Show Notes
Greetings everyone, you’re listening to the Liam Photography Podcast, I’m, your host Liam Douglas and this is Episode 441 for Thursday February 13th, 2025. So for anyone that isn’t a big sports fan, which I personally am not, this past Sunday was Super Bowl 59 in New Orleans where the Philadelphia Eagles had a rematch against the Kansas City Chiefs whom they lost to two years ago in Super Bowl 57. This year was a different story though and the Chiefs struggled to get any plays going or get on the board at all until the third quarter with the break at halftime score favoring the Eagles at 34 to 0. Jalen Hurts has a fantastic day rushing and passing with only one turnover while Patrick Mahomes had three turnovers and was sacked by the Eagles defense numerous times. The finally score was Philly 40, Kansas City 22 and Hurts won the MVP award for his performance and her certainly earned it!
When the International Camera and Photo Imaging Show (CP+) kicks off in Yokohama at the end of February, Tamron will throw down the gauntlet for the most engaging booth design. Tamron announced a team-up with Godzilla, the famous Japanese monster, for its CP+ booth design.
Spotted by Sony Alpha Rumors, Tamron’s CP+ exhibition will include a large city environment that comprises much of its total booth space. Large Godzilla and Mechagodzilla statues will be posed at the center, ready for battle. The characters have appeared in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (2002) and Godzilla vs. Mothra vs. Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003).
“At the exhibition, you can not only experience the powerful figure of Godzilla up close, but you can also take pictures freely with the experience cameras and lenses displayed at the booth,” Tamron says in a Japanese language press release. “The exhibition is enjoyable not only for Godzilla fans, but also for those who are experiencing Godzilla for the first time. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience the history and evolution of monster movies!”
Alongside the Godzilla diorama display, there will also be a special effects demo experience. Visitors are invited to capture photos and videos of the diorama and the rest of the Godzilla installation using the provided Tamron lenses. There will also be a special macro lens experience corner where people can capture close-up shots of Godzilla and a special miniature diorama.
In true trade show fashion, booth visitors can also grab some swag. The first 300 people to register as new members for a Tamron ID at CP+ will receive a unique Tamron | Godzilla sticker.
Tamron has created a special video for the occasion, which can be seen above. This will also be shown at the Tamron | Godzilla booth on a large screen at CP+.
Beyond the Godzilla-themed diorama and hands-on experiences, Tamron will be showcasing its latest lenses. Tamron’s 2024 was quite productive, with the company releasing two versatile zoom lenses and the excellent 90mm f/2.8 macro lens. These lenses and more will be available for visitors to try.
PetaPixel will be reporting all the latest photography news directly from CP+. The show runs from February 27 to March 2 in Yokohama, Japan.
Last November, Pixelmator announced that it had reached an agreement with Apple to be acquired for an undisclosed amount. According to the Pixelmator team’s update to its apps, that deal has closed.
The celebratory notification seen above was pushed to users of the iPad app in an update today and confirms the transaction is completed. The acquisition includes Pixelmator for iOS, Pixelmator Pro, and the Photomator apps.
“We’ve been inspired by Apple since day one, crafting our products with the same razor-sharp focus on design, ease of use, and performance. And looking back, it’s crazy what a small group of dedicated people have been able to achieve over the years from all the way in Vilnius, Lithuania. Now, we’ll have the ability to reach an even wider audience and make an even bigger impact on the lives of creative people around the world,” the company wrote last November.
“Pixelmator has signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple, subject to regulatory approval. There will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time. Stay tuned for exciting updates to come.”
The companies have both been silent in the period between this announcement and today’s confirmation. An update to the Pixelmator website adds a second confirmation of the acquisition in a text banner.
“We have some important news to share: the Pixelmator Team has joined Apple. If you need product support please contact us here,” it reads. It’s unclear why Pixelmator added the support link to this announcement since it doesn’t lead to an Apple website and it doesn’t deviate from the company’s previous methods of communication.
The cost of the Pixelmator acquisition remains a mystery. Apple’s most recent financial documents published January 30, 2025 don’t specify how much the company may have spent on Pixelmator, instead bundling all of its acquisitions into a single line-item in its “Investing Activities” section, where it spent $2.39 billion last quarter — and that’s assuming the acquisition was included. Apple has a history of keeping the exact details of many of it acquisitions in the past hidden, so it’s entirely possible the exact amount it spent on Pixelmator will remain unknown.
