Following up their massive 512GB SD card announcement last week at IBC, SanDisk today announced that they are releasing the fastest microSD cards on the market, capable of producing 95MB/s transfer speeds and intended for use with 4K capable cameras.
Profoto just released a video showcasing their popular B1 units on location with wedding photographer Brian Marcus. Marcus shows how he uses the lights through new York with ease, obviously taking advantage of the size and weight of the B1 heads. This particular video focuses on the NIkon TTL Air remotes that were just released.
At a $5,000 "discount" compared to the IQ250, the IQ150 seems almost identical in every way. While we don't currently have much information, we do know that the IQ150 features the same Sony 50MP CMOS sensor that is featured in the IQ250, Hasselblad H5D-50c, Mamiya Leaf Credo 50, and Pentax 645z, boasting the same native and useable ISO range of 100-6400.
I did not expect much other than an ordinary photo backpack when I received my review unit in the mail. After all, I didn't know anything about it -- only that it was a medium-sized backpack and that I wasn't supposed to talk about it until today.
In a perhaps not-so-surprising turn of events, Leica has entered the medium format CMOS market with their new Leica S. At 37.5 megapixels, this doesn't seem to be the same 50-megapixel Sony sensor everyone else is using, naturally. This time, Leica means business with a weather-sealed magnesium body capable of 4K video at 60fps and 3.5fps still shooting between ISO 200 and 6400.
Leica is on track to have the most impressive set of announcements for Photokina. This morning they released the Leica M-A (Type 127), a beautiful, fully mechanical, 35mm rangefinder camera.
I don’t do a lot of gear reviews, in fact, this is my first for Fstoppers (bear with me). But Lumu is a product I’ve been following since it’s launch on Kickstarter back in 2013.
Two weeks back Sony released a teaser image for the Zeiss 16-35mm f/4.0 FE zoom lens for their α7 line of cameras. This lens rounds out the "Holy Trinity" of zooms, the 16-35mm wide-angle, the 24-70mm standard, and the 70-200mm telephoto. The lens is immediately available for preorder for $1,349.99.
Below are the official specs for the lens:
Breaking: The guys over at Sony Alpha Rumors have reported on the four newly announced lenses offered by Sony for their FE mount α7 series cameras. According to Sony Alpha Rumors the long-speculated Zeiss fast-aperture prime is a 35mm f/1.4 distagon. While details are still incoming we now know that the lens I had hoped would be an 85mm is, in fact, a 35mm. Heartbreak.
Panasonic announced their new breakthrough product, the advanced point and shoot Panasonic LX100, which can record 4K on a 16.8MP 4/3rds sensor with an optically image established fast zoom lens designed by Leica and includes a 2.7K EVF.
Along side the announcement of the much anticipated 7d Mark II, Canon also highlights three new lenses to their lineup - the 400mm f/4 DO IS II USM, the 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM, and the 24mm f/2.8 STM Pancake lens. With many of them sporting the STM autofocus, it's obvious that Canon is looking to compliment those with video in mind.
Can't decide which lens to take? Why not take them all! With Lowepro's new Pro Trekker 650 AW, you'll likely have to buy more lenses and accessories to fill this behemoth of a camera backpack. I got to test drive this bag for several video and timelapse shoots, so I got a pretty good idea about how it performs.
Perhaps some of the biggest news to come out of Photokina so far this year is the announcement of the Panasonic Lumix CM1 - an Android equipped smartphone with a powerful sensor and even more powerful lens. Showing off it's 1 inch sensor, the CM1 has taken the crown for the largest sensor found in a phone, a size typically found inside the Sony RX100 and Nikon's 1 series.
Lowepro, who makes some of my favorite bags, has finally refreshed their entire line and included something I think we all expected from them a long time ago: hard cases. Under the new "Hardside" line, the hard cases look to take on Pelicans in the photography market. Also new are the Trekker, the Toploader and Protactic lines.
Samsung has been trying to hit the digital interchangeable lens camera (ILC) market for some time, slowly clawing their way to #2 in market share in the US. That said, they haven't done a lot to impress professionals.
