Photography Gear

There are some sweet deals and savings going on for Sony cameras right now. If you've been thinking of getting a new body, this is your time to save some money as well as get some free "extras" thrown into your shopping cart. Check out the details of each sale below to save up to $500 in instant rebates. 

Pholio is a hard drive that is able to collect all of your photos and videos from multiple devices into one place and then index them using modern technology. Pholio claims that most of our personal photos are in digital limbo. What they mean by this is that between computers, phones, tablets, and hard drives, our photos are kept in multiple different places.

Photographers are generally a resourceful bunch, but if there's one thing that can bring them to a grinding halt, it's broken gear. Canon is seeking to minimize the inconvenience of such situations by introducing next-day service for qualified Canon Professional Services members. 

A photojournalist is often called upon to photograph a scene at a moment’s notice. It can be a car accident one day, a music festival, the next and a protest the day after. With that in mind, there are two useful lenses that every photojournalist should carry in their bag to cover such a diverse range of photographic opportunities. 

HP has spent the past two years working with creatives and developing the latest ZBook x2. It’s got seriously impressive guts under the hood and works as a laptop or tablet, but is it enough for a demanding Lightroom or video editing workflow? 

There are several brands and different models of microphones on the market which is constantly growing. Trying to pick one out of the masses can be a tough decision, especially if you are not familiar with them. What is the best mic to get if you are just starting out, or possibly looking to get a better one? 

Having used  a wide selection of ZEISS glass, I can confidently say they are special. Their weight and lack of auto-focus might put some off, but in the right setting, they can aid to create truly noteworthy images. This morning, ZEISS have announced their new 25mm wide-angle lens, but with a mouth-watering widest aperture of f/1.4.

The biggest photography education event of the year ends today, October 18. The deadline has been extended a few more hours and now closes at 5:00 PDT. Once it’s over, you won’t ever have the chance to get many of these resources again. Once the sale closes, there are no exceptions for late purchases, so make sure to check out this incredible education opportunity now. 

Creating video content is becoming more readily available as the quality of our smartphones are constantly getting better. The number of people creating their own videos with iPhones is increasing. There are 200 times more iPhones being used over SLR cameras, but the market for camera sliders designed for iPhones isn’t quite there yet.

It's incredible to learn about all the technologies that are built into smartphone cameras that weigh as much as a paperclip. But, with all this technology, is it still you taking the picture or are you just a moving tripod carrying a computer around to take the picture for you?  

You might have noticed a common theme in my articles: "the gear doesn’t matter". A lot of people have called me out on this, especially as in my profile picture I’m shooting on a Phase One with Broncolor lights. And yes, you are right, the kit does matter in my line of work, just not always. Sitting on the fence? Maybe. Here’s my explanation:

There aren’t many monitors that can record footage onto an SSD. There aren’t many monitors that can work on set as well as in post production. There is one monitor that claims to do it all though. The Atomos Sumo is not just jam-packed with features, but I think it represents the future of video production. Does it live up to the hype?

Sigma recently announced it will repair or replace any of its products still under warranty that may have been damaged or destroyed by the recent hurricanes that have wreaked havoc on the southeastern part of the United States in recent months.

Despite retaining the same series name, the Mark III version of the G1 X is more than just iterative. This much is immediately apparent when one notices the larger, semi-pro level APS-C 24MP sensor and Digic 7 processor inside this new, compact point-and-shoot.

Huawei has just announced the Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro smartphones in Munich, Germany, touting amazing AI features. How much can AI help a camera, and how good can it get? 

Understanding the internal light meter of my camera is one of the best skills I've ever learned. It helps me to shoot in fully manual mode, so that I rarely look at the back of my camera. Let me tell you how to get a correctly exposed picture from the first click just by using your camera's internal light meter. 

DxOMark has essentially become mainstream when it comes to providing ratings for cameras and smartphones. Anytime a new smartphone is released now, there’s a good chance that the overall camera rating from DxOMark is provided to demonstrate how much better this latest camera is. A growing number of individuals consider DxOMark to be biased and unscientific in its methods.

