Gear

If you’re an outdoor or adventure photographer, one of the situations likely tangle with regularly is balancing the line between comfort and size when it comes to your backpacks. You usually need a bag to both safely transport your expensive gear as well as your climbing supplies. However, our spines have limits and the bag also needs to be supportive and lightweight. Lowepro’s recent iteration of their popular camera bags is the Photo Sport Pro 30L AW, aimed to give you a light bag option for your adventurous ways.

Carbon Copy Cloner is one of my all time favorite programs that takes the stress out of ensuring data security and redundancy. It’s a simple program that copies data from one place to another exactly when you want, and exactly how often you need it to. It completely takes the guess work out of dragging and dropping blocks of data from one volume to another; it’s perfect for photographers.

Just about every week I hear of another photographer who is crying for help on a private Facebook group because they lost the photos from a shoot. Either their compact flash memory card went corrupt, they deleted the images on accident or they lost the memory card full of photos entirely. Here are 9.5 tips that I have used over the years that have made sure my compact flash cards stay healthy and safe.

As a Wedding Photographer, I have tons of radio triggers. I started out with the PocketWizard Plus II, and then after having all of my gear stolen, I switched to the relatively inexpensive PocketWizard Plus X, so needless to say, I’m fairly entrenched in the Pocket Wizard Brand. Could the Chinese company Aputure get me away from PocketWizard while simultaneously saving my wallet from shelling out $100 every time I need a new trigger?

Last night Nikon announced two new products, the Nikon SB-300 AF Speedlight and the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR Lens. The SB-300 is a smaller strobe designed for on-camera flash with i-TTL support. It has a guide number of 59' at ISO 100 and is compatible with DX and FX sensors with coverage from 27mm-200mm on a FX-format camera. The 18-140mm is a kind of all-in-one zoom lens is compatible with DX format cameras and is aimed at photographers looking for one lens solution.

“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have”. I’m sure we’ve all heard this saying at one point in our lives. Even though I never took the advice (In your face Mom!) it can easily be reworked into something I firmly believe. “Film for the job you want, not the job you have”.

As photographers and videographers we often obsess over our cameras, lenses, stands, lights, etc. But often times, the most important tool in your bag is from the hardware store, something that allows you to temporarily fix an unexpected situation, whether it's a gear failure, or the need to fix something in an awkward space. Here are 10 items (in no particular order) that I recommend.

MeFoto, makers of my most favorite travel tripod, today announced a new addition to their product line: the WalkAbout monopod, which also looks like it could be used as a general walking stick. It comes in a host of colors, similar to the tripod line, and also sports a removable compass for when it's not attached to a camera.

7 years of shooting Automotive Editorial Photography has taught me to streamline as much as possible. One area I've simplified to fit my needs is my lighting kit. I used to rent gear wherever I could, but after you use your own gear long enough you almost develop a relationship with it and now I definitely prefer to use my own lights.

Recently director Moark Tola got the chance to spend 2 days testing out RED's Epic Dragon and has shared the results with all of us. I'm not going to lie, I've always been afraid that the day would come when a videographer could pull any frame a video and call it photography. Now you are only $29k (the price of an Epic Dragon brain) away from being able to do just that. Then again, I suppose you could use it to make kick-ass videos. This video shows the capabilities of Red Dragon's 6k sensor. Enjoy and drool.

Most of the time, we leave rumors to the rumors sites. However, in this circumstance we thought it would be worth showing you a "leaked" image of the recently rumored Sigma 24-70mm f/2. If true, this lens would be something truly special. But is it real, or just some guys making a fuzzy-yet-believable fake?

Automotive Editorial Photography will teach you many things. Mostly though, it'll teach you how to make something out of nothing and how to operate quickly and efficiently. I can't tell you how many times I've shown up to shoot a car only to be told it can't be moved from where it sits. It's those situations that will really test your mettle as a photographer and I've actually grown to love those challenges. One challenge from last year that I really enjoyed was a RIDES Magazine cover that would require fitting and lighting 10 cars. Here's how I did it.

As a wedding photographer, I don’t often put much of a focus on video. Therefore I had never put any real thought into what accessories I might need to outfit my Nikon D800 as a proper video-producing machine. That being said however, the Chinese company Aputure may have just started me thinking more seriously about video.

Ready to stand out in a crowd of photographers? Today the site Lomography.com announced the Kickstarter project for the Petzval lens. As they say on their website, "Invented in 1840, Reloaded In 2013 By Lomography & Zenit." This lens will surely look nothing like any lens in your bag today as they are crafted from brass just like the original Petzval lens was back in the 19th century. Looks aside though what is it that has photographers clamoring over the Kickstarter project?

Are you ready to be star-struck by Stellar? That's the tagline to Hasselblad aforementioned rumored RX100 reskin. Apparently, according to the Hasselblad Chairman and CEO, "The world has never seen a compact camera like this before." Weird, I could swear I saw a camera pretty similar to this last year. It's called the RX100.

