In today's episode, Affinity hits 3 million downloads, retro photo shop in NYC takes best passport photos, photographing the Sacred Mosque from space and more.
Show Notes
Welcome back to the show everyone, Liam here and this is Episode 483 of the Liam Photography Podcast for the week of December 4th, 2025. In today’s episode Affinity hits 3 million downloads, a Retro photo store in NYC takes the best passport photos and Astronaut Don Pettit takes photographs of Mecca’s Sacred Mosque.
Affinity has hit three million downloads of its new software in just over a month. For context, it took the company nine years to hit this mark with its previous software offering before its acquisition by Canva last year.
“We’re blown away by the response to the new Affinity and the number of people choosing creative freedom in such a short space of time,” Ash Hewson, Affinity CEO, tells PetaPixel. “It reaffirms our core belief that the industry is desperate for a change in the status quo and represents an incredible start to a movement which we believe will change professional design forever.”
Affinity software has been available for many years, but last month it changed its model to not only combine all of its tools into one app but also it chose to make that app free to use. The only features locked behind a Canva subscription are the more powerful AI tools, many of which aren’t necessary for many photographers and graphic designers.
“Making Affinity free is a continuation of Canva’s founding belief that great design should be accessible to everyone. It’s made possible by Canva’s sustainable business model — one built on offering powerful creative tools for free, while optional paid features like premium content, collaboration, and AI tools fund continued innovation. This approach has powered Canva’s growth for more than a decade and now enables Affinity to remain free, forever — while continuing to evolve for the world’s most ambitious creators,” Canva said at the time.
New user signups spiked in the first week of the software’s availability last month when Affinity saw one million downloads in just a week. It slowed down slightly after that, but clearly momentum remains. The free strategy is a sound one and has been successfully deployed before by the likes of Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve. In this case, though, Affinity is growing at a rate that is 36 times faster than Resolve reportedly did.
Experts refer to this as a “break the lock-in” strategy. By offering a tool that comes close to Adobe and doing so for free, immediately Affinity is able to capture the entire educational pipeline (students and institutions) while also offering a no-risk off-ramp for freelancers who are worn down by subscriptions. Once in Affinity’s system, upgrading to a Canva subscription isn’t strictly necessary, but can be done with relatively low impact since it’s not particularly expensive — they start at $7.50 a month, which gives access to the extra Affinity tools — especially compared to Adobe’s offerings.
In a study from KeyBanc Captial Markets, a survey of Adobe customers found that two-thirds of its customers said they use it more than they’d expected and 41% said the amount of time spent using it is up over 50% since signing up. Even more telling is that 78% expect to spend incremental dollars away from the Adobe ecosystem in which they are already entrenched.
“This is probably the most worrisome data point for Adobe,” the study notes. “We asked people if they expected to spend more incremental dollars at Adobe or away from Adobe in the future. 53% said they expect to spend more with Canva and Figma specifically and another 25% said they expect to spend more with other AI tools from OpenAI, Google, Flux, etc. Only 12% said they expect Adobe to keep pace and just 5% said Adobe will get more future share.”
After an X user posted his arresting portrait taken for his passport photo and declared that the “Chinese passport photo lady on Elizabeth” is the best portrait photographer in New York City, the tiny shop where he got the passport photo done has become a viral sensation.
Tucked away in Chinatown, Eliz Digital is described as having a “cult following” by CNN, which recently visited the store. Followers are so devoted that one customer comes to Eliz Digital every month to have her photo taken.
I’m a woman of routine,” says teacher Sam Shekian. “I’m going to keep going — January, February, March. And then it just became a thing, I can’t stop now, how could I stop?”
The store’s owner and photographer-in-chief, Chunika Kesh, shoots with an entry-level Canon DSLR paired with a kit lens and a Speedlite fitted with an octagonal softbox diffuser, angled up toward the ceiling. When the ceiling is white, bouncing the flash can deliver surprisingly beautiful results — provided the photographer knows their angles and distances.
But taking great photos of customers is not all that Eliz Digital does: it also develops film and customers can get a disposable camera developed there for cheaper than normal.
Meanwhile, analog photographer Laura Fuchs has made an Instagram series out of visiting Kesh, which started after she went to drop off film there for development and had two shots left on her roll. Fuchs will take Kesh’s photo and vice versa. “It became kind of a tradition,” Fuchs tells CNN. “People love it, and they love her.”
Part of the shop’s appeal is likely its retro charm; one Google reviewer says “it feels like you walked into a time machine,” likening it to a store from the 1990s. Film photography seems particularly popular in New York City; this summer Photodom — a popular film photography store — opened in a shiny new location in Bushwick.
