Recent Gear Articles

Can a Super Fast NVMe Drive Help Your Video Editing?

NVMe drives are the new generation of SSD based on the NVMe interface. The classic 2.5” SATA SSD is limited by the SATA standard to 550 MB/s. On the other end, the best NVMe SSD are reaching up to 3,500 MB/s (read) and 2,100 MB/s (write) speed, and they offer much better latency. In short, they are much faster, smaller, and pricier than regular SSDs.

Higher Resolution Photos: Know When You Need Them and When You Don't

There are quite a lot of complaints like: "Canon won't release a 4K video camera." At the end of the day, most photographers and filmmakers publish visuals online, and most viewers watch them on sub-2K mobile devices. Here's how much resolution you truly need.

Canon's Portrait and Travel Kit Is a Great Deal for Photographers

Let’s face it: a lot of times, when you see a kit of anything, it’s not a good deal. Often, the cost of the kit isn’t worth it. Last week, I talked about Canon’s Advanced Two Lens Kit and how I thought it wasn’t the best deal for those looking to up their photography game. This week, I’m taking a look at Canon’s other kit, the Portrait and Travel Two-lens Kit. Spoiler alert: It’s actually a pretty good deal.

The Full Frame Canon Mirrorless Camera Is on Its Way

Buzz has been slowly building that Canon is finally pushing seriously into the professional mirrorless camera market, with the company confirming that themselves recently. Now, it seems that the camera is in the hands of a few test photographers.

The Surface Book 2: Is It Worth the Price and Who Is It For?

After about four months on the market, how is the second generation Surface Book looking compared to the increasing competition in both the laptop and tablet-hybrid market? Does its increased power and battery life justify the high price tag?

Is The Tamron 16-300mm The Best Walk Around Lens For APS-C Cameras?

If you own a DSLR camera it means you take your photography relatively seriously. And that means you might be looking at adding to your kit lenses. But if you don’t have the budget, what’s the best walk around lens that will cover you in almost any situation?

How to Properly Wrap Cables to Make Them Last Longer and Easier to Use

As a photographer or videographer, you probably have a few (dozen) cables laying around. Believe it or not, there is a proper technique to wrapping them, and it not only makes them easier to store and quickly unwrap, it helps them last longer as well, saving you money.

Sony a7 III Versus the Best of the Rest: How Does It Compare?

With the arrival of what's arguably the year's most important camera, the big question being asked is how it compares to its immediate competitors. In this video, Tony Northrup rattles through his thoughts on how the Sony a7 III stacks up against the best of the rest. For anyone who's not constantly geeking out with the industry's latest specs, this is a really useful guide.

My Most Used Lens In My Camera Bag

When it comes to shooting portraits, photographers almost always reach for an 85mm lens or even the 70 - 200 mm lens. As great as these two lenses are for portraits, they often fall short when trying to capture an environmental style photograph. In this video, I'm going to show you the most widely used lens in my camera bag and how shooting wide angle can sometimes create a better photograph than shooting telephoto.

Fstoppers Reviews the Fujifilm X-H1 High-End Mirrorless Camera

Fujifilm has once again revolutionized the X-series with its latest release, the Fujifilm X-H1. Since its humble beginnings with the original X100 and X-Pro1, Fuji has taken aim at the professional content creators market. The quality of still images coming from Fujifilm X cameras has always been spectacular, but their video capabilities have always lagged behind offerings from other manufacturers. This is where the Fujifilm X-H1 comes in, but it’s not only video that sets it apart.

Five Useful Tricks for Sony a7 Photographers

The Sony a7 series has won a lot of acclaim from photographers, but like any camera system, it's not perfect. This great video will give you five tricks and tips for getting more out of your a7 series camera.

Inexpensive Apple Backup Solution for Photographers

If you want to preserve your photos, it is a great idea to make certain you have a backup system in place. As obvious as that sounds, there are still more than a few out there who live life on the edge, and have yet to be bothered with backing up their work. For those of you I offer this inexpensive, and mostly automated, Apple specific backup option you can put in place today.

