Skylum, best known for its AI-powered photo editing software Luminar, is grappling with today's increasingly negative attitude toward artificial intelligence by changing its messaging to double-down on human creativity.
This week on The PetaPixel Podcast, Chris and Jordan phone in from the beach to talk about the ramifications of Nikon's loss to Viltrox in Chinese court as well as Sony's bid to buy Tamron. Plus, the two name what they think are every camera brand's greatest accomplishment... and their deepest shame!
Canon is working on a fluorine-free optical coating that offers the same water-repelling qualities and durability of fluorine, but without the PFAS problems.
In March, the Einstein Probe, a satellite made by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in partnership with the European Space Agency, detected a very brief flash of "soft X-rays" emitted by a galaxy about 500 million light-years away. Within an hour, ground-based telescopes, including several at National Science Foundation (NSF) NOIRLab facilities, began investigating the region, getting a front-row seat to bombastic and very special star death.
It looks like an image taken on the semi-arid landscape of southern California, but this remarkable news photo, showing scorched grass, was actually taken in London.
A concert videographer says his professional camera gear was damaged after a Dancehall musician dragged him onstage in a widely publicized incident.
7Artisans is bringing the compact AF 40mm f/2.5 full-frame prime lens it announced in February to L-Mount and Nikon Z-mount mirrorless cameras.
Despite rumblings and rumors based on it no longer being listed for sale two major camera stores in Japan, Fujifilm confirmed that the X-T5 has not been discontinued. Of course it hasn't, a successor to the camera has not been announced or released. It is still available to purchase with no wait.
The real story is the fact that Fujifilm has not released an X Series camera in 2026. If this were to continue, it would be the first time Fujifilm didn't add to the X Series line in a calendar year since it debuted the X-Pro1 in 2012.
The Nikon Z8, Nikon's "best mirrorless camera for most serious photographers," is a whopping $900 off right now at B&H, bringing its price down from $4,300 to just under $3,400. Better still, the 45.7-megapixel full-frame camera comes with a free 128GB SanDisk SD card and a Think Tank shoulder bag. While the SD card is just a V30 one, and thus not the best way to take advantage of the Z8's 20 frames per second continuous RAW shooting or 8K video recording, free storage is never a bad thing. It's a great deal on an excellent Nikon Z mirrorless camera.
Calculated based on the company's reported total revenue of $109.4 billion and the stated "favorable impact of $0.11 from tariff refunds," it looks like Apple received a massive $2.2B windfall thanks to Donald Trump's tariffs being ruled illegal. The refund was so substantial that it inflated Apple's gross margins, allowing it to beat analysts' revenue estimates, CNBC reports.
Digital creator Michele Merlo (kele.zero) has meticulously printed frames from Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" onto Japanese convenience store receipts and re-scanned them. Surely, this is how Nolan truly intended this cinematic masterpiece to be viewed: next to ATM balances and line items of egg salad sandwiches and onigiri.
Light Lens Lab has teased that it will announce a "new chapter" in its lens development. "Advanced apochromatic correction. Uncompromising precision. A refined vision for the everyday lens," the company says.
Speculation on social media is swirling, with many believing this to be a new 35mm lens of some kind. We won't have to wait long to find out, though: Light Lens Lab will make its announcement on August 5.
Earlier this week, technicians at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida installed a memory card behind a commemorative plaque on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The card contains 1,350,144 names that were submitted by people all over the world, including the Artemis II and Artemis III astronauts. The card will travel aboard the space telescope about one million miles from Earth, where it will use its 300-megapixel camera to explore the cosmos and unravel some of the Universe's greatest mysteries. The telescope may launch into space as soon as August 30.
WANDRD's annual warehouse sale kicked off this week and goes through August 10. If you've been eyeing one of the company's backpacks, slings, or straps, you can save up to 25% and also get some other discounts that are automatically applied in-cart on select products.
