Articles written by Adam Ottke

Peak Design’s last Kickstarter for the Everyday Messenger was the most successfully funded photography product on the crowd-funding platform. With two days to go, its latest for the Everyday Backpack, Tote, and Sling just beat that record with nearly $5 million in pre-orders. These are my first impressions after a week with a pre-production version of the highly anticipated Everyday Backpack.

Although its business practices have shifted more than once since the Facebook takeover, most of us still love Instagram for its ease of use, reach, and simplicity. But today's app update makes little sense... today. On one hand, the new pinch-to-zoom update is extremely late. The iPhone had this feature since inception (granted, cell phone photos were hardly a thing prior to 2007). On the other hand however, Instagram’s linear photo resolution of 1,200 pixels already comes rather close to the native horizontal resolution of larger phones like the iPhone 6 Plus. Zooming into these photos optimized (read: downsized) for these displays looks absolutely dreadful. What are they thinking?

Nikon has announced the AF-S 105mm f/1.4E ED. Yes, that wide aperture is real. And yes, at $2,196.95, it's as expensive as anyone thought it might be. The good news is that optical quality is supposed to be at the top of its segment. With a relatively long focal length of 105mm, the f/1.4 maximum aperture is impressive regardless of the price. Also featuring Nikon's latest nano and fluorine coatings, this is bound to be a new favorite lens for many portrait and wedding photographers.

We spend thousands of dollars on the best cameras and lenses, but we often forget about the smaller accessories that come between us and our subject. Switching out your eyepiece for something better is an extremely underrated and cheap improvement you can make, and from special coatings to magnifiers, you actually have a few more options than you may have known.

Hasselblad is touring the country (and the world) with prototypes of the new 50-megapixel X1D camera and the two lenses launching alongside it. Priced way below any other Hasselblad on the market (and in line with Pentax’s 645Z), the X1D ushers in unparalleled portability while creating a entirely new segment: the medium format mirrorless camera. Earlier this week, I got a few minutes with this interesting hybrid.

KitSplit offers more than its already unique combination of a peer-to-peer gear rental platform with a traditional store-to-shooter online storefront that allows renters to compare all possible options. Can’t find the gear you need? KitSplit’s customer service will source it and find a way to get it on the site for you to rent. Too daunting or taxing on your schedule to list your gear yourself? Send KitSplit a gear list, and they’ll list it for you. You can set the prices or let them recommend that part based on availability and prices in your area. KitSplit brings full-service treatment to the business of connecting people with the gear they need.

A first-person view (FPV) drone operator recently crashed his drone in a park where he had permission to fly. While the drone landed at least dozens of yards away from the nearest person, a woman walked the distance with her dog, picked up the drone, tucked it under her shirt, and walked away. The GoPro attached to the drone continued to record the entire incident, including the aggressive verbal language and possibly multiple 911 calls she made as she became rather hysterical and the situation got out of hand.

It’s easy to be astounded by statistics such as 14 fps and ISO 3,000,000. But when you put everything that Nikon’s latest flagship body offers together, you get a machine that is the first of its kind, and that's really thanks to the combination of two features Nikon obviously pushed to new heights: autofocus, and — yes — ISO sensitivity (which has itself been a point of controversy for the Nikon D5).

We've covered photographer Ty Foster's "Lick" series before, but his latest creation, "Lick Puppies," takes this a step further by using only puppies and their particularly tiny tongues. Every puppy in this series is busy licking its nose, just coming up from licking some organic peanut butter — the choice lick-inducing food of the viral animal photographer.