After returning from a six-month voyage to space, astronaut and enthusiastic photographer Don Pettit has plenty of photos to go through. While Pettit has photographed plenty of celestial objects, he often trains his lens on his home planet below — and recently shared a photo of one of Earth’s most sacred sites.
As he passed over Mecca in Saudi Arabia, he captured the Grand Mosque lit up at night with the Kaaba shining brightest of all in the middle of the frame. “Orbital views of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The bright spot in the center is the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, visible even from space,” Pettit writes on Instagram.
Mecca is the holiest city in Islam and one of the most historically significant places in the world. It is the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, and Muslims around the world face the Kaaba during prayer, known as the qibla. The Kaaba is the destination of the Hajj pilgrimage, which every Muslim must carry out at least once in their lifetime if they are physically and financially able.
Pettit took the photo while 400 miles above terra firma, hurtling in low Earth orbit at 17,500 miles per hour. Pettit was presumably inside the space station’s cupola when he pressed the shutter, a European Space Agency-built observatory module.
Because of the speeds involved, Pettit has to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the scenes below, and that is now a viable option because of the improved ISO performance of the Nikon Z9, the camera astronauts use onboard the ISS. It wasn’t always that way, though: During Pettit’s first mission to the ISS in 2022, Pettit invented a barn door tracker from “stuff lying around,” which is a device that counteracts orbital motion in space that allowed photographers to capture sharp images of cities at night.
But Pettit is not limited to capturing cities at night and over the years has captured some of the most iconic shots of space taken from the ISS. He remains an active astronaut and regularly posts his work on social media, including the video below showing “great fleets of fishing boats” in Southeast Asia that are easily mistaken for cities when ISO performance was relatively poor.
Pettit is worth a follow on Instagram and X.
A new NASA-led study warns that the rapid increase of satellites in low-Earth orbit is causing growing light pollution that is affecting space telescopes, such as Hubble.
While satellites enable telecommunications services across the world, the new study, published in Nature, concludes that light reflected or emitted by satellites could contaminate a large share of the images taken by several major space telescopes over the next decade.
The research looked at four observatories: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and SPHEREx, and two planned missions, the European Space Agency’s ARRAKIHS and China’s Xuntian. The simulations suggest that around 40 percent of Hubble images and roughly 96 percent of images from SPHEREx, ARRAKIHS, and Xuntian could contain satellite streaks. The effect is less for Hubble because it has a narrow field of view.
Orbiting telescopes can see a wide range of light wavelengths without distortions from the atmosphere, which makes them essential for studying faint galaxies, planets, and other targets. But as satellites pass across their view, they can leave bright streaks that obscure the faint signals astronomers are trying to detect.
“While until now most light pollution came from cities and vehicles, the rise of telecommunication satellite constellations is rapidly starting to affect astronomical observatories worldwide,” says Alejandro Borlaff of NASA’s Ames Research Center, lead author of the study published in Nature.
“As telescopes stare at the Universe attempting to unveil distant galaxies, planets, and asteroids, satellites sometimes cross in front of their cameras, leaving bright traces of light that erase the dim signal that we receive from the cosmos.”
Light contamination was once seen as a problem mainly for ground-based facilities. The assumption was that space telescopes, operating above the atmosphere, would be insulated from human-made interference. But satellite numbers have skyrocketed. There were roughly 2,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit in 2019. Today there are about 15,000. If current plans proceed, the study estimates that 560,000 satellites could be in orbit by the 2030s.
“To give an idea of how much this number increased recently, we have launched more satellites to low-Earth orbit in the last four years — 2021 to 2025 — than in the previous seven decades of space flight combined,” Borlaff says.
The team simulated the orbital patterns of major clusters such as Starlink, Guowang, and Amazon’s network, and combined them with properties of each telescope: altitude, trajectory, and field of view.
“Once we had the simulated telescopes observing our simulated universe, we only needed to count the number of times that the satellites crossed — or ‘photo-bombed’ – our observatories, and how bright they were at the moment of the event,” Borlaff explains.
Satellites produce interference in several ways: by directly reflecting light from the Sun with their solar panels, as well as reflecting light from the Moon and the Earth, which is intensely bright from low-Earth orbit.
“In addition to optical light, satellites also emit infrared radiation generated from the temperature of their components, as well as reflecting radio wavelengths from both the Earth and the antennas themselves,” adds Borlaff.
The result could be lost scientific information. Trails from satellites can resemble the streaks produced by asteroids, making it harder to identify potentially hazardous objects.