Fstoppers is teaming up with 5DayDeal and dozens of other leaders in the photography world for the most valuable photography education sale of the year. The Complete Photography Bundle by 5DayDeal contains $2,500-plus in video tutorials, eBooks, Adobe Lightroom presets, marketing know-how, and so many more amazing resources for just $117 (a savings of over 95 percent).

There are several different products out on the market for us to use aiming to help us with all of our different needs. Microphones are no exception and choosing the right one that fits you can be a daunting task, especially if you are looking for a great quality mic that is small and easy to use.

While the E-mount library of lenses remains thin, Cosina wants that to change. Today they released their newest contribution to Sony’s FE E-Mount system, the Voigtlander Nokton 40mm f/1.2. 

360-degree video is a great way to tell immersive stories. Until recently though, the experience hasn’t been all that accessible. Just to view 360-degree content the way it was meant to look, you’d need an expensive headset like an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive and a fairly beefy computer to run it on like a high-end Alienware or something with a powerful graphics card.

When it comes to flying cameras, there's no doubt that DJI is at the top of the game. Alongside its consumer, pro-sumer, and professional cinema options, today DJI announced the Super 35-format Zenmuse X7. Designed to work seamlessly with the Inspire 2 drone, the X7 features a number of advancements to make it the perfect match for cinema-quality aerial video capture. 

We love gear. But this is next level stuff. If you’ve seen the smoothness of the shots used to introduce the Microsoft Studio Surface, you’ll know what I’m talking about. The guys at Motorized Precision who introduced KIRA robotic arm at NAB 2017 are taking pre-orders for the MIA, their latest robotic arm.

The Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens, or commonly referred to as the nifty fifty, is a great lens that comes in with an amazing price tag of only $125 as I write this. For many, especially those on a budget,  this is one of the first and most often recommended lens to pick up for any photographer of any genre.

In a few days, 5DayDeal will launch the biggest photography education sale of the year and this year, Fstoppers is proud to be participating with our own content included. While more information on this sale will be coming in the next few days, there's a chance to get started early with a giveaway of over $10,000 worth of photography prizes.

By now most of you have probably watched the Matrix movies and seen how the bullet time effects were created, and if not where have you been? In a nutshell, the effect was used in the films too slow down or freeze a moment while adding a rotation around the subject using multiple cameras to capture that moment. Why did I bring that up?

The word “unprecedented” gets thrown around a lot these days, and it looks like once-renowned camera manufacturer Yashica is the latest company to use it to describe the new digiFilm Camera Y35 camera they just launched on Kickstarter. 

Normally, you get what you pay for. If you try to buy something that is less than half the price of its competitors, it's going to be bad. This is certainly what we expected when we compared four of the most popular carbon fiber tripods, but I'm shocked and excited to tell you we actually liked the most affordable model we tried the best. 

 A few months ago, Fstoppers reviewed a variety of gimbals and we picked our favorite one for the Panasonic GH5. Just after we published our comparison, the Moza Air 3 Axis Gimbal was released and they decided to send us one. The Zhiyun-Tech Crane is still amazing, but the Moza Air is now our favorite gimbal. 

How many of you have old memory cards, USB sticks, or even hard drives lay around doing nothing? Of those that answered yes, how many of you still haven't worked out a decent backup strategy for your images? Here's a quick and free solution to securely encrypt that unused storage so when a disaster strikes your most important work isn't lost forever. 

Adding 20 percent storage to its previous high-capacity models, Seagate now offers 12 TB hard drives in a 3.5-inch size. These spinning disks feature transfer rates up to 250 MB/s and use still relatively new helium gas technology usually reserved for enterprise drives to reduce friction throughout the eight-platter internals.

Looking for an easier way to light up your subject in a variety of different ways? The creative duo from Bitbanger Labs that launched the pixelstick is back with a new invention, colorspike. It’s an animation-driven light that with photographers and video shooters alike.

In my camera bag, there are two lenses I use the most and it all comes down to what I am shooting that decides which of the two I am using. For a majority of my event coverages, I pull out my standard zoom lens as my go-to weapon of choice. Occasionally, I do find myself yearning for extra reach, especially when I am stuck at a certain distance and can’t walk any closer to the subjects.

I love 360-degree video. I've spent a bit of time with a few different brands on the market. While there are many things I love about the medium, the actual cameras aren't one of them. I don’t rave about them the way I do about perhaps a Nikon DSLR or Fuji mirrorless. That's because the manufacturers of these 360-degree cameras aren't making it easy. 

