When I first saw this video, my jaw was hanging open. This new dynamic target tracking camera is absolutely outstanding, capable of following extremely fast moving objects as well as able to project images on fast moving objects. It's something out of science fiction, and I love it.
Samsung just announced what looks to be a really great new ILC: The Galaxy NX, a camera enabled with 3G/4G capabilities. It's not a phone, but a camera that can always be connected to the internet. I may have been hard on Samsung in a recent article on their Galaxy S4 Zoom, but this new product is one I can really get behind.
The likelihood of this experience ever happening to you is pretty small, however, while you may never make the same mistakes I made, this story is a reflection of the stupid decisions that tend to tag along with us as people. The same warnings and lessons that I'm about to share apply to everyone.
Shock, dismay, joy, and envy. These emotions have been running wild since Sigma announced their new 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM lens. It’s the first lens in our modern age to maintain that open of an aperture through a zoom range and it’s also equipped with auto focus. This type of innovation has been unheard of from Sigma until recently, but now it’s almost expected.
Lowepro has just announced a new DryZone pair of bags, a backpack and a duffel, that are weatherproof and watersport-friendly and are designed to keep your gear not only safe, but protected from aqueous elements. This is the kind of bag that can sustain powerful waves and blasts of water, so you can finally climb into a waterfall cave without fearing for the safety of your camera.
A few weeks after the announcement of Photoshop CC (Creative Cloud) at Adobe Max, Adobe has finally made the newest installment of the Photoshop series available to the general public. If you've already adapted to the Creative Cloud service, you should be getting your notification for the update any second now, if you haven't already.
The Curiosity rover is one of the coolest machines we ever sent into space. The rover is giving us a glimpse into the never-explored land of Mars by sending us beautiful images taken by its cameras everyday. Curiosity has 17 cameras on deck, which is the most of any NASA planetary missions to date.
When Sigma first made known the existence of the 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art lens, the photography world could barely contain itself. Social media and blog comments blew up all over the net, including in the Fstoppers universe. This lens has been a subject of intense conversation for the past few weeks, nothing more debatable than speculation of pricing. Speculate no more.
Carl Zeiss has always been known for manufacturing some of the most well built and desired lenses on the market. The quality control has always been insane, so when they announced that they were making affordable lenses for mirrorless systems, people questioned if the quality would suffer. LenRentals got their hands on one, and decided to tear it apart and see for themselves.
Pentax/Ricoh has just announced three new cameras to their lineup. Two are APS-C sized cameras that are pretty similar, but one is most certainly aimed at a more consumer market. The third is a new mirrorless camera, one that Pentax is boasting as the world's smallest and lightest interchangeable lens camera.
Samsung has a weird, and to me slightly irritating, inclination that is bordering on habit: pushing products into hybrid scenarios that are doing just fine where they are. As someone who likes to have a camera, a tablet and a phone as separate devices (because, well I use them at different times for different things), I am continually baffled by the choice to shoehorn them into each other.
Leica has always been known as the Mercedes-Benz of cameras. With their unparalleled quality of build, and beautiful designs, they've been able make and sell cameras at the premium price tags exceeding $7000. With their latest creation, the X Vario, Leica looks to bridge the gap with Leica's quality, zoom lenses, and a sub-$3K price tag.
UPDATED WITH SAMPLE IMAGES Though Samsung is a brand very few of us associate with either pro optics or cameras, they really want us to take them more seriously. I've used their mirrorless cameras on occasion and have been generally happy with the experience.
Late last night Adobe announced Photoshop Lightroom 5 to much fanfare. Though some of course have complaints, the general consensus has been pretty positive. Following the release, we posed a few questions to Adobe, and they got back to us on what they learned from the Beta, new features and the differences between Creative Cloud and perpetual licenses.
Fotodiox just announced a brand new fresnel-style LED light that is dimmable, focusable and cooler than traditional fresnel tungsten lights. The new lights offer a power of 9,100 – 60,000 Lux/m Luminance, which Fotodiox is saying is about the same as the output of a 1K light, all controlled wirelessly. This adds another high-powered LED to the Fotodiox lineup, the first being the LED100WA.
Like processing RAW files with the best of the best software? For a limited time, Phase One is offering 50% of their Capture One Express 7 and 20% off of Capture One Pro 7 until June 16, 2013. As I have blogged about before, Phase One has created class-leading RAW image processing and tethering software that I personally use all the time.
After much anticipation, Adobe has just announced the latest iteration of their popular editing and workflow program, Lightroom 5. The early adopters to the Creative Cloud services will be happy to see a notification to download waiting for them right now, while the non-Creative Cloud perpetual license version is available for purchase on Adobe’s website now (and everywhere now).
