As someone who enjoys very high-quality images from my 42-megapixel full-frame Sony Alpha 7R III, I was wondering how good the pictures would be out of my new DJI Air 2S drone.

Anyone who enjoys landscape photography will know that before they realize it, they are pixel peeping and fussing over the smallest imperfection in their photos. Of course, there’s no way I’m expecting that same quality to come from this drone, but the only thing it can do that I can’t do already is fly. So, ultimately, that is the only reason I bought this drone. The interesting question to answer though, is how big or small is that gap from what I’m used to?

To put it in perspective, the 20-megapixel, one-inch sensor of the Air 2S has a surface area of 7.4 times smaller than a full frame camera. To further help give a comparison, due to equivalency, the Air 2S is the same as shooting at 22mm, f/8 at ISO 800 on the full-frame camera.

As you can see in the comparison between the Air2s at ISO100 and the Sony A7III at ISO 800 the difference in quality is very minimal. Being fussy I could say that there’s a touch more noise and slightly less sharpness on the Air2s though.

The next picture shows how ISO performs from 100 through to 12,8000. I think the noise is usable for photography up to 400, with 800 at a push. 1,600 onwards though quickly falls apart and really isn’t usable. Note that the green light as the ISO increases is due to bringing down the ambient light and the green light on the drone becoming more obvious.

In the real world, understanding the limitations of the drone’s sensor helps when it comes to working around them. The photo below is of Rossbeigh, Ireland, and was shot with a three-bracket exposure which helped increase the dynamic range and helped lessen any noise.

For anyone who is trying to decide if they should get the DJI Air 2S for photography, in a nutshell, I believe the DJI Air2s — for the price — is the best quality flying photography tool you can get. It’s super portable, quick to get flying, easy to fly, and its greatest advantage is how it gives you the ability to get photos you can’t get on the land. Essentially, It’s a great addition to anyone’s photography toolkit.

Read More: DJI Air 2S Review: Solid Performance Where It Counts Most

About the author: Jamie Gillies is an award-winning wedding photographer based in Ireland. He loves to spend his spare time exploring and photographing the stunning landscapes of Ireland and documenting them on his YouTube Channel. To learn more about Jamie, you can visit his website, YouTube, or follow him on Instagram.

Photographer Dinda Avena wants to inspire those who have experienced and survived violence, feel unsafe in public, who are suffering due to sexual identity, for those whose land is being seized, and for all marginalized communities to not let their voices fade away.

Dinda Advena (she/her) is a queer photographer from Indonesia. She started taking documentary and stage photography for the punk music community and has has exhibited her work through Sweden, Singapore, Malaysia, and all over Indonesia. Right now she is focusing on gender issues, women’s rights, environmental justice, and Indonesian landscapes.

“May your spirit and flame continue to burn, even though our voices are fading away. Happy Kartini’s Day,” Advena wrote when she submitted her photos online to Scopio.

“This year hit different because of the pandemic, especially after the recent Church bombing attack – it is not safe to march in the street. The team decided to do online action to ask everyone who believes in women’s issues to do the same: taking pictures one by one in different locations while holding posters of each demand, then post it in Social Media.”

Kartini’s Day takes place on April 21 every year and is a symbol of modern women’s empowerment in Indonesia.

“Every year on April 21, women from Indonesia ban together for Kartini’s Day to commemorate Rayden Ayu Kartini – who was a fierce women’s right activist and critic who questioned the Javanese norms created by the male-dominated society,” Avena explains. “Rayden Kartini’s countless letters and words would become a national symbol that empowers Indonesian women to stand strong for their rights today.”

It’s not men who we want to fight, but old-fashioned opinions and old customs. – R.A. Kartini

This year, women marched to help seek the advancement of The Elimination of Sexual Violence Bill (Indonesian: Rancangan Undang-Undang Penghapusan Kekerasan Seksual, abbreviated RUU PKS). The consideration of this bill has been going on for years and it almost got dropped due to “difficulties” in arranging the bill, according to the House Commission VII.

Citizens like Dinda have taken it upon themselves to come together using tools like photography and social media to ensure that this bill, among others, are no longer”‘waited on” and “passed.”

Dinda and fellow activists make themselves visible in a crowd with their message and use photography to amplify that to everyone online.

It gets people looking at the message, one way or another. Men and women alike joined in to help spread the message behind gender equality, equal pay, and support the changes.

“But this march is not only to confront gender inequality issues but is done to ensure the safety and protection of Indonesian women.”

This march has helped to make significant strides in the nation and will continue year after year as it is pivotal to advancing women’s rights that are far too often neglected or waited on.

You can explore Dinda’s photography on Scopio here. She also recommends you search these hashtags to see more on this message: #PuanDanKawanMelawan #WMJ2021 #WomensMarch #SahkanRUUPKS #HariKartini

This article provided courtesy of Scopio. Scopio is the most diverse community-based platform in the world where artists can sell their work and get hired in over 150 countries. Check out their community of 14k plus contributors and a library of over 400k authentic images.

Back in April, the Mars Perseverance rover shared a selfie that included the Ingenuity helicopter drone on the surface of the Red Planet. The space agency has now shared a video and detailed explanation of how that photo was taken, including the fact it is made up of 62 individual images.

NASA explains that the point of the selfie isn’t just to show off to folks back on Earth and perhaps inspire new generations of space enthusiasts, but actually is a way for the engineers to check wear and tear on the rover.

In the video clip above, the results of Perseverance’s robotic arm can be seen as it maneuvered to take the 62 images that compose the finished image. What it doesn’t capture is how much work went into making this first selfie happen. In a separate video below, Vandi Verma, Perseverance’s Chief Engineer for Robotic Operations, explains.

“The way you and I might take a selfie is by holding a camera up with our arm and taking a single image,” she says. “The way the rover takes a selfie is a little more complex than that.”

The rover uses its’ WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera that is positioned at the end of its robotic arm. The main purpose of this arm is to allow the rover to take close-up images of rocks for scientific analysis.

“Even with the arm fully extended, it can’t cover the entire rover in a single image,” Verma explains. “To capture the entire rover, we take multiple images and then stitch them together.”

The image below shows a computer simulation of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover taking its first selfie. The point of view of the rover’s WATSON camera is included to show how each of the 62 images were taken. Those photos were later sent to Earth and stitched together into the selfie.

The team tries to hold the camera in the same position for each shot, and to do so it actually may mean that the arm has to move quite a lot.

“It can take up to an hour of arm motion and imaging to take that entire selfie,” Verma says. “The reason you don’t see the robotic arm in the selfie is that it is moving in between the different image frames that we are taking and we include enough overlap between the images so that when we stitch them together, we don’t have to include the arm.”

In the video clip above where Verma explains how the photo was taken, she also notes that for the first time, a Mars rover also has a microphone equipped, which allows them to share the sound of the rover moving its arm and taking each frame.

“The thing that took the most attention was getting Ingenuity into the right place in the selfie,” said Mike Ravine, Advanced Projects Manager at MSSS. “Given how small it is, I thought we did a pretty good job.”

