to win awards

06 Sep

Swiss photographer Madeleine Josephine Fierz has been stripped of two photography awards after it was revealed that she’d won them using someone else’s photo.

The contest-winning image, seen above, was taken by Thai photographer Sasin Tipchai, who had uploaded it under a CC0 license to stock photography website Pixabay. Fierz submitted the image as her own, ultimately receiving first place in the Moscow International Foto Awards (MIFA) and second place in the Fine Art Photo Awards.

The deception was discovered after Sasin posted on Facebook about Fierz’s use of his images, and someone else shared it with the Moscow International Foto Awards’ Facebook page. That brought it to the attention of officials who, after looking into the matter, revoked Fierz’s award and removed the image from its website. The image has also been removed from the Fine Art Photo Awards website.

In a statement to Khaosod English, MIFA jury member Hossein Farmani commented on the matter, saying:

[Fierz] claimed since she bought these photos, she thought that she could manipulate it a little and claim it as her art. As a jury of MIFA we take these allegation very seriously and we investigate and delete images in question as soon as we can verify the facts. It’s almost impossible for us to know which images belong to whom unless photographers let us know, like you did.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photographer Souvid Datta appears to have been caught plagiarizing Mary Ellen Mark

04 May

A woman featured in his series ‘In the Shadows of Kolkata’ bears an uncanny resemblance with a subject in a 1978 Mary Ellen Mark photo.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Wilderness photographers caught up in U.S. Forest Service permit proposal

02 Oct

A proposed directive from the U.S. Forest Service that aims to protect federal wilderness from commercial exploitation may end up restraining photographers as well. Under the proposed restrictions, any individual or entity poised to reap commercial gain from photographing or filming federal lands in the U.S. will need a permit. Read more

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Caught on Video: Illegal BASE Jump Off NYC Freedom Tower

07 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Travel & Urban Exploration. ]

skydiving illegal 1 wtc

Breaking into One World Trade Center and scaling to its top was just the beginning for this daring trio, who then not only parachuted from close to the peak but also had to navigate nearby structures on the way down and ultimately land in the street.

If you are not one for suspense, skip to the two minute and thirty second mark in the first video above to watch as the first jumper takes the plunge from the 1,776-foot tower, followed shortly thereafter by the man behind the camera.

amazing building jump

After months of hiding their identities, James Brady, Marco Markovich and Kyle Hartwell have turned themselves in and are already raising legal funds for their defense. They are charged with burglary, reckless endangerment and jumping from a structure.

base jump caught video

nyc street landing strip

skydiving street landing

According to the New York Times, the trio have been “described by their lawyers as experienced, amateur sky divers who also sought thrills leaping from buildings, bridges and other structures.” As for how they got in and up in this case: apparently, they simply slipped through a hole in the fence, scaled the stairs and did not encounter any security along the way to the top of the tower above. A similar stunt was pulled by a teenager not too long ago, but reporters who tried to follow suit found themselves caught and arrested.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Travel & Urban Exploration. ]

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How I Caught a Glimpse of the Elusive “WOW-Factor” & What You Can Do To Get Your Own

10 Jul

We all want to amaze our friends, family and hopefully even our raving fans with our photography, but in order to do so we need to first find out how to make our photos stand out – we need to harness the elusive “wow-factor” and have it help us define our style.

Do You Shoot to Record a Moment In Time or to Tell A Story?

This question is one you must ask yourself every time you pick up the camera. There are two types of photographs in my eyes – ones that record a moment in time and ones that tell a story. Each serve their purpose and I have nothing against either one, but I do think that photographing to tell a story is more prone to “wow-factor” photos.

That’s not to say that you can’t take good photographs of moments in time after all there are amazing and beautiful things happening all around us every day. Take this wild flower for example.

Flower

Technically it’s a good photo right? It’s sharp, composed with purpose, and processed to showcase the flower’s natural beauty, but it’s nothing more than a moment of time captured. Unless you have an obsession with white flowers this probably doesn’t jump off the page for you.

Moments in time can be spectacular though. Take this lightning bolt photograph that I captured a few weeks ago and if you’re curious you can read about out how I did it here.

Lightning

It’s a photo that many people were excited about when I published it, I’ve even sold a couple prints of it, but does it have the “wow-factor” that I’m talking about today? I don’t think so. In reality this photograph is no different than the photograph of the flower above it. It records a moment in time, but doesn’t tell much of a story. However, it is compelling in a way, and that can be attributed to the fact that we don’t typically get to see a lightning strike for more than a fraction of a second.

Still for me it’s missing the point of this post which is the “wow-factor” that comes from having a compelling story within your photograph.

So How Did I Catch A Glimpse of the ‘Wow-Factor’

Over the weekend I caught a glimpse of something that made me stop and think “wow that’s cool” and ultimately it’s what has inspired me to write this post for DPS.

I was photographing a wedding at a location where the building spans the main street through the city. I was presented with the idea of having the couple kiss under the arch of the building, but in order to do this we had to stop traffic in both directions for a couple minutes – not an easy task on a Friday afternoon so this was a one shot deal.

Couple kissing

While there are always other things to try and I’d love to have had a second, third and fourth chance at this photo I am pleased with the result of this shot. I think it succeeds in telling a story and I know that the bride and groom absolutely love it so in the end that’s what matters most to me anyway.

Three Keys To Help You Find Your Own Glimpse

I’ve been using the word ‘glimpse’ in this post because I do believe that “wow-factor” is something that for many of us will come and go until we can fine tune our aim.

I don’t believe that it can be taught specifically, but I do believe that it can be learned. This might sound kind of strange, but what I mean by this is that we each have to figure out what works for our own style through our own process. After years of experience we will fine tune our abilities and as an end result harness the “wow-factor” to define our style.

That said here are three key points for you to keep in mind every time you set out to create a photograph which I believe will help speed you along the process of creating photographs with the “wow-factor” you’re looking for.

  1. Shoot with Purpose – When you click the shutter button how often are you thinking about why you’re clicking the button? Instead try telling yourself exactly why you’re taking the photograph that you’re taking before you take it – by doing this you’ll be photographing with purpose and hopefully end up with a better shot to show for your efforts.
  2. Tell a story – A picture is worth a thousand words right? Well this cliche is only true if the picture actually tells a story. Otherwise, it’s just another photo added to the pile.
  3. Go Beyond – I didn’t have to stop traffic to get a photograph of my couple kissing in the middle of the street. I could have shot with purpose and told a story on the sidewalk or in a garden, but by going the extra mile we were able to capture a more compelling image.

I think that we all get chances to create photographs with ‘wow-factor’ in them. They don’t happen often and it takes more than simply clicking the shutter button to come up with the vision that makes a photograph something more than just another moment frozen in time.

Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.

Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.

How I Caught a Glimpse of the Elusive “WOW-Factor” & What You Can Do To Get Your Own


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