“Imagine that you are trying to find asteroids that may be potentially harmful for Earth,” Borlaff says while adding that an asteroid “looks exactly like a satellite.”
Some observatories are unaffected. Missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope and other spacecraft operating at more distant orbits, including Euclid and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, are positioned far from the satellites used for telecommunications.
Current satellite networks are dominated by Elon Musk’s Starlink, which accounts for nearly three-quarters of satellites already in orbit. But the study projects that within two decades Starlink may represent only about one-tenth of the total, as new competitors launch their own constellations.
The most direct response, according to the study, would be to launch fewer satellites. But the demand for global communication and data capacity continues to rise.
PolarPro has announced Shift, a three-piece diopter system created to give photographers and filmmakers faster access to close-focus capabilities without the need to change lenses.
Developed in collaboration with content creator and commercial photographer Garrett “Shortstache” King, PolarPro’s new Shift is positioned as a flexible tool for capturing macro-style detail while keeping existing setups lightweight and efficient.
Shift is built around three optical strengths: +2, +4, and +8. Each level adjusts a lens’s minimum focusing distance to 19.7, 9.8, and 4.9 inches (0.5, 0.25, and 0.125 meters) respectively. As magnification increases, the frame tightens and finer textures become more pronounced. The system does not alter a lens’s focal length but instead shifts the focal plane, allowing users to achieve sharp focus on subjects that would otherwise fall outside the lens’s native close-focus range.
Shift is offered in both PolarPro’s Helix MagLock mount, which provides quick attachment, and threaded versions ranging from 49 mm to 95 mm for broader lens compatibility. The filters are constructed from lightweight aerospace-grade aluminum, with the MagLock version weighing 4.94 ounces (140 grams) and the threaded versions weighing 3.46 ounces (98 grams). All three diopters feature multi-coated cinema-grade glass designed to preserve sharpness, contrast, and color accuracy. The set is packaged with a matte-green protective case designed by Shortstache.
PolarPro notes that Shift was developed to support both photo and video applications. The MagLock version can be paired with a variable neutral-density filter when the VND is placed behind the diopter. Threaded variants, however, are limited to straight ND filters due to the thicker housings of most threaded VNDs. For shooters using a combination of stills and motion, Shift aims to reduce friction by allowing quick transitions to close-focus work without slowing production.
Diopters are not new in the imaging world, but Shift differs from split-diopter designs used to keep two focal planes sharp in cinema. Instead, it focuses solely on shortening the minimum focus distance. This places Shift closer to traditional close-up filters found on compact and instant cameras, but with significantly improved optical quality. While dedicated macro lenses still offer the highest levels of precision and flat-field sharpness, they are often more specialized, heavier, and expensive. Shift is positioned as a practical alternative that adds macro-style capability to existing lenses with minimal cost and workflow impact.
For creators looking to capture products, textures, flora, or everyday objects without pausing to swap lenses, Shift offers a compact approach to expanding creative range. PolarPro and Shortstache present it as a way to see familiar subjects from new vantage points with the gear filmmakers and photographers already carry.
PolarPro Shift, including the +2, +4, and +8 diopters and the Shortstache signature case, are available now in both Helix MagLock and threaded configurations of 49mm, 67mm, 77mm, 82mm, 86mm (c), and 95mm(c) with prices ranging from $149.99 up to $399.99.
Sony has paused distribution of its recently released a7 IV firmware update, version 6.00, after confirming that the software can cause significant instability on some cameras.
The decision comes only days after both updates launched on November 25. Sony is encouraging any a7 IV owner who has already installed the update and is encountering problems to contact the company’s support team. While the company investigates the malfunction, the corresponding a7R V firmware 4.00 update remains available.
Sony’s notice outlines two separate problems. The most critical involves cameras entering a reboot loop immediately after installation, with some units becoming effectively unusable. A secondary issue causes the camera to enter power-saving mode when the rear screen is closed, regardless of the user’s chosen settings.
Sony says this behavior can be corrected through a full initialization, though doing so wipes all custom configurations, a time-consuming process for users with complex setups.
Reactions across photography forums and social media have ranged widely. Some users report installing version 6.00 without any noticeable issue, while others describe ongoing crashes, frozen displays, or cameras that can only be revived by removing the battery. The unpredictability has led many photographers, especially those who rely on their equipment for paid work, to proceed cautiously.
The situation has also reignited debate over Sony’s firmware testing and rollout practices, with many noting that they intentionally delay adopting major updates until early reports confirm stability.