We recently reviewed the insanely awesome G-SPEED Studio 4-bay platform, and if you think that thing was cool, you'll love what they announced late last week at IBC: the G-SPEED 8-Bay Thunderbolt enterprise-class hard drive platform. If you, like me, are a video or timelapse shooter, this should appeal to you greatly. We can never have enough storage.
Sony's answer to many filmmakers' dreams comes in the form of the refined, lightweight, portable, and ever-enabling PXW-FS7. The FS7 offers internal 4K recording at 60fps and 1080p at 180fps, with a single extension unit and external recorder required to shoot 4K RAW footage.
Announced today at IDC, Blackmagic showed off a new Blackmagic Cinema Camera sporting a PL mount (For Arri and Red Camera systems) as well as a series of rackmountable interfaces, monitors and input systems. These additions to their lineup help prove once again that Blackmagic is ready to play with the professional level videographers.
Introducing PowerPole, a GoPro accessory with some pretty cool features.
RØDE makes some of my favorite audio equipment across the range of prices. Today at IBC they announced something they seem really proud of: the Stereo VideoMic X, an on-camera microphone that excels at capturing amazing audio in short ranges, making it ideal for foley and ambient scene-setting audio in productions.
Sigma has announced several new pieces of gear in preparation for Photokina this coming week. Firstly, they have announced the availability of two different versions of the150-600mm f/5-6.3, one a Sport line lens and the other a Contemporary line member. They also announced the 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 lens, also a member of the Contemporary line.
Sigma is adding to their dp Quattro line with the dp1, a 19mm f/2.9 fixed lens (28mm equivalent to full frame). To those fans of the system, this now completes two of the three cameras in the lineup with the last one surely not far behind.
Nikon has announced the latest member of their full frame camera family, the D750. The camera is an advancement specifically for Nikon in the video realm, as the new camera's 24.3 megapixel sensor captures full HD video at 60p, a feature that is becoming a necessary standard for any modern video camera.
This morning at IBC in Amsterdam, SanDisk announced the impending release of the highest capacity SD card in the world: the 512GB Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I card, 90 MB/s recording speed with 95 MB/s transfer speed. They also announced a faster CF memory card, with 128GB capacity with a write speed of up to 440MB/s and transfer speeds up to 515 MB/s. Dang.
I have used a lot of hard drives over my career and that includes what was to me, at the time, the rather excellent Lacie d2 Thunderbolt. It wasn't long, however, until other manufacturers came up with better options leading to the d2 feeling a bit underwhelming. That changes today with the announcement of the d2 Thunderbolt 2.
Legendary Swedish camera manufacturer Hasselblad announces a new medium format camera body, the H5X, this week in preparation for photokina. The newest addition is to utilize Hasselblad’s latest capture functionality, working seamlessly with current H System lenses.
Throughout my career so far I have failed over and over again. Although it’s the successes that I'm remembered and known for, it’s the failures that are always the catalyst. At the end of the day, the key to success lies in failure. This improvisational beauty shoot was only a success because I set myself up to fail.
Following in the footsteps of the Hasselblad H5D-50c, PhaseOne IQ250, and Pentax 645z comes Mamiya's 50-megapixel CMOS solution, the Leaf Credo 50. Available with PhaseOne/Mamiya DF, Hasselblad H1/H2/H4X/500-series, and Contax 645 mounts, the Leaf Credo 50 opens Sony's latest medium format sensor to a greater range of systems still loved by many. But is it cheap?
The rumored Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 is now a reality with its official announcement today. This uncompromising premium lens, available for both Canon and Nikon mounts, is the second offering in the Otus line-up following the well-received Zeiss 55mm.
Great photographers need to be excellent problems solvers that can rig up anything. Getting lights into tight spots or building new sets in tight quarters are just a few examples of what a photographer is faced with on a daily basis.
The state of California is simply unmatched when it comes to beautiful, picturesque imagery in the United States. As the birthplace and home of timelapse photographer Hal Bergman, it was his goal to compile as much of the visual wonders California has to offer in to a tight four-minutes time.
Among the biggest complaints about the Sony α7 line is the lack of glass available for the new FE mount. So far they've done a good job producing two semi-fast standard primes (a 35mm f/2.0 and a 55mm f/1.8), and two slow-ish pro-zooms (a 24-70 f/4.0 and a 70-200 f/4.0).
