I'm not someone who is big into drones and flying cameras -- mostly because they take a lot of effort to learn how to fly. More importantly, there are typically many more things I'd rather spend my money on. Then I received an email from Antoine Balaresque, CEO of Lily Robotics, introducing me to Lily, and I threw all those reasons out the window.
There are few things that can boost your video production more than adding a smooth camera movement. One tool that every filmmaker needs to utilize from time to time is a camera crane.
Just a few weeks ago, Lowepro launched it’s first grab-and-go protective and customizable quadcopter drone storage system, the DroneGuard Kit. Lowepro’s solution is an interesting one in that you can adapt it for different devices combining organization, portability, and protection using it as a stand-alone kit, or as an insert with some of their other bags.
I baby my external hard drives. I always wrap them in bubble wrap when taking them from home to the coffee shop, and I even have a little mini-pelican case for longer trips. I couldn't imagine how bad it would be if it happened to get even a quick salt water splash, let alone get stuck in the sand.
Canon has announced the long overdue update to the Nifty Fifty. The famous prime retains its fast f/1.8 maximum aperture as well and its affordable price tag. It has, however, slimmed down and bulked up in all the right places.
Tony Northrup and Chelsea Northrup continue to offer up informative videos to help photographers understand and Learn the Art and Science of Photography. This latest video has Tony breaking down: the pros and cons of using teleconverters, how using one effects your focal range, image quality, aperture, and autofocus capabilities.
High-speed sync has been around for quite some time now, and has mostly been limited to speedlights. With Profoto’s recent adoption of the technology into its B1 and B2 Series lighting systems, they are signaling a change that has the potential to bring some much needed relief to the strobist community.
In my experience, there are two kinds of great lenses. The first is the kind that gets the job done. These lenses are technically amazing and produce extremely high-quality images. The Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art is one of those lenses. It produces sharp, high-contrast images time and time again. But it doesn’t really have character — a feeling — of its own.
A few months ago I got an email from Rhino Camera Gear asking if I would like to beta test their new slider. I didn't really know anything about this product and I quickly forgot about it until it showed up at our office a few days ago. I had no idea that this would be one of the most impressive products I've tested in years.
The guys over at Alpine Labs have announced a new Kickstarter campaign to fund their follow-up time-lapse motion control system, the Radian 2. Packed with the same features as the Radian, this new version adds a wireless preview of your time-lapse and complete control of your camera via USB allowing you to change camera settings like aperture, shutter speed, and ISO while shooting.
The legendary photography brand LEE Filters, founded in 1961, has announced a new version of their popular SW150 filter system specially designed to be compatible with a broader range of ultra wide-angle lenses. This system is designed to adapt filters to ultra wide-angle lenses with built-in petal sunshade lens hoods and without screw threads.
As a fairly established photographer, many beginners ask me what camera to buy to get started. What’s more important: body or lenses? Or is it the brand? My standard advice has always been to buy a cheap, used body and save your money for quality lenses.
May is upon us, wedding photographers. Its the beginning of the season and we need to prepare ourselves for the long haul. Sure, we could brushing up on lighting techniques, talk about new lenses, buy faster cards, or argue about presets, but what we really need to think about are the intangible must-haves. The greens socks, my friends. That's right, I said socks.
Coming off of its previous reputation as an extreme budget brand when it came to DSLR lenses, Sigma has now had well over two years to fend off quality concerns with their restructured Global Vision lineup that began with the superb 35mm f/1.4 Art lens.
CrossFit is taking the world by storm. With 11,000 affiliates and growing, it has become a great way to get into shape and is an untapped resource for photographers to sharpen their skills. I started shooting CrossFit as a member in 2010 and learned many things along the way. This is what I learned and how you can improve your skill set.
We all knew that this day would come and it may change the way we look at cinematography forever. It is pretty amazing to think that this entire feature length movie was created on nothing more than a humble iPhone.
