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Happy World Photo Day: Photos from the staff of DPReview

20 Aug

Happy World Photo Day

World Photo Day is here and to celebrate we’ve decided to share a staff gallery of some of our favorite images shot over the past year (Note: we did not shot the above image, you can thank the crew of Apollo 17 for that).

The DPReview team is made up of more than just our editorial side – like any web-based publication we also have developers and a business-oriented team. But regardless of each staff members’ role, we all share a common passion for photography. And this gallery is a small representation of that passion.

To accompany each image, the photographer has written a few paragraphs describing the scenario in which it was shot as well as the gear used. Enjoy!

Wenmei Hill

I’m at heart a portrait photographer: my favorite subject is people, my favorite challenge is to capture a bit of their story. This is one of my favorite photos of the year because it shows her in the midst of childhood – she’d just turned seven years old – and her eyes carry the frank directness of a child tinged with a hint of the adult she will become.

I took this photo with the Petzval 58mm on the Nikon D750. The Petzval 58 is a manual focus lens with drop in aperture plates, so she had to wait patiently for me to pick my aperture and find my focus. The depth of the shadows and color also add a quality of stillness that I like, as stillness and patience are not easy to catch in a newly-minted seven year old. Every time I pass this photo in my collection, I stop and take a longer look, remembering and savoring this rare quiet moment.

Vladimir Bobov

This is one of those photos where a fleeting moment was captured by dumb luck. I like getting lucky with a photo because I like knowing that aside from having the right gear and dialing in the right settings, there is also an aspect of randomness to our art, and I enjoy seeing it manifested.

I took this photo at a friend’s lake house, while watching their neighbors set off Independence Day fireworks. I was concentrating on photographing the fireworks, which were coming from different directions, so I was switching around between very different exposure settings. I had taken a couple of pictures of my friends sitting on the dock, but they were sitting apart, and the photos weren’t that strong compositionally.

When a few minutes later, I saw them lean in to each other for just a few seconds, I quickly shot with whatever settings I had dialed for the fireworks, and got this photo. When I saw it on the LCD, I knew that it was going to be a keeper for me, even if it was blurry or out of focus, and I continued shooting the fireworks worry-free, knowing that I already had my shot.

Gear: Canon 5D Mark IV, EF 16-35 f/2.8L II USM at 16mm 0.5sec at f/4 ISO 800

Jeff Keller

I was lucky enough to visit the rugged but beautiful country of Iceland last October during a press event for Olympus. We hit most of the usual tourist spots: Reykjavik, Gullfoss, Skógafoss, Almannagjá and, of course, the Blue Lagoon (we need one of those here in Seattle). Being a press event, it shouldn’t be surprising that I was using an Olympus camera, which in this case was an E-M1 Mark II.

On one of the days we headed to the south coast to the famous black sand beach in Vik. On the drive there we encountered sun, rain and hail in a five minute period, which I was told wasn’t unusual for Iceland. Prior to our arrival, our guide told us to never turn our back to the dangerous ocean (always sage advice) since many have died at the beach. That was reinforced by a warning sign on the walk down and the presence of a security guard keeping people away from the water.

The scene on the beach was incredibly monochromatic. It was overcast with unbelievably rough seas, whose spray eliminated any color above the ocean. The basalt columns that shoot out of the earth give this spot an almost otherworldly feel (no pun intended). Not long after our arrival it started to hail again. The hail added some much-needed contrast to the scene and it was at the point where I took the photo above. That is indeed a color photo, but the scene on the beach was so grim and gloomy that it ended up looking black & white.

Dan Bracaglia

I shot this image in Tokyo earlier in spring on the Fujifilm GFX 50S and GF 63mm F2.8 R. I’ve always dreamed of wandering the streets of Tokyo, camera in hand but never expected the camera to be a digital medium-format. Truth is I intended on shooting the streets with my Leica M6 but a stroke of good fortune at the CP+ trade show days prior resulted in DPReview getting our hands on one of the very first GFX 50S’ available to the media. And so naturally I put my M6 on the backburner/back in my suitcase and used the Fujifilm for the duration of my trip.

Large and sluggish to focus with the 63mm, it was hardly the ideal kit for walking multiple miles a day, trying to be discreet or attempting to catch decisive moments. But having yearned to visit Tokyo much of my life, I wasn’t about to let those factors hold me back on my first visit. Plus, I’ve always enjoyed shooting with Fujifilm cameras and was pretty excited by this new one.

In the end I worked around the sluggish AF and clunky size and made a ton of images while exploring there, many of which I was pleased with, but none more than the one above. It just goes to show, the photographic tool is much less important than the will of the photographer. Also thanks to the high-res chip, I was able to crop to taste in post without any worry.