Once the photos were compiled and sent back to Earth, image processing engineers began their work. They had to clean up any blemishes caused by dust that had settled on the camera, assemble the images into frames with a mosaic and smooth out their seams with software, and finally warp the crops so that it looks more like a normal camera that the public is used to seeing.

While a selfie on Earth is made by a single person, the Perseverance’s selfie took an entire team of people and almost an entire week.

Taking photos of white subjects on white backgrounds or black subjects on black backgrounds is a skill that requires photographers to skillfully bend light in various ways. Photographer Zach Sutton has shared tips on what works best in each scenario.

Also the editor for Lensrentals, Sutton specializes in commercial beauty photography and has extensive experience in studio work. In a recent article, Sutton explains how to approach these tricky lighting situations that can appear daunting for, in particular, beginners.

First of all, even for photographers who primarily use natural light, it is important to understand how that light bounces or is absorbed and thus affects the subject. A simple demonstration of both a white and a black V-flat — which consists of two large foam boards — shows the effect the positioning of each of the boards has on the subject’s face.

The ability to drastically modify the light with the use of foamboards helps photographers control unwanted light spillage, Sutton explains. For example, if shot with a white background and with two black V-flats positioned on either side of the subject, they will ensure that the backdrop light doesn’t spill onto the subject. Similarly, with a black backdrop, V-flats help control the light spill so it doesn’t light the backdrop.

When it comes to shooting white on white, the distance between the subject and the backdrop plays an important role. The farther away the subject is placed from the background, the easier it is to prevent light spill onto either of them. This also means that photographers can better control how each element is lit and avoid blown-out highlights. This is also where a histogram comes in handy as it helps monitor that outcome.

In a similar manner to how highlights are controlled in a white-on-white scenario, for black-on-black shots, photographers have to pay attention to the shadows. Sutton advises using tools that help control light spills — such as Snoots, Barndoors, and flags — as each one of them will assist in different lighting scenarios.

Sutton also recommends photographers turn on and use their modeling lights to get a visual representation of where the light goes, which can help to fine-tune the rim lights. Another technique that helps avoid light spills is to feather the light, which means that the edge of the lights is used to create a better light fall-off.

As with most techniques, the more photographers learn and experiment with complex scenarios such as white on white and black on black, the more knowledge and tools they will be able to add to their expertise in the future. To cover different variables that affect the photographic outcome, Sutton has also shared advice on how the light placement alters the subject and even how individual flash tube shape and position changes the light quality.

More of Sutton’s photography can be found on his website and Instagram and additional photography tips can be found on the LensRentals Blog.

Image credits: All images by Zach Sutton and used with permission.

Every day, the PetaPixel Instagram account is sharing excellent photography from our readers and those who inspire us. Here’s a look at some of our recent favorite posts and the photographers behind the lens.

Our @PetaPixel Instagram page has been posting all the great work that finds its way in front of our eyes. Want to see your photos shared on our account? First, you’ll want to follow us. Then use the #petapixel hashtag in your posts to join our Instagram community of photographers. These steps let us easily find what to share.

Below, we recognize a selection of talented photographers who recently had their work featured on @PetaPixel. Keep posting your images with #petapixel and you could find yourself here next week.

Nick Georgiadis, found as @nickgeorgiadis_ on Instagram, is a landscape photographer based in Greece. His first camera was the GoPro HERO 5 which he began shooting snapshots with on a U.S. trip. However, it was the numerous journeys across Europe that ignited his passion for landscape photography. Georgiadis ended up selling his personal training studio to fund better photography gear and now coordinates workshops alongside other photographers across Greece.

The work of At the End of An Aeon, on Instagram as @attheendofanaeon, uses multiple exposures taken at different angles to create the effect of movement. He calls this “multiple angle photography” which “explores the nature of time and space as interchangeable factors of the same concept.” Similar to how long exposure photography adds time as an element to an image, this technique adds time as well as movement in space.

Melih Üçer, found on Instagram as @melihucer, specializes in product photography. For this catalog photoshoot, Üçer added liveliness to otherwise inanimate pieces of fabric. “I love the play of light and shadow formed by the natural folds of the fabrics,” Üçer said. “I really enjoyed this job, which I shot and photographed hundreds of times.”

Eli Infante, or @eli_infante_ on Instagram, is based out of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. He is a Westcott Top Pro and teaches photography at a charter school. According to Infante, he draws inspiration from “unique South Texas landscapes and historical structures.”

Aaron Rigsby, simply @aaronrigsby on Instagram, is responsible for one of the most-liked photos we’ve reshared on the platform. Photographed in Malta, Montana, Rigsby said it “was the most beautiful, and most dramatic storm I’ve ever documented in my 10-year chasing career.”

Bill Ingalls, known as @ingallsimages on Instagram, has worked as the Senior Contract Photographer for NASA Headquarters since 1989. Yes, that NASA, and he’s traveled the world photographing missions for the agency. As you can imagine, his prestigious work has been featured in just about any medium and any major publication you can think of.

This photo, credited to both NASA and Bill Ingalls, was taken during sunrise on June 10, 2021 and features a partial solar eclipse with the United States Capitol Building in the foreground. The full solar eclipse, or “ring of fire,” was only visible to people in Greenland, Northern Russia, and Canada.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram to see more work from photographers like you and tag photos with #petapixel for them to be considered for a feature.

Image credits: All photographs used with the permission of their respective photographers.

As reported recently here on Petapixel, the FAA has rolled out a new testing program for recreational UAV (a.k.a., drone) users, created to “provide education and testing for recreational flyers on important safety and regulatory information.” As with many government-mandated programs, it provides neither education nor safety.

Having just received a DJI Mavic Air 2S for testing, I decided to take the FAA’s TRUST exam, partially to be compliant with the current regulations, but mostly to confirm my suspicions that this was another piece of bureaucracy for bureaucracy’s sake. In that regard, I was not disappointed.

TRUST stands for The Recreational UAV Safety Test — that’s clever, FAA — and the “test” is available through several online providers and is free. TRUST was developed as a collaboration between the UAV industry and the FAA and appears to be a compromise agreed upon to get the FAA off the backs of the manufacturers.

The TRUST questions read like the Quick Start guide on a drone, and in fact, I’ve seen drone “getting-started” videos that provide more information.

It is impossible to fail the TRUST test, which makes it less of a test and more of a very dull video game. Get a question wrong in a section, and you repeat that section’s test questions. You can take the 23-question exam without much prior knowledge, although the exam also provides all the information needed to get the questions right should you find yourself taking the test with no common sense.

During the process, you can learn fun facts like “dehydration can affect [your] flying abilities” and that one may not fly a drone over the White House.

I’m not trying to say that a recreational drone pilot shouldn’t be versed in UAV safety, but more that there seems to be no point to this test. You’ll learn that you can’t fly above 400 feet without FAA permission, that you can use the FAA apps to find out if your airspace is controlled or uncontrolled, and that you must be able to keep the drone in your line of sight. The main problem I have is that the people who need this information the most simply aren’t going to know about or take this test, and they’re even less likely to follow the safety protocols even if they knew them.

