Flickr’s most popular camera is still the iPhone if we’re broadly judging what a camera is. But if you’re speaking about devices primarily made with the idea of image capture, then things are a bit different. Sony doesn’t dominate the space on Flickr — which is still for photographers who are serious about their craft and not all in for content creation. The platform caters to photographers first. With that said, Flickr’s most popular camera should come as no surprise.

Flickr’s Most Popular Camera: The Canon EOS R5

The dedicated camera that is rated as Flickr’s most popular camera is the Canon EOS R5. According to the Camera Finder link, amongst the list of cameras used, the Canon EOS R5 is the most popular. This shows a lot of really fascinating data:

• Since the camera came out relatively recently, photographers aren’t necessarily stuck in the DSLR world. This means that it’s not necessarily a platform for aging photographers. Instead, it could also mean that those we might consider to be aging photographers are also adapting and using cameras that they find to be great.
• People didn’t necessarily move away to Sony because of all the marketing hype.
• Photographers didn’t necessarily switch to medium format Fujifilm. In fact, the GFX lineup isn’t even very highly rated
• As far as other brands go, the Nikon D850 is still highly trusted amongst many photographers.

If you go through the most popular photos using the Canon EOS R5, you find beautiful imagery made with the camera for landscape photography.

Sure, Flickr has aged quite a bit. But if you’re still a serious photographer, it’s a very important place for many of us. Flickr’s groups still hold lots of great images in the same way that sub-Reddit groups and Facebook groups do. They’re home to many conversations and have equal amounts of trolls and passionate photographers who do this for the love of it. It’s also not dictated by the same kinds of algorithms. With that said, nudity still surely gets you more clicks and views. But it’s not the driving factor. The platform isn’t also absolutely dominated by it the way that 500px is.

The Canon EOS R5 is a Landscape Photography Powerhouse

So what makes the Canon EOS R5 so good? Well, it had to do with the sensor. This isn’t the same sensor that’s present in several Sony cameras. It does color very well and has access to several lenses that are beautiful in their own right. Canon photographers might use lenses that they had previously with the EF mount system, but Canon’s RF lenses are great for landscape photography too.

It’s still my personally used most favorite camera when it comes to doing actual work. And here are several reasons why that are backed up in the review we did:

• Weather resistance: this camera can keep working pretty much no matter what. It has never failed on me,
• Autofocus that works: the only issues I’ve ever had with autofocus on this camera have to do with low light and people of color moving quickly
• Good selection of lenses: All of Canon’s L glass is pretty unique
• 45 Megapixels is enough: 45MP can print really large and it gives you enough dynamic range while also giving you a lot of nice color depth
• Images right out of the camera look great: Canon’s image quality right out of the camera is some of my favorite. It’s not quite Fujifilm or Leica. But it can do things comparable to Panasonic’s Real Time LUT feature — though only applied to the JPEG files.

We’ve interviewed two photographers who adore the Canon EOS R5 for landscape photography. The first is Paul Zizka, who considers Canon to be essential to his creative vision. Photographer Lalo De Almeida also uses the Canon EOS R5. He’s not a gear fanatic, but he makes incredible images using the camera.

Bruce Gilden was seen rockin out to WPDH and The Doors in his car on Instagram.

Bruce Gilden is an American street photographer from Brooklyn, NY that is best known for his candid close-up photographs of people on the streets of New York City, using a flashgun. He’s had various books of his work published, and has received the European Publishers Award for Photography and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He’s been a member of Magnum Photos, an international photographic cooperative since 1998.

Also See: Museum at Bethel Woods Nominated For Prestigious Honor

Gilden has photographed people on the streets of New York, Japan’s yakuza mobsters, homeless people, prostitutes, and members of bike gangs between 1995 and 2000.  According to Gilden, he was fascinated by the duality and double lives of the individuals he photographed. He has also photographed rural Ireland and horseracing there as well as voodoo rituals in Haiti. He was the subject of the 2007 documentary film Misery Loves Company: The Life and Death of Bruce Gilden.

Bruce Gilden Loves The Doors, and Apparently the Home of Rock n Roll

In a video posted this week to his official Instagram page, which he has 279,000 plus followers, Bruce Gilden can be seen rockin out to The Doors “Break on Through” on 101.5 WPDH! No word on where Gilden was traveling, but we assume he was somewhere in the Hudson Valley blastig the Home of Rock n Roll. In the video, he is seen singing along to the Doors classic, and really getting into it. He then comments, “this was my favorite record when I was a kid”. Great to see that Bruce Gilden loves rockin out to WPDH like the rest of the Hudson Valley. Keep on rockin Sir!  See the Instagram video below.

Some of the classrooms at Taft Elementary in Santa Clara, California, have one flaw in common: They don’t have windows. That’s true for Logan Earnest’s fifth grade classroom, and he felt it was affecting his students.

“Most of the day, 7/8 of the day, they’re inside,” Earnest told CBS News. “And they don’t really get to see any trees, they don’t get to see grass, the blue sky.” He said the drab, beige walls could be draining on the kids and may effect their attention span and even their attendance. 

Former school psychologist Ernesto Rodriguez told CBS News the lack of windows does affect kids, because research shows being in and around nature eases anxiety and has benefits for students. 

Rodriguez is no longer a practicing psychologist – but perhaps he knows now more than ever the impact nature has on mental health. He became a park ranger on Southern California’s Catalina Island and began focusing on his passion, landscape photography. 

It was during his training to become a park ranger that he learned a fact that stuck with him. “Kids who have views out windows to trees do better academically, emotionally and creatively. And more graduate and go to college,” he said. “I thought, why isn’t this being used?”

