Gear Reviews

With recent advances in third-party lens tech and glass quality, Tamron’s new 18-400mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC HLD superzoom lens with its small form factor and incredible versatility just might be the best travel and walk around lens for APS-C cameras to date. With a price of $650, this could easily replace two or even three lenses for some users. But who exactly is this lens for? 

Color grading is a technique we usually relate solely to the video post-production process. This course teaches color directing which is way more than just software manipulation of the hues of a video footage. It will tell you how to color grade both in-camera and in post. 

Graphics tablets are standard fare in a photographer’s arsenal of retouching tools, but could a pen display make retouching even easier? 

Color calibration is a necessary step in getting the very best results in your photography, yet many photographers avoid it altogether, leaving the final color edits to their printing lab, and basically turning over the outcome of an entire session to a complete stranger who knows nothing about your editing style or desired end result.

Architectural photography isn't the cheapest genre of photography, mainly due to the fact that tilt-shift lenses are a little expensive. Sure there are cheaper options, however, they generally perform worse and may not be worth it. A company called Venus Optics might just have the solution with their Magic Shift Converter.

For years photographers and YouTube commenters have been telling us that in order to get the most out of our Profoto B1 and D1 lights, we need to add the Profoto Frosted Glass Dome to our strobes. Today I test this add-on to see if it makes a difference at all, and the results are surprising.

The Elinchrom ELB 1200 is the almost perfect battery pack for any photographer who shoots with flash. Powerful but not too cumbersome to carry, it has a lot of features to seduce you! Find out through this review if it has a place in your kit or not. 

Just about second to what you can only find at NASA, the Hasselblad H6D-100c represents the pinnacle of digital photography today. Dive into this review to understand where and why this monster system might be worth it. 

When a new and innovative product comes out, it generally demands a higher price. But does the Profoto A1 really have what it takes to justify a $1,000 price tag? 

Western Digital’s 1 TB My Passport SSD is the latest in a line of ultra-compact, portable solid-state drives that have come out over the last few years. My personal favorite (at least until this point) has been the Samsung T5 SSD, which I reviewed earlier this year. But Western Digital’s entry in this space is very worth looking into. 

Everyone I know who shoots video dreams to own a gimbal if they don’t already. But did you know that if you have a drone, you actually already own a gimbal that you can use to shoot anything? 

In the new online course from Masters of Photography, street photography icon Joel Meyerowitz discusses his career, his technique, and teaches students how to apply those lessons in becoming a better photographer. 

Jared Polin, aka the Fro, brings us yet another real-world review, where he looks in-depth into the latest and greatest cameras on the market. This time it's Sony’s latest offering in the a7 III and I’ve been looking forward to this review since the announcement. 

Most of us have our computer equipment hooked up to at least a basic surge protector, but that doesn't protect against fluctuating voltages or power outages. The APC Battery Back-UPS Pro BX1500M protects against both these things and allows you to keep working when the power goes out. Check out our review! 

Smartphone photography is fast becoming a significant genre within the industry. Many professionals actually use their smartphones for commercial purposes and for good reason. The portability and connectivity many smartphones offer, give it a great advantage in many scenarios.  

While shooting with an iPhone is great because you always have it with you, DSLRs still offer much better ergonomics. But what if there was a grip designed to pimp your smartphone and get more buttons and wheels? 

Color Cone boldly positions itself as a powerful but easy to use tool to augment any color grading workflow. Is Color Cone the next great addition to your post-processing ritual or just another app that you will purchase and never use again? 

The Mavic Air is tiny and films in 4K, but does it deliver? What is the image quality like? Can it handle wind? What about the battery life and range? After a month of intensive use, here is a detailed review of this new drone. 

The Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Lens is an incredible lens which offers the ability to get extremely close to your subjects. Venus Optics has decided to take direct aim at this very niche area of photography with their latest addition, the Laowa 25mm f/2.8 2.5-5X Ultra Macro Lens.  

Portable LEDs are now more powerful than ever with some manufacturers claiming they can replace strobes for most outdoor flash work. We took the Rotolight AEOS into the field on a sports fashion shoot to see if these claims are valid. Off the back of the success from the NEO 2, Rotolight introduced the AEOS to their line-up of premium LED lights.

Now that the Fujifilm X system is more mature, plenty of lenses are available not only from Fujifilm themselves but third-party manufacturers are also starting to provide quality options. One such company that has just released it’s first native Fujifilm X mount offering is Venus Optics with their ultra-wide Laowa 9mm f/2.8 Zero-D.

Has the photo industry neglected one important feature when designing monopods over the last several decades? Steadicam seems to be addressing an overlooked feature with the recently released Steadicam Air 25 that active photographers may find quite helpful. 

Portable hard drives are no longer just boxes that let you carry large amounts of data on the go. They now aim to be hubs around which your mobile life is centered, offering card ingestion and backup, device charging, wireless access, streaming, and more. Western Digital recently upgraded their My Passport Wireless line with an SSD version. Check out our review! 

Geared towards the outdoor photographer who needs a day bag for their camera gear and accessories, the Tenba Solstice caught my eye as a promising choice. Read on to find out how it performed. 

After about four months on the market, how is the second generation Surface Book looking compared to the increasing competition in both the laptop and tablet-hybrid market? Does its increased power and battery life justify the high price tag? 

As a Londoner, New York strikes me as a similarly quintessential city. How then, in this most photographed of places, can a photobook surprise you?