The second issue I have is that the questions are so elementary. If you answer “no” to the question asking if “checking your drone before and after each flight is a good idea because it is a time when damage can be identified,” you not only shouldn’t be flying a drone, you probably shouldn’t even be using the internet.

Finally, the TRUST program seems pointless from an enforcement and functionality standpoint. Will local police know that there’s an FAA certification program for recreational UAV users? Will they know that the PDF I have saved with my 15-digit “token” is a valid FAA-registered number? Will they be able to look it up and see that I passed?

What difference will it make if I have a TRUST certificate anyhow? If I’m operating my drone safely and according to FAA guidelines, then there’s no reason for any agency to stop me and ask for my TRUST number. If I’m operating in an unsafe manner, I am already breaking the law, and whether or not I have passed the TRUST exam, therefore, does not matter.

All TRUST does is provide another reason for authorities to hassle the recreational drone user and ask for documentation. It feels draconian in the same way that tripod permits feel like an overstep.

The reputable drone manufacturers include this same info in their “getting started” guides and most drone apps won’t let you take off until you’ve acknowledged reading the safety information. Education is essential, especially when it comes to operating a flying chunk of machinery that can travel as fast as a car and has spinning blades on all sides.

If there is such a need for improved recreational safety that the TRUST program should exist, then it’s not enough of a solution to create that enhanced safety. If one can pass the TRUST exam simply by guessing the answers, then it’s not worth the digital paper it’s written on.

That said, as taking and passing the TRUST exam is now the law, please do so, and please bring the documented proof of passing with you — the last thing drone users need are regular instances of pilots getting arrested because they didn’t have the proper paperwork.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

About the author: David Schloss is a long-time photographer writer, reviewer, and editor. The former Editor-in-Chief of Digital Photo Pro and HDVideo Pro magazines, Schloss now is VP at PixelShift, a press consultancy company with clients in the photography and tech spaces.

Interest in street photography might also be accompanied by the desire to travel farther afield, which often doesn’t come cheap. However, there are ways to plan a successful and safe street photography trip on a budget.

For those who are lucky to live in cosmopolitan areas already, street photography might come at a mere cost of a cheap bus ticket or metro ride and a cup of coffee. However, there are plenty of photographers who live in rural areas or small towns and daydream about the iconic street shots they have seen from all around the world.

There should be no shame attached to the admission that money is an important factor for photographic trips, whether you work full time and use photography as a hobby or if it’s a passion of yours that you want to expand on and become successful at.

As a genre, unfortunately, street photography pays next to nothing — unless you have made a name among your peers and earn money from print or book sales and education — which is why a strict budget for a trip may be especially important. Money aside, you’ll also want to make your trip a photographic success, which of course translates into something slightly different for each one of us.

Start Nationally

For the adventurous soul, it might feel like a regression or unfortunate compromise to even consider a trip within the borders of their current country. For example, if you live in the United Kingdom but are fascinated with the combination of futurism and tradition that is often found in street photography from places like Japan, you might struggle to consider your own country as an equally inspiring destination.

However, cities around you should not be discounted, especially during periods of restricted international travel. Instead of waiting for your desired destinations to allow entry, it is worth taking a look at what is actually accessible to you now. This also makes for a good return to photography in public spaces after numerous lockdowns and restrictions.

Seeing the country where you live through a fresh perspective can elevate your street portfolio. The behaviors of strangers, as well as the local culture and way of life, are something you are likely already familiar with, so all you need to do is blend in the background and create work that inspires you.

The beauty of this strategy is that much of the time, your financial burden is just a cheap return ticket, be it bus or train, or you can even use your own car. The pressure to book a hotel is removed unless you plan to stay out shooting for more than a day. If you travel lightly, you can even bring your own refreshments and just enjoy a cup of coffee while you take a break and watch the city life go by.

Also, if you travel during off-peak times, travel within your own country can be even less expensive. This means you will want to arrive just after the morning rush hour and return in the late evening to avoid rush hours. This also gives you long enough to explore your city of choice throughout the day or even capture the crowds coming and going.

Plan Short Trips with Maximum Return

When it comes to international travel — especially if the air journey is only a few hours and not a full day — short trips can be more beneficial than long ones. Similar to weekend getaways, short trips that can be strategically planned during off-peak tourism seasons to reduce travel expenses are bound to keep you more alert and engaged.

The few days you have planned for your trip will keep you on your toes and force you to make the most of the time. Simple things like getting up early to hit the streets will keep you energized throughout because you know that the time you have left on this trip is precious.

If you plan a short trip — one that might be between two to four days — make sure that you pick your flight time carefully and plan accordingly. If you arrive early in the morning, you will need to carry your belongings until you can check in to a hotel but it also means that you can immediately dive into street photography. In this case, consider available luggage storage to keep your items safe throughout the day while also keeping your own movement light with just the necessities.

The closer a chosen luggage storage facility is to a central point — such as a train station, airport, or central tourism spots — the more expensive it tends to be. Make sure to research storage options that are affordable but might be a longer walk away from the city center.

If you arrive late at night, it’s important to research the transit options available to you. Ideally, join a local Facebook group to ask for advice or get in touch directly with someone who you know lives there, especially if you don’t speak the local language.

Speaking from personal experience, my friend and I have had situations where our planned train journey from the connecting station had to be abandoned because that particular night the train wasn’t running, contrary to what we thought we had researched. This meant that we had to try and find a taxi but none were serving the train station during such late hours.

We managed to download a local taxi app, however, though the language barrier meant that it took us a long time to find it and our fare was three times more than what we had anticipated.

Equally, ensure that your hotel, hostel, or Airbnb, is aware of your late arrival. Smaller hotels might not have a front desk that is open throughout the night, even if you have a room booked. Again speaking from a personal experience, this happened to me once in Berlin. Luckily, after vigorous knocking and ringing, a sleepy-looking receptionist let us in.

Obviously, the later you arrive, the less time you’ll be able to spend shooting on the first day, with the additional cost of another night spent at your accommodation. However, if you struggle to focus and need a rest after a day of international travel, this can be a good option to make you feel invigorated and ready to tackle the first full day soon as you wake up.

Also, it’s always helpful to either print out or screenshot important directions, maps, and travel itineraries or download an offline map. This way, if you fail to connect to the Internet, you have all the information on hand to navigate yourself or to ask a local for any assistance.

Strategicly Plan Accommodations

It’s always tempting to go for a hotel right in the heart of a city but it can be a costly expense, especially if you visit tourist hotspots like Venice. Instead, consider accommodation that may be farther away but still provides easy access to your desired photo location via public transportation.

For example, when I visited Venice with a friend, we booked an Airbnb that was close to a train station that leads directly into Venice. Even when considering the additional train fare on top of accommodations it was still cheaper than booking a hotel right in the center of the city.

We also made sure that a larger grocery store was nearby so we don’t need to pay the more expensive prices small shops tend to have. The train journey was just around half an hour each way, which didn’t take much time away from us each day.

