Editorial

The 135mm focal length is one of my favorite portrait ranges due to its compressed rendering of people’s faces, as well as lending itself to stunningly dramatic full-body environmental portraits. Last year saw the release of two new 135mm lenses, one each from Canon and Nikon. Take into account the venerable Sony 135mm G Master and you have all three of the major full-frame mirrorless companies now offering a 135mm f/1.8 lens.

Following DPReview publising its Sony a9 III studio test shots, PetaPixel wrote about our hands-on experience with the a9 III's image quality. We wanted to add more context to that discussion, even if it spoils parts of our impending review.

As photographers flip their calendars over to 2024, waving goodbye to a year of great gear and hopefully even better photos, it is time for shutterbugs to usher in the New Year with top-notch -- and totally realistic -- New Year's resolutions.

We all have to start somewhere. For most of us, that means a basic DSLR or mirrorless camera kit with a compact, handy general-purpose zoom lens. Undoubtedly, we can't wait to ditch our basic kit lens for something faster or more versatile. A kit lens is something we feel we need to graduate from to call ourselves an accomplished photographer. But is that really the case? Maybe the humble kit lens has more to offer than we think, so today we will look at our five favorite kit lenses of all time.

This year has been a fascinating one in the world of photography, and like every year, it was full of incredible highs, devastating lows, and everything in between.

This past summer, I hit the hot streets of Marrakech, Morocco with Lomography's new LomoChrome '92 film in a Canon AE-1 SLR camera with a 50mm lens.

In a recent opinion piece, The New York Times delcared that AI is the "future of photography." Whether that's true or not remains to be seen but it has undoubtedly been a big year for images generated by artificial intelligence.

Now in its third year, PetaPixel has gathered its team together to guess the things they just know are going to take place over the next calendar year. All of us are, as usual, ready to be very, very wrong.

Much of the focus on the potential hazards of generative AI technology has understandably been on how it impacts artists and copyright ownership, and how it could affect people's jobs and wages. New research shows that the dangers of generative AI go much further and may be catastrophic for the environment.

The Sony World Photography Awards is arguably the most prestigious and largest photo contest. The 2024 edition is open to entries and some of its rules are under fire.

The Sony a9 III is still months away from release but has already sent photographers into a frenzy. The positive buzz around the camera is as high as any camera reveal ever, and with good reason. The a9 III's global shutter system is a complete game-changer for a wide range of photographers and videographers and will enable shots that have long been impossible.

Sony's new a9 III is the first full-frame interchangeable lens mirrorless (ILC) camera to use a global shutter, which unlocks some serious performance like 120 frames per second shooting. It doesn't however, have support for the latest CFexpress specification.

The Leica M11 series now consists of three cameras. We have the original M11 which I very much enjoyed using on the streets of New York. Then, the M11 Monochrom was released and became an instant classic. I loved taking black-and-white images with it all over Montana. Now we have the release of the M11-P which apart from some minor cosmetic changes is largely the same as the original M11. So, why then should we get excited about such a similar camera?

Previously, we made a video about when and why you would use a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera instead of a smartphone. It seems only fair to look at the opposite scenario too.

Late last night, Canon introduced a new wide-angle zoom lens -- the 10-20mm f/4 L IS STM -- that is unlike any optic it has ever produced. It's unique, and one publication published a story with quite an incendiary accusation: Canon didn't actually make it, Sigma did.

Sigma has not released a new camera since 2021 and doesn't currently have an APS-C camera, otherwise known as a crop sensor, in its lineup. In fact, it hasn't made one since the sd Quattro in 2016. That should change, and I believe it's about to.

I've just returned from a whirlwind tour of Idaho and it provided me with ample photographic opportunities. I figured if I always have a phone with me and I always have a mirrorless camera, why not test them out against each other?

A couple of companies have released new SSD products in the last few months and they carry one commonality: USB 3.2 2x2. They shouldn't, because all it does is overstate the performance a vast majority of users will ever see.

Apple's iPhone has for several years now been the best choice for shooting video on mobile, but the recent addition of ProRes Log capture on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max is taking that to another level.

Between inflation and "shrinkflation," consumers are getting the short end of the stick these days. As the rich get richer, regular folks face a litany of anti-consumer practices, not the least of which are misleading food photos at restaurants.

Earlier this month, Blackmagic announced its first full-frame camera, the Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K. On paper, the specifications looked enticing, and newly-released sample footage shows that it can live up to that hype.

Rumors about upcoming cameras and lenses are a staple of the online photography community. Manufacturers nearly always hate them and photographers often love them. I land somewhere in the middle but tend more toward the idea that rumors, even when intriguing, can be damaging.

Apple rides a delicate line with its iPhone camera system. On the one hand, it wants to keep it as simple as possible to keep photographers "in the moment." On the other hand, creators keep demanding more of the system. Two of Apple's executives sit down with PetaPixel and explain how they navigate these two seemingly disparate goals.

Visiting Apple Park in Cupertino for the launch of the brand-new iPhone 15 series was quite the experience, and after a day getting to know the Pro and Pro Max series devices, I was left with a few answers and a lot more questions.

CFexpress 4.0 cards are already entering the market this year with the promise of much faster read and write speeds. While that sounds great, it is going to be a while before photographers and filmmakers can really take advantage of it.

Sony's Airpeak S1 drone has thus far been a rare misstep for the respected Japanese company. Despite some (expensive) improvements to the Airpeak S1 drone, Sony's support for its flagship aerial platform, first revealed in 2021, has been significantly undercut by yesterday's reveal of the Sony ILX-LR1 full-frame camera.

Eight years of discussions. Six months of training. Two days of final preparations. Much was required to give photographer Blair Bunting two hours at the edge of Earth's atmosphere to conduct the first-ever photo shoot at near-space where he captured images that have never been made before and will likely never be made again.