Pixelmator did not immediately respond to PetaPixel‘s request for comment.
Many are rooting for the return of Aperture but it is entirely possible that Apple Photos will simply evolve into what Photomator is now — that could be it. Whatever the case though, Apple’s is now officially back in the photo editing software industry.
A pair of scientists have developed a compact camera that can identify objects at the speed of light.
Arka Majumdar, a University Washington professor in electrical and computer engineering and physics, and Felix Heide, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University, developed a new type of compact camera where the lens is replaced with engineered optics that can identify objects at lightspeed.
The two scientists outlined their new invention in a recent paper published in Science Advances.
In the paper, Majumdar and Heide describe a new type of compact camera engineered for computer vision — a type of AI that enables computers to recognize objects in images and video.
According to a news release by the University of Washington, the pair’s research prototype uses optics for computing, significantly reducing power consumption and allowing the camera to identify objects at the speed of light, representing a new approach to the field of computer vision.
“This is a completely new way of thinking about optics, which is very different from traditional optics. It’s end-to-end design, where the optics are designed in conjunction with the computational block,” Majumdar says. “Here, we replaced the camera lens with engineered optics, which allows us to put a lot of the computation into the optics.”
“There are really broad applications for this research, from self-driving cars, self-driving trucks, and other robotics to medical devices and smartphones. Nowadays, every iPhone has AI or vision technology in it,” Heide adds. “This work is still at a very early stage, but all of these applications could someday benefit from what we are developing.”
Instead of using a traditional camera lens made out of glass or plastic, the optics in this camera relies on layers of 50 meta-lenses — flat, lightweight optical components that use microscopic nanostructures to manipulate light.
The meta-lenses also function as an optical neural network, which is a computer system that is a form of artificial intelligence modeled on the human brain. This unique approach has a couple of key advantages. Firstly, it’s fast because much of the computation takes place at the speed of light, the system can identify and classify images more than 200 times faster than neural networks that use conventional computer hardware, and with comparable accuracy.
Secondly, because the optics in the camera rely on incoming light to operate, rather than electricity, the power consumption is greatly reduced.
Heide and his students at Princeton University provided the design for the camera prototype, which is a compact, optical computing chip. Majumdar contributed his expertise in optics to help engineer the camera, and he and his students fabricated the chip in the Washington Nanofabrication Laboratory.
In their previous research, Heide and Majumdar developed a high-resolution, full-color camera that is the size of a grain of salt.
Seagate’s new Ultra Compact SSD is a USB-C thumb drive designed to handle large files on the go. For photographers and videographers, it may provide a convenient backup option or even a means of delivering files to remote clients.
The Ultra Compact SSD comes in 1TB and 2TB capacities and promises transfer speeds up to 1,000 MB/s, which is plenty fast for photographers to use as a working drive but not entirely up to snuff for the most demanding video editing workflows, at least not for editing directly from the drive.
As a thumb drive, Seagate’s new SSD is small — it’d be absurd if it weren’t. It’s just 70 millimeters long (2.8 inches) and just over 20 millimeters (0.8 inches) wide. It weighs just 24 grams (0.8 ounces). However, it is still reasonably rugged. It has IP54 dust and water resistance, ships with a rubber sleeve for extra protection, and is designed to survive drops. It is also made using a minimum of 35% recycled materials.
The device has a direct USB-C port and works with a wide range of devices, including computers (Mac and Windows), tablets, and smartphones (Android and iPhone).
Although PetaPixel will not be conducting a comprehensive review for the Seagate Ultra-Compact SSD, we did do a few quick tests of the drive, including a speed test using the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test.
The thumb drive essentially met its specifications or came as close as drives typically do.
The Seagate Ultra Compact SSD ships with a silicone sleeve, silicone USB-C port cap, and lanyard. The 1TB version is available to order now for $100, while the 2TB SSD is $180. The thumb drive also comes with a three-year Rescue Recovery Service plan, six months of Mylio Photos, and six months of a Dropbox Backup Plan. The device has a three-year warranty.
