Articles written by Adam Ottke

CameraLends has been letting gear owners rent out their gear to peers when it's not in use since its inception three years ago. Until now, everything has been done through their website. The new CameraLends iPhone app, however, lets users manage the entire rental process from the ease and mobility of their iPhones. Making money on your gear when you're not using it is now easier than ever.

Sony's 50-megapixel sensor found in the latest 645 medium format digital CMOS bodies brought such cameras down in price considerably for the first time while extending ISO usability to the more DSLR-normal ISO 6,400. Today's announcement brings a new iteration of that technology in the form of the IQ3 100MP, also in a CMOS flavor. Although the resolution is doubled (and file size is quadrupled), Phase One also managed to pull out an extra stop of ISO performance on both ends of the spectrum, which now goes from ISO 50–12,800. Dynamic range also increases a stop over other models to 15 stops.

I have been following and reporting on Vincent Laforet's "AIR" series since its first round was released. I came across an early printing of the book itself in the waiting area of San Francisco's Storehouse startup while I was about to take on another interview. I knew Storehouse and Laforet had a good working relationship, and I knew the images so well. But I didn't have time to look inside -- not that I felt I had to, however, since I knew the work inside and out. So when Laforet offered me a copy of the book to review, I simply had to say, "Of course," even if it was with mixed feelings. What could I, objectively speaking, really get out of it? Hadn't I seen it all?

Today's airspace is more and more crowded with drones that, for the most part, all do the same thing. This lack of product diversity is the reason Lily, with its unique combination of features including landing and taking off in water or on your hand, awed thousands when its promo video launched. Its incredibly good pre-order deal undoubtedly helped spread it further at a low price of $499. The best part: this wasn't a crowd-funding campaign. Lily had financing. This was happening. Until it wasn't.

Landscape photographers use polarizing, neutral density, and graduated filters of all types for effects they would consider pivotal to their work. Meanwhile, however, the Internet has been beating up UV and other clear types of filters, bringing to light that "UV filters protect your lens" is a falsehood. While even the best UV filters might shatter in an impact, Sigma has developed a brand new filter type called the "WR Ceramic Protector," which is actually supposed to absorb, bend with, and mitigate shock from an impact.

Not long ago, I released a review of Sigma's newest Art-series lens, the 20mm f/1.4 Art. Unfortunately, Northern California skies have had bit of a tough time clearing up despite numerous requests from astrophotographers below, patiently waiting for news of this lens' nighttime, Milky Way performance. Last night, although far from perfect, areas of the sky did clear up enough to get a small consensus on how this lens fares when pointed toward the stars.

RED's been busy again, this time bringing its most loved sensor to its most affordable DRAGON configuration yet. Utilizing a portion of that 6K sensor, the SCARLET-W shoots 5K at 60fps, 4K at 150fps, and 2K at 300fps with REDCODE RAW and will shoot RAW plus scaled 2K ProRes HQ at 60fps. Additionally, it comes with the built-in wireless, 3D LUTs, and same system compatibility of the rest of the DSMC² lineup.

If you don't know Sigma's Art series lenses yet, you're missing out. Their well established 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and zoom options in the Art lineup shine, but it's hard to believe it took this long for a wide-angle 20mm f/1.4 Art to make it out into the real world. But the moment I began shooting with this beauty is the moment of the past didn't matter anymore. We're in a new world: there's a 20mm to die for; and this is it.

Nikon upset and confused some customers when they moved the overall size and filter thread of their 24-70mm f/2.8 follow-up to 82mm (up from the standard 77mm). While this would mean that those wanting the latest upgrade for their mid-range zoom would need to invest in new filters and lift heavier weights at the gym, the change allowed Nikon to introduce unprecedented image quality and, of course, vibration reduction. But what if that image quality wasn't unprecedented? What if it wasn't even better? What if, God forbid, it was worse?