Really, really good news out of Blackmagic today, as they just informed me that they have updated the firmware of the Blackmagic Production Camera 4K to allow for in-camera formatting of the SSD. So will this be coming to the Pocket Cinema Camera and the Cinema Camera? Yes, yes it will.
As a commercial photographer, I specialize in product, food, and architecture. One of the products we've been shooting a lot of lately is jewelry, specifically jewelry for catalog use. In my opinion, jewelry is one of the hardest things to photograph, and many photographers don't know where to start.
A lot of my work is on the road, which is why I spent a long time looking for the best mobile storage options before eventually landing on the WD My Passport Pro and the LaCie Rugged SSD. But when I'm not on the road, I'm at my desk editing a wide range of video. It's here that I realized I needed not only a reliable backup, but also a powerful and fast working drive to burn through edits.
I live in constant fear of either accidently formatting a card or having data corruption of information before I get back to my main workstation. Because of this somewhat totally rational fear, I tend to back up cards on location during or right after shoots.
With the rise of smartphones and lack of expandable storage locally, many manufactors have been creating storage solutions with options to access over a wireless network connection. While this isn't anything new, it appears as Western Digital is releasing a one-step solution for photographers needing to backup SD cards on location.
Case Logic has been making bags, tablet sleeves and accessory holders for quite some time, but this was my first time reviewing, and using, a dedicated camera bag from the company.
A new line of manual-focus lenses, designated with the Loxia title, have been announced by Zeiss. The initial compact lenses to be released later this year, a 50mm f/2 and a 35mm f/2, are crafted specifically for Sony’s E-mount full-frame α7 cameras.
You may remember back in June when Austin Rogers posted the press release about the upcoming Cambo Actus, a view camera designed to work with mirrorless cameras. Well, it's finally here and the gang over at Capture Integration have put it through it's paces.
Pictured above are the two lenses currently available from Moment that I stumbled across while browsing Kickstarter and immediately knew I had to have. The 60mm Tele and 18mm Wide are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, while maintaining the sturdiness and incredible optics of products ten times their size.
Though we have no confirmations that the price drops are permenant, we can probably assume them to last a long time if not forever. Canon has cut prices from $1000 on the higher-end lenses to $50 on the more affordable glass across their product line. In all, there are 26 lenses discounted as of today.
If music and EDM photography is your dream job, this next interview is just for you. The fourth session in the Fstoppers series over at the TogTools Podcast is finally up, and it's a very unique and interesting one. This week's guest is Fstoppers Staff Writer Rebecca Britt who is an amazing commercial and EDM photographer based in Texas.
Olympus announced the successor to the successful micro four thirds E-PL5, creatively named the E-PL7. It has a few new features that MFT photographers will like, but the flip down screen will be getting most of the attention. Olympus designed the screen with optimal selfie composition in mind.
With a saturated market for photographers, there are so many pitfalls a photographer can plunge into that can prevent them from being successful. Taking a step back to analyzing yourself and your business can be the first step to improve and guarantee chances of success for the future.
Fujifilm announced the replacement for the X20, today -- the X30. While the camera still features a 12-megapixel 2/3" CMOS X-Trans sensor combined with the EXR Processor II, the X30 almost doubles battery life, continues the X20's quest for snappier performance, features numerous refinements to the controls and body as a whole, and offers full 1080p video recording at 60fps.
As much as I like to rely on Tamron VC for moving video shots, it only make the footage less shakey and doesn't make the footage more fluid. This is where camera stabilizers like the Steadicam and the Glidecam have come in, but both options tend to be extremely heavy and take a long time to properly calibrate.
One of the most overlooked, yet most used items in a photographer's arsenal, is the grip kit. A grip kit isn't something most photographers set out to buy, build, or assemble, it's generally born from necessity. Over the years we find ourselves on jobs needing certain things that we don't have readily available and we end up improvising to get the job done.
It's that time! We have the third session in the Fstoppers series over at the TogTools Podcast ready for you all to enjoy - and it's a great one! This week's guest is Staff Writer Adam Ottke. Adam shoots fine art and travel photography, but he also serves as the Art Director for a small creative agency he started called Curate the World.
Today Leica announced a complementary upgrade to the Leica M, the M-P 240.