Photography News

A brand new full-frame mirrorless camera has just entered into the game, and it comes from the German-based luxury camera brand Leica. The Leica SL (Typ 601) is a 24-megapixel camera that packs a number of interesting features within its eye-catching design such as 4.4MP EVF with 60fps refresh, 11 frames per second burst capture, internal 4K video, and touchscreen controls, so let’s take a closer look.

I find myself saying this a lot these days, but that's not a typo. In fact, the listed ISO range for the new KONO! Donau film is actually ISO 3-6. With such a low sensitivity, photographers can capture longer exposures in daylight. The film's extremely blue tones serve as a reminder that it's still in the experimental range, but there's an entirely new limit to what you could do with a hand-rolled ISO 3-6 film.

With a slightly more enterprise-solution twist, Amazon has announced a new 50-terabyte "Snowball" drive that ships itself to your address, gives you ten days to load it with as much data as you can, and then gets picked up by UPS to transfer the data back to Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud storage — all for $200 per job. The process works in reverse, too; so, you can import or export a job between any AWS product more quickly and at less cost than alternatives.

Just days after we saw the release of the world's widest full-frame f/1.4 lens, we're now seeing the release of the world's longest full-frame f/1.4 lens. Zhong Yi Optics, mostly known for their ultra-fast mirrorless lenses, has put up a pre-order page for their new Mitakon Speedmaster 135mm f/1.4 lens.

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. However, it was time for an update. But Elinchrom did not just update the Skyport, they made a whole new version introducing a range of hi-sync products.

According to NBC News, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is getting close to announcing new rules for recreational drone use, beginning with the requirement to register every drone a person buys. Registration itself, however, is not a large obstacle to drone ownership and operation, as registration will only be able to help the FAA keep track of just how many there are and, hopefully, identify aircraft that break rules or cause collisions. But just how effective will this be? And what other laws will come in the way of recreational drone flight?

If you're like me and you're sick and tired of the Drone Takeover, this state-of-the-art weaponry is for you. In an effort to defend the airspace around you, the Ohio-based, nonprofit Battelle has created the DroneDefender as a way to keep videographer drones at bay during that next wedding shoot. There will be no more swatting at poor-resolution cameras buzzing about your head; simply pull this bad boy from your quiver and "bang!" Drone down.

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. Either way, for those with cameras like the Nikon D4 or D4S, Lexar just released their fastest XQD cards yet, the XQD 2.0 cards, supporting up to 440 MB/s transfer rates (or in other, less useful, but impressive-sounding terms, speeds up to 2933x). Meanwhile, the CFast cards are even 20 percent faster.

As mobile photography continues to grow in popularity, so does the creativity that goes along with it. It is truly amazing to see some of the images and videos that people are creating using smartphones, GoPros, and other devices. It is no surprise that companies are creating mobile accessories designed specifically with mobile photography and videography in mind. One company, Think Eleven, has developed an interesting new LED light.

Landscape, street, and astrophotographers have reason to rejoice. Today, Sigma announced the latest addition to their much-lauded "Art" line of lenses, the 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art, making it the world's widest full frame f/1.4 lens. Coupled with some other intriguing design characteristics, this looks to be another hit for the already popular line of lenses.

The same technology to protect movies, music and books could soon be coming to your images. The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) recently announced an initiative that may one day bring digital rights management (DRM) to the most common image format in the world.

For the last couple weeks, Fstoppers asked our readers to fill out a site survey. In exchange, all entrants were entered to win one of four prizes. The first name randomly drawn will receive a $500 B&H gift card. The second, third, and fourth names randomly drawn will receive an Fstoppers original tutorial of their choice for free. All entrants will receive special discount codes for the Fstoppers store. I wanted to send out a HUGE thanks to everyone who participated and filled out the survey. And now for the WINNER announcement...

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).

The incredible deal that we discovered a few months ago is back for a very limited time. Right now you can get the Canon Pro-100 printer and 50 sheets of 13x19 photo paper for just $50 after rebate.

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.

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). With even more under-the-hood changes, these are the iMac's you wanted all year, but may not have known about. (UPDATED)

When we heard the news, a few people in our office assumed it was a joke; maybe it was written by The Onion. Playboy magazine, which exists because of nude photography, will not longer feature it.

The E-mount lens family for Sony mirrorless cameras seems to be growing larger every day. Today, Zeiss announced a new addition to their manual-focus E-mount Loxia line: the Loxia 21mm f/2.8. Joining the 35mm f/2 and 50mm f/2 Loxia lenses already available, this trio aims to provide the high level of image quality that Zeiss glass is known for, and look good while doing it too.

After Monday's release of Lightroom, many users were upset to find the release had seen changes that removed features and worse, had a tendency to crash, rendering it essentially unusable. Today, Adobe has released an update that corrects the crash issue, as well as an apology.

