It’s called the SQUID (Streamlined Quick Unfolding Investigation Drone), and it’s a quadcopter drone, but it’s quite different from the usual kind of drones you might find at your local electronics store. Developed by Caltech and JPL, SQUID launches from a tube, unfolds in mid-air and then fires up its motors to stabilise itself and fly as normal. It’s designed as a quick response drone, with minimal risk or energy required during takeoff to maximise the flight time....

There’s a sale going on at BestBuy at the moment on WD easystore 8TB External USB 3.0 hard drives. A massive discount which drops the price from $299.99 to $159.99. “What’s the big deal, though?” I hear you ask. “They’re just external USB drives”. Well, yes, but those USB boxes contain Western Digital RED (NAS) SATA drives which normally also cost $299. It’s easy to open up the cases and pull out the bare drives to use internally....

When I mention the most boring, uninspiring type of images, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Passport photos, of course. But Namibian-German visual artist Max Siedentopf found his inspiration in them and he managed to turn them the other way around. In his project Passport Photos, these images are anything but boring! They’re amusing, quirky and hilarious, and unlike the actual passport photos, they’ll put a big smile on your face....

We have shared quite a few articles about AI and image generation recently. From art to deep fake to tool creation. Dall-E and Google’s Imagen have definitely been instrumental in bringing text-based image generation to the masses, but have you considered some more fun applications? Like creating photos of yourself as a Viking, warrior, or James bond? Asteria just released Dreambooth, a “Tailor-made AI image generation” tool. I played with it for a while, and let me tell you....

NASA revealed the James Webb Space Telescope’s first photos yesterday, and the world is still under a great impression. The telescope was built on Hubble’s legacy and some objects shown in the first images had already been captured by Hubble. So, naturally, we want to compare them and see exactly how the two telescopes differ in power. Spoiler alert: they differ a lot. We have all been amazed by Hubble’s images for over thirty years now, but Webb is Hubble on steroids in terms of image quality....

Sometimes you want to add a moon to a photo. Maybe it was missing in the frame to begin with. Maybe you made a mistake while shooting, and maybe you just want a nice photo with a moon in it. Today I’ll teach you how to add a moon to an image with photoshop. The scene The image we will work with is from Jotunheimen, Norway. It was shot just after midnight in July 2019....

Well, this is an interesting turn up for the books. It turns out that while many photographers are trying to adapt their old film cameras to their shiny new Sony cameras, one photographer, Alexander Gee, was doing the opposite. He wanted a film camera that would work with his modern Sony E-Mount lenses. LEX, as the camera is called, is a one-man operation, and it seems to have come quite far already....

Because the snowdrop shoot what so much fun, I wanted to do something like that again. After I saw the cherry blossoms on my tree, it was crystal clear what comes up next. I wanna shoot one of these with my wet plate camera, but this time I will shoot them on the tree. When I was little, this tree was my climbing adventure. This tree has seen better days – the weather from the recent years started to ruin some parts of it....

We’ve had this video submitted to us by a videographer who wishes to remain anonymous and I can understand why. Even though he followed all regulations (like height, distance from venue and so one) he still got nuked! The short of the story is that a DJI Phantom Pro 3 got taken down by a balloon (kinda like playing pong, but in reverse). But I think that there is much more to the story than a fallen drone....

Are we too old to play with toys? Not necessarily. When you are an adult, you can still find pleasure in playing with toys and create whole new worlds with them. And this is exactly what photographer Péter Csákvári does. He uses mini figurines to create dioramas and capture his own imaginary worlds in a series of photographs called Tiny Wasteland. He combines the figurines with the real-life objects to create funny, weird, dark and even slightly NSFW images of miniature worlds....

Wildlife photography can be really rewarding, but it doesn’t come without its dangers. Australian photographer Chris Bray recently shared a video via ViralHog showing “the hazards of being a wildlife photographer.” The video shows his wife Jess getting squished by a couple of curious baby elephant seals, and I think this is what cuteness overload looks like.Advertisements Chris writes that the encounter took place during his and Jess’ photo tour to Antarctica and South Georgia....

It just started off as an idea while thinking about what to shoot next. And as he’s been working hard at the gym the last few months, and is a big fan of Wolverine, it hit him. Sometimes, you just get a desire to do something, and then you have to go and do it. And that’s how photographer Rahim Mastafa felt about this Logan themed photo shoot with his daughter....

It looks like sky replacement has been the most popular AI editing tool this year. It was first introduced in Luminar, then Photoshop, and finally Luminar AI. Judging from our tests, both Luminar and Adobe did a pretty good job developing the tool. But the question is: are photographers gonna use it? From what I’ve seen, the opinions on this kind of tool are divided. Some photographers embraced it immediately, while others refuse to use it....

You have seen (and maybe even ordered) a tiny LEGO Leica. It doesn’t take photos, but what if I told you that you can turn your working Sony mirrorless into a LEGO camera? Well, you won’t exactly use the tiny bricks, but this skin cover that makes your camera look like it was made out of LEGO. Design company LIFE+GUARD has launched a skin cover for Sony A7rIII and Sony A7III that you can stick onto your camera body and make it look like it’s a LEGO cam....

This is an interesting take on street photography. A social experiment of sorts. Normally, when we do street photography and people are included, or even the subject, of the images we shoot, those people almost never get to see the images we shoot or even know we shot them. Photographer and YouTuber, Josh Katz decided to try something a little different, as he wandered the streets of New York City recently....

There’s not much information to go along with this timelapse from the LA Times. If there’s more information on the LA Times website, I can’t see it, because apparently, they haven’t figured out how to add a disclaimer and an “I Accept” button for EU residents yet. But I couldn’t stop watching this video once I hit play. Seeing images develop on polaroids like this reminds me of the first time I saw a wet print developing in a tray in the darkroom....

You already know there are hundreds of millions of sweat pores on your skin. But have you ever seen them in action? Timelapse Vision has created a timelapse video of sweat pores on the ridges of fingertips. They are the reason why you leave fingerprints on surfaces, and why your phone screen gets smudgy. The timelapse is fantastic: it’s well made, but its true value is in the fact that it shows something we all have, but never get to see from such proximity....

They say that the gear doesn’t matter, and to some degree that’s true. Sometimes, though, it absolutely does. Even if that gear isn’t very good. The intentional choice to use lower quality or old equipment is used to achieve a certain look, feel or effect. And this is what we see here from filmmaker Matteo Bertoli. This short film was shot on an iPhone 3GS. Released in 2009 the iPhone 3GS is pretty ancient by today’s standards....

When it comes to chimping, it seems that photographers are divided into two groups: those who cry against it, and those who can’t get rid of this bad habit. It’s especially bad if you photograph sports, events, concert and other fast-changing environments and events. If you look at your screen after every few photos, David Bergman gives you three main reasons why you should quit it as soon as possible....

We all make mistakes in the process of learning. But some mistakes are more common than the others, and there’s probably no photographer who hasn’t made them at some point. Sheldon Evans talks about three most common mistakes beginner portrait photographers make. What’s more, they even slip from time to time even when you have more experience. But in addition to talking about the mistakes, Sheldon also talks about the ways to avoid them and improve your photography....