If you book accommodation that is further away from tourist locations — especially if it is an Airbnb hosted by a local — you can get a better feel for the way of life in that particular country. You will get to see “regular” neighborhoods and undoubtedly visit shops and cafes that locals go to, which gives a different sense of the area, people, and culture. If you step away from what is presented to you as the tourist must-see places, you get to experience more of what life is actually like in your chosen destination country.

A general openness to embracing new opportunities and directions throughout your trip can lead you to experience more than what is visible beyond the surface. For example, if you allow yourself to connect with the people you meet along the way, you may be shown or introduced to something that you wouldn’t have discovered all on your own. Using the knowledge of locals combined with your own research can provide you a chance to capture a diverse portfolio of images.

Plan, But Not Too Much

Street photography in its essence is spontaneous, transient to a certain extent, and requires observation of surroundings wherever you are. You can’t easily plan specific shots but you can give yourself a direction of themes you want to explore or key locations you want to visit. Doing so can make the trip more manageable and enjoyable and it still leaves you with the option to react to anything else that you notice along the way.

A simple plan to reach a particular location later in the day gives you a direction, both figuratively and literally. Just a loose structure of the day ensures that you know which way you need to head and the distance you are prepared to cover either on foot or using public transport.

Equally, if you’re on a strict budget, you can research locations of grocery stores if you want to get a cheap bite to eat or simply bring your own that you can prepare at your chosen accommodation.

Don’t overwhelm yourself with too many locations or a strict schedule because this is a street photography trip, not a family holiday. Simply enjoy the fact that you get to photograph this unfamiliar city and be flexible to explore little streets and corners along the way. You will be surprised at the things you can find or the people you can meet unexpectedly!

Image credits: All photos by Anete Lusina.

The International Portrait Photographer of the Year 2021 has announced its winners across multiple categories with top honors going to Australian photographer Forough Yavari for her incredible image titled “Solitude.”

The competition is in its debut year and follows a similar philosophy to the organization’s eight-year strong International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards. The competition requires that all entries have been shot within the last year.

Editor’s Note: Warning, some images below may be considered NSFW.

“Our judging process has been developed over several decades of competition experience. Once the first round of judging is completed, we have a score for each entry out of 300, expressed as a percentage. We then take the top 10 scoring entries from each of the four categories and ask the judges to confirm their choice of 1st, 2nd and 3rd,” the competition writes, explaining how photos are judged. “When the initial score out of 100 is given, the judges are scoring against a standard of excellence, but when it comes to the final top 10, they are comparing the entries against each other and so this is an important part of a fair process. And finally, the four category winners are presented and the judges choose the overall International Portrait Photographer of the Year.”

Yavari — an already accomplished award-winning portrait and fine art photographer based in Brisbane, Australia — took multiple categories in this year’s competition which has a shared prize pool of $10,000. The overall first prize is $3000, each category’s first prize is awarded $1000 and each category’s second and third place received $500 and $250 respectively. There are therefore three winners in four categories: The Portrait Story, The Family Sitting, The Environmental Portrait, and The Character Study.

In addition to winning the top overall photo of the competition, “Solitude” also won “The Portrait Story” category, while Yavari also took second place in that category as well as second place in “The Character Study” category.

Below are all the other winning photos in each of the remaining categories.

Character Study

“A young Suri boy paints his face with white clay, surrounded by Suri women decorating their hands with bronze bracelets. Suri tribe in the Omo Valley. Ethiopia maintains important symbols of tribal identity, such as face and body painting. The shapes and colors convey a strong bond and meaning amongst them.”

“Referring to the speech “I Have a Dream”, a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the march on Washington for Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for an end to racism.”

Environmental Portraiture

“Workers appear to be wearing large golden wigs as they carry a heavy bundle of jute fiber. Their bodies are enveloped with the heavy natural fibers, with only their faces visible as they each carry around 50kg of jute on their shoulders.”

Family Sitting

“She is 25 years old, not yet married, and still guarded by her family. She is still waiting for her husband. A man in the Suri Tribe can only marry a girl when he has sixty cattle which are presented to the girl’s family as the price of marriage.”

“I took this picture when I was in Ethiopia to visit the Suri tribe who have lived in the Ethio-Sudan border area for many generations. This picture shows the whole family of their clan in their habitat.”

Portrait Story

The organization says that while there are the above winners, there are 101 total photos that the judges considered to be worthy of recognition. Those photos along with the above winners can be seen in a hard-cover book that has been printed by Momento Pro. A digital copy can be seen here and a published version will be available to order on the organization’s website.

Image credits: Header image by Forough Yavari. All photos individually credited and provided courtesy of The International Portrait Photographer of the Year 2021.

In 2016, a Canadian traveler innocently flew his drone in Cuba and was unexpectedly arrested and accused of being a spy for the United States Government due to an unfortunate coincidence.

Chris A. Hughes, a self-proclaimed camera and travel enthusiast, found himself in seriousl trouble with Cuban law enforcement during a holiday in the country several years ago. He told his story to YouTuber Chris Hau as part of his series “Production Horror Stories.”

Several years ago, Hughes flew to Havana, and while out with a local friend, he noticed two buildings with impressive artwork. Although drones weren’t that well known at the time, Hughes had one with him and decided to capture an aerial shot of the two buildings.

As he flew the drone, a military officer approached him and, according to Hughes, started to yell at him in Spanish which prompted Hughes to descend his drone. Shortly after, numerous military officers surrounded Hughes and separated him from his Cuban friend, preventing him from being able to communicate effectively since he did not speak the language.

Both of them were taken to a local jail and accused of being American spies. The situation quickly turned from a “friendly drone aerial shot in the park” to one where Hughes was interrogated about his intentions due to an unfortunate coincidence: Unbeknownst to Hughes and his friend, the building that he was filming happened to also be where Fidel Castro was at the time, which was the cause of the commotion.

Both parties could not speak each others’ languages which made the situation even more aggravated as did lack of access to a phone to arrange for a lawyer or an interpreter. The officers looked through Hughes’ confiscated phone and found a typical tourist photo of his family in front of the White House, which prompted even more questions about his association with the government of the United States.

Eventually — still, none the wiser about what is going to happen with him — Hughes was moved to a prison and held there for thirteen days, locked inside his cell. To Hughes’ relief, the Canadian Consulate sent an English-speaking representative and advised Hughes to allow the Cuban law enforcement to follow their process of the case — although it was unknown as to what that process entailed or how long it might take — in order to not further provoke any aggression.

Not long after, the charges were dropped and the Sergeant of the military of Cuba promised to return Hughes’s drone and footage — with the exclusion of the particular offending clip — and even welcomed Hughes to return to Cuba in the future, albeit without the drone.

In the years since the dramatic event, Hughes has had time to reflect on himself both as a person and as a traveler who needs to respect the local laws of every country he visits. Hughes says he has visited Cuba since and has fond memories of his trips there, but the experience of being imprisoned will stay with him for the rest of his life, he told Hau.

Unfortunate and life-changing encounters with law enforcement due to similar situations are nothing new, especially as more countries and states have begun to crack down on the use of drones. Some countries have gone as far as heavily penalizing unsuspecting tourists, such as the case of Hughes in Cuba and the imprisoned French tourist Benjamin Briere in Iran, as noted by Fstoppers.