Rishi Sanyal

I showed up to this shoot with a Sony a7R II and a set of primes. I brought a Nikon D5 and 70-200 F2.8E FL ED VR. Just in case.

I chose Volunteer Park in Seattle as the backdrop, because of the lush greenery everywhere. Close to sunset, the sun shines through numerous trees, affording ample opportunity for backlit scenarios and light shining through trees. I started off shooting with the a7R II. Looking through the EVF, I was able to carefully tune my exposure on-the-fly – a huge advantage of mirrorless.

But something was missing. I didn’t like what I was seeing through the EVF. I saw a flat, dull representation of the love story in front of me. Why? Because Sony’s JPEG engine rendered lackluster colors and a flat preview that tries to pack in a bunch of scene dynamic range into the EVF preview so you can see the wide range of tones in your scene. That’s actually a good thing, in most cases. But the resulting images on the LCD were, well, meh.

Somewhat uninspired, I whipped out the D5. It hurt. Like I think a couple of bones cracked and a nerve rubbed me the wrong way. But then I took a shot. I looked at it on the back of the LCD and I was like ‘whoa’. The retina-esque resolution of the D5 LCD combined with Nikon’s improved JPEG color rendition that gets it at least part of the way to Canon (whose colors – along with Fujifilm – we unanimously love in the office) left me inspired. But not just that – seeing a scene through the optical viewfinder and concentrating on it, and only after taking the shot realizing I’d created something quite pleasing was satisfying. Satisfying like those days when I picked up my Velvia slides after a weekend getaway.

I packed away the a7R II for the rest of the shoot. Boy was I glad I brought that D5 just in case. Good thing I didn’t need to shoot any video.

Carey Rose

As has already been well-documented, I brought only a 50mm-equivalent lens on a trip to Thailand as a personal challenge. I’m used to wider focal lengths, and after a couple of days, I had accepted that most of my photos from this trip would probably suck.

But I kept on shooting anyway. I was in Thailand, after all. I gradually became somewhat more comfortable with the focal length, and didn’t constantly feel like I needed to take five steps back whenever I raised the camera to my eye.

We visited the Elephant Nature Park in northern Thailand in the final days of our trip, and I like to think of this photo as a sort of happy accident that stemmed from my personal challenge. If I had a 28mm lens, this would probably be one of those ‘here is an elephant in a field’ sorts of pictures. But because of the tighter field of view, I was able to more clearly see and frame the curves of the elephant’s back against an almost mirror-image of them in the landscape, and captured what I found to be a much more compelling image.

So despite my initial reservations, I like this image not only because, well, I like it, but also because it serves as a reminder to keep on challenging myself to ‘see’ a little differently.

Dale Baskin

The Aurora Borealis is one of Earth’s truly magical natural phenomena, and under the right conditions it can turn a nighttime landscape into an otherworldly place. A few months back I was in Canada’s Northwest Territories to photograph the aurora and caught this image almost by accident.

I had a couple other cameras shooting time-lapse sequences in a clearing when something drew me into the woods nearby. It wasn’t until I looked up through the trees of the taiga forest that I realized why. I was surrounded on all sides by aurora that dipped almost to the horizon, creating stark silhouettes of the trees. A window of stars opened straight above. I quickly mounted my camera on a tripod, pointed upward, and took a series of shots. A few minutes later the aurora had moved and the scene was gone forever.

This picture is one of my favorites from the past year because it captures the essence of what it’s like to stand alone in a remote northern forest, spellbound, as the northern lights dance around you. It’s a supernatural, spiritual experience that’s good for your soul.

Photographed with a Nikon D750 and Rokinon 14mm F2.8 lens. ISO 5000, 10 sec, F2.8.

Richard Butler

One of my favorite photos from this year is actually a composite of two images. The fourth of May this year saw a storm approach from the west. A bright afternoon became darker and darker as threatening clouds rolled in and the forecast of lightning (uncharacteristic for Seattle) began to look more likely. I grabbed the highest-res camera I could and a Tamron lens we needed to shoot samples on, and raced to the most Southerly end of the building, hoping to capture the mood without also including one of city’s many construction cranes.

The clouds looked ever more moody, and it was visibly apparent where they were raining: the mountains to the North West were still lit by sunshine, but there was no visibility at all as you turned to the South. I started snapping, immediately struck by the Tamron’s ability to stabilize 1/80th of a second and 130mm while carefully aimed between the tilted-open window and its outer frame. I kept shooting as the lightning started.

The flashes seem so long-lived, illuminating the banks and fold of cloud for an appreciable time after the initial burst of light. I wondered whether I could roughly anticipate the next flash, with a long enough shutter speed. No. Then I thought I’d see if my reaction times, combined with the lingering glow in the clouds would be enough. Sure enough, on the third bolt of lightning, I managed to catch the tail-end of the strike. It wasn’t the most dramatic lightning shot I’ve ever seen, but it felt pretty satisfying, given my complete lack of preparation.