Ozzy Osbourne is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit after the rock star posted multiple images of himself on Instagram without the photographer’s permission.
In the lawsuit which was filed on Monday in Los Angeles federal court, prolific rock photographer Neil Zlozower claims Osbourne illegally shared his images on social media.
Zlozower accuses the Black Sabbath frontman of posting his images of him on Facebook, Instagram, and X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) without seeking permission or paying the photographer a licensing fee.
“The accounts are key components of defendant’s popular and lucrative commercial enterprise,” the lawsuit says, according to a report by Billboard.
“Defendant has over 12 million followers on [Facebook], and over 6 million followers on [Instagram], and over five million followers on [X] — all of which are monetized and provide significant financial benefits to defendant.”
Zlozower’s legal team claims that Osbourne posted multiple photos, including five staged portraits of the singer with Zakk Wylde, his longtime guitarist, and another showing Osbourne onstage with Randy Rhoads, his guitarist from his first two solo albums, who tragically died in a plane crash in 1982.
Zlozower asserts that his team contacted Osbourne about the alleged unauthorized posts in June, and again in August and September. However, the photographer says Osbourne “failed to respond,” forcing him to “seek judicial intervention for defendant’s infringing activity.”
Osborne is the latest celebrity to be taken to court by a photographer or photo agency over the misuse of intellectual property in recent months.
U.S. copyright law is quite straightforward when it comes to intellectual property and clearly states that the person who “authored” a work is the copyright owner, such as a photographer who takes a picture of a celebrity. But despite this crystal-clear definition of intellectual property in the eyes of the law, some celebrities still refuse to license images for their social media and adamantly believe they should own the photos taken of them, not the photographers.
Some celebrities have argued that they have the right to photographs of them because they are “joint authors” and because they have cooperated with the photographer and posed for the picture, they have therefore established themselves as a co-creator.
In 2019, supermodel Gigi Hadid used this argument when she claimed that posting a copyrighted photo of herself on Instagram was “fair use” because she had contributed to the photo by smiling in it.
Courts generally reject this argument, as did the judge who ruled over Hadid’s case.
However, last year, Hadid was ordered to pay only $3,000 in damages to a photographer after she failed to respond to his copyright lawsuit. The supermodel didn’t even bother to hire a lawyer over the photographer’s suit. Consequently, it appears that Hadid may have “got off easy” as a result of her actions — or lack thereof.
Four Photographers Make Timelapse of London
A photography team has put together a mesmerizing flow motion timelapse of London, deploying novel techniques to tell the story of the U.K. capital.
A Taste of London is the fifth installment of FilmSpektakel’s long-running A Taste of series having previosuly shot in Los Angeles, Vienna, and New York City.
Peter Jablonowski from FilmSpektakel tells PetaPixel that for the London episode, “we wanted hands-on experience with 3DGS/NeRFs, AI-based transitions, and generative fill tools like Photoshop’s latest features” while refining their hyperlapse techniques and adding Insta360 cameras into the mix.
Security in London is often intense and it meant the team had to secure the rights to film from certain locations, often having to be patient to gain permissions.
“We were fortunate to be allowed to shoot from the observation deck of The Shard [the city’s tallest building]. Ironically, the day we had this amazing top-down view of sprawling train tracks happened to coincide with a railway strike—so no moving trains! But that unpredictability is part of what makes these projects exciting,” says Jablonowski.
Over nine days, four photographers — Peter Jablonowski, Thomas Pöcksteiner, Maximilian Lang, and Lorenz Pritz — took 83,000 photos amassing around 5.5 terabytes of footage.
“The whole project generated a whopping 8.10 terabytes of data,” adds Jablonowski. “Editing such massive amounts of content takes time: 640 working hours, equating to about 80 working days.”
Jablonowski says the team had trouble shooting the row of clocks in Canary Wharf, the central business district.
“Although it looks like a public square, it’s actually private property with restrictions on tripods. We aimed to be as unobtrusive as possible, but we were ultimately asked to remove the tripod and go handheld. It’s all part of capturing high-profile landmarks in big cities,” he reflects.
FilmSpektakel used Sony A7 series cameras and a host of lenses while using a gimbal for continuous hyperlapses and tripods for classic timelapses. The Insta360 was put on a pole for “immersive 360-degree angles.”
