Not long ago, I released a review of Sigma's newest Art-series lens, the 20mm f/1.4 Art. Unfortunately, Northern California skies have had bit of a tough time clearing up despite numerous requests from astrophotographers below, patiently waiting for news of this lens' nighttime, Milky Way performance.
Last time I wrote an article for Fstoppers was almost a year ago when I had just picked up a Hasselblad V-system medium format film camera for the first time. If you remember my first post, I taught myself to shoot 120 film while traveling in Europe. I reported my findings as best as someone with only a month of practical experience could.
Anyone with a MagSafe 2 Apple laptop might think it looks a bit prettier than the previous version, but how many times does that charger inadvertently get knocked out of place? There is a solution, or didn’t you know?
We know, it's another bag review, but we all need to face the reality that camera bags are like Pokemon for photographers; gotta' catch 'em all.
Serif released a new update today to its photo editing software Affinity Photo. It is the first major update, and it includes quite a few exciting features. To celebrate these welcome changes, Serif also announce a discount on the Mac App Store.
If you don't know Sigma's Art series lenses yet, you're missing out. Their well established 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, and zoom options in the Art lineup shine, but it's hard to believe it took this long for a wide-angle 20mm f/1.4 Art to make it out into the real world. But the moment I began shooting with this beauty is the moment of the past didn't matter anymore.
If you’re a commercial or fashion photographer, eventually you’ll run into a client who will ask to have their product, model, etc. to be placed on a perfectly white background. This method is very popular in the e-commerce and print industries for many brands, sellers and catalogs.
Christmas is just around the corner and you might find yourself scrambling for a cool little gift for that photographer in your life. Atmosphere Aerosol is a new product which, as the name describes, is an aerosol can that dispenses a cloud of fog in a pinch. Small, light, and not needing electricity, this little can of foggy goodness might just be the perfect replacement for that fog machine.
Until recently, HSS and HyperSync were considered gimmicky features available on either expensive PocketWizard or cheap Chinese triggers. With Profoto, Elinchrom, Priolite, RiME LITE, and other brands catching up on these techniques, it is slowly becoming more popular. However, are these sync modes as reliable and useful as the brands try to make us believe they are?
Totally Rad are the producers of the film emulation presets titled Replichrome.
The Syrp Genie caught everyone's attention with its contemporary design and advanced automation features that made it a time-lapse photographer's best tool in the field.
While running a Kickstarter campaign might be a bit easier for veteran company Peak Design, there’s something to be said for raising over $4.8 million of excitement over a messenger bag. What is so special about this bag that merits this reaction?
Matt Allard from Newsshooter.com has been hopping around Inter BEE 2015, an NAB-like exhibition that takes place in Japan, reporting on new video gear from established, as well as developing companies.
Priolite just announced the addition of a new flash unit to their HotSync lineup, the MBX300HS. This slightly smaller and lighter, but much cheaper, unit is a welcome addition to their current line of products. Alongside the already available 500Ws and 1000Ws strobes, this new compact unit looks like a solid alternative to more well-established brand's battery powered system.
You had me at f/0.95. When I saw Fiction Brand's tribute to my favorite lens in the whole world, the $10,000 Leica Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH, I knew I had to have one. But once I got my foot in the door, I realized there's more to this brand than just a novelty tee shirt as I reviewed their camera strap, hat, and pocket SD shirt.
One of the first things I heard when I sat down at a large white table with Light CTO and Co-Founder Dr. Rajiv Laroia and VP of Marketing Bradley Lautenbach was that, when it comes to lenses, plastic is better than glass.
In the world of off-camera flash, there are two sides: the full manual side and the TTL (through the lens) side. I have always been on the full manual side, because when it comes to triggering a TTL flash off camera, things start to get complicated.
Recently, the game of artificial lighting, including flash, has started to change. LED lights have become more common, but also TTL and HSS have become available to studio strobes, not just hot shoe flashes anymore. Today, it is Elinchrom's turn to join in this new era. The Elinchrom Skyport celebrates its 10th birthday this year, and over 400,000 units have been sold since its launch.