I quickly chimped: more than acceptably sharp, considering I was trying to hand-hold a 50MP camera. Then I zoomed out and realized that, while trying to focus on getting the timing right, I’d let the camera slip slightly and inadvertently cropped the top off the Space Needle. So the end result is a composite: a fractionally sharper shot taken a few moments earlier, with the darker clouds and lightning merged in from the better-timed image. I’d like to think I’ve created a 50MP image which looks eye-catching even as a thumbnail but also allows you to zoom in on the Washington State Ferries, apparently sheltering in the harbor on Bainbridge Island. And, since it’s not photojournalism or a competition entry, why not?

Allison Johnson

This is a photo I shot almost exactly a year ago, but just under, so I think it still counts. It’s shot with the Canon M10 and EF-M 22mm, which is a nice combination, and nobody checking your bag bats an eye at it.

Mason, Ohio is a suburb north of Cincinnati best known for its amusement park and annual pro tennis tournament. This is sunset on Grandstand Court, which is the second-largest court and has a more intimate feel than the neighboring Center Court. I saw Roger Federer play here once. He hasn’t played on the second-largest court in a long, long time since then.

There are things I don’t love about this photo but so much that I do when I come back to it. It takes me back to warm August nights, the hush over the crowd, the hum from the nearby interstate during quiet moments as points are played. I like focusing on the crowd here rather than the players. We had a day of intense rainstorms and the sunset was spectacular that night. It’s kind of a Field of Dreams moment – this incredible tournament with the world’s best players pretty much in the middle of a field, in what used to be rural Ohio.

I feel like this moment captures what that week in August is like, at least to me, and that kind of thing makes me really excited about taking pictures. It’s both meaningful to me personally, and a lovely, fleeting moment captured and made still. Now that I’m on a photo book-making kick, I feel like this might end up in a tennis photo album soon.

Eugene Hsu

This is a photo of a mother bear and two cubs sharing a salmon at the Katmai National Park and Preserve at Brooks Camp in late 2016. At this remote national park, there are only a small number of people and a huge number of bears. Safety is your number one priority as you always give bears the right of way, which results in a unique wildlife experience. Viewing platforms at various points in the Brooks Falls area give photographers some great angles whether they are hauling around tens-of-thousands of dollars in lenses – or the compact super-zoom Sony RX10 III that I used in this shot.

Staff

We love ducks. They’re a staff favorite. Mainly because there are lots of them at the nearby park and they’re always around when we don’t have any other models. At some point we should probably get them to sign model releases.

We have so many photos of ducks that we couldn’t pick a single favorite, so this was a random selection to represent the multitude of duck portraits we captured last year. Quack on.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photo of the week: Drone portraits bring healing and awareness after wildfire

19 Aug

On November 23, 2016, a fire started along the Chimney Tops 2 that would spread throughout Gatlinburg and become the worst fire in Tennessee of the last 100 years. It claimed 14 lives and over 2,000 homes and businesses.

As the devastation became apparent, I had an idea to use my camera to bring healing and awareness to the region’s victims in a series of photos. From December 14-20, 2016, I photographed as many individuals and families as I could. There were already lots of photographers and drone enthusiasts there but I don’t find that more cameras help in times of need. There has to be a specific idea or angle to tell the story in a different, emotionally-compelling way.

As story-tellers, we have to use the creative director parts of our minds to think differently.

So I had the idea to place a stark white mattress in the middle of these blackened, charred homes and then place the homeowners on the mattress and photograph it from a drone. I had never used drones before but I knew it was the right solution for this project. And I was hopeful that it would be a bit therapeutic for the homeowners to lay down one last time in their former home… a moment of quiet remembrance in a time of distress.

This is the very first photo I took for the project, a portrait of a new friend named Kirk Fleta. He’s a famous musician and had built his home himself, with his own hands.

We had him lay down and then started flying the drone. As soon as I took this first photo, I started crying. I’ve never cried in my entire career, upon seeing one of my images for the first time. But this one got me on every level. Not only was it a successful vision but it uniquely displayed Kirk’s loss and it seemed to represent such a vulnerable moment for him… the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one.

We used a variety of different drones and DSLRs to capture the aerial shots and portraits for the project, respectively. For this shot, we were using a DJI Inspire Pro (X5). You can see the entire project here.