Hughes’s travel videos can be viewed on his YouTube channel, as can Hau’s photo and video tutorials and future interviews from his “Production Horror Stories” segment.

In 2003 my wife Ruth and I were photographing in Colorado and were returning to our campground after a rather uneventful day. Ruth was driving, as always, and I was still looking for a photograph, as always.

As the sun was setting, we sped by this really unusual clump of aspen trees at 50 mph and I instantly saw they had photographic potential but the light was all wrong that evening.

This story is brought to you by ELEMENTS Magazine. ELEMENTS is the new monthly magazine dedicated to the finest landscape photography, insightful editorials and fluid, clean design. Use the PETAPIXEL10 code for a 10% discount off the annual subscription.

The next morning, we set out before sunrise and came back to this spot. Ruth was surprised that I knew exactly where to go as I hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing it the previous day. With this particular scene, I knew precisely where to put my camera and tripod and used my 250mm Superachromat lens on my Hasselblad with Velvia 50 film. This lens has exceptional sharpness and perfect colour correction, and thus perfectly resolved the details and colour differentiation in the leaves.

After the camera was set up, I waited a few minutes until the early rays of sunrise were almost in the scene, but not quite. You can see a bit of bright sunlight on the background trees at the top of the photo. Over the years I’ve learned to photograph using that marvellous glowing quality and color of light with the rising sunlight skimming the air over the scene but not hitting it directly. The closer the sunlight is to striking the scene, the more pronounced the effect. You need to set up ahead of time, since you have only 15 to 30 seconds before the sunlight hits the scene and spoils the glowing effect with harsh contrast.

The brightly colored leaves picked up the glowing light from the rising sun while the background was dark, illuminated only by the dark blue sky. The intense color contrast between the background blue-blacks and the warm glow of the bright leaves gives great depth and a dynamic quality to the image.
This photograph is enjoyable to print, although I need to simultaneously use two dodging wands — There are a lot of dodging needed to balance the tonalities and densities of the “pom-poms” on the trees. Viewing the finished prints, the clumps of leaves seem like clouds, alive with colour and light, floating in the midst of the mysterious dark forest. Light in the darkness, a welcome sight.

The article is courtesy of ELEMENTS Magazine. ELEMENTS is the new monthly magazine dedicated to the finest landscape photography, insightful editorials, and fluid, clean design. Inside you will find exclusive and in-depth articles and imagery by the best landscape photographers in the world such as Freeman Patterson, Bruce Barnbaum, Rachael Talibart, Charles Cramer, Hans Strand, Erin Babnik, and Tony Hewitt, to name a few. Use the PETAPIXEL10 code for a 10% discount off the annual subscription.

About the author: Christopher Burkett is a legendary American photographer specialising in large format photography of woodlands. His prints are regarded as the most impeccable and luminous colour photographs in the history of photography. Christopher is known to produce each photograph by hand from 6×6 and 8×10 sheet film, using now-discontinued Swiss Cibachrome photographic paper. His photographs are featured in many public and private fine art collections such Portland Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Center for Creative Photography and Tucson Museum of Art. 

The photography website Feature Shoot is bringing the museum outside and giving photographers a chance to have their work posted on billboards in New York City as part of its Global Billboard Project, replacing commercial advertising with art.

Feature Shoot says that its Global Billboard Project is in its fifth year and aims to inspire thousands of people who are on their daily commutes with photos from both established and up-and-coming photographers. Rather than subject those commuters with the same advertisements hawking consumerism, Feature Shoot is replacing well-known billboards in high-value locations with art from international photographers.

The publication has already featured photographers’ works on three separate billboards this year and has one of them booked through September — a spot in Manhattan on 9th Avenue seen below — which is expected to generate over 600,000 views per week.

In recent years, amid the proliferation of digital platforms and COVID-related closures, the public has looked to engage with art in new creative ways. In creating The Global Billboard Project, Feature Shoot aims to make outstanding photography accessible to everyone through physical displays made for public enjoyment.

In its first three rounds this year, The Global Billboard Project has showcased the work of three photographers –Elisa Maenhout, Lindsey Rickert, and Selene Magnolia — in three other areas: two in New York — the Fashion District and across from the Lincoln Tunnel — and one in Sydney, Australia.

According to Feature Shoot, those photographers selected to be featured reach a much broader audience with coverage on television, radio, and social media beyond the scope of their normal reach. Maenhout’s billboard, for example, was covered widely and she even gave an interview on national television.

Feature Shoot says that for this round of the project it will crown four winners and each will have their work displayed on the New York billboard on 9th Avenue for five days.

To be considered for The Global Billboard Project, photographers can submit one image for just $15 for consideration, $25 for five images, or $35 for up to ten images. Entries close on July 20, 2021. Interested photographers can submit images on The Global Billboard Project website.

Image credits: Header image by Selene Magnolia. All photos used courtesy of Feature Shoot.

Western Digital, most well known for making many types of popular hard drives including the My Book line external devices, is advising users to disconnect any My Book Live storage devices from the internet as soon as possible and until further notice to prevent files from being deleted.

The My Book line of Hard Drives is a popular series of storage devices since they are very affordable options for users. Typically the external storage devices connect to computers via USB cables, but in the case of the My Book Live series, it uses an ethernet cable to connect to a local network where users can then remotely access their files and make configuration changes using the Western Digital cloud infrastructure. When it was first announced, Western Digital billed it as a “personal cloud.”

ARS Technica is reporting the problem was first brought to light from a thread on the WD support page where users have started to discover that the data stored on these drives is being inexplicably erased. Files are being mysteriously deleted and the drive itself is being “factory reset” with no action taken by the users themselves.

Western Digital is still investigating the issue, but the data loss appears to be the result of some “malicious software” and has issued a warning to users urging them disconnect the drives from the internet as soon as possible until the company can figure out how to protect the drives and prevent any further deletions.

I have a WD mybook live connected to my home LAN and worked fine for years. I have just found that somehow all the data on it is gone today, while the directories seems there but empty. Previously the 2T volume was almost full but now it shows full capacity.
The even strange thing is when I try to log into the control UI for diagnosis I was-only able to get to this landing page with an input box for “owner password”. I have tried the default password “admin” and also what I could set for it with no luck. There seems to be no change to retrieve or reset password on this landing page either.

Users are reporting that whether it was a factory reset, a hard deletion, or an apparent hack, everything stored on the affected devices has been completely wiped clean.

At the time of publication, there were no reports that any data was restored.

There is little additional information currently available about the issue, but the community of users is speculating that based on what Western Digital has stated, it appears the devices could have been “individually compromised” in a targeted attack.

Either way, users of these networked dives are advised to disconnect them as soon as possible to prevent any potential data loss.

After a long day on location photographing a wedding, concert, or event, the last thing most shooters want to do when they get home is sit in front of the computer and spend the next few hours sorting the images to narrow down their selections. Wand by PostPro AI is designed to help creatives save time by doing that tedious process for them.