For post-production, Jablonowski and co used Abobe Lightroom in combination with LRTimelapse, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Audition, and Photoshop for generative fill work.
“We also experimented with Lumalabs DreamMachine for AI-powered video transitions with their start/end frame functionality which we then upscaled to UHD with Topaz Video AI,” he adds.
The team also utilized Google Earth Studio flight paths “integrated seamlessly with our real-world footage for sweeping transitions from one location to the next.”
“This blend of in-camera hyperlapse techniques with AI video generation and Photoshop’s generative fill is what makes A Taste of London a unique and exciting iteration of our A Taste Of series. For us, it’s not just about individual shots and raw footage anymore — it’s about exploring all the creative possibilities in post to craft a visually mesmerizing journey.”
3-D Printed Camera Now Available
In March 2023, photographer Mark Hiltz designed and 3D-printed a fully functioning large-format (120) film camera, including a custom 3D-printed shutter. In the hectic two years since Hiltz met his partner and had a baby. He has now returned to his camera project and improved its performance.
The 3D-printed camera now has a name, the Pioneer Camera, and Hiltz shared all the relevant information, including parts lists, a build guide, and STL files for other photographers with 3D printer access to build one for themselves. The project is released under Creative Commons, and Hiltz encourages people to experiment with the camera.
The ambitious project to build a camera from scratch without using parts from any existing cameras attracted a lot of attention in 2023. Although building a camera like this is not wholly unique, it is very unusual.
“I thought about how a painter could stretch their own canvas, make their own brushes, mix their own paints, etc., but as photographers, we have to rely on precision-engineered machines made in factories to make our art, so I felt that by making my own camera, I could have an even greater degree of authorship of my work, even if the images were lacking in technical quality,” Hiltz told PetaPixel in 2023.
The “technical quality” he references has been a significant focus as he has returned to the project. Hiltz described his initial results as distorted and that the lens’ focus was not too good.
In the two years since he has “kept the project in the back of [his] mind” and regularly stayed up to date with other people’s DIY projects.
“I found a few creators getting decent results making DIY single-element lenses with cheap double convex magnifying glass lenses (mostly with large format), so I figured I might split the difference and attempt to build around a 60mm FL, 25.4mm diameter plano-convex lens from ThorLabs,” Hiltz explains on Reddit.
After some testing, Hiltz was satisfied that the optical problems had been addressed.
Hiltz shared some test shots and sent them to PetaPixel, showing a nice improvement in image quality from the Pioneer camera. All the test shots were made using Ilford HP5 and developed in Caffenol.
He notes that any “reverse” vignetting, lightening in the corners, is due to his “crappy homemade scanning setup and not the camera itself.”
However, while the improved optics are notable, the star of the show is the custom-made shutter, which Hiltz calls the “Magna-Flick.” He cites a camera maker in the United Kingdom employing a similar shutter for use in an upcoming camera as a motivating factor to restart the Pioneer project. Although Hiltz does not explicitly say which camera shutter he’s referring to, British large-format photography company Intrepid Camera is working on a new shutter system for large format cameras.
The Magna-Flick is an adaptation of a two-way rotary blade shutter, “as used in old box cameras,” Hiltz explains. The shutter has an 80-degree rotation with magnets locking it into a closed position on either end. A simple flick activates the shutter, and shutter speed tests to around 1/100s, although there is a bit of variance (1/60s to 1/125s).
“As the optical center of the lens was further away from the shutter opening, I did have to make the shutter unit larger to accommodate this and eliminate vignetting. Additionally, while the original camera had switchable apertures of f/10 and f/16, the updated version has a fixed f/13 aperture (same as a Holga on ‘cloudy’ setting) as the aperture is now in front of the lens, though I plan to release models for lenses with f/11 and f/16 if anyone would like them,” Hiltz says. “I will also be adding a keychain size tool that will allow the photographer to block the shutter switch for longer exposures.”
By providing the Pioneer Camera project to everyone via Creative Commons, Hiltz hopes other photographers will print and build one for themselves. If they do, they’re encouraged to tag the project on Instagram, @pioneer_camera. If anyone adapts the Magna-Flick shutter, Hiltz wants to know, too, so he can promote what people create.
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