Jeremy Cowart is an award-winning photographer, artist, and entrepreneur whose mission in life is to “explore the intersection of creativity and empathy.” His work ranges from celebrity portraiture to deeply personal projects like the Gatlinburg portraits. To see more of his work, visit his website or follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Barack Obama photo and quote becomes most popular tweet of all time

17 Aug
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Former president Barack Obama’s recent photo response to the violent events in Charlottesville, VA has officially become the most popular tweet of all time. The 44th President of these United States tweeted the official White House photograph above—captured by the great Pete Souza—alongside part of a quote by the late Nelson Mandela:

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

As of this writing, the tweet has received over 53,000 replies, 1.3 million retweets and nearly 3.4 million likes.

The new record just goes to show: pair a powerful message with a powerful photograph, and you’ve got a lot more power than the proverbial “1,000 words” that photo is supposedly worth.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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B&H Photo will pay $3.2 million to settle federal discrimination case

17 Aug

B&H Foto & Electronics Corp., the company behind retail site B&H Photo, has agreed to pay $ 3,220,000 to settle a federal discrimination case, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. This follows a lawsuit filed by the Department of Labor against B&H Foto & Electronics Corp. in February 2016, in which the department alleged that B&H was engaging in discrimination against multiple groups, as well as harassment of workers.

According to the lawsuit filed by the DoL, B&H Foto ‘systematically discriminated’ against Asian, black, and female jobseekers, instead hiring only male Hispanic workers in its entry-level positions. The individuals it did hire were then paid much less than other employees in similar positions, according to the Department of Labor, and weren’t promoted into higher positions within the company.

The Labor Department’s lawsuit also claimed that B&H Foto subjected its hired workers to harassment on a routine basis, and that it gave them ‘unequal access to restroom facilities.’ Employees complained to the company about these problems, but the lawsuit states that B&H Foto failed to correct them. As a result, the company will pay $ 3.2 million as both monetary relief and back wages to more than 1,300 individuals.

In addition to paying the fee, B&H Foto has agreed to annually train its managers on workplace harassment prevention and equal opportunity principles, and to hire a consultant to fix the negative conduct and practices at its warehouses. Though the lawsuit concerns discriminatory practices at its Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse, the consultant will also work to ensure the problems don’t arise at B&H’s future Florence, New Jersey warehouse.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photo of the week: Shooting portraits of the Himba people in Namibia

13 Aug

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My photography heroes are Steve McCurry, Sebastiao Salgado, Jimmy Nelson and Joey L for his work in Africa, India and Syria. Their work has always inspired me, being at once raw and gritty, and at the same time revealing a bullet-proof dignity in their subjects. I would love to be able to work in this space myself.

I understand that it’s a different era now and that grabbing a job at National Geographic is not a realistic option. I also know that no one is coming to knock on my door to hire me for this sort of work just because I would love to do it. There are no favours in this industry. If I ever manage to make this sort of work my full time job it will be because I have already proved that I could produce quality imagery in this area.

So I recently packed my bags and gear and headed to a country which has always held a special interest for me: Namibia. I went to the tribal homelands of the Himba people and organized through a local guide to head into one of the villages for golden hour, for two evenings in a row, to shoot portraits with them.

On the first evening I went in I found this lovely little girl sitting with her Grandmother. She was shy and watching me as I shot with some of her family, and every time I looked over she hid her face and giggled. After a few minutes though her grandmother called me over and wanted me to take a shot of the two of them together, and after a couple of minutes the little girl opened up and I managed to grab these two shots. For obvious reasons, I try to share them as a pair whenever possible.

I used my trusty Canon 5DmkII and shot with the Sigma 50mm F1.4 lens, which I love for its crisp image. The settings were ISO200 and F2 at 1/100. I was handholding the camera, and the images are both naturally lit with a white reflector to fill.

If you’d like to see a behind the scenes video of this trip check it out here.

Sean Tucker is a professional filmmaker and photographer who is constantly striving to bring his own spark and eye to every project. You can find more of his work by visiting his website, subscribing to his channel on YouTube, or following him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Five useful photo apps for travelers

12 Aug

Photo apps for travelers

Photographers take great care in choosing the right gear for a trip. Why not make sure your smartphone is well equipped for photography too? After all, it’s probably the camera you’ll have with you in the event that your DSLR battery comes up short, or your shoulders need a break from the weight of your photo bag.

While the stock camera app will serve most people just fine, there are a huge number of photo apps that go a step further – offering unique shooting features and clever editing options. Whether it’s a late summer getaway or just a trip to the park, these five iPhone apps (a couple of which are available for Android, too) can help you get a better shot to remember the journey by.

SKRWT
iOS/Android | $ 1.99

Travels often take photographers to new cities, but accurately rendering tall buildings and structures with the iPhone’s wide-angle lens alone can be problematic. SKRWT (pronounced Screw It — seriously) is handy for correcting perspective and lens distortion.