Canon is finally making it’s first steps toward producing a professional, mirrorless option for those dedicated to their brand. While the EOS M5 and EOS M6 marked their first trip into the mirrorless universe, their highly anticipated professional mirrorless option will be full-frame and utilize a fully dedicated sensor. 

To capture those memorable moments at wedding parties and other events where lighting isn’t always optimal, many of us bring off-camera lights to help light up the scene. In the past, popular choices have been speedlights due to size, portability, and being able to run off batteries.

There are many debates over gear in the photography world, one of them coming down to the size of the sensor in your camera. Does it make a real difference? Are you thinking of upgrading your crop sensor camera to a full frame beast? You might want to check this out before doing so.

Apple have enabled the playback of HEVC videos and HEIF images on MacOS High Sierra and iOS 11. Unfortunately not every device is able to support it, and others have limited support. Which ones made the cut? 

Thomas Heaton put out a new YouTube video a few days ago that many photographers, especially those who hike out to destinations, will have a lot of interest in. Heaton is downsizing not only the amount of equipment for his next landscape photography adventure, but he’s also trying out Canon’s APS-C mirrorless system that’s on loan from Canon.

Canon's C200 has been on the radar for quite some time as an affordable cinema camera. This review shows if it's really worth buying it because of its advertised key features such as ability to shoot raw footage, dynamic range, build improvements from previous models, and others. The test has been performed by the guys from The Slanted Lens on a sunny day outside in the city.

Are you looking for different ways to add some creativity to your work? There are several different methods to add special effects to your photos, both in-camera and in postproduction later with Photoshop or other photo manipulation software.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about using the Fujifilm GFX 50S as a travel camera. As part of that article, I touched briefly on using it for portraiture. I also touched briefly on using the GF 110mm f/2 lens and a few autofocus issues that I had. Today, I would like to dive a little deeper into using this camera for portraiture and my experience with it.

Many different lens filters for photography are steadily being replaced with multiple-exposure camera tricks and post-processing software tools. However, one filter more resistant to this change is the circular polarizer (CPL). This special tool filters the light entering a lens in ways that software has yet to be able to mimic realistically.

While perusing YouTube I stumbled across Matteo Berttoli Visual’s cinematic video clip that was shot with only the iPhone 8 Plus. The video does a great job showing how far Apple has come in their development of the software and camera behind the media. 

Is it just me, or is the Canon 80D getting dragged into a lot of comparisons lately? This latest comparison, however, is definitely very interesting and really highlights the gap between the average DSLR and something that costs about the same as a Tesla Model X. Potato Jet, a filmmaker and YouTuber, demonstrates in his video how footage from the Canon 80D compares to the Arri Alexa.

When shooting assignments in the past, whether portraits, weddings, or journalism, I’ve always been one to carry two bodies to give myself options. I like to be able to access two different focal lengths at a moment’s notice. In the past, it would not be uncommon that those bodies would be two DSLRs of the same brand, usually Nikon or Canon. But now it’s something that is uncommon for me.

Bokeh is a topic that often sparks debate and is seen by some as subjective. In a vast sea of endless options for gear, there is nothing that excites me more than a truly special lens with excellent character. Today I'm very excited to share another of my favorite classic lenses being reborn via Oprema Jena, the legendary Biotar 2/58. 

DXOmark recently stated that the iPhone 8 Plus was the best smartphone camera they had ever tested, but, does that make it THE best? As of the time of writing this article, it seems DXOmark haven't yet tested the Galaxy Note 8. Many may claim iPhone bias due to this, however, SuperSaf TV — a prominent YouTuber from the U.K — has done the comparison instead.

Announced earlier this month and shipping soon, Joby has updated their line of GorillaPod tripods with new designs. Replacing the previous GorillaPod Focus and Ballhead X, I got the chance to take an advanced look at the new GorillaPod 5K Kit which can support full-frame DSLR cameras with pro lenses. 

With its increasing popularity, photographers and videographers alike have begun to entertain LED lighting as a possible option for their shoots. Spiffy Gear believes they now have that solution, and it's called Spekular.