Although Sony’s cameras are known for strong performance and deep feature sets, the company has faced firmware-related complications before. In 2019, the a7R III and a7 III received firmware updates that triggered freezing and rapid battery drain for some users, prompting widespread discussion before corrective patches arrived. Early versions of the a9 series firmware occasionally caused the camera to lock up during high-speed bursts, leading Sony to issue follow-up fixes. A 2021 update for the a7S III generated overheating warnings and unexpected shutdowns on select units, while several ZV and FX series cameras experienced autofocus irregularities or USB-streaming conflicts tied to specific firmware revisions.
Meanwhile, in 2024, PetaPixel covered the issues with the Sony a1 firmware update as well as the version 3.0 firmware update for the a7R V cameras.
“We confirmed that some ILCE-7RM5 cameras may not start up after installing the version 3.00 update. We have suspended the update while we investigate the cause,” Sony’s support page explained at the time.
While these problems were typically resolved promptly, they have shaped a cautious approach toward early firmware adoption among many Sony shooters, particularly when updates make broad or system-level changes.
The temporary suspension underscores a familiar challenge for working photographers and filmmakers: choosing between immediate access to new capabilities and the risk of unforeseen instability. Firmware 6.00 promised a significant set of enhancements, ranging from expanded autofocus functionality to improved video workflows and faster network transfers, but those additions will remain out of reach until Sony delivers a fixed release. Until then, unexpected behavior caused by firmware bugs can interrupt assignments, disrupt productions, or sideline equipment entirely, making cautious upgrade practices a standard part of many professionals’ workflows.
Sony has not provided a timeline for a corrected version of the update. PetaPixel reached out to Sony for comment on a timeline for a fix, but did not hear a response ahead of publication. The company’s previous statement indicates that engineers are still diagnosing the underlying cause, which could mean that a replacement may take time. Users who have not installed the update are encouraged to remain on their current firmware, while those who already applied version 6.00 without seeing issues may wish to avoid factory resets or major configuration changes until Sony offers further guidance.
As the company works toward a resolution, the suspension of firmware 6.00 serves as another reminder that while firmware updates can meaningfully enhance a camera’s capabilities, they also introduce risks—particularly during the early stages of release.
Get ready to elevate your sound—Sennheiser’s holiday sale brings premium audio performance within easy reach. Whether you’re upgrading your headphones, capturing crisp vocals with portable mics, or building a versatile mobile gear kit for content on the go, this event is packed with pro-level tools at can’t-miss prices. It’s the perfect moment to refine your setup and sound your best, wherever creativity takes you. The sale is on through December 31, 2025.
The HD 280 Pro is one of Sennheiser’s most notable closed-back, around-ear headphones in years. Built to meet the demands of professional use, it combines rugged construction with excellent sound quality, a modular design, and strong noise isolation—everything you need in the field. Its collapsible build and swiveling ear cups add flexibility, making it easy to adapt to any workflow or environment.
The MKE 400 is a portable shotgun mic that delivers focused audio and adaptable performance for any mobile setup. Designed for vloggers, creators, and mobile journalists, it uses a highly directional cardioid capsule to keep your voice front and center while reducing unwanted noise. Integrated wind protection and an internal shock mount ensure clean sound in varied environments. With headphone monitoring, adjustable gain, and a sleek form factor that mounts easily to cameras or smartphones, it gives you reliable control and clarity wherever you shoot.
Designed for vloggers and creators on the go, the MKE 400 Mobile Kit bundles Sennheiser’s compact MKE 400 shotgun microphone, a solid Smartphone Clamp, and the Manfrotto PIXI Mini Tripod. The MKE 400 delivers focused, detailed audio with a built-in windscreen, internal shock mount, and included TRS/TRRS cables for use with cameras or mobile devices. The Smartphone Clamp offers secure rubber grips and a 180° locking dial for quick portrait or landscape switching. The lightweight Manfrotto PIXI tripod adds stability with its push-button ball head and slip-free rubber feet, and it can collapse for easy handheld shooting.
For creators seeking a portable, high-quality setup, the MKE 400 Mobile Kit offers all the essentials to elevate your content.
The MKE 600 is a go-to microphone for content creators and filmmakers, built to take on even demanding film challenges. With its high directivity, it captures audio from exactly where your camera is pointed while reducing unwanted noise from the sides and rear. A switchable low-cut filter helps to tame wind noise and rumble. And since not all video cameras offer phantom power, the MKE 600 can run on battery as well. A dedicated on/off switch protects against unnecessary battery drain, and a “Low Batt” indicator lets you know when it’s time to swap in a fresh one.
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