When you compose a shot that is angled upwards at a building, for example, the resulting picture often shows lines that converge at the top. SKRWT focuses exclusively on straightening horizontal or vertical lines so the picture depicts more of what the eye perceives. With SKRWT, applying corrections takes a bit of user input, including prepping the image for the vertical correction filter and moving the slider to align the image with the grid. The app provides full auto cropping, vignette correction, ratio adjustments, and an EXIF reader alongside Mobile, Wide, Fisheye, and GoPro modes.

You can save the corrected photo to a dedicated gallery or directly to your camera roll. SKRWT also features two in-app extensions: MRRW (pronounced Mirror), a mirroring tool, and 4PNTs (pronounced Four Points), a four-point-perspective tool for skewing and transforming images. Both apps are available as in-app purchases for 99 cents each.

If you find yourself drawn to taking photos of local architecture and wishing you could correct some of the distortion on the fly, SKRWT is a nice option.

Hydra
iOS | $ 4.99

Hydra shoots, processes and merges multiple images in an effort to produce a higher quality image. It offers five capture modes: HDR, Video-HDR, Lo-light, Zoom, and Hi-Res. Depending on available light, Hydra can merge up to 60 frames to create a single high-resolution shot, with an output of up to 32-megapixel images.

Hydra’s best use case is dimly lit, moody landscapes or interiors where you are able to hold your phone stock still — the app will not complete a shot if there’s too much motion. The HDR mode captures up to 20 images in challenging lighting conditions while the Video-HDR setting uses single-image tone mapping or a special sensor mode (for the iPhone 6), and then offers a choice of light intensities and video resolutions.

Zoom mode aims to correct motion blur, though as with other modes, it’s best to hold your phone steady to avoid unexpected results. Hydra is designed for specialized circumstances as a complement to rather than a substitute for the built-in iPhone camera app, but it’s great to have on hand for quiet, dark places.

Think you may end up printing low light photos from your trip? Hydra is worth having on hand.

ProCam 4
iOS | $ 4.99

ProCam 4 is a classic photographer’s app that aims to pack plenty of manual controls — as well as a robust photo editor — into your iPhone. Its wide assortment of settings comes in an easy-to-use format that won’t throw you off track when you’re in a hurry. The shooting app, which includes both photo and video mode, offers specialized settings like Night Mode, Burst Mode, Slow Shutter, Video, and Time Lapse.

You can manually select ISO, shutter speed, exposure, bracketing, white balance, and stabilization. A histogram helps with exposure settings, and in addition Raw support, manual focus, and focus peaking are offered. If you have an iPhone 7 Plus, try shooting some Wigglegram 3D photos with the iSight Duo camera — two photos taken at the same time by each of the phone’s cameras alternate in quick succession to produce a 3D effect that you can save as a GIF or video. In addition to broad shooting options, you can also edit photos and videos with controls for saturation, white balance, exposure, brightness and contrast, perspective correction, and a mix of special effects filters.

If your smartphone is occasionally asked to stand in for your dedicated camera, ProCam is worth downloading for its complete set of manual controls.

Google Street View
iOS/Android | Free

While you’re hiking the trail or strolling the city, anytime is a good time to create a Google Street View 360-degree photo. You can shoot it right from the app on your iPhone — no special equipment needed. The app does most of the work of indicating when to shoot as you pick a scenic spot and start rotating your body to follow the orange circle on your screen. Start with your phone’s camera and follow the app prompts until you have all angles of your image filled in.

As you shoot, the circle automatically repositions itself to help you complete your photo. When you’re done, the app stitches the panels together. Then, publish to Google Maps to share your photo spheres. The app lets you manage public and private images, observe contributions from others, and view your captures in Cardboard mode with a VR viewer. You can also share your photo spheres on Facebook, Twitter, or privately via email.

Those who rarely use their smartphone camera may still enjoy Google Street View’s easy 360-degree photo creation and documentation features. Plus, it’s a handy way to scope out nearby locations for photo opportunities.

Enlight
iOS | $ 3.99

Enlight is an advanced mobile photo shooter and editor that works independently or with the iOS photos app to offer advanced editing options and visual effects. With its hide-show main menu, coupled with a tap-and-drag interface, you get total control over your photo’s details, tone, color, and special effects. Each menu item opens into a variety of options, letting you crop, adjust, apply filters, sharpen, and add a host of artistic elements using adjustable presets, tools, and masks.

Masking features let you blend effects, while artistic and film-based presets let you add grain, black and white conversion, sketching effects, patterned surfaces, and more. A photo mixer lets you merge two photos together for double exposure, and montage. Enlight’s art filters can transform your photo into a watercolor, oil painting, or sketch. Want to start with the basics? No problem: Simple improvements like crop, skew, color adjustment, and healing are available, and then easily combined with decorative borders and frames, vignette lighting, gradients, and vintage filters. Top it off with doodles, decals, special effects, and customized text.

