Gear

It's no secret that I, personally, have some mixed feelings about the Nikon Df. I've written a brief opinion piece here describing my frustration at the Df winning a Red Dot design award, had conversations with many pro photographers on either side of the debate (Fer Juaristi rocks a pair of Df cameras), and even debated on adding one of them to my bag. All previous news and personal opinions aside, I think this is a little silly. As of yesterday, Nikon has announced the limited availability of special edition gold Df camera bodies and kit 50mm lenses in Japan.

Just when you thought the basic 5-in-1 reflector couldn't get any better, Westcott has announced their new 10-in-1 Omega Reflector. The unique design of the Omega allows you to use it like a ring light, a gobo and a flag rather than just your boring old traditional reflector. At 38 x 45 inches, the Omega offers your typical black, white, silver, gold and 1-stop diffusion surfaces. However, what makes the Omega stand out is its removable center frame on each surface that allows you to shoot through the reflector!

The Syrp Genie is a great, though imperfect, timelapse machine that has recently added another trick to its arsenal: repeatable motion. Originally, the first couple bits of firmware to the Syrp weren't perfect at the repeatable motion tasks, but the most recent update has fixed all the issues, giving us the ability to fine-tune motions and get them time and again, exactly as they were the first time. With the addition of the new Magic Carpet, there is a lot we can now do with the Syrp.

FroKnowsPhoto's own Jared Polin recently got his hands on the previously unannounced DJI Inspire 1 to get some test flights in with DJI's upcoming new drone. The new system shows off 4K video, larger, more powerful carbon fiber body, and an affordable $3K price tag. Fro was able to get an inside look at this new drone system, and pull some footage from his test flight.

Announced through Digital Transitions, is the new A series from Phase One. The A series is a line of medium format camera systems, with the power of mirrorless technology. This new system combines the power of Rodenstock optics, and ALPA bodies, making the first digital medium format camera system without the use of a mirror and in a much smaller package.

UPDATE: They are sold out. The Fstoppers FlashDisc has become the number 1 selling flash modifier on Amazon US. We are working as quickly as we can to get the FlashDisc in other countries but it's a slow process. We are currently running a test with 50 units in Europe and they are available for purchase right now.

We've seen them at every company event...the dreaded photo booth! Well there are photo booths...and then there are HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THAT? Photo booths! This year, to close out PhotoPlus Expo, Resource Magazine with Scheimpflüg & Bathhouse Studio held their 6th annual Flügoween party and the Fstoppers team were there in force to see and play with one of the most epic Bullet-time Photo setups since The Matrix!

When he's not sitting in southern California traffic, San Diego editorial photographer, Rob Andrew, spends his days freelancing from one gig to another with all his gear in tow. In order to stay nimble, Rob has developed a style of shooting creative food photography with a surprisingly minimal amount of gear. He recently published what he calls a "Bag Check" on his blog, outlining the tools he uses to get the job done.

The guys at Photo Rumors tested the new Canon EOS 7D Mark II and the DxOMark results are a bit haunting for Canon users. In the comparison charts below they found the highly anticipated Canon EOS 7D Mark II tests similar to the five year old Nikon 300s. Has Canon hit a plateau in meaningful updates to push themselves ahead of the rest of the pack? With comparisons to five year old Nikon systems, it could be the case.

Taking portraits at wide apertures and consistently nailing focus is is not an easy task. In fact, it’s a skill that must be practiced in order to master it. However, an aspect not often discussed in regards to capturing sharp images has nothing to do with the lens used or the f-stop. Here is the ultimate guide to capturing tack sharp images at wide apertures.

At the most basic level, photographers seem to be in two camps when it comes to image file types. There are those who care about the look of their images and shoot with big RAW files and those who don’t and use the smaller JPEG files.

RAW files offer a tremendous level of control over noise, tonality and color; a hearty file that can cope with the demands of our creativity.

Filmmaker Michael Tapp recently hit me up to share his latest experience with the people you typically find in New York City's Times Square and the Sony A7s. If you haven't spent an evening there, this short documentary (co-produced by Bill Novak) gives you a good sense of what draws 26 million people per year and how the A7s performs under noisy, bright conditions.

If you've played a few shooter video games in the last two decades, chances are you've seen at least one with a point of view that is looking from the top-down. The team over at Corridor Digital wanted to recreate this style in a video short (which also meant doing it all in a single take!) so they partnered with DJI to make it happen. This video takes you behind the scenes on their shoot, but check the full post for the final video and a second BTS piece.

Atomos, known for their field recorders, has recently announced a new portable power solution. The Power Station, as it is called, has the ability to power up to 3 devices simultaneously and features hot swapping. The device is powered by Sony L-series batteries, but adapters for Canon LP-6 and Nikon EN-EL15 battieries will be available.

Owners of Sony Alpha and NEX camera bodies have long been complaining about the rotational barrel wobble experienced with mounted lenses. Entering what is quite a unique product space, Fotodiox recently released the Tough E-Mount that replaces the original body mount of these cameras. As a sufferer of said wobbles, I purchased the Tough E-Mount for my Sony a7R to test and give you my verdict of the installation and results.