He had an idea to bring nature into rooms that were lacking and developed hospital curtains that he could print landscapes onto as a way to brighten dull rooms. Then, he had an aha moment to bring landscapes in classrooms – via the ceiling. 

“Having been a school psychologist, you don’t touch teacher’s walls. You do that, and they cut your hand off – both of them,” Rodriguez joked. “So I thought, well let’s use the ceiling, because they don’t typically use the ceiling.”

Rodriguez uses his photography skills to taken 360 degree shots of tree canopies, then he prints them and fits them onto ceiling tiles, so when you look up, it feels like you’re sitting under a tree. “And it has all those elements of the science that helps calm you down, helps you focus and communicate,” he said.

He created a nonprofit called Nature in the Classroom and he’s installed the tree canopies in 10 school districts so far. He takes all the photos himself and the canopies are often donated to teachers.

CBS News was there when he revealed the canopy to Earnest’s fifth grade students. “Beautiful,” one student said as she entered the room and saw the new addition.

A student named Octavio told us trees bring him peace. “It is surprising to see because any time you’re inside of a school, you mostly don’t see plants. Or trees. But now it’s surprising to see that there’s trees here,” Octavio said. “I would say that it’s pretty great and beautiful.”

Earnest said he thought there would be many positive effects on his students. “I think my attendance is going to go up. I think kids are going to want to come in here more frequently. Overall, I think the kids are going to be happier,” he said.

Rodriguez says if you still don’t believe in the science behind the art, you can try it yourself by going outside and looking up at the trees. 

“This is a marriage of both my careers as a school psychologist and a photographer,” he said. “And to be able to create imagery – and spend time out in nature creating imagery that I know is going to help people – is really a motivator.”

Caitlin O’Kane

Caitlin O’Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces “The Uplift,” CBS News’ streaming show that focuses on good news.

The winners of the 2023 Ocean Art Underwater Photo Competition have been announced with a picture of a paddling monkey taking home the grand prize.

This year, there were 14 categories covering all aspects of underwater photography; but it is the winner of the Portrait category that was crowned Best in Show.

Suliman Alatiqi’s shot of a crab-eating macaque swimming around the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand where the photographer spent two weeks observing and documenting the species impressed the judges enough to call it “the world’s best underwater image.”

“Although the AI revolution has quickly changed the global photographic landscape, this year’s winners are a testament to humanity’s creative perseverance over machine,” the competition’s organizers, Underwater Photography Guide, write in a press release.

“With new rules against the use of generative AI imagery in our primary categories, these photos are 100% real.”

Over $120,000 worth of prizes were handed out. For more information and to learn more about this year’s contest, head to the competition’s website.

Not even a week ago, Alessia Glaviano – Head of Global PhotoVogue – a guest on our Spigola podcast, reminded us that it no longer matters whether you shoot with a camera or a smartphone. What matters is the intention behind the shot, not the means. We pondered deeply on this statement, and although there was initially some skepticism, we concluded that to take a true stance on the matter, we had to try it ourselves: capturing moments solely with a smartphone, but with the same attitude we would have had with a professional camera. Xiaomi provided us with the opportunity and the means.

Almost by chance, Xiaomi presented us with a challenge: to visit a distant place and attempt to capture its uniqueness using the brand-new Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G. And so began our journey, short but very intense, in Bangkok.

All the promises of this new device – which, along with four others, forms the new Redmi Note 13 Series, further enriching the brand’s Redmi Note lineup – were substantial. Starting from the battery, rechargeable to 100% in just 19 minutes with a lasting capacity of days (not hours), and of course, the camera system consisting of 3 cameras, including a main 200 MP camera, an ultra-wide-angle camera, and a macro camera.

We decided to put Xiaomi to the test in every moment spent in the Thai capital. The first stop was at the Royal Palace and the Wat Pho temple, where the goal was to capture the colors of the mosaics and decorations.

Being one of the most touristy places in the city, we encountered many people who, like us, were fascinated by the architecture of these sacred places. The Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G came to our aid in this moment as well. The smartphone is equipped with AI-based editing tools that, among other things, allow us to remove people who accidentally end up in our shots. You know those photos you see on Instagram of tourist spots always empty? Now you can have them too, effortlessly!

But a city is not only visited during the day; often, it comes to life at night, illuminated by a myriad of different lights. In our case, the lights were those of the legendary tuk-tuks, indispensable in a trip to Bangkok. In this case, the challenge was formidable: darkness, colored lights, movement. All the ingredients for a challenging shot were present.

Not content with just the shot, we continued to play with AI tools and added a bit more movement, some stars, many stars.

When traveling, we know very well that we are not only captivated by architecture, landscape, and glimpses, but we also focus on the faces we encounter on the streets. However, we often don’t have much time to photograph them, sometimes because they move, other times because we are the ones on the move. That’s exactly what happened to us in the characteristic Thai markets, first and foremost the Floating Market.

Reviewing the photos on the return flight and at home with friends was like reliving the journey once again, leaving no detail behind.

In Bangkok, on the occasion of the launch of the new Redmi Note 13 Series, the brand also introduced the brand-new Xiaomi Watch 4 and Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro. Visit Xiaomi’s website to discover all the features of these devices.

Photos shot on Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G

Eastern Wisconsin endured two snow storms in the past week including blizzard conditions over the weekend, but in their wake there is still beauty.

Tri-County News outdoors columnist/photographer Annie Mueller snapped this photo and stated, “Just like snowy owls and eagles, I never get tired of seeing cardinals in the yard, especially in the snow. I counted 10 male cardinals one afternoon. They are simply God’s work of art.”