If you’d like your camera to come with a side of stylized editing options, consider Enlight.

Best free and paid options

These five apps work well, especially for the popular, specialized shots and circumstances for which they were designed. But if you only want to download one or two before you hit the road, here are our picks.

Best free option

The only free app in the group — Google Street View for iOS or Android — is a standout in its own right. With this app, dipping a toe into 360-degree image creation requires no special camera or photographic skill. The app’s integrated instructions provide everything you need to start shooting and posting impressive scenic landscapes that viewers worldwide can enjoy. If you’re carrying a dedicated camera, it provides a nice way to complement your traditional photos with something a little bit different – and with no penalty of carrying an extra device.

Best paid option

On the paid side, ProCam 4 gets the nod as the best app for its range of pro-level options, including detailed shooting controls, DSLR-style functionality, Raw support, and a variety of editing features.

The apps above are a tiny sample of creative mobile photo shooters and editors. If you have a favorite that was not mentioned, be sure to share it in the comments.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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This video game offers an in-game photo studio for shooting exotic cars

08 Aug

Players of the next version of PlayStation’s Gran Turismo Sport will be able to create professional looking photographs of their cars using a new feature that offers a surprising amount of ‘photographic’ control over the way the images turn out. For us mere photographic mortals, it might be the closest we’ll ever get to shooting a $ 2.5 million car with a $ 50,000 camera…

The Gran Turismo features is called ‘Scapes’, and it lets players place their favorite cars in a wide range of scenes—from landscapes to city streets and interiors—and adjust their camera ‘controls’ to dial in things like depth of field.

A control panel down the side of the screen has software-like sliders for exposure compensation, aperture, shutter speed and focus. The car can be turned and parked where you like, the lights switched between beam settings, and the color temperature of the whole scene can be adjusted to create warm and cool effects.

More than a passing thought has gone into creating the Scapes mode, and the control of the images really seems extensive.

Users can alter the color balance of shadows, mid-tones and highlights using RGB sliders, while grain effects can be added along with vignetting and distortion corrections. And if that’s not enough, you can even blur the background using a panning effect, to deliver a race day atmosphere in one of around 1000 scenes.

For more information, check out the Gran Turismo website.

Information from PlayStation:

‘Scapes’, the New World of Photography

Go on a photography trip with your favorite car.

The ‘Scapes’ feature is a new format of photography, borne from a True HDR workflow and physics based rendering technologies. Each photo spot contains all the light energy information of that scene as data. Even the incredible brightness of the Sun is physically recorded and contained in each of these photos; and because each image also contains spacial information for that scene, it is now possible to ‘place’ cars into real world photographs.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photo of the week: The Purple Hour

05 Aug

This image was shot in Myvatn, northern Iceland. I’d been shooting there for several years now, but this was the most magical I had ever seen it. The entire area was covered with fluffy frost and snow, created by a combination of fresh snow, high humidity and low temperatures.

The highlight was the snow-laden trees. After shooting a blazing red sunset with my northern Iceland workshop group, the colors subsided and a blue/purple sky, adorned by a full moon, remained above the trees.

The final image was focus-stacked from 2 shots captured with my Sony a7R and Canon 16-35mm F4L IS lens at 16mm, F11, 8sec and ISO100.

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram, Facebook and 500px, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates. Erez offers photo workshops worldwide.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Opinion: The future of photography and the value of a free photo

05 Aug
Photo by Lionello DelPiccolo on Unsplash

Mikael Cho is the founder and CEO of Unsplash, a community where photographers can share their high-resolution photos for anyone to use for free—no credit or payment required. The platform has been criticized roundly by many professional photographers who claim the service devalues photography. In a recent blog post, Cho responded to this criticism, sharing his thoughts on the future of photography and the value of a photograph that is given away for free.

Mr. Cho has given DPReview permission to republish the article in full below.

We didn’t start Unsplash to reinvent an industry. We started Unsplash because we thought it might be useful.

Unsplash is a community where anyone can share high-resolution photos for anyone to use freely. It began as a Tumblr blog with ten photos we had leftover from a photoshoot. Instead of letting our photos sit dead in a hard drive somewhere, we thought it would be better if they were put to use to move other creative projects forward. A freelance designer could grab an image to pitch a mockup or demo. An entrepreneur strapped for cash could put a website up with a nice background photo to attract potential customers.

We believed the good from giving our images away would far outweigh what we could earn if we required payment or credit.

The power of photography

This proved true. By setting our images free, Unsplash turned into something much more meaningful than the hundreds of dollars we likely would have made selling them. Those first 10 photos photos have been seen 58 million times. Unsplash has become a community of over 20 million creators. People from all over the world have generously contributed over 250,000 photos, moving hundreds of millions of creative acts forward.