The Sony a7S II is the latest full-frame mirrorless Alpha camera to be released and builds upon the head-turning low-light capabilities its predecessor was made known for.
Sony has just announced their latest full-frame mirrorless camera, the 42.4-megapixel RX1R II. This very sleek fixed-lens 35mm f/2 digital camera packs many of the same imaging features you’ll find in the new Sony a7RII (along with some surprising new ones), but in an even smaller, true compact-sized design.
I can't honestly say I know where the XQD format is going. So few cameras have adopted the new format, but as bit rates will need to continue to increase to match the continuing rise of megapixels and video resolution, perhaps the format will begin to take hold out of necessity.
There's a myriad of ways us photographers interact with our computers on a daily basis. While Wacom tablets are certainly the luxurious way of editing, many of us still love our trusty mouse for plenty of tasks.
The Pakpod is Kickstarter's latest small-camera tripod to hit the market. It's not made of carbon fiber or even metal. It won't stand much higher than a couple feet. And it looks a little funny - let's be honest. But it does one thing better than any other tripod I've ever seen: it attaches to anything (even under water).
Canon's latest cameras are compact, but pack a punch (maybe). While some might be compelled to ask themselves about the reasons behind releasing the lackluster EOS M10 at all, the G5 X and G9 X both fit well into Canon's high-end compact lineup with interesting features that might draw the casual shooter looking for something a bit more spectacular than le quotidien.
EOS M10
Without a huge media hoopla, today Apple announced updates to some of its entire all-in-one desktop lineup. The 21.5-inch iMac now offers a 4K retina display, the 27-inch iMac now comes standard with the 5K retina display, the Mac sees its first Skylake debut, and Apple's Magic keyboard and mouse accessories see great updates (at a price).
Kai and friends at DigitalRev TV have got their hands on the very new and very exceptional Milvus lenses from Zeiss. Their test includes the 21mm f/2.8, 35mm f/2, 50mm f/1.4, and 85mm f/1.4 models that make up the core of this new lens system.
Lately it seems that DJI has been releasing innovative video tools every single month. Known primarily for their ultra popular Phantom and Inspire 1 drone systems, DJI just announced today that they are releasing their own handheld 4K camera and gimbal called the Osmo.
So outrageous are the looks of the L16 camera, you might find yourself checking today's date to make sure we haven't entered into April. But no, this is completely real. Light, the company behind the L16 camera, took a compact body and crammed 16 cameras, each with its own plastic-covered lens, into it.
Before I had a Wacom, I seriously questioned the ability that a touchpad without a screen would have to improve my editing workflow. Also the screen-integrated models were way too expensive for me to consider at the time. Those of us that have them now, however, see them as an invaluable tool in our work — and it’s one we probably want to protect.
If you thought the megapixel war was over years ago then you might shocked by the latest cameras released by Nikon, Sony, and Canon. The D810, A7RII, and 5DsR are the biggest and baddest pieces of artillery on the front line, and today the team at Fstoppers is going to determine once and for all which camera is the best.
For our latest submissions to Critique the Community, we asked photographers to submit their product images for review and feedback. We had a great variety of submissions this week and choose 20 of them to talk about. Thank you everyone who posted their pictures. To see the variety of shots we chose, check out the talented work from our community below.
For almost 40 years, Tamrac has been producing bags aimed towards photographers who embraced the great outdoors. Their brand new collection of Anvil backpacks — which replaces the Expedition line — continues their tradition while making a number of exciting design choices that make this collection their best ever.
It was some time ago now that I reviewed one of Lowepro's first ProTactic AW bags when it first came out, and it was quite well received on this end.
Submissions for a new episode of "Critique the Community" are now open! Between now and the end of the day on September 23rd, you have a chance to submit PRODUCT images to be critiqued by the Fstoppers team. For this episode, we will be giving feedback to 20 pictures. To qualify you must follow the submission rules below.