Arguably, culling images is the most disliked and dreaded portion of any photographer’s workflow, so the ability to skip that step and save time on top of it is a tantalizing offer.

According to the company, the $12 per month ($145 annually) Wand plug-in for Adobe Lightroom Classic enables automatic culling of photos for event and wedding photographs and is aimed to reduce frustration, shorten turnaround times, and free up more time for the photographer to enjoy their work. The plug-in was made specifically with these types of photographers in mind and is designed to be run at the first stage of import before any manual culling or editing has been applied.

In the simplest terms, the Wand plugin will create a quick collection for your files with Accepted and Rejected images from the set, with the rejected images being flagged and rated “Purple” for easy identification.

How It Works

While the developers state it is meant to be run at the very first step of the import process, users can still run the plug-in at any time they choose during their workflow on a small selection of photos or the entire catalog. While it can be run on nearly any image files including JPEG, the plug-in works its best when applied to RAW unedited files, and like most current “AI” applications, this plugin also requires a stable internet connection for it to work.

The plug-in uses the internet connection to “export and upload” a small version of the images to the PostPro sever where the actual culling process takes place, which keeps your own system from being bogged down during the process. Once the system finishes, the final results are sent back to the local machine where the color labels and Collections are created and the remote files are deleted from the PostPro servers. The plugin will go through all the images in your catalog and analyze the metadata and image content to look for similar images within a sequence, find closed eyes, and further analyze the facial expressions to identify the “bad” images to be flagged as rejected from the set. It also looks for low-quality images that have blown highlights or shadows with excessive clipping.

Login And Installation

The first step is to try out the plugin is to create a free account on the PostPro website and then download the Wand plugin from the newly created user profile page. Once the plugin has been downloaded, open Adobe Lightroom Classic and go to plugin manager and click “Add” at the bottom left of the panel and then select the Wand plugin. Next click login to enter the details used on signup and click login again.

Now, the plugin is ready to be used. The plugin “options” are located under the “plug-in extras” menu item where users can choose to run the plugin on import, selection, or entire catalog.

Using Wand And Understanding The Results

The plug-in, regardless of the method chosen to run (Import, Selection, Catalog), can potentially take a while to complete depending on the number of files in the selection. Once the plugin has finished doing the process though, a popup will notify you of the job completion and you can then view the accepted and rejected files in the catalog from the Collections section of the Library tab or by looking for the purple ranked images.

From here you can browse through the selections to confirm or change any of the approved and rejected images Wand has created. Keep in mind, the plugin does not delete anything — it simply flags images it feels are repetitive or “bad” based on the series of similar images in the set. So if you intentionally shot something blurry or extra bright or dark, it may be rejected by the algorithm. Keep that in mind when browsing through the results and just adjust or change the rankings as needed.

Since event work was pretty much non-existent over the last year, I was given access to a full wedding catalog to test the plugin. For the most part, I was impressed with the results the culling tool returned.

It was very good at identifying closed eyes or less-than-ideal facial expressions in images with people in them. There were still a few images I would have personally added to the reject list and conversely some I would have removed from the rejects, but since the culling system is still new and with most “AI” tools like this, it should improve the more it gets used and more feedback is provided to the algorithm.

If there are any “creative” images in the set, the culling app is very likely going mislabel and reject them as they stray too far outside the norm of what the AI deems as “good.” While that may not be perfect, the system is meant to help you save time, not do everything for you from start to finish. Artistic and creative choices with out-of-focus shots, odd framing, skewed perspectives, and other unique style choices will likely have to be found and added back to a set manually from the rejections category.

I ran the plugin against one of my older fashion and portrait sessions and the results just further stressed that point. Since the set had already been rated and sorted, I wanted to see how the system would do, and it was surprisingly consistent. At first, I was surprised to see some of my 5-Star selections in the rejected folder, but once I opened them up I realized those files had missed focus (eyes/face), some not-ideal facial expressions, or odd highlight and shadows. There were only two to three shots in the rejects section that I had actually edited previously and those were more specialized creative shots that, in most cases, would have been skipped.

After several catalogs and image sets, I found myself trusting the accepted folder more and would quickly going through the “rejects” section to double-check its work.

Great for Some, Less So For Others

As useful as this plugin is, there is still room for improvement though, since the application doesn’t do a great job with creative or artistic photos and will register images with an unusual framing composition, an excessive amount of out of focus space, or those with blown highlights or deep shadows as rejects even if those were conscious choices by the photographer. Those image types are frequently flagged, so users will have to filter through the rejects to find their creative shots to re-approve before editing. Because these are often also major characteristics of “bad” photos, it will probably prove extremely difficult for an AI to differentiate when such images were done on purpose and when they are an actual mistake — it might not be something that can be trained at all with current AI technology.

Another issue is the requirement for a stable internet connection. This dependence on cloud computing may be an occasional frustration point for some and an impassable barrier for others. It would be interesting to see how much on-device processing power is actually needed if the image analysis was done locally. If it isn’t so intense as to brick a typical editing rid, I would have preferred this be a toggleable option for users.

A Solid Culling Assistant for High-Volume Photographers

The Wand Plugin from PostPro AI is a useful and affordable tool for anyone who shoots large quantities of images in the event, wedding, product, and nightlife spaces. Arguably, it is actually useful for any photographer that shoots hundreds or thousands of images per set regularly. The AI tool can recognize “bad” facial expressions and closed eyes pretty accurately and will filter out an excessive number of identical images and will do so all from within Lightroom Classic. The Accepted and Rejected images are also easily viewed separately in the smart collections or together in the library folder, whichever is easier and preferred for your workflow.

Its issues aside, I still believe PostPro AI’s automated culling is at least worth using trying (there is a free trial option) for most in the event and wedding space since it does have some serious usefulness. Additionally, the more people use it, the smarter it will become over time.

Are There Alternatives?

There are a growing number of plugins, services, and stand-alone applications that provide automated culling for photographers. Apps like CullAi, Canon’s Photo Culling, and Optyx all provide culling on different levels and platforms, and services like shootdotedit provide similar services but with a human element attached (as well as a higher price).

Should You Buy It?

Maybe. The $145 per year plugin is definitely useful for wedding and event photographers but could be beneficial for anyone who captures hundreds of images (or more) per session. The main objective is to allow photographers to spend less time behind the computer and more time creating those photographs, and from that perspective, The Wand achieves that goal.

Wristcam, an accessory strap with two built-in cameras, has announced expanded functionality through its new Wristcam Messenger app. Users can now send and receive live video with anyone with an iPhone, even if they don’t have a Wristcam or an Apple Watch.

The launch of the Messenger app makes it what the company calls “the first and only Apple Watch experience to offer live video communication.” In addition to the new app, Wristcam is also introducing a computer vision SDK for Apple Watch app developers.

Last year, Wristcam unveiled the $300 accessory and touted it as an easier way to more seamlessly take photos while on the go. While bulkier than a typical Apple Watch strap, it packs two Sony cameras: one is an 8-megapixel “world-facing” camera designed to take photos and videos of surroundings, and the other is a 2-megapixel self-facing camera made for taking video calls.