Unsplash photos mapping the world

Unsplash photos have not only helped designers and entrepreneurs create demos and websites but have been a source of inspiration for everyone from teachers to nonprofits to independent creators.

A few things made with Unsplash

Unsplash contributors share photography to make an impact so our aim has been to push the impact of their imagery like no other platform ever has. Today, a photo featured on Unsplash is seen more than a photo on any other platform. More than Instagram. More than the front page of the New York Times.

You don’t need to come with an audience or have an agent to be great on Unsplash. We bring an audience to you.

The Direct-to-Consumer Creator

As an independent designer myself, I understand you can’t do everything for exposure because exposure doesn’t pay the bills. But to completely dismiss the value of exposure doesn’t make sense either.

All artists need an audience to survive. Why do we spend time posting on Instagram if we don’t get paid for it? Because those posts build an audience over time.

In the last ten years, several platforms like YouTube, iPhone, Twitter, Instagram, SoundCloud, and Medium have enabled more and more of us to express and connect. Sometimes, this expression and connection is done for fun. For nothing but the purpose of creating. Other times it’s done to create an audience for something else. Filmmakers distribute trailers for free on YouTube to sell a movie. Musicians release free songs or entire albums on SoundCloud to sell concert tickets. Authors give free chapters and pour thousands of unpaid hours into blogs to sell a book.

New platforms don’t kill industries. They change the distribution.

Online platforms have opened up an opportunity for so many people to share their craft with huge audiences instantly. New platforms create a distribution channel and community we otherwise wouldn’t have. In this sense, there’s never been a better time to be a creator.

When two-time #1 New York Times best-selling author Tim Ferriss was blocked from distributing his book in Barnes & Noble, he uploaded excerpts from his book for free on BitTorrent to get distribution. Writer Leo Babauta “Uncopyrighted” everything on his popular blog, Zen Habits, in service of spreading his work further than he ever could alone. Chance the Rapper became the first artist to win a Grammy without selling physical copies of his album and giving most of his music away for free.

These examples of creators sharing in extreme ways didn’t produce any immediate monetary gain. In fact, they probably lost some sales from it. But whatever the losses, they were more than made up for by the outsized benefits that came from openly sharing their work. As Chance the Rapper said,

“I realized my strength was being able to offer my best work to people without any limit on it.

I make money from touring and selling merchandise, and I honestly believe if you put effort into something and you execute properly, you don’t necessarily have to go through the traditional ways.”

Unsplash is different though…

Unsplash seems like a beneficial platform for hobbyist photographers because hobbyist photographers make money elsewhere. But what about commercial photographers?

I get how Unsplash could seem more devaluing to a commercial photographer than other photo-sharing platforms because you’re giving up your copyright ownership of your photo when you share it. To get behind this argument though, we need to understand what photo copyright ownership gets us. The purpose of holding on to copyright for a photo is typically so you can protect it from someone else taking that photo and selling it for profit.

Before the internet, holding on to copyright for photos was more beneficial because the value in licensing a photo was high. The issue today is a licensed photo is losing its value. The price photo buyers are willing to pay to license a photo is accelerating downward. If you post your photos on a stock photo site, you’ll earn ~$ 511/year on average on your collection, half what you would make two years ago.

Data from Shutterstock

While almost everyone needs images to do their jobs today, the jobs we do with imagery are different from when photos used to be licensed by media buyers or photo agencies for commercial use. For example, almost 70 percent of the people who download images on Unsplash have never downloaded a photo from a stock photo site before. And the most common uses for Unsplash photos are presentations, blogs, or personal projects.

At the same time, the cost to produce a photo is going down. The five most valuable companies in the world today are all competing on the camera. While professional photography gear is still expensive, mobile cameras are improving at a rate that will eventually put a professional-level camera in everyone’s pocket.

Every 2 minutes, people take more photos than ever existed 150 years ago. There’s no doubt creating a great photo requires artistry but photography has become more saturated which means many photographers today are not contacted by people wanting to pay to use their copyrighted photos.

There’s more demand. There’s more supply. But it’s also different demand and different supply. The photo licensing business model doesn’t fit.

Photos as Relationship Makers

Most photographers have transitioned to using photos as tools to create relationships. Professional photographers use photos they took for fun to connect with potential clients. Potential clients enjoy the photos on your portfolio or Instagram, so they hire you for a photoshoot. Hobbyist photographers use photos to build an audience they can direct toward where they make a living or simply to practice their craft.

The human brain is wired to connect with imagery so imagery will always be something people seek out. Since photos work so well as a form of connection, we saw Unsplash as a more impactful way to do that. Giving up your copyright to a photo seems extreme but it’s this extreme level of giving that produces the unprecedented level of connection.