Flash Photography Face Off: Profoto vs. Godox vs. Broncolor

Just when you thought zeroing in on, and staying put with the copious amount of camera and lens options was enough to alone cause sleepless nights, you then discover this wild world of high power flash photography. Good news is help is indeed on the way, depending on your needs as a photographer one of these three advanced flash options will get the job done.

It Can Happen to You: My Photo Hard Drive Just Failed

In between my music and photography work, I have a lot of hard drives. But even so, I've never had one fail, until just two days ago. It went without warning: no crunching sounds, no notifications, just a red light.

Full-Frame Versus Crop Sensor and What’s Right for You

There are many different cameras options out on the market with many different features. There’s a big range in camera prices which can funnel some to a certain group of options. A popular question besides which camera should you get is "should I get a full-frame or crop sensor camera?"

Take $1,000 Off a MacBook Pro With This Rare Deal

The MacBook Pro remains the workhorse of choice for a lot of photographers and videographers. They come with great capabilities, battery life, and are known for their reliability, but it's rare to see a discount on them. Nonetheless, today, you can take $1,000 off a 15.4" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (late 2016).

Lens Review: Samyang XP 50mm f/1.2 Lens

Last month, Samyang announced the XP 50mm f/1.2, adding to its lens lineup of premium glass for the high-megapixel cameras of today. There haven’t been any real-world examples of this prime Canon-only lens being used in the field until now.

Rare 1923 Leica Prototype Sells for Eye-Watering Price

I have a reasonable collection of vintage cameras, so I can see the allure of them, and particularly a rare one. However, if you wanted to win an auction of the rare 1923 Leica that recently went up for sale, you needed the deepest of pockets.

The Ultimate Carry-On Baggage Videography Kit

The last five years has seen huge advances in the consumer videography market, and it’s all getting smaller. It's so much so that one can now carry a versatile, fully equipped, professional videography setup inside baggage small enough to carry onto a flight. Here’s how.

A Canon M50 Review: Has 4K on Canon Mirrorless Finally Arrived?

The subject of Canon and 4K is a hot-button topic for quite a few videographers out there, but with the release of the M50, the company finally has their first 4K mirrorless camera out in the wild. The 4K implementation isn't perfect, however, and this review takes a practical look at how good it is.

SYRP Announces Pre-Orders for Magic Carpet Pro

SYRP announced the pre-order for the much anticipated Magic Carpet Pro. While building on the success of the original Magic Carpet, this pro-level slider boasts some impressive new features.

Considering One of Canon's Lens Kits? Here's a Way to Get More Value for Your Dollar

I was on Instagram the other day when an ad for one of Canon’s two-lens kits popped up. The kits package together a couple of interesting options for photographers looking to step up from a kit lens, but the real question is: are the lenses a good value for photographers or should the money be spent elsewhere?

Crazy Wide, Crazy Fast: Fstoppers Reviews the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art Lens

Every once in a while, a lens comes along that truly breaks new ground for one reason or another. Such is the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art, which has an aperture over a stop faster than its competitors and is the fastest full-frame lens under 20mm. Of course, extreme lenses often have compromises of some sort, so how does this one perform? In short, extremely well. Check out our full review.

Getting Creative With Your Camera and a Glass Sphere

If you've never heard of Lensball before, don't sweat it. I had not heard that particular term used until now, either. I'd be willing to bet, however, that you've seen some of the cool shots people are taking with these accessories though.

Apple Attempts Coming Back to Its Core

Apple's latest ad campaigns give an idea of what it is trying to achieve and who it is trying to talk to. Check out these behind-the-scenes videos that show how Apple shot these iMac Pro ads to help it re-align its focus on the creative.