The legendary photography company Leica has announced the new M Monochom (type 246) camera, a follow up to the M Monochrome black-and-white shooting rangefinder. The new digital camera boasts a faster Maestro image processor, 2 GB buffer memory, 24-megapixel black-and-white full-frame sensor, live-view zoom, focus peaking, and 1080p Full-HD video.
If you aren’t familiar with the work of Dave Lehl, it’s about time that you change that. Dave is not only one of the top photographers in the snowboard industry, but he consistently creates work that transcends genres and has landed him gigs shooting for a list of clients that includes the likes of Red Bull, Nike, and Lamborghini.
GoPro today announced it has plans to acquire the virtual reality software company Kolor. The France based company develops tools for spherical 360-degree videos and panoramas. With the rise in VR technology hardware like the Oculus Rift, purchased by Facebook in 2014 for $2 Billion, it's easy to see what GoPro has planned for their acquisition.
Sony today announced a price drop in their inaugural a7, making it Sony's first full-frame, mirrorless camera below $1,000. This $300 instant savings over the original $1,300 price tag is fantastic news for photographers looking to add a solid mirrorless camera to their gear bag. Retailers like B&H, are selling the body for $998 with free shipping.
Do you want your sensor to shift in-body to create a higher-resolution image? Want 4.5-stop image stabilization built into the body so we can benefit from its use with any lens? Want to be able to decide for every shot exactly what level of anti-aliasing you want in order to balance moiré and sharpness? It’s all possible with the new 24-megapixel, APS-C Pentax K-3 II.
With budget options for aerial video becoming more affordable, while the quality and abilities of the cameras they host getting better, I knew it was only a matter or time until I got my hands on such a system.
Benjamin Von Wong has never been one to turn down a challenge. He consistently creates mind-blowing images in some of the most desolate of places under extreme conditions. This recent venture for Huawei's new smartphone, the P8, is no exception!
If you’re like most photographers, sharpness is probably near the top of your list of desirable attributes in a lens. A lens that is sharp from corner to corner is often worth its weight in gold (or so the manufacturers tell us). How do we measure sharpness, though?
Ever used a drone? If you have, you've almost certainly had that "oh sh*t" moment as your expensive, and admittedly, super awesome toy narrowly escaped a crash that would inevitably end its life. Well, Ryan Chatfield knows that feeling exactly.
Zeiss has announced a new line of autofocus lenses designed for Sony full-frame E-mount cameras. Shipping this summer, the Zeiss Batis line will initially include two lenses, the 2/25 and the 1.8/85. Always innovating, each of these lenses feature something you don’t see everyday: an OLED display screen which shows focal distance and depth of field.
Post-Production and Retouching is just as much an integral part of creating a great image or series of images as pre-production and the actual shoot, especially when you are shooting for a client and not just for yourself. Each genre of imagery, advertising, beauty, fashion, etc. has a slightly different set of rules and parameters when it comes to retouching.
Zeke Kamm, a veteran filmmaker and creator of the Aviator Camera Gear, has spent the last year creating a series of informational videos designed to give aspiring filmmakers a great educational reference on the gear that is often used. The first two videos have dropped, with more to come.
When you’re first starting out as a professional photographer, nothing seems quite as sexy as getting your first traveling gig. Initially, it's a status symbol — an illustrious validation of your success. Eventually though, that quick hop to New York or jaunt to Cozumel becomes less revered.
For many centuries, scientists fought vehemently about the nature of light. Two sides debated a question pivotal to the development of physics: is light a particle or a wave? It wasn't until the 20th century that one of the most startling revelations about our universe came to prominence: light is both.
The popular Mac photography software company, Macphun, released a new application for the Mac that promises incredible noise reduction processing.
Even if you don't know his name, you probably have seen this guy's videos. Devin Graham (now more commonly known on YouTube as Devin Supertramp) has blown up on YouTube with viral video after viral video.
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is bringing its attention to the camera world with results that would make even the most die-hard GoPro fan think twice about their next purchase.