At the end of any speaking engagement I'm involved in, I usually offer a bit of advice which includes "Don't go into debt over this". If you're just starting out, trying to make a go at a career in photography, you need to focus on learning the craft, mastering your equipment, and trying to build your business to a point where you have a steady and somewhat consistent income. The business of photography is a constant ebb & flow, and if you don't have the intestinal fortitude to endure lean times, then it's probably not the right profession for you.

It's that time of year! No, not Halloween...It's Photography Trade Show & Convention Season! There are many expo's though out the year, but the two biggest would have to be Emerald Expo's Wedding & Portrait Photography International (WPPI) in Feb/March, and PhotoPlus Expo (PPE) in October. The latter starting today! So for those of you returning for another round at the convention center, and especially the first-time attendees, I've put together a short list of tips to make the most of your time and help you survive the convention-gauntlet!

LG Electronics has launched its new Digital Cinema 4K Monitor in the US, a professional-grade desktop display that delivers the intense detail and color accuracy for the photo, video and graphic design markets. The monitor is strikingly affordable, as the 31-inch screen is set to sell for $1399.

Announced this morning, preceding PhotoPlus Expo, is the brand new Epson SureColor P600. Kicking off the new SureColor P line, the P600 uses Epson's UltraChrome HD Ink to deliver high quality and affordable prints from your home. However, the biggest announcement from this 13" printer comes in it's black intensity, at black density with L values as low as 2 (~10 shades of black density).

CineStill released another motion picture film stock to the still photography world today, an ISO 50 film with a daylight white balance.

Using their "Premoval" process to remove the remjet coating on the film allows it to be developed by any C41 lab. With this new low ISO, fine grain, high resolution, ultra-sharp daylight balanced color film you can now shoot with the same coveted emulsion used by Hollywood directors and cinematographers in bright, high contrast daylight with wonderful results!

Las Vegas based commercial photographer Michael Herb recently got his hands on Westcott's 59 inch Zeppelin to test out on location in the Nevada desert. The photoshoot featured three models in an apocalyptic theme at a salt lake bed. In the behind the scenes video he shows just how difficult it can be to put together the Zeppelin on the separately purchased speedring. Even with the problems at set-up Michael still quite enjoyed shooting with the Zeppelin and plans to use it in the future.

This week I wanted to share a few of the tools we commercial photographers use to create our tabletop images. Particularly the items used in photographing beverages. There's a lot of trial and error when it comes to this sort of photography, often times we find ourselves using things in ways far from their originally intended purpose. Having said that, there's a lot of things that have become kind-of standard practice in food/beverage photography, some of those items I'll share with you today.

YouTuber, Casey Neistat is known for his over-the-top viral videos, his sometimes eccentric working and organizational methods, and countless little DIY studio and life hacks. Rather than working with dedicated cine gear or even DSLR kits, Neistat typically uses $100 point-and-shoot cameras for their compactness, accessibility, cost, and their innocuous appearance. For these reasons, it's pretty easy to see why he'd be interested in taking Google Glass for a spin.

About two years ago, Blackmagic made enormous waves in the cinema industry with their original cinema camera. A year later, they packed that camera into a preposterously small package, giving filmmakers the ability to take high quality video with them virtually anywhere. With numerous highly desired firmware updates since then, we wanted to see how the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera has handled the test of time.

Mobile photography accessory maker Olloclip have debuted their new 4-in-1 Photo Lens for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The new 4-in-1 lens has been redesigned to work with both front and rear facing cameras, and adds a few other new features.

Through the Ground Glass is a beautiful short film by Taylor Hawkins that features large-format photographer, Joseph Allen Freeman as he — very candidly — talks about the process, frustrations, difficulties, and joys of shooting with large-format film. Even if this type of photography isn't your cup of tea, this video is worth a watch.

Warning: NSFW for language.

We just spent a week shooting the new Pentax 645z, the new, somewhat-affordable medium format system. We wanted to take a real world approach to how we would test the camera, so like most reviews on Fstoppers, this will be less technical and more about how it performed on the job. It was put through its paces at full wedding, a weeks worth of portrait sessions and a night shoot.

Last year Fstoppers threw its very first live photography workshop in the Bahamas and world class food and drink photographer Rob Grimm was one of the instructors. I was able to sit in on a bit of Rob's class and I learned a ton about photographing drinks. We just got our new order of FlashDiscs in and I decided to try a shot of my own using the new modifiers.

The team from Modest (a Buford, Georgia-based production company) recently shot a commercial for Glock, featuring the G41 tactical .45 caliber pistol. The commercial itself is a gorgeous-looking short film of a special ops unit swarming a plane out on an airport tarmac. The BTS video above shows how they pulled off an impressive continuous shot passed down a pulley on crane, to car, to golf cart, to ground – all what looks to be shot with a Blackmagic Cinema camera stabilized on a Movi M10 3-axis gimbal. It’s really freaking sweet.

If you haven't heard about eMotimo, then you probably aren't much into timelapsing. eMotimo is one of the leaders, next to Dynamic Perception, Kessler and Syrp, in timelapse devices, and the eMotimo TB3 is the only device that allows for three axis movement with one machine. Now they're really pushing the device beyond timelapse with this new add-on accessory for repeatable product shots called the Turntable.