The FujiFilm X100S appears to be the camera everyone is seeking this summer. The upgrade to the highly successful X100 has promised faster speeds and additional features and the early reports have been singing its praise. So much praise, in fact, that Zack Arias recently made the statement that it will single handedly kill the DSLR in its tracks. But will it?
Photojojo.com is well known for having a ton of fun photography related products. Their latest happens to be a LED light panel that can be controlled from an iPhone.
ONA, a camera bag and accessory company known for really beautiful products, announced several new additions to their line today. The Leather Bowery, The Bolton Street Backpack, The Dark Truffle Leather Brixton, The Smoke Bowery and The Presidio Camera Strap were all announced today. All these look really sharp and are sure to appeal to many of you (they certainly look great to me).
As some of you may know by now, I'm a commercial photographer that gets some great opportunities to shoot epic movie and tv cars. Honestly, most of my paid shoots are portrait-related, but I just love all things cars and my clients know that.
SanDisk is having a crazy one-day fire sale of some of its more popular pro-level memory cards. CF, SD, Micro SD and USB flash are all included, some highly marked down. Might want to jump on these before they sell out...
Nikon has released a group of new rebates that take effect when you combine cameras with lenses or speed lights. Cameras include the full range of Nikon SLRs, like the D7100, D600, D800 and even the D4.
Zeiss is preparing for the availability of their Touit line, lenses for E-mount and X-mount cameras. For those who love Zeiss glass and compact cameras like those from Fuji and Sony, getting these high quality lenses might be a must. For the rest of us, we can still appreciate the beauty of the precision that goes into producing lenses of this quality.
Large, imposing and drop dead gorgeous, the new Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX DG OS APO HSM AF is one hell of a lens. Sigma has done an outstanding job in recent months producing some top quality lenses and they didn’t let up on the gas with the first Sport category offering in their new global vision.
I don't think many people would argue that Wacom is the leader in the drawing tablet industry right now, with many professional photographers and graphic designers using tablets from their $200+ mid-level Intuos line as the staple for precise mouse work, and some even shelling out the thousands for the Cintiq line tablets with a built in screen display; so when I heard about a sub-$100 tablet w
There have been fewer hotly debated topics in the past six months than Adobe's move to the cloud. Many creatives really like the new cloud, but others are steadfastly against it. I actually have seen some very harsh arguments that might even surpass the flame wars between Nikon and Canon enthusiasts.
When you think group shots, what lens immediately comes to your mind? Often, the initial reaction to a "group picture" is to reach for the widest lens in your bag. It's a safe option that makes sure you'll fit everyone in the frame. It could be said group shots are more about accounting for everyone who was present rather than being a work of art.
Canon hasn't had any rebates on camera bodies lately, so I'm pretty pleased to find that there are a batch of rebates incoming for the 5D MKIII, 6D and 7D. Though the 7D is probably on its way out soon, deals on the 6D and the 5D MKIII are always welcome. The 5D and 7D are now $200 off, while the 6D got a slim, but still appreciated, $100 off.
The Canon 50D doesn’t get a lot of love much anymore. The system is 5 years old, and was among one of the last DSLRs to come out without video capabilities. When searching through the firmware, it was later found that video functions existed for the 50D, but were disabled by Canon. Upon opening these features, EOSHD forum member Julian has found a beauty hidden in this old beast.
Canon has recently come out with their short film, "Rhythm of Life' showcasing their new line of cine lenses. Shot with the Canon C500 director, Dean Hargrove and cinematographer, Steven Poster ASC, explain how the different cine lenses affect the footage and change the color and feel of your shots. The BTS video was shot with the Canon C300.
Have you ever wondered how different diffusing fabrics affect the quality of light that you shoot with? Jay P. Morgan from the Slanted Lens walks you through the different diffusion materials by Rosco. He explains how the different fabrics can lessen the stops of light and how it can affect your color temperatures and look of your shoot.
Adobe looks like they are scooping up New York design firm Thumb Labs, a company with quite a stacked resume of well-designed mobile apps. We are gathering that Adobe has the intent to have them join the team at their other recently acquired company Behance, likely to make an expanded mobile experience to their upcoming Creative Cloud.
When buying a new camera, the first thing you'll notice is the change in sound from the mechanical shutter. When I bought my 5d Mark II for the first time, I was convinced that my shutter was broken, based on the low pitched ‘clunk’ it was making. Thanks to these latest YouTube videos, we can sit back and experience the sounds of all the shutters for our favorite cameras.
