Tamron Officially Confirms What Few Journalists Always Knew

In the past few years, Phoblographer has published reviews where we've often felt like something could've just been a firmware update instead of a brand new product release. And often, we've wondered why there was even a new product in the first place. "In general, some minor pe…

182.8 Meters

Midday

Following fires In normal times, Santa Rosa Island is easy to watch from our deck in Santa Barbara. But right now it's burning up, and smoke from that fire and the Sandy Fire in Simi Valley have added layers of brown to the gray marine haze that comes and goes. So here are some…

What If Lock-In Doesn’t Matter So Much Anymore?

Interesting observation by Mitchell Hashimoto (creator of Vagrant and Ghostty) on how a company’s or product’s choice of programming language matters less in the age of agentic programming: On the interesting side is how fungible programming languages are nowadays. Program…

Why I’m Teaching Meditation to Photographers (And Why You Need It More Than Another Lens)

This has been a very long time in the making, and I'm very excited to finally make this happen. The Phoblographer is launching workshops for photographers who want to find ways to grow beyond just what all the social media content developers and YouTubers tell you you need. And…

All the Star Wars Lightsaber Designs

This scan isn’t very good (best I could find), but these are all the lightsabers used by Jedi and Sith in the various Star Wars shows and movies. I think this is from a few years ago, so I’m not sure how up to date it is. In the SW universe, making your own saber is a J…

My friend Adriana wrote about her story game based on...

My friend Adriana wrote about her story game based on Dante’s Inferno. “In Vya, I modeled Pom after the poet Alice Notley, whose Descent of Alette (1996) is one of the great contributions to the literature of katabasis.”

#MyTerms at #CPDP2026

CPDP stands for Computers, Privacy, and Data Protection. The theme of this year’s CPDP is “Competing Visions Shared Futures.” The MyTerms future is replacing consent with contract in our online dealings with websites and digital services. Consent is what cookie notices spe…

How to Make a Living as an Artist

Contemporary pop artist fnnch’s essay on How to Make a Living as an Artist is pretty great. Lots in here that resonates with my experience of turning a creative hobby (KDO) into a business. Most people who enjoy making art should not try to make it their full time job. Wh…

From Universe Today, an ongoing series of articles on A...

From Universe Today, an ongoing series of articles on A Brief-ish History of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Part I is entitled “Where is Everybody?”

7Artisans 135mm f1.8 Review: A Gorgeous Lens

There are very few 135mm lenses that I haven't liked. Nikon already has the very good 135mm f1.8 Plena and the Viltrox 135mm f1.8. And today, the brand is getting a third: the 7Artisans 135mm f1.8 -- with autofocus. The incredible thing about this lens is just how closely it foc…

You Can Make an App for That . “The most important...

You Can Make an App for That. “The most important thing you’ll need is taste. Not objectively good taste, necessarily, so much as a keen sense of your own.”

Our Mob Boss President

Jamelle Bouie writes that each US president molds the presidency in his own image and Trump has constructed a “government as protection racket and the president as mob boss”.1 So what manner of presidency has Trump devised for himself? You could call it the pecuniary presi…

Mariame Kaba’s letter to young activists :...

Mariame Kaba’s letter to young activists: “I don’t know how things will turn out, but I am committed to something other than this — the current structure and state of this world. We can live differently.”

Resident: vibe coding firmware (our new sandbox library for ESP32 devices)

We’re open sourcing Resident, our library for running AI-authored code on microcontrollers – with no compile step and no firmware flashing. It’s our twist on vibe coding firmware, built for instantly loading new device functionality coded by end users. It’s aimed at de…

Are Fisheye Lenses Reclaiming Their Place in Photography?

Photography has always been about the narrative, the gaze, the frames, and how it can impact the world. In more recent decades, the medium has had another pillar of importance: gear. With cameras and lenses becoming prominent, there is also a trend of some cameras and lenses doi…

nikitonsky is being grumpy

nikitonsky: Pro tip: instead of writing down a short sentence in full, make it appear on a marquee for dramatic effect #marquee

A pep talk in the face of despair . “Things can...

A pep talk in the face of despair. “Things can always get better, but it doesn’t happen via inertia. It happens because a lot of people tried.”

Our World in Ten Buildings: How Architecture Defines Who...

Our World in Ten Buildings: How Architecture Defines Who We Are and How We Live. Among the buildings are a school in Mass., a hospital in Rwanda, a prison in Norway, and a lighthouse in Maine. Intriguing!

India’s Hottest District Shuts at 10 AM as Mercury...

India’s Hottest District Shuts at 10 AM as Mercury Breaches 48 Degrees Celsius Mark. “After 10am, Banda becomes deserted. At first, you see one or two people outside. Then, as the day rises, there is only silence.” (48C = 118F)

Sigma’s New Affordable Telephoto Lenses May Interest Birders

Sigma has introduced some wonderful telephoto lenses for photographers documenting birds and wildlife. Models such as 100-400mm, 150-600mm, and 300-600mm, amongst others. It now appears that the company is working on a new patent that can make things better. Have a look at their…

9 Things New Documentary Photographers Need to Know

While it may sound precocious to discuss what to do before starting a documentary photo project then jump into its final edit, bare with me. The point is that preparation before you pick up your camera is just as crucial to your photo story as your final presentation, and you sh…

The Best Film Cameras Under $500

Analog cameras are riding a new wave of interest in 2026. There are many young photographers embracing the age-old technology, and a sense of nostalgia attached to it. With fewer companies introducing new film cameras, we have collated a list that can be of help for young and se…

The Most Important Thing a Photographer Can Have Today Isn’t Gear

Copyright: do you know anything about it? There's a big lawsuit against OpenAI and about how they've used torrents to get a ton of copyrighted material to train their AI. As time goes on, it's getting more and more fascinating to watch. But I keep wondering why photographers can…

New-to-me vocabulary: oneshotted , “a term that...

New-to-me vocabulary: oneshotted, “a term that means, roughly, to be destroyed and subsequently remade by a single experience”.

Cookie Queens

Cookie Queens is a feature-length documentary film that follows four Girl Scouts as they navigate the big business & big feelings of Girl Scout Cookie season. “Cookie Queens” is a coming-of-age story about the joys, pressures, and pain points woven into one of America��…

Interview with the guy behind the great Art But Make...

Interview with the guy behind the great Art But Make It Sports social accounts. “When he sees a sports photograph, he can recall, off the top of his head, a pose, or a style, or even just a figure or a form, from a painting or a sculpture.”

The Banality of the Video Podcast . “The sets,...

The Banality of the Video Podcast. “The sets, installed with plentiful mics awaiting speech, are authoritative and yet unintimidating, like a friend’s renovated suburban basement.”

There’s No Earthly Way of Knowing Which Direction We Are Going…

Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I.: The author of a nonfiction book about the effects of artificial intelligence on truth acknowledged on Monday that he had included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by A.I. The author, Steven Ros…

Why Photographers Are Paying Premiums for This Leica

When it comes to choosing a luxury camera, everyone knows there are only a few options. One such brand is Leica, which has never shied away from offering what most photographers desire. While there are multiple cameras that have held up their value, this Leica model has seen an…