It’s Black Friday 2023! And here’s lots of pretty great stuff available for discount right now. Some of it ends soon while others end later on in the year. Some even end next year! Here are all the deals that you’d care about.

The Phoblographer’s Cheap Photo Deals are designed to give you some of the best deals on photography gear we find. We spend a literal business day researching the most attractive camera deals, lens price drops, and all other sales. Some of the gear is brand new. Other times we’ll share used or refurbished products at good prices. Our Cheap Photo Deals are different from The Phoblographer’s thoroughly researched Feature Roundups. If we’ve tested a unit, we may link to our reviews and coverage in our Cheap Photo Deals. With our Feature Roundups, we’re guaranteed to have used the product — often exhaustively. The site may receive affiliate commission payments if you make a purchase. These help us keep the staff fairly compensated, the server bill paid, and us continually delivering content.

Canon (Ends 11/27/2023)

Canon is having deals and rebates on nearly all their cameras and lenses in their stable. You can get $500 off the Canon EOS R5 for example.

All of Canon’s rebates and deals for 2023 can be found here at this link.

Nikon (Ends 11/27/2023)

Nikon has deals and discounts on various pieces of camera gear. This also includes some of the DSLRs that they still have around. But more importantly, lots of their Z series cameras have savings right now.

All of Nikon’s rebates and deals for 2023 can be found at this link.

Sony (Ends 12/24/2023)

Fujifilm (Ends 12/31/2023)

Panasonic

Our reviews of these products are hyperlinked, so we invite you to read our full reviews before making a purchase.

Leica (Ends January 31st, 2024)

Until November 28th at midnight ET, Leica Camera USA will offer a complimentary Leica SF 40 Flash (14624) and BP-SCL4 battery (16062) with the purchase of a Leica SL2/SL2-S body or bundle, providing visual storytellers with a savings of $845.

After you sign up for the Leica Camera Club, you can activate a voucher to get money back on your purchase. You can save on the following:

This offer is available until January 31st, 2024, at participating dealers.

Tamron (Ends 12/31/2023)

Pro Grade Digital (Ends 11/28/2023)

You can find all these deals here.

• SD V60 & V90 128GB/256GB 25% off singles, 20% off 2-packs
• All readers 15% off
• CFexpress 2.0 128GB 20% off singles 15% off 2-packs 
• CFexpress 2.0 256GB 33% off singles 29% off 2-packs
• CFexpress 2.0 512GB 28% off singles 23% off 2-packs
• CFexpress 2.0 1TB 29% off singles 24% off 2-packs
• CFexpress 2.0 2TB  26% off singles 21% off 2-packs

It’s that wonderful time of year: The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards panel has judged and the results are in. Taking out top prize is a kangaroo seemingly rocking out on air guitar, while the other winners and finalists were dominated by two perennial favorites – clumsy and expressive birds.

Best of all, this lighthearted competition that’s treasured by millions provides some respite from the doom and gloom that’s often captured in wildlife photography. And through this, its creators, Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, hope to get more people involved in the plights of the animals behind their candid poses.

“Through the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, we aim to widen understanding and engagement of a sustainable world – and wildlife conservation specifically – for the preservation of biodiversity and the health and enrichment of everyone on Earth,” they note.

John Blumenkamp, who received a Highly Commended prize for his great gray owl image titled “Monday Blahs”, said that the awards bring just as much joy to the people behind the cameras.

“They emphasize conservation while taking a fun and special look at wildlife,” he said. “While out shooting I often find myself smiling or laughing with some of the behaviors of various species, and this annual event is a great way to bring that fun element of nature to others.

“While photographing the great gray owl shown in my image, I had been busy working to capture that majestic looking pose,” he added. “As the owl preened and then sat still for a short while, it stretched once more and for a quick moment gave the pose shown. As it did, I grinned and thought, ‘Now that’s funny!.”

Jason Moore/Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Australian Jason Moore took out the top spot with his perfectly timed snap of a male western grey kangaroo scratching, though looking more like he’s belting out AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” riff. Titled “Air Guitar Roo”, the image also won the Creatures of the Land category.

“I was driving past a mob of western grey kangaroos feeding in an open field that was filled with attractive yellow flowers,” said Moore of his 2021 snap. “I had my camera with me, so I stopped to grab a few photos. I suddenly noticed this individual adopt a humorous pose – to me it looks like he’s practicing strumming on his air guitar.”