The Sort of Photography Investment Beginners Should Make

When you're first starting out in photography, the temptation to buy that top-of-the-line, five-dimensional autofocus, spacetime-warping camera is strong (that temptation never actually goes away), but there's a better way to go about things. This great video examines how to think about buying your first real camera.

Seven More of the Best Nikon Tricks

Although it is popular to talk about mirrorless cameras these days, DSLR cameras are still alive, and with the help of some useful tricks, you can make the most of your DSLR. Especially if you own a Nikon camera, you might be surprised with these features that most photographers skip using.

Shooting the Fuji GFX 50S With the Techart Adapter and Canon Tilt-Shift Lenses

For many architectural photographers, tilt-shift lenses from Canon are the go-to option. These particular lenses are quite possibly the best available, and although Nikon has their variants, they just don't seem to be as good as Canon. The problem, however, is that Canon doesn't currently offer the best camera to put those lenses on with cameras like the Nikon D850 and Sony a7R III offering much better noise performance and dynamic range. In this video, I adapt Canon lenses to Fuji's medium format camera.

Must Have Gear for Your Sony Kit

2018 has kicked off with a bang as several companies have released exciting new gear everyone is eager to get their hands on. Sony recently announced the Sony a7 III which has many thinking it's time to upgrade or completely transition all their gear to Sony now that they have more lenses to support their fantastic camera bodies.

How Good Are Adapted Lenses for Mirrorless Cameras in 2018?

Sony is growing by leaps and bounds, but one of the biggest advantages Canon and Nikon continue to hold is the deep investment a lot of their users have made in native lenses. This great video examines the current state of affairs for adapters and if they can work for you.

Choosing the Best Flash Modifier

There’s infinite possibilities when it comes to photo lighting. Worry not, here’s a show-and-tell guide for many of the most popular flash modifiers.

The KeyMission Could Have Been Nikon's Future, but it Isn't Anymore

Nikon released a trio of new cameras at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, all under a new umbrella called “KeyMission.” While two of them were mostly GoPro clones, the third was arguably the most interesting, and not just for its strange name and looks: The KeyMission360. This camera was the most forward-looking product that Nikon has put out, more so than any potential mirrorless camera or DSLR that’s come out in the past few years. And then it let its 360 ambitions wither and die.

Fstoppers Reviews The Elinchrom ELB 500 TTL

When I first started shooting flash, I would lug my big studio lights and battery packs from location to location. But after a while, this became such a hassle that I stopped doing it. I instead settled for using a hot shoe flash or just shooting with no flash at all. But this may change now that Elinchrom has the new ELB 500 TTL. Not only does this light offer a significant increase in power compared to a traditional hot shoe flash, but it also does it with a much smaller package than standard studio lights while maintaining the benefits of TTL and HSS.

The Sony a7 IV: What's Coming Next

We now know that the Sony a7R III and a7 III have sorted out many of the major complaints with mirrorless cameras, such as battery life, overheating, and autofocus, but there are still so many more features that we didn’t get. What does the next generation of Sony mirrorless cameras have in store for us?

How to Fit Your Gear and Clothes in One Bag to Travel Indefinitely

Getting ready for your next trip? Travel is hard enough as a tourist, but as a nomadic photographer, a lot can go wrong. Whether the plane runs out of overhead storage or you’re in a car crash, solid packing will help you to comfortably face the unexpected so you can shoot from dawn till twilight, then change plans last minute with as little inconvenience as possible. Here are some techniques that have helped me nail ultralight packing to travel indefinitely as a nomadic photographer—or skip to the end for my one bag packing list!

A Longterm Review of the GFX 50s: Living With Fuji's Medium Format Camera

It has been just over a year since the release of Fujifilm’s entry into the digital medium format market, the Fujifilm GFX 50s. Fstoppers reviewed the camera a few months later, and I talked about it as a travel and portrait camera a while later. It’s an exceptional machine, there’s no doubting that. But after a few solid months of using it, how do I feel about it? The initial “wow” that comes with the honeymoon phase is over now, so what’s left?