Below are a few 4K screen captures taken with the Wristcam and provided by the company:

At the time, both cameras were touted as supporting video streaming, but with the dedicated integration of a chat app, Wristcam clearly is looking to create a community of users in addition to those who would purchase its hardware.

The Wristcam App for Apple Watch allows video communication to be sent to anyone with an Apple device, and doesn’t require the use of the Wristcam nor an Apple Watch to use. Video chats that are sent can be viewed in real-time or later. The concept is a spin on popular apps like Marco Polo, but differentiates itself by keeping messages to a fixed, short length and deleting them once they are watched. Of course, the company also differentiates itself by focusing on and targeting users of its watch-strap-based camera.

For those with an Apple watch that has a cellular plan, the Wristcam allows video communication without an iPhone, which the company touts as a lighter, freer way of communicating while on the go. That air of simplicity is echoed in some design decisions, like the ability for Wristcam users to activate the app with Siri. Commands like “Hey Siri, snap a selfie/photo, start/stop video,” allow for what the company is billing as a “completely hands-free” capture and share experience and eliminate “friction points around camera capture and communication.”

In conversations with PetaPixel, Wristcam’s founder and developers strongly believe that the Apple Watch, once outfitted with its camera system, is the future of communication, and the launch of this messaging app is a core part of making that belief a reality.

The Wristcam Messenger app is free to download and separate from the original Wristcam app that is used to customize and set up the Wristcam. Wristcam istelf is now available from both Wristcam.com and Amazon for $300.

Sometimes all it takes to bring a shoot to the “next level” is a little DIY work and a couple of cheap accessories. In a recently published video, videographer Alex Perri goes over how he used an affordable light shaping modifier along with duct tape and cardboard to create some iconic film-noir looks for a short film he produced for fun at home.

The short film (see below) garnered Perri a lot of attention from Reddit who asked him how he was able to achieve the various lighting effects seen in his very short film, “The detective.” Specifically, Redditors were curious how he created the Venetian blinds pattern on the wall in one particular shot. While some may think simply hanging a set of blinds in front of a large light source will do the job, there is a much easier way to achieve this look that is more controllable and only requires a small investment.

The aforementioned affordable light shaping tool is the $260 Optical Focalize Condenser from Ambitful which allows users to create a wide variety of light shapes and colors using a series of included gobo inserts and gels. Some of these effects have been available in more expensive rigs from the likes of Dedolight for years, but the low cost of the Ambitful accessory makes it particularly appealing for a wider range of creative professionals for both photo and video applications.

This modifier will not only change the pattern of the light that is passed through it but will also allow users to adjust the focus and sharpness through a built-in lens (about a 50mm equivalent), which makes it very easy for photographers and videographers to create interesting patterns for a range of projects. In the video above, Perri spends a bit of time detailing what the light modifier can do — including the accessories that come along with it — before showing how he used it to create the mix of shadows and highlights for his short film.

“Film noir typically utilizes a low-key lighting setup where there are harsh contrasts between the light spots and the dark spots in the frame resulting in deep black shadows and a very contrasty look,” Perri says.

To achieve that, he used three main lights starting with the key light inside a parabolic softbox to throw a little bit of a softer light over the whole scene, then added a rim light from the opposite side to separate himself from the background. Lastly, he set up a third light outfitted with the optical condenser and equipped with a “Venetian blinds” cutout to create the light shape on the background.

The result ends up mimicking the effect of a light shining through an office window late at night, effectively completing the classic Film Noir look. Perri says the benefits of a light like this versus an actual set of blinds is that he can very quickly and easily adjust the angle, shape, focus, and intensity of the light, and therefore adjust his shot much more easily than if he had a physical prop.

Perri used an additional DIY cutout for a couple of other shots in the film. For example, he used a thin rectangle that only allowed a thin stream of light through it to illuminate small elements in a scene. It allowed him to move objects, or himself, from complete shadow into the hard light for important reveals while also maintaining the sought-after noir look.

For more from Alex Perri, subscribe to his YouTube Channel.

The Animal Friends Comedy Pet Photo Awards 2021 has announced a selection of its front runners to date, featuring pet photobombs, kisses, funny poses, derpy smiles, and more.

The humorous pet photo competition was created by Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam to celebrate the positive and vital role that pets can have in people’s lives. Not just that, the competition also aims to raise awareness about animal welfare and supports a different grassroots charity each year.

This year, the competition is working in partnership with Animal Friends Insurance and will donate £10,000 ($13,900) to Animal Support Angels, which is an animal welfare charity that supports pets and pet owners by providing food, shelter, veterinary support, re-homing, and animal welfare care to relieve the suffering of animals.

Although the competition is still ongoing, since finalists are announced in October and winners in November, the organizers have shared the best photos so far in a bid to encourage more entries.

“We hope that by sharing a sneaky peek at these latest entries to the competition, we can raise a smile or two and maybe encourage more budding photographers (amateur or professional) to get involved and enter their funny pet photos and videos,” says Sullam.

Amanda Broome, Founder-Trustee of Animal Support Angels, revealed that thousands of animals across the United Kingdom have suffered throughout the last year. The donation from the competition will give organizations access to direct funding to where it’s needed the most.

Not to forget the light spirit and comedy the competition brings, “this competition is a celebration of all those wonderful furry, feathery, scaly and hoofed pals keeping us fit, sane and in good company, especially over the last 12 months.”

Here is a selection of some of the best entries so far:

The judging panel has invited new judges: last year’s winner, Elke Vogelsang, Amanda from Animal Support Angels, Dave and Finn, the magic dog act from Britain’s Got Talent, and Tia — Dave’s nine-year-old daughter.

From Animal Friends, the panel welcomes CEO Wes Pearson and his son Jack, aged 12, and Patricia Gardiner (CMO) and her daughter Megan, aged nine, animal lover Kate Humble, and Emma Milne, a veterinarian.

The judges will be going through entries to decide on the top 40 when the competition closes on August 15th, 2021.

For interested photographers who have caught their pets in humorous situations, the competition can be entered here. A small entry fee applies and the competition is open globally with the following categories: “dogs,” “cats,” “horses,” “all the other creatures,” “pets who look like their owners,” “junior,” and “video.”

Image credits: Header image by Lee Carpenter and all others individually credited. All photos provided courtesy of the Animal Friends Comedy Pet Photo Awards and used with permission.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released its TRUST test, a free online training program to certify that pilots understand the rules of drone flight. It is required in order to fly a drone, even recreationally.

The Recreational UAS Safety Test, otherwise known as TRUST, applies to all drones that weigh more than 0.55 pounds and dictates that not only must they be registered through the FAA’s Drone Zone, but all pilots must also pass the TRUST test. Even those who just operate a drone “for fun or personal enjoyment” must take this test in order to legally fly in the United States.

The test is designed to provide education and testing for recreational flyers on important safety and regulatory information. The FAA says that even pilots who fly drones recreationally under the Exception for Recreational Flyers — which includes drone flights for educational purposes — must pass the test before they can legally fly.