It was also one of two kangaroo images that made the final cut this year, in a competition that received 5,300 entries from 85 countries.

Tzahi Finkelstein/Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

One of the standout images from the Highly Commended winners was “The Happy Turtle” by Tzahi Finkelstein. What it lacks in laugh-out-loud comedy, it makes up for in pure warm and fuzzies, with the swamp turtle appearing to be looking at wonder at its new dragonfly buddy.

“The swamp turtle is surprised and smiles at the dragonfly resting on its nose,” said the Israeli snapper who captured this serotonin-serving stunner.

Jacques Poulard/Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Jacques Poulard from France forgot he was photographing wildlife, and instead submitted a picture of sentient snowball. This Highly Commended photo is not just hilarious but gets bonus points for difficulty.

“These pictures was taken in Spitzberg, by a very cold winter, the white grouse is coming to me and look like a snowball with eyes,” Poulard said.

In 2023/24, 10% of the organization’s profits will be donated to the Whitley Fund for Nature, a UK charity that supports conservation leaders at home in the Global South. The region has some of the most incredible species on the planet, but also the greatest poverty and wildlife habitat loss.

The Comedy Photography Awards competition is open to photographers of all skill levels, as it’s as much about the moment captured as how it is taken. So if you’d like to enter for 2024, check out the details here.

You can view more winners and highly commended images in our gallery.

If that’s not enough, revisit finalists from 2022, 2021 and 2020.

Source: Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

Fans of funny animal photos, prepare to cheer: Here are this year’s winners of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.

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The judges of the UK-based Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards, a contest which showcases the best of wildlife photography, while also calling to attention the threats faced by the wildlife around us, have studied 5,300 entries submitted from 85 countries.

And the 2023 winner is…

A kangaroo striking an air guitar pose.

The picture of a female western grey kangaroo, titled ‘Air Guitar Roo’, was taken by photographer Jason Moore, in the suburbs of Perth, Australia.

“Not many people know that kangaroo are normally fairly docile and even a bit boring most of the time, if I’m honest,” Moore explained. “However, when I saw this roo striking the air guitar pose, it immediately brought a smile to my face and I knew that I had captured something special.”

The other category winners included young photographerJacek Stankiewicz who scooped the Junior Award with his shot of a young greenfinch getting an almighty bollocking, titled ‘Dispute’.

The Underwater category winner was a picture of a ballerina-esque otter, taken by the fantastically named Singaporean photographer Otter Kwek.

Here are the 2023 winners:

Overall winner and Creatures of the Land winner

Creatures of the Air winner

Junior category and People’s choice Award winner

Underwater category winner

Portfolio winners

The awards, founded in 2015 by professional photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, also promote wildlife conservation.

This year’s competition supports Whitley Fund for Nature, a UK charity that helps fund conservationists around the world.

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) – A Fargo woman with a phone and a passion for photography begins to make her dream a reality.

Wendy Gerlach is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for photography.

Wendy would casually post photos online taken from her cell phone which caught the eye of people from Fargo’s Essentia Health who asked for her art to be displayed in their buildings.

Fast forward and now her artwork is in businesses and homes all across the country

She will also begin teaching “phone-tography” classes starting in December.

But through it all, her passion is what keeps her going.

“No matter what the obstacles are that you’re faced with. No matter how difficult things seem. Look for the beauty that’s around it because there’s beauty everywhere, no matter how hard life is. Look for the beautiful things and that’s what I want to do to continue to find the beauty,” said Gerlach.

To purchase Wendy’s work and learn more about her upcoming classes, visit the link here.

“Rare photograph of Mona Lisa and Leonardo da Vinci taken in Florence in 1504 on Antiques Roadshow. Very cool,” an X post claimed on Nov. 18, 2023. It had over 390,000 views. “Leonardo da Vinci with the model who posed as Mona Lisa. Believed to be taken about 1508 or 1509,” another post claimed.

Rare photograph of Mona Lisa and Leonardo da Vinci taken in Florence in 1504 on Antiques Roadshow. Very cool. 😁 pic.twitter.com/z7q413C9To

— John Murray Headshots (@JMPhotoDub) November 18, 2023

This alleged “photograph” of the model who posed for “Mona Lisa” and Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, draftsman, architect, engineer, and scientist who painted the picture, was widely shared on social media. “Rare photograph of Mona Lisa with Painter & Polymath Leonardo da Vinci. Did you see this before??” another post on X claimed. The image was also shared on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and 9GAG.

