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Well… this is awkward. Fstoppers has caught Canon Italy and Canon Spain sharing a photo to all of their social media accounts—Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram—the majority of which wasn’t even taken with a Canon camera. In fact, it was shot using a Fuji X-T1, by popular landscape and travel photographer Elia Locardi.
You can compare the two photos for yourself below, but there is little doubt that large parts of Elia’s photograph were used to create the one Canon shared:
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| The original photo, captured by Elia Locardi. Used with permission. |
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| The image Canon Italy and Canon Spain have shared all over social media. |
As you can see the entire sky, parts of the water, and some foreground elements as well were lifted directly from Elia’s original. In fact, as Fstoppers points out, there’s even a few-pixel-sized bird in Elia’s photo that was copied directly into the new shot.
We spoke to Elia this morning, and he told us that after a bit of sleuthing he was actually able to uncover the source of the image: a royalty free photograph on Unsplash that was allegedly taken in October of 2017 with a Canon 1D Mark IV. Elia has asked that we not “out” the photographer, but you can see the EXIF data in this screenshot:
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From there, it doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure out what happened. A social media team at Canon Europe took to Unsplash to find a royalty free picture to share. They probably searched for “Canon 1D Mark IV” and “Italy,” and when they stumbled across this shot they had no idea that it was, in fact, not a single image but a composite of (at least) two photos… one of which was taken with a Fujifilm camera.
It’s embarrassing, sure, but probably an honest mistake. As of this writing, the post is still live on Canon Italia and Canon Estana’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, but we don’t expect that to last much longer as this story gains traction in the blogosphere.
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| The photo as seen on the Canon Italia Instagram account this morning. |
We’ve reached out to Canon for comment, and will update this post if and when we hear back.
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)