Recently, a team of researchers found the most shared articles from the New York Times were ones that gave readers practical utility. Giving someone something useful tends to have the biggest impact on people. When you pair two powerful things like giving and photography, you reach a whole new level of impact.

Many of our members have said they’ve gained so much from sharing work on Unsplash compared to anywhere else. Many have booked client work after posting just a couple photos. Some have been flown around the world on photoshoots. Some have gotten enough work to leave their jobs and become full-time photographers. Some have been able to build audiences for new products. And every contributor we’ve spoken to has enjoyed the impact their photography has made toward moving creativity forward. Here’s a few of their stories.

Yes, there will be people who use Unsplash photos freely who may have hired a photographer if Unsplash didn’t exist. But by giving photos, Unsplash contributors create a new opportunity for millions of other people to find their work.

If someone needs a photo for a presentation that will only be seen by a few co-workers, they don’t have a budget for photography. If they can’t use a free photo for that, they are not hiring someone. And there is no relationship created. But by finding a photo on Unsplash, a relationship begins. When they need to hire a photographer for a shoot, they’re more likely to go back to the place that fulfills that need. We’re trying to make it so these relationships connect back to the Unsplash contributor that inspired them.

We’ve already begun to build things into Unsplash to strengthen this relationship between photo contributors and the creators they inspire. We’re building up a library of things made with Unsplash to connect back to contributors. Just last month, we launched a “Say Thanks” feature which creates a way for people to publicly recognize the Unsplash contributor who gave the photo they downloaded. And we’ve begun work on an Unsplash member search to help our members book creative work.

In a sense, every Unsplash photo turns into a billboard for our contributors. And the future business model of Unsplash is about creating relationships through the unique attention and use each photo creates.

The future value in photography

By our estimates, there are potentially 100 times more people looking for usable imagery today, than a decade ago. Image use has moved mainstream which is why there’s a new opportunity for a business model that works better for everyone.

There’s no doubt about the impact of photography. Photos are powerful. The question is not if photography will maintain its power but how to create meaningful value from it. We’ve already begun to think about what this looks like. It’s going to take time to figure out. While we don’t have all the answers today, we will always be transparent and upfront about where we’re headed.

Every industry evolves. Things will change. We can’t be resistant to change no matter how much today’s world benefits us. We face the same fact that every artist and business must face: what we offer today will eventually be obsolete. We can choose to be upset with this fact or understand it is inevitable and continue to adapt.

If you do it right, you’ll be the one to disrupt yourself. You’ll be out in front of the pack. You’ll help determine the new value. That’s what we’re looking to do for photography. That’s what we’re looking to do for the creative community. We’re all in the same boat. When the creative industry benefits, we all benefit.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Lawsuit ruling sends clear message: Register your photo copyrights ASAP

02 Aug

Though copyright is automatically granted to creators for their created works in the United States, the option remains to officially (and voluntarily) register those copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office. As detailed on Copyright.gov, this registration bestows certain benefits and may, in certain circumstances, be necessary: “Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.”

A recent U.S. lawsuit involving infringement may set a precedent regarding whether a copyrighted work is considered registered for the purposes of an infringement suit if the registration application is still pending.

The matter revolves around a lawsuit filed by photojournalist Matilde Gattoni against clothing retailer Tibi over its unauthorized use of her photo. According to the lawsuit, Gattoni posted one of her own photos on her Instagram; this image was taken in Morocco and her copyright registration was still pending in the U.S. Though the Instagram post included a copyright notice, the lawsuit claims Tibi cropped the image, posted the cropped portion on its own Instagram, and included only a link to Gattoni’s Instagram sans copyright info.

The lawsuit aimed to hit Tibi for both a DMCA violation and copyright infringement, seeking between $ 2,500 and $ 25,000 for the alleged DMCA violation and up to $ 150,000 in damages for the copyright infringement.

However, things didn’t quite go as Gattoni had hoped. U.S. District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet has ruled that while the case can proceed with the DMCA claim, it must do so without the copyright infringement claim due to the copyright registration’s ‘pending’ status. Discussing this matter in particular, the court stated:

Because Gattoni has alleged only that the registration for the allegedly infringed film is pending, and because no application has been made by Gattoni to amend the Complaint if and when the Photograph became registered, Gattoni has not properly pled the pre-requisite element of a copyright infringement claim.

While some courts have accepted pending copyright registration as suitable for meeting the infringement lawsuit prerequisites, others—such as this one—have chosen to accept only a complete registration as acceptable. According to Lexology, Second Circuit federal courts have sided with the completed registration interpretation of the requirements.

Photographs can register their image copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office through its online eCO system. Details on how to register photo copyrights in particular are offered here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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