It was, of course, a gag.

TinEye reverse image search results showed that the image was first shared back in June 2023 on Imgur, an online image-sharing website. However, the Imgur post redirected to a Reddit post and it turned out that the image was first shared on a /fakehistory subreddit in May 2023 with a caption reading, “Leonardo Da Vinci and Mona Lisa 1504.”

Leonardo Da Vinci and Mona Lisa 1504
byu/GodsendNYC infakehistoryporn

“I vote for an AI image ban in this sub,” on Reddit user commented on the original post. As various comments suggested, the image was created using Artificial Intelligence (AI) software.

Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” is probably the world’s most famous painting. As Encyclopedia Britannica’s article on the topic informs, it was painted in early 16th century:

It was painted sometime between 1503 and 1519, when Leonardo was living in Florence, and it now hangs in the Louvre Museum, Paris, where it remained an object of pilgrimage in the 21st century. The sitter’s mysterious smile and her unproven identity have made the painting a source of ongoing investigation and fascination.

Importantly, the first photograph wasn’t captured until the 19th century, as Encyclopedia Britannica reports:

In 1826/27, using a camera obscura fitted with a pewter plate, Niépce produced the first successful photograph from nature, a view of the courtyard of his country estate, Gras, from an upper window of the house. The exposure time was about eight hours, during which the sun moved from east to west so that it appears to shine on both sides of the building.

(Getty Images)

It’s not the first time we’ve fact-checked a rumor related to Leonardo da Vinci. For instance, in November 2017, we investigated whether Leonardo da Vinci’s dying words were “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”

And the winner of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2023 goes to… Jason Moore for his timeless photo “Air Guitar Roo” showing a kangaroo rocking out. 

Jason captured the image (below) of the female Western grey kangaroo in the outer suburbs of Perth. He was out with his camera in the early morning, hoping to capture some of the Australian wildlife in the “golden hour” of sunlight. After picturing some waterfowl at a nearby lake, he was driving home and noticed a number of kangaroos frolicking in a patch of open bushland covered in picturesque wildflowers. 

“When I arrived, there were a number of Kangaroos in the field. The morning light was still favourable so I grabbed my camera and headed off to a spot where I could get down to eye level with my subjects, amongst the biting ticks (the lengths we go to, just to get that perfect image.) I ended up shooting about 40 or 50 frames of the Kangaroos with various content including Mum’s, Joey’s and also some action shots of them bouncing along through the yellow field,” Jason said in a statement seen by IFLScience. 

“The shoot turned out to be a great session, and I am quite fond of several images that I captured. Not many people know that Kangaroos are normally fairly docile and even a bit boring most of the time, if I’m honest. However, when I saw this Roo striking the air guitar pose, it immediately brought a smile to my face, and I knew that I had captured something really special,” he added.

This year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards saw 5,300 entries from 1,842 entrants representing 85 countries worldwide. There were six Category Winners, including young photographer Jacek Stankiewicz with his image of two greenfinches called “Dispute,” which managed to win both the Junior Award and the Affinity Photo 2 People’s Choice Award.

Other Category Winners included Vittorio Ricci from Italy for their image “Unexpected Plunge” of a heron ungracefully falling out of the sky and into the water, which won the Spectrum Photo Creatures in the Air Award.

The winner of the Creatures Under the Sea category was awarded to Otter Kwek from Singapore for their image of an otter in the midst of a ballerina-like twirl. 

Tímea Ambrus won the Amazing Internet Portfolio Award with a collection of four images showing a ground squirrel leaping into the air before crashing down in an undignified tumble.

Lily Bernau won the Video Award for her film, titled “Too Cold”, of a lone penguin that looks as if it’s too scared to take the plunge into the icy sea. 

There were also 10 additional entries that were recognized as Highly Commended Winners: Tzahi Finkelstein, John Blumenkamp, Zoe Ashdown, Brian Matthews, Lara Matthews, Delphine Casimir, Pratick Mondal, Wendy Kaveney, Jacques Poulard, and Dakota Vaccaro.

If this collection of feelgood wildlife photography tickled your fancy, be sure to check out the winners of last’s year Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2022. You can also see 2021 ’s competition winners right here.