Tecno is showcasing a new concept phone at IFA 2026 that has virtually no bezel. While the bezel has been shrinking year-over-year in the television market, it hasn't changed in thickness all that much on the smartphone front. Tecno's "Next-Gen Bezelless Concept Phone" aims to change that with a true 0mm display border. Edge to edge photos in the palm of your hand? Sounds good to me. Granted, this is just a concept, so don't get too excited just yet: we might not see this in a new device for some time, if ever.
Canon's July 2026 financial report shows that the company received 58 billion yen (about $365 million) through the second quarter of 2026, which it says was almost entirely attributable to tariff refunds. "More than 90% of the tariff refunds have already been received in the first half of the year, and only a small amount is expected in the second half," the company says.
Canon raised prices last year in response to tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump. Those tariffs were ruled illegal in February, however, and the government was ordered to refund companies. The thing is, customers in the U.S. were the ones who actually bore the burden of these increases, not the countries or companies who shipped products. It may rub some the wrong way that now companies get that money back, with it unlikely to be shared with buyers. Nintendo's recent response is probably how companies feel about this whole situation: It asserted that customers "received exactly what they bargained and paid for."
Bruce Gilden is known for his confrontational street photography, using a close-up flash technique to capture striking portraits of people many would simply walk past. He's proven to be controversial, but Gilden says he had a deep empathy for his subjects.
A drone photographer has captured what is believed to be the first-known aerial footage of a humpback whale giving birth in the ocean.
A car photography company has sued AI image generator Midjourney, accusing it of copying tens of thousands of its copyrighted vehicle photos without permission.
Astronaut Anil Menon has only been in space for less than one month, but he has already captured a mind-boggling photo showing a super typhoon brooding above the Pacific Ocean.
DuckDuckGo, the privacy-focused search engine, has entered the smart glasses industry with a pair of sunglasses that are not smart at all.
Light Lens Lab has announced its next lens, the 35mm f/2 "Apochromatic." It is the company's first new lens designed as part of its High-Performance Optical Research Project and the first in a series of new High Performance Series lenses.
Saramonic has announced the K9 XTX, a wireless digital plug-on transmitter for filmmakers.
While celebrating the launch of its brand-new Leica SL3-P in Wetzlar, Germany, Leica delivered a series of presentations about its latest SL-Series model and the rest of its lineup, revealing some fascinating information about its cameras. Leica's best-selling series is not its iconic, beloved M-System rangefinders, but rather its premium compact Q cameras.
Photographer Benedek Lampert's new series, The Nature We Replaced, combines the miniature worlds the photographer is known for crafting with powerful environmental storytelling.
Apple's camera-equipped AirPods could be released before the end of 2026, earlier than previously expected.
Many of Sony's recent lens efforts have focused on high-end, professional-grade optics, including G and G Master lenses. The company is revisiting the consumer end of its lineup, delivering a new telephoto zoom lens for the masses: the FE 100-400mm f/5.6-8 OSS. It's aggressively priced and versatile, but is it any good?
In stark contrast to its recent FE 100-400mm f/4.5 G Master lens, Sony has announced the 100-400mm f/5.6-8 OSS, the most affordable full-frame 100-400mm lens on E-mount.
Ariana Grande has filed a lawsuit against hackers she claims targeted several of her photographers before stealing and leaking unreleased photos.
An expert has urged parents to stop carrying their babies up one of the world's busiest mountains in the hope of capturing a selfie.
Westcott announced a pair of new FJ100-series lights today, the FJ100 Touchscreen AC/DC Strobe and the FJ100 Touchscreen Speedlight. These are the most compact lights yet in Westcott's FJ Wireless System.
Several European countries -- including France, Germany, and the Netherlands -- are considering banning Meta’s smart glasses as regulators examine whether the devices comply with privacy laws.
DJI has announced the Mic Mini 2S, which expands on the Mic Mini 2 with the ability for each transmitter to record 32-bit float internally.
New York City's bodega cats are no ordinary felines. They're working cats in neighborhood stores that are in charge of pest control -- an important job in a city with a persistent rodent problem.
Apple is facing a lawsuit seeking up to $32.5 billion over claims its iPhone Photos app illegally collected users' biometric information.