First, second, third, and fourth generations of several companies’ drones are now out on the market. But it’s only as we head into 2016 that the drone race is really on and that all the other possible players with their collectively interesting ideas who might have lagged behind a little are now crossing the halfway point.
With impressive looking example videos and a relatively inexpensive price tag when compared to a MoVi or Ronin, the Kickstarter for the SteadXP has already blown past its fundraising goal. I wasn't sure what all the hype was about until I watched their video with before and after examples.
A while ago we reported that Canon has come out with a new camera geared towards shooting at extremely high ISO. The new ME20F-SH from Canon can shoot in full HD at over 4,000,000 ISO. Now Canon Japan has released some promotional footage to show us what we can expect from this new camera and these new possibilities.
Hitting your goal on Kickstarter is one thing, but to absolutely kill the competition by making something that truly stands out and brings a follower base stronger than any other brand brings real value. Langly has humble beginnings, as they started their first campaign on Kickstarter a few years ago, hoping to bring their simple goal to life.
At this point, you've probably heard that the Virtual Reality revolution is coming. Seemingly every week, big companies are making announcements about dipping their toes into the 360 video technology game.
Professional hard drive and storage solutions company G-Technology unveiled a series of new hard drives that expand compatibility and flexibility with their growing Evolution Series solutions.
The Elinchrom Indirect softboxes are quite well known amongst fashion and commercial photographers. Especially the 190 octabank. Recently Elinchrom revised its indirect lineup and renamed it Indirect Litemotiv. The Swiss brand offered me the chance to play around with the whole line of Indirect Litemotiv for a little over a month.
I’ve been a user of the original One Man Crew for many different videos. It’s ability to get elegant motion video clips have made it a go-to piece of gear for when I need my interviews to have an interesting look to them. When I heard that an updated version was being released, I was excited to see if a few issues were fixed.
Canon's EOS M was a good first-try mirrorless, compact APS-C camera that fell a bit short. After withholding the EOS M2 for other markets, the M3 comes to the United States after two generations of much-needed improvements. Those features, however, just might launch the platform into best-in-class territory -- at least on paper.
Canon's rumored 35mm follow-up is finally here. Apart from the obvious general increase in quality with the standard aspheric and ultra-low dispersion elements, the new lens specifically promises to further reduce chromatic aberration (important for wide-aperture lenses) while being the "ideal complement to the latest generation of Canon's high-resolution DSLRs" (i.e.
It seems that every week a new camera bag hits the market, and while the majority are stylish and functional they all have one unifying trait. They all seem remarkably masculine in appearance. Whether this is a reflection on the industry of photography as a whole (seeing as men outnumber women) the fact of the matter is that there isn't a whole lot of selection for women...
The tripod is an essential piece of gear for many photographers, and as they become lighter and more portable they become less of an inconvenience to carry. Gitzo has just released a sleek-looking line of travel-friendly tripods that aim to be smartly compact while increasing stiffness and performance over previous versions.
Welcome to the this week's installment of Fstoppers’ Gear Tuesday! Below, you will find the answers to last week’s questions, including great topics such as film scanners and the Nikon D750.
The Feiyu 3-Axis Wearable Gimbal is a miniaturized version of Feiyu's handheld gimbals, offering motorized 3-axis stabilization in a compact, wearable form factor for the latest GoPro and similar action cameras. Designed with flexibility in mind, the FY-WG features 1/4"-20 threaded holes for horizontal, vertical, or inverted mounting onto a
We love photography. We love gear. And we love this guy: New York City-based headshot photographer Peter "Shabang" Hurley. So when B&H put out this episode of, "What's in Your Bag?", featuring Peter and his kit, of course we were going to watch and post it with all the same excitement and exuberance that Peter himself puts into everything.
Welcome to the this week's installment of Fstoppers’ Gear Tuesday! Below, you will find the answers to last week’s questions, including great topics such as the stability of memory cards and ultra low ISOs.