While it seems like there is a new selfie stick on the market every other day, PolarPro, an action camera accessories manufacturer, is set to begin production on a pretty cool extension pole. The PowerGrip H2O is a fully waterproof, battery-integrated extension pole that can not only mount your GoPro but charge it as well.

Coming early next year, Voigtlander will be giving some new ultra wide-angle lens options to Sony mirrorless photographers. Today they announced plans to release a 10mm f/5.6, 12mm f/5.6, and a 15mm f/4.5 as native Sony E-mount designs in spring 2016.

Enough already. I feel like the past year has been a repeating loop of the song "Nookie," where "nookie" is replaced with "Instagram" and Fred Durst is replaced with people who are somehow more stupid than Fred Durst. Internet points are not worth breaking the law or risking your life for; they just aren't. But try telling that to the woman who decided to do a handstand on the DC Metro tracks.

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. Together with the Ronin DSLR stabilizing system and the Micro Four Thirds Inspire 1 Pro, the Osmo is yet another product that will change the way photographers and videographers can capture stabilized footage on a budget.

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. The idea is to create an all-in-one camera with multiple focal lengths, allowing the L16 to use computational photography to combine resulting images for higher quality photos from an aggregation of photos taken with small sensors.

Designed to combat flights over private property by paparazzi photographers looking to get glimpses of celebrities in their "natural elements," a new bill, AB 856, signed by California Governor Jerry Brown Tuesday, broadens the definition of a "physical invasion of privacy" to include flying a drone to record images or video over private property. While countless issues surrounding invasion of privacy and drone usage have appeared on the Internet over the years (including one instance of a father shooting down a drone recording his daughter sunbathing in their backyard), this expansion could pose more danger to well-intentioned videographers.

Today I attended Microsoft's press event in NYC. I assume that they wanted me there because I am one of the few photographers who doesn't currently use Apple computers. I was excited to see the new Surface Pro 4, but I wasn't prepared to see a Macbook Pro and iPad Pro killer.

Sony Corporation announced today that it will spin off its semiconductor business into its own company in April 2016. Other parts of the corporation will see a restructuring of operations while all of the research and development, business, sales, and other operations related to the semiconductor and image sensor business will benefit from more autonomy under one separate roof. It has long been known that while Sony's other ventures have struggled recently, their semiconductor business does extremely well, as it is positioned as a market leader, whereas many manufacturers (including Nikon and Apple) use their sensors almost exclusively.

NASA recently released over 11,000 images from the Apollo space missions via the Project Apollo Archive on Flickr, and I have spent the past few days looking through them. Spoiler alert: They're awesome.

Every year's Adobe MAX conference marks the an obvious time to expect updates throughout Adobe's product lineup. So what's different this time? Mobile. Adobe has the monopoly in the area of creative applications for media editing, but for the first time in a while, it feels like they're competing with some unknown entity. This year's updates bring so many new features across the widest range of Adobe products ever that there's no doubt they're serious about their making customers happy with a huge concentration on mobile.

A 17 year-old Russian teenager died recently after attempting to capture a photo of himself that would make it look as though he was falling from the top of a building. After Andrey Retrovesky secured himself with a rope that was used to help with the special effect, in a grim turn of events, the rope snapped, leaving Retrovesky in a free fall. Although some brush reportedly helped to break his fall, sadly, it wasn't enough to keep him from succumbing to his injuries just a couple hours after the incident.

Fuji has just announced a new addition to their popular Instax camera line with the release of the new Instax Mini 70, promising an increase in image quality and a brand new "Selfie" mode.

Over the past few months Nikon shooters have been getting an unfair amount of amazing eBay deals. Canon users can finally rejoice because they are getting their own killer deal. The 5D3 is only $1899.

Quick Reminder! We are having a contest with a chance at winning a $500 B&H gift card! The survey only takes ten minutes. After filling it out you will be eligible to win 1 of 4 prizes and will also guarantee you an Fstoppers Original Tutorial discount. All we need is ten minutes of your time and your honest opinion.

RED Digital Cinema has announced the latest addition to its line of professional cameras, the RED RAVEN priced at $5,590. RED RAVEN is the lightest and cheapest camera among the RED Cinema lineup. This camera is capable of capturing 4K resolution footage at up to 120fps or 2K resolution at 240fps.

In the continuing saga of musicians complaining about others stealing their work or not getting paid enough for their work and then ripping off hard-working photographers, the rapper T.I. has joined the pack. T.I., most famous for hits "Rubberband Man" and "Whatever You Like" has stolen a Trinidadian photographer's work for use in an invitation to a party he's hosting. The photographer has called him out!

Image backup is one of the things that all photographers have to worry about. In the past, we mostly had to deal with stacks of hard drives and needing to move those hard drives off-site. Cloud storage is a newer option that has great potential, but the cost to store massive amount of images just wasn't feasible. Now you can get unlimited cloud storage for your raw files, and lucky for you, it's on sale today only.