Trundling around on an alien planet some 140 million miles from Earth is the solar system's most intrepid landscape photographer, snapping awe-inspiring shots as it scrambles up a mountain that's inside a crater.
Newly released camera trap footage from a recent study captures the oldest wild Sunda clouded leopard ever recorded, an eight-and-a-half-year-old female in Borneo's rainforests, offering a glimpse into the life of one of the world's most elusive wild cats.
Peak Design has announced the City Line, a series of six new bags that it says are built around lightweight construction, intuitive organization, and "clean aesthetics."
3D Film Parts has expanded its SignatureCap lineup from a single product into a three-mount series, bringing its custom-printed body and rear lens cap sets to Canon RF, Sony E, and Nikon Z camera systems.
Sony has published a list of what it calls E-Mount License Partners, where the basic specifications of the mirrorless mount have been disclosed to companies "which satisfy the qualification criteria predefined by Sony."
Civics, the new book by photographer William Meyers, offers a sweeping 25-year visual record of New York City as a microcosm of America, capturing the everyday acts of civic engagement, public service, and neighborly support that sustain the democratic fabric of the nation.
Over the last six months, we've worked tirelessly to increase the value of PetaPixel Memberships by adding multiple new perks. This week, we have added a new one, and it's a doozie: members now get 20% off their first annual Capture One subscription.
Officials have released body camera footage that may show a police officer handling a photographer's "stolen" bag, after pressure from a lawsuit seeking the publication of the recording.
An antique store on Nantucket has caused a stir after erecting a "no influencer" sign in its cozy island boutique.
When I first did my hands-on with the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max, I figured there was still room to push things further, and I was right to think so. But the interesting part is that it sometimes feels like the phone’s camera system has tricks up its sleeve that aren’t always apparent from the outset.
A prominent photographer -- who documented Iran for over two decades and mentored hundreds of other photographers -- was shot dead by the country's authorities.
Canon's latest lens patent is interesting mostly because of what it represents than the specific lenses detailed. The patent features an interesting three-group lens design that Canon says delivers faster autofocus performance, all else equal.
A photography gallery in Belfast has come under fire for hosting an exhibition that featured one artist who submitted a series of AI images.
A content creator who used Meta smart glasses to secretly film hundreds of videos for his TikTok account is being investigated by police.
In just an eight-month period, no fewer than three new medium format panoramic film cameras hit the market. I've used them and am ready to render my verdicts on each, but there can be no doubt: we are living in a panoramic renaissance.
Earlier this year, SG-image unveiled the AF 35mm f/2.2, an affordable full-frame standard prime lens for Sony E and Nikon Z cameras. It's now available for L-Mount ones, too, and still available for just under $150.
The virtual ink had barely dried on PetaPixel's article last week covering the news that Google Earth had added the Nano Banana AI image generator before the company quickly pulled the feature.
A professional videographer was arrested by the FBI after flying a drone for two minutes to film a church in Houston, Texas, during the 2026 World Cup, despite no matches being held in the city that day.
Pergear has announced a new ultra-affordable and very compact 50mm f/1.4 prime lens for full-frame mirrorless cameras. The catch? It's manual focus only.
It's one of the most popular wallpaper photos in the entire world, so much so that it has become a meme. But people are flocking to the real-world location of the Windows 10 lock screen photograph that was actually taken by Steve McCurry.
A new image from the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory's 3200-megapixel LSST camera features hundreds of thousands of distant galaxies across its many pixels, delivering a spectacular view of one of the most observed patches of the Universe.
If you ask a photographer what they specialize in, they may pause before answering. That pause is worth paying attention to.
A legendary American photographer's intimate pictures of his wife's family in a small Virginia town have been published for the first time in a new book.
The first time I visited Atlanta, Georgia, it was blisteringly hot, and I was there with Canon doing a review of the EOS 90D. Having now finished my second trip to Atlanta, it was still blisteringly hot, but I was able to spend much of the trip in the air-conditioned warehouse and retail front of KEH.