Many photographers create video content to supplement their photography and they know by now that bad audio is a great way to destroy beautiful footage. They also know that's easy to break these delicate devices as we pack more and more gear into our bags. It was the constant breaking that led me to this shotgun mic which will not break your bank.

Photographers sit for so long during the day — an average of ten hours for the photographers I interviewed — that it's affecting their health in potentially disastrous ways. In this review, I'd like to help you decide whether adding a Fluidstance balance board to your office could provide a valuable way to protect your health. 

Fujifilm has once again revolutionized the X-series with its latest release, the Fujifilm X-H1. Since its humble beginnings with the  original X100 and X-Pro1, Fuji has taken aim at the professional content creators market.

Just when you thought zeroing in on, and staying put with the copious amount of camera and lens options was enough to alone cause sleepless nights, you then discover this wild world of high power flash photography. Good news is help is indeed on the way, depending on your needs as a photographer one of these three advanced flash options will get the job done. 

It is fair to say GoPro have been struggling in recent years. Will their latest device, the GoPro Fusion, restore them to their former glory? 

Are you getting real tired, real quick of the ol' shoulder strap method of carrying your camera around? Me too, and I've been on a journey to rid myself from it once and for all. In this hands-on review I take a closer look at the Peak Design Capture Camera Clip v3.  

Last month, Samyang announced the XP 50mm f/1.2, adding to its lens lineup of premium glass for the high-megapixel cameras of today. There haven’t been any real-world examples of this prime Canon-only lens being used in the field until now.  

The subject of Canon and 4K is a hot-button topic for quite a few videographers out there, but with the release of the M50, the company finally has their first 4K mirrorless camera out in the wild. The 4K implementation isn't perfect, however, and this review takes a practical look at how good it is. 

Every once in a while, a lens comes along that truly breaks new ground for one reason or another. Such is the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 DG HSM Art, which has an aperture over a stop faster than its competitors and is the fastest full-frame lens under 20mm. Of course, extreme lenses often have compromises of some sort, so how does this one perform? In short, extremely well.

Late last year, Imatag announced a new means for photographers and image-makers to protect their work: their service allows customers to embed an invisible watermark which is then tracked on the web, alerting the copyright owner each time that the image is published online. I put their service to the test. 

For many architectural photographers, tilt-shift lenses from Canon are the go-to option. These particular lenses are quite possibly the best available, and although Nikon has their variants, they just don't seem to be as good as Canon.

These days you can find web-based invoicing and business management tools that are quite powerful, yet cost a monthly usage fee. The one I found used to have a $20 monthly fee, but got bought by Fiverr and is now free to use as you wish.  

When I first started shooting flash, I would lug my big studio lights and battery packs from location to location. But after a while, this became such a hassle that I stopped doing it. I instead settled for using a hot shoe flash or just shooting with no flash at all. But this may change now that Elinchrom has the new ELB 500 TTL.

One week ago, Sony introduced the a7 III full-frame mirrorless camera which redefined what a “base model” should be. Here’s my first-look review. 

My workflow has relied on SmugMug starting back in March of 2008, and after a decade of use, my organization was a disaster. In that ten-year span, the focus of my business has evolved, and SmugMug's features grew with it, and my account was well past due for cleaning house a remodel.

Are you a traveling gear junky with a penchant for multiple lens lengths and a fear of failing camera bodies? The Lens Smuggler by Cinebags covers most of these bases, in a bag that you can smuggle onto most airplanes, provided your back - and budget - can handle it. 

Canon has taken a while to extend their mirrorless range of cameras, and they’ve also stalled on giving 4K to the masses. I’m not sure why they’ve taken so long, but Peter McKinnon runs us through what to expect with the new Canon M50. 

Light. We see it all around us as billions of photons pass right by us, bouncing against objects like "Punch-Me-Clowns."  As photographers, we're obsessed and spend our lives figuring out how to manipulate them, and it could be an exhausting task to pursue, but that's about to change.  

If RoboCop were a photographer, what kind of camera carrying system would he use? A simple shoulder strap? No way. Some kind of belt holster? Hmm, getting warmer. The Cotton Carrier Systems G3 Camera Harness? Ding ding ding! 

Fujifilm set the bar for APS-C portrait lenses with their phenomenal XF 56mm f/1.2 a few years back and they have done the same for digital medium format with the GF 110mm f/2 R LM WR. The GFX system is an exceptional fit for those shooting high-end portraiture and the GF 110mm f/2 is quite possibly the perfect portrait lens for this application. 

While we all know educational photography videos on YouTube are the bee’s knees, sometimes what’s really needed is an in-depth book to sink into. Enter Steve Perry’s “Secrets to Stunning Wildlife Photography.” 

Making videos on Premiere Pro using just my mouse has been getting really old really fast. Keyboard shortcuts are a way to make the whole process a little less monotonous, but it's still not perfect. Recently, however, I've been testing the Sensel Morph tablet and I think I've found the best thing for Premiere Pro. 

After traveling to more than 20 countries in less than 12 months with the Fujifilm X100F, I thought it would be interesting to share some of the reasons why I found this to be my perfect travel companion. 

We're kind of spoiled these days: digital cameras are ridiculously capable, and there are few (if any) images that can't be taken with the right gear. Just a few decades ago, consumer digital cameras were in their infancy, and this fun retro review takes a look at what the experience was like back then.