Almost two years ago we wrote about an interesting idea for a rolling DSLR rig we found on Kickstarter. The concept was a small, compact and heinously simple design called CineSkates. Fast forward to today, and CineSkates has evolved not only into a whole line of products under the name "Cinetics," but is one step closer to great success. Now distributed by JOBY (owned by Daymen who also distributes Lowepro bags), CineSkates shows that when Kickstarter works, it can really work.

Living in NYC and having to drag gear around I have become very particular about my camera and gear bags. Comfort, size, weight, and protection are the deciding factors, then I worry if I look cool or not (you can’t go wrong with a black bag). I started looking for a small light stand case that would fit nano stands, a small umbrella and a monopod. This is usually what I use for reception lighting at weddings. After searching through all of the camera stores online, I finally stumbled across the StandBagger.

Color reproduction, loading color profiles and calibrating monitors & printers can become an endless tangled mess that leads to frustrating headaches.

Proper use of a color chart can get you a lot closer to actual colors and save you a lot of time dialing in your post production work by adding a simple step to your workflow.

A couple years back I pickup the X-Rite ColorChecker Card and by doing so I have saved a ton of post processing time.

Apparently all the bad press surrounding the Lunar hasn't deterred Hasselblad from their present course of skinning current Sony cameras with the expensive "H" logo and wood accents. PhotoRumors is reporting that Hasselblad will be releasing a compact camera called the "Stellar" that will just be the RX100 with some fancy aesthetic additions. Well, at least they aren't toting megapixels, right?

Researchers from Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany have proposed quite an awesome attachment for the standard DSLR that would bring the power of a Lytro and more to the cameras already in the marketplace. Their design proposes a configurable, removable camera add-on for high dynamic range, multispectral, polarization, and light-field imaging called the KaleidoCam. And it works.

Peak Design, who launched a successful Kickstarter Project back in 2011, wants to improve on their original camera clip design by making it stronger and more versatile. Their solution? The Capture system. What they're planning looks to be a beefed-up version of the popular Spider Holsters. It clips to belts, bags, backpack straps and the like and allows for easy and secure access to your camera with a tripod-like quick release system.

Just because we are photographers for a living doesn’t mean all our equipment has to be 100% utilitarian. Sometimes a little bit of style and fashion is appreciated, and ONA looks to deliver in that department. The ONA Leather Brixton, now available in “dark truffle” color, is a sling bag that looks like a businessman’s briefcase sling, but is designed with a photographer in mind.

Carl Zeiss (Now just named Zeiss) has always been considered the premium brand for lenses in the photography industry. With their high ticket price and extreme build quality, Zeiss had always been reserved to the biggest (and richest) names in the industry. Well now they're trying to maintain that brand image, while moving into the mirrorless systems industry. But how does their latest 32mm f/1.8 lens hold up?

Día de Muertos or Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday that has seen a spike in exposure in the United States the past few years making it a perfect subject for a photoshoot. Follow Jay P. from The Slanted Lens as he takes you behind the scenes of his latest shoot featuring a model dressed up as a Calavera (sugar skull) posing in an eerie cemetery backdrop.

There's been a lot of buzz these past few months about Rokinon's new 24mm tilt shift offering. Many enthusiasts are interested in tilt and shift capabilities, but are not interested in shelling out the $2,000+ for the Nikon or Canon equivalents. Rokinon's entry into the field has been widely anticipated and it was finally my chance to get my hands on this little lens for a review.

We're embarking on some frightful times for camera manufactures everywhere. With stats showing that the Apple iPhone being the most popular camera used today, and Canon/Nikon/Sony producing virtually none of the camera phones components, they must come up with new ideas to win back the industry from Apple and Samsung. Nikon is looking to recapture the market, and plans for some exciting news in the future.

About two years ago, Chimera showed us the first collapsible beauty dish at WPPI, something that promised to make traveling with the bulky, often heavy modifier a lot easier. However, with a price point of $230, it was a bit pricey for many. In the past few days, Phottix has released their version of the collapsable beauty dish. It has several distinctly different features that separate it from the Chimera version, but there is one thing that will stand out: the price is only $75.

One of my favorite 'old school' photo tricks is the macro reversing ring. When you turn your lens around - literally having the mount pointing at your subject - you will notice a pretty interesting effect. The lens (whatever focal length it is) becomes a macro. Of course, holding a lens over an open camera body is a pretty terrible idea. This is where the reversing ring comes in.

LED has come a long way in the last three years. It was not too long ago that serious photographers and videographers were having a hard time with the idea of LED. They tended to be under powered and cast unattractive shadows. But there was potential, and that potential is beginning to blossom. Fotodiox’s LED100WA monobloc-style heads are one such shining example of how far LED has come and what can be done with it.

Stuck in the car on a boring road trip with the parents this 4th of July? Well here is a list of 10 creative apps to help pass the time. From drawing with words to finding what color the back of your dad's head really is. Check out the mostly iPhone friendly list, sorry Droid fans!