Today, Fujifilm announced the Fuji XF 16mm f/1.4 R WR lens for its XF platform cameras (such as the recently released X-T1, part of a class of APS-C mirrorless cameras popularized by the success of the acclaimed Fuji X-Pro1 back in 2012).
Built on years of experience with creating the film industry's favorite high-resolution digital cinema cameras, RED now brings the Weapon upgrade in 6K variants due out this summer and in an 8K variant due to ship by the end of the year. There's quite a bit of new information to go with this announcement, but for now, we'll go over the main and most important points.
If you’re a professional in the media industry and a Mac user, you’ve undoubtedly heard of and likely love G-Technology’s storage solutions (not that PC users have a reason not to, though).
If you don't own one, then you're currently drooling over one of Freefly Systems' MōVI systems (we know the feeling), which have gained incredible acclaim as cheaper and more nimble Steadicam alternatives. This week at NAB, Freefly introduces not one, but four completely new and exciting products, apparently striving for the industry's continued droolworthiness.
We are living in an amazing time for filmmaking and video production. The MoVi was absolutely a gamechanger when it first hit the scene, but DJI's Ronin gave it a run for it's money (actually, a bit less) in the last year. Now, DJI, makers of the Ronin, are releasing an updated version that addresses most users major issue: weight.
If you're in the photography game, either professionally or passionately, you've undoubtedly been overcome by the tingly, musing desire to buy some new gear that maybe you didn't need. You know, the stuff that clicks and shines and makes you dream of meandering the streets of New Delhi or the Highlands of Scotland on a golden, breezy morning.
In September 2014, Zeiss announced their new Loxia line of manual-focus lenses for Sony’s full-frame E-mount cameras. Ever since covering the announcement, I’ve wanted to try out these stylish lenses, namely the Zeiss Loxia 2/35 because of its extended usefulness in landscape photography.
As if you didn't already have enough competition as a photographer it now seems the animal kingdom is trying to get a piece of our pie. In New Zealand there is an Octopus named Rambo, trained and equipped by Sony, to do your job. World, meet the first Octographer.
Popular unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturer DJI has announced the release of the new Phantom 3.
Pictured above is the newest addition to the Lensbaby lens family. However, this classic styled glass isn’t just another portrait lens... and how could it be coming from the Lensbaby camp? The Velvet 56 is a solid, beautiful piece of camera hardware with more than one trick up its sleeve.
The extreme wide-angle focal length is an area that I had long ignored. When I was first starting out, I just wasn’t interested in it. I was interested in people – and that meant 85mm f/1.4, 105mm, 135mm, and 200mm lenses with both great compression and bokeh.
I, like many photographers out there, don't have a studio, or don't have the money to rent out studio space every time I want to do a shoot. While shooting inside my house or garage is always an option, I found myself wanting to experiment more with ambient and natural light.
Some of you thought that my post last week about photography accessories brand Photoflex suddenly closing its doors without warning after 30 years of business was a possible April Fools' joke. I wouldn't blame you since it seemed to be annouced late in the day prior to April 1st and they seemed to be a fully-functioning business right up until the final moments.
I will soon be releasing a start-to-finish retouching tutorial video here at Fstoppers on my most recent fashion editorial photoshoot. But before I do, I wanted to start warming our readers up with a complete gear list.
The One Man Crew from Redrock Micro was a treat for small interview productions, whereby a fully automated slider could capture subtle camera moves and add tremendous production value. It wasn't without a few issues though, and for the last few years we had been hearing about a version 2 that would address these. Redrock has finally delivered.
Get ready to leave your jaw on the floor. Brain Farm Cinema, the production company that is one of the global leaders for capturing ultra high quality, pioneering action sports and documentary cinematic digital video, has done something no one else has.
If you are like me, you have always bought a UV filter for each of your lens because that's what you are supposed to do, right? With today's lenses having built-in UV protection and high quality coatings, are UV filters even needed anymore? Check out this video by Karl Taylor as he weighs in on his personal thoughts about UV filters.