Sigma, hot on the heels of the outstandingly successful 35mm f/1.4 Art lens, has been releasing and announcing new lenses in their Global Vision realignment like crazy. Recently they released the 30mm f/1.4 lens for APS-C cameras, and I had high expectations for it after being told that the president of Sigma was aiming it to meet the performance set by the 35mm. So did it?
Whether I’m going out for a short hike, a weekend camping trip, shooting the zombie apocalypse, or assisting someone for their personal project, there are many times when I’ve needed to be light and fast in my video rig setup. Besides going with a single camera and lens, the accessories I choose enable me to be versatile and get better clips in the end.
Over time, you'll likely see your lens develop a couple specks of dust inside the lens. This isn't uncommon, and 99% of the time, won’t affect your image quality at all. However, for the neat freaks out there, it'll become a big issue for you, and you'll want to send your lens in for cleaning. Lens Rentals shows us how they do it.
So as a lot of you have probably seen, you can now record full 1080p 14Bit Raw video on the Canon 5D Mark II and Mark III. This is truely incredible. However, you can not just import the video and get to editing right away. To be able to use the RAW video, you have to convert the RAW files to DNG. Here is a quick workflow tutorial on how to do that.
Think Tank fans, rejoice! The Santa Rosa, CA-based bag manufacturer has just announced the Logistics Manager 30, a high capacity roller bag with a lage, roomy internal dimensions of 13.75”W x 27.5”H x 8.25 – 10”D (35 x 70 x 21 – 25.5cm) that will allow it to hold multiple combinations of cameras and lenses, lighting gear such as strobes and reflectors and accessories of all kinds.
Monopods, once really only useful in a handful of situations, have evolved into irreplaceable members of our creative arsenals due to the advent of high quality video being produced in DSLRs. The idea of a “video monopod” might frighten video purists, but there are those such as Patrick Hall and myself who swear by them.
Fans of the Nikon 1 series mirrorless cameras will wake up to a nice little bit of news today with the announcement of the 32mm f/1.2 lens. The lens itself equates to about an ~86mm field of view, finally giving the 1 series a great portrait lens to use. It also features silent wave motor technology, making it the fastest autofocus lens Nikon has ever made.
Canon has announced their answer to Nikon's 200-400mm with their new 200-400mm f/4 L USM. It boasts a built-in 1.4x extender which, with the flip of a switch, extends the lens to a 280-560mm f/5.6. Measuring in at 5.0 x 14.4 inches and 127.7 oz, the specs on this beast look amazing, but the price tag is a little surprising.
I was just talking with a designer friend of mine who was planning to take some photos at an upcoming Color Run event. Early morning sunlight, vibrant colors, and smiling faces seems like a winning combination for some interesting images like these.
Olympus is following up their hugely successful PEN line with an all new member: the PEN E-P5, a digital update of a classic film camera designed new tech and performance advancements.
We learned a lot about Adobe at Adobe MAX earlier this week. We learned that they are moving to a cloud-based system that will remove support for perpetual licenses. We learned about new features that are really something special. And we also learned just a little bit about Project Mighty and Project Napoleon, Adobe's push into hardware through a pen and ruler that link to the digital world.
The new Photoshop features are not the only changes that were announced from Adobe MAX: videographers are in for a few treats themselves. Adobe is looking to solidify their dominance in the video editing market by introducing welcome additions to Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Speed Grade.
When we first discussed Adobe’s acquisition of Behance earlier this year, there was speculation that the purpose was to add social to the Creative Cloud. Adobe has proved that speculation correct, as Behance plays a pivotal role in Adobe’s new CC-branded software with live feeds to your Behance buddies.
Adobe Photoshop’s new feature “Camera Shake Reduction” has been has been carrying a ton of hype, likely due to the publicity Adobe has been putting behind it since last year (and more recently just a couple weeks ago). However, what it actually is and how it works is somewhat misunderstood. Many were prepared to hate the program, thinking it a panacea for all bad, blurry images.
Adobe has announced that in lieu of continuing with the "Creative Suite" naming convention, they have instead changed the outlook of the popular suite of creative software to "Creative Cloud," a move that should not surprise those of you who have followed Adobe over the course of the last year.
Photoshop has become a powerhouse in terms of editing software, easily the number one choice in the industry. They haven’t gotten there by being complacent, and Photoshop CC introduces new and awesome features that expand the power of the biggest name in post production such as Camera Shake Reduction, Camera RAW as a filter, and their new Smart Sharpen.