Read more: Why the FAA’s Mandatory TRUST Drone Test Won’t Provide Any Safety

All pilots — even those who already possess a Part 107 certification — must complete the TRUST test and be able to show proof of passing to an agent of the FAA or law enforcement if prompted.

The FAA has listed the following entities as Approved Test Administrators for TRUST. The only way to take the TRUST test is to do so through any of the below organizations.

• The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA)
• The Boy Scouts of America
• Chippewa Valley Technical College
• Community College of Allegheny County – West Hills Center
• Drone U
• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU)
• HSU Educational Foundation
• Lake Area Technical College
• Pilot Institute
• Drone Launch Academy LLC
• Proctorio Incorporated
• Tactical Aviation
• CrossFlight Sky Solutions
• UAV Coach
• University of Arizona Global Campus
• Volatus Aerospace Corp

The FAA says that TRUST is divided into two sections: The first section provides prospective pilots with the information needed to pass the test. The second section is a series of multiple-choice questions. It is not possible to fail the test. If a question is answered incorrectly, information on why that was the incorrect answer will be provided, and the question will be asked again.

After the conclusion of the test, pilots will be provided with a certificate that never expires, however, if that certificate is lost, the test will have to be retaken to obtain a new one. The FAA says neither it nor the administrator of the test will maintain any personally identifiable information about the recreational flyer, so neither will be able to re-print or re-issue the certificate.

Image credits: Header photo by Bertrand Bouchez.

For the first time in 300 years, viewers can enjoy “The Night Watch” — the iconic painting by Rembrandt — in its entirety thanks to high-resolution photography and computer learning efforts.

The famous masterpiece is a 1642 painting by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn and is currently displayed in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. The painting has been on display in numerous homes throughout the centuries prior.

One of the features the painting is celebrated for is its size, which measures 142.9 inches by 172 inches. However, in 1715 the canvas was trimmed by 23.6 inches from the left side, 9 inches from the top, 4.7 inches from the bottom, and 2.8 inches from the right. Not as an act of vandalism, the trim was performed so that the painting could fit between two doors at Amsterdam’s city hall, The Guardian reports.

This left parts of the painting missing, but with the combination of high-resolution photography of what remains as the original, computer models of the painter’s techniques that leverage artificial intelligence, and a current copy of the full painting by Gerrit Lunden — which is on display in London’s National Gallery — Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was able to temporarily restore it.

This is not the first time the painting has undergone restoration. “The Night Watch” has suffered numerous attacks in the past: it was slashed first by a jobless shoemaker and former Navy chef and later by an unemployed school teacher. It was also sprayed with acid by an escaped psychiatric patient. As such, it has been the subject of numerous complex restoration measures.

As part of the latest restoration, the team used convolutional neural networks — a type of AI algorithm that helps computers understand images — which helped recreate what was lost pixel by pixel.

“As part of our renovation of The Night Watch, last year we took the most detailed photograph of the painting ever and we had a lot of information,” Taco Dibbits, director of the Rijksmuseum, says.

“We did three types of algorithms: one to single out the perspective distortions and to correct those; the second to recognize the color scheme of the original and to project that on the pieces that are missing; and the third one is the brushstrokes — the technique that Rembrandt used. Then you get a computer reproduction that looks as much as possible as The Night Watch.”

After that, a canvas was printed in scale and attached to the original painting, where it will remain for three months so that the museum visitors can enjoy the original composition as the painter intended it.

Dibbits explains that the “newly augmented original” will be removed after three months because he doesn’t want to deceive the public and trick people into thinking that they are viewing the original in its entirety.

Instagram is now rolling out the ability to post photos from a desktop web browser. This is a huge milestone, as it’s the first time the popular photo-sharing service has officially allowed posting from outside of mobile devices.

The company has officially confirmed the move, saying that it’s a test that’s being rolled out to a subset of its users for now — Instagram has historically rolled out major features as well-publicized tests first before making them available to all users over the following weeks and months.

“We know that many people access Instagram from their computer,” a spokesperson tells Engadget. “To improve that experience, we’re now testing the ability to create a Feed post on Instagram with their desktop browser.”

Instagram’s plans to expand posting to desktop was previously spotted by developer Alessandro Paluzzi when it was still being internally tested by the company.

Starting this week, however, many users have begun sharing that they now see a new post create button on the desktop website and that they can now create posts using the new system.

If desktop posting has been enabled for your account, you’ll find a new “add” icon at the top of the site between the icons for Direct Messages and Explore.

Once you drag and drop a photo into the Create box (or select a file using the browse button), you’ll be given the chance to crop the photo and edit it prior to posting it.

Instagram previously opened up browser-based photo posting to mobile devices, but users figured out that desktop browsers could take advantage of the feature by pretending to be a mobile browser. With desktop posting officially rolling out, users will no longer need to turn to “spoofing” tactics to create their posts.

This latest move brings Instagram even closer to Facebook (it’s parent company) in design. Instagram changed its feed from chronological to algorithmic back in 2016, and it has now even started mixing “suggested posts” into users’ main feeds.

Desktop posting has long been a requested feature, however, so it was clearly only a matter of time before it was launched.

Canon has applied for a patent that would use an in-camera algorithm in tandem with the camera’s image stabilization system to intelligently determine the difference between blur caused by motion and blur caused by a moving subject, and correct it.

First spotted by Asobinet and reported by CanonWatch, the patent describes a way to suppress blur of a subject in a photo by using the image stabilization system in the camera (on sensor) and in the lens.

In the patent, Canon says that the problem is that blur correction in current cameras isn’t able to differentiate between “camera shake” and “subject shake” and correct for both at the same time. To get around this, Canon’s Subject Blur Correction would be able to correct for “subject shake” when a face is detected and “camera shake” when a face is not detected.

“‘Camera shake’ and ‘subject shake’ should be corrected depending on the intention of the user (target of interest) in the shooting scene,” the patent says. “For example, when the user pays attention to the background, it is desirable that the ‘camera shake,’ which is the shake of the entire screen, is corrected. On the other hand, when the user is paying attention to the main subject, it is desirable that the ‘subject shake’ is corrected. Therefore, it is necessary to appropriately control the shake correction target according to the user’s intention that changes with the shooting scene.”

The patent was originally applied for by Canon in September of 2020, but was published on June 24.

While technically this process does not fall into the pure definition of computational photography according to Wikipedia — that is to say, the process of using digital computation instead of the optical process — it does get close and more falls into expanded definitions of the term. For example, the idea of computational photography now expands into computer vision, graphics, and applied optics. Since the tech would need to use some kind of algorithm to intelligently determine how to use its stabilization system, it could be argued that Canon’s Subject Blur Correction is a type of computational photography.

To date, outside of some HDR and panoramic capabilities, full-size cameras have done very little as far as advancing image processing to the degree that is seen in mobile devices and have mostly relied on physical corrections in camera or in lenses to achieve quality results. It could be argued that the hesitancy from dedicated camera manufacturers to adopt computational photography techniques that have led to vast improvements to image quality on mobile devices is a detriment to the advancement of the medium overall, and Canon’s patent here shows what could be possible if camera makers begin to do so more readily.