Aside from some people getting theirs early and others being in time zones where "today" was "yesterday," the iPhone comes out today in the U.S. And of course, those who have theirs have already spent plenty of time comparing various features. This new video by Giga Tech highlights the differences between the iPhone 6S' and 6S Plus' respective video qualities when it comes to video stabilization. The larger Plus model features optical stabilization as its predecessor did while the smaller size of the smaller 6S only leaves room for digital stabilization — and the difference is quite dramatic.

This week ONA announced a big release of an all new bag line, called The Black Collection, aimed mainly at the travel photographers. The all black designs stray away from their usual highly artistic and unique all-leather look, but loses little in the way of features and build quality.

Lifestyle Photographers Pty. Ltd. have found themselves in hot water with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC.) Lifestyle Photographers Pty. Ltd. could face up to $1.1 million in fines if the allegations of targeting and tricking Aboriginal consumers into paying up to $10,000 for family photos hold up.

I love great camera deals. Lee loves great camera deals. Casey is a big 'ol Debbie Downer about camera deals, but he lives in Seattle so he's required to be a contrarian. For those of you who also love camera deals, today is a great day because those killer prices on new Nikon D810s and D750s are back!

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. Today, Lowepro announced the addition of four new bags to the ProTactic line which are easily recognizable and known for their external SlipLock-compatible accessory and webbing system and semi-rigid, premium build. Today's newest bags come in smaller sizes and, for the first time, in shoulder-bag variants — all maintaining the all-weather (AW) design with smaller mirrorless or single-body kits in mind. For the commuters or über-mobile that don't need room for multiple bodies and half a dozen lenses in addition to a 15-inch laptop, these smaller options may be the best choice now that they're on the market.

If you're a mirrorless camera user in search of a third party lens, you could be in luck. Today, Rokinon announced the release of their new high speed 21mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC Compact and the 50mm f/1.2 AS UMC Compact “made for mirrorless” lenses. The lenses are designed specifically for mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras and compact system cameras and will be available in mounts for Sony E, Micro 4/3, Fuji X, and Canon M. The lens will also be available in black or silver.

After 127 years as a purely for-information, not-for-profit publication, National Geographic has been pulled into Rupert Murdoch's media-industry fold. In a $723 million deal, 73 percent of shares in National Geographic were bought up by the media mogul who owns companies such as 21st Century Fox; only 23 percent of shares remain with the Geographic Society. Although announcements from Murdoch's son James have stated that the integrity of National Geographic will remain intact, skeptics are voicing their opinions.

The camera/printer deals have been pretty big recently but this may be the best deal so far. Today only, grab this incredible deal on an entire camera setup and photo printer worth over $1200 for just $399 after rebate.

Today, Pentax posted a teaser page on its website, announcing the debut of a full frame camera, finally bringing to fruition a camera system many have long thought was in the making.

The Steadicam was invented in 1975 as a mechanical way of stabilizing video cameras. In 2013 Freefly introduced the Movi, an electronic gimbal that basically made your average Steadicam obsolete. Since then the price of electronic gimbals has plummeted to a level that the average consumer can actually afford. That hasn't stopped Sachtler from creating a hybrid stabilizer that costs $45,000.

With all the hype surrounding the release of the Sony a7SII, the wait to order it is finally over. Sony has created this camera body to revolutionize the way cinematographers shoot with DSLRs. Although the cameras probably won't ship for another month or so, this camera is worth being first in line for.

The iPad may work as a laptop replacement for casual web and email surfers, but for us photographers, it's not really a professional tool. Many photographers still own an iPad as a digital portfolio or for casual use, but its simplified operating system makes using it professionally very difficult. Apple is taking a big step forward with the iOS 9 update which finally allows multitasking and it's available right now.

New Horizons left Florida's Cape Canaveral launch pad on January 19, 2006, arrived over Pluto more than nine years later on July 14, 2015, and finally gave scientists its first images over Labor Day weekend, when its year-long, tediously slow data dump first began. Coming in at 2,000 bits per second (1/28th the speed of dial-up), these images - many of which are composited in various ways to form a final image - finally shed some light on what secrets Pluto's surface, atmosphere, and core might hold. All told, the results give sci-fi fanatics a run for their money.

Ever since the release of the original a7, Sony hasn't been shy about quickly updating their now-popular line of full-frame mirrorless cameras. Geared towards cinematographers, low-light shooters, and anyone who likes a lot of tech, the Sony a7S II is now the sixth camera in the series since 2013. Boasting in-body 5-axis stabilization and a promise of clean images throughout its impressive ISO range, the a7S II is likely to continue growing the brand's reputation for making quality compact full-frame cameras.