Adam Ottke's picture
Average rating:
3.1 out of 5 3.1
Adam Ottke
Los Angeles, CA
Menu

Articles written by Adam Ottke

Los Angeles Filmmakers Show Us What 'Grand Theft Auto' Would Look Like in Real Life
9
by

In the growing wake of low-budget, special effect action minis whose audience has become larger and larger on YouTube, Sam and Niko's "Real GTA" steps the game up once more with a perfect assimilation of the popular "Grand Theft Auto" video game into real, Los Angeles life. Complete with sound effects recreated as similarly as possible within the actual game, the same Los Angeles street scenes, and smashing special effects (like the famous wads of cash exploding out of recently killed bystanders), "Real GTA" reminds us both how ridiculous and subsequently fun it is.

Annie Leibovitz Photographs Caitlyn Jenner for the July Cover of Vanity Fair
50
by

In his physical prime, Bruce Jenner and his Olympic success made him a household name. With the start of his step-daughters' show, "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," Jenner's name became familiar to a much younger audience. Today, however, we can begin our goodbyes to the Olympic legend and welcome Caitlyn Jenner, who will be introduced to the world within Vanity Fair's coming issue (due June 9) with the front cover tagline, "Call me Caitlyn."

Why I Will Never Put Photographs on My Business Cards Again
32
by

Never say never, but there are several quick reasons that make business cards with images a bad decision — even for a photographer. Every rule has its exceptions, but for most, a photographic business card is certainly not something you should automatically assume to need or even want.

New 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro and Cheaper $1,999 27-inch Retina iMac Released Amid Mixed Emotions
36
by

Following speculation of such a release, Apple announced the availability of updated versions of its 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro with Force Touch and a new, cheaper 27-inch Retina iMac. While some specifications are improved, others seem to regress, spurring disdainful comments from some of Apple's biggest fans. On the other hand, it's likely that Apple (the most profitable company in the world) knows what they're doing.

Filson’s McCurry Sportsman Bag: A Most Thorough Review and How It Did Me the Biggest Favor in the World
8
by

The world of fashionable photography bags isn’t unknown, but it’s not all that vast, either. As much as everyone might want to be fashionable, that desire simply isn’t as compatible with the necessary practicality we need from our gear... or is it? Can a bag look quite good while being quite practical? Or better yet, can a strict adherence to a bag’s fashion appeal aid its practicality? Is this bag even "fashionable"? The Filson McCurry Sportsman is certainly a "cool" bag. But as far as standing up to the test of practicality, we’re about to find out.

Film Review: We Owe It to Humanity to Learn About Sebastião Salgado Through 'Salt of the Earth'
7
by

Documentary photographers, fashion photographers, businessmen, housewives, househusbands, you, the world – everyone should know the name and works of Sebastião Salgado. His work has moved millions of social workers, doctors, politicians, economists, and photographers alike. His work moves humans because it is human. This might mark the second or third film review on Fstoppers, but it’s rare and extremely fortunate that we should have the ability to engulf the pleasures of what can easily be called the most soul-entrancing art documentary in the world that is “Salt of the Earth.”

BTS Video Describes Process of Creating the Human-Like 'Ava' Robot In 'Ex Machina'
4
by

Hollywood's latest A.I. thriller, "Ex Machina," promised to take viewers on a fascinating and thrilling philosophical, ethical, and human journey. The Turing test, man's domination over machine, artifically intelligent machines' potential and perhaps inevitable self-awareness and domination over man, and an eccentric Silicon Valley-like billionaire-type leading the helm... how could this not be a great film? More on that later, but to make all of this happen, director Alex Garland and VFX supervisor Andrew Whitehurst had to create a robot that would connect so well with audiences that we would treat it as any other human character.

BTS Video Discusses Sound Design in 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'
0
by

As we all know, even the most stunning visuals require an equally amazing and unique soundtrack to bring the audience's emotions to their full potential. Supervising Sound Editor and Sound Designer Christopher Boyles from Skywalker Sound discusses his work and the burden of creating original sounds for "Avengers: Age of Ultron" that will stand the test of time.

Hands-On Review with Sigma's Newest 24mm f/1.4 Art Beauty
7
by

Coming off of its previous reputation as an extreme budget brand when it came to DSLR lenses, Sigma has now had well over two years to fend off quality concerns with their restructured Global Vision lineup that began with the superb 35mm f/1.4 Art lens. Since then, Sigma’s Art-, Contemporary-, and Sport-series lenses have proven themselves better than or on par with their Nikon and Canon counterparts for far less capital; and the 24mm f/1.4 Art gives us no reason to suspect the new direction doesn’t have a clear vision to go global.

The New Superhero That Could: The Pentax K-3 II, How Nikon and Canon Are Lagging Behind, and Why It Doesn't Matter
47
by

Do you want your sensor to shift in-body to create a higher-resolution image? Want 4.5-stop image stabilization built into the body so we can benefit from its use with any lens? Want to be able to decide for every shot exactly what level of anti-aliasing you want in order to balance moiré and sharpness? It’s all possible with the new 24-megapixel, APS-C Pentax K-3 II. And, it'll likely be possible in their rumored full-frame camera. Pentax is great, but why aren’t we seeing the “bigger” brands pony up with groundbreaking features?

Vincent Laforet's AIR Series Stops in Los Angeles Before Crossing the Atlantic for Europe
7
by

Vincent Laforet's latest AIR series blankets the City of Angels with a farewell series of shots before the project will head to Europe for the first time starting mid-May. As Laforet continues shifting cities (from the previously covered New York City, Las Vegas, and San Francisco projects), his aesthetic slowly changes in response to the varying challenges and differences between shooting each city. Fstoppers caught up with Laforet to discuss the ever-present surprises in shooting AIR and its transformation as it grows into a larger project supported by G-Technology and pre-orders for Laforet's "AIR" book.

Hands-On Review with Macphun's New Noiseless Pro Noise Reduction Application for Mac
8
by

The popular Mac photography software company, Macphun, released a new application for the Mac that promises incredible noise reduction processing. Noiseless comes in regular and Pro versions, the latter of which include increased capabilities like RAW processing and included plug-in support for your other editing applications and both of which provide what is truly some of the best noise reduction available.

Fujifilm Announces the Weather Resistant Fuji XF 16mm f/1.4 R WR
15
by

Today, Fujifilm announced the Fuji XF 16mm f/1.4 R WR lens for its XF platform cameras (such as the recently released X-T1, part of a class of APS-C mirrorless cameras popularized by the success of the acclaimed Fuji X-Pro1 back in 2012). The weather-resistant (WR) 16mm f/1.4 R WR lens gives the Fuji X-mount lineup a much-needed wide-angle addition to the wide-aperture lens lineup with a 35mm equivalent focal length of 24mm -- a focal length that street photographers will love along with several other additions.

RED Outs a Slew of Upgrades That Include The Newest 8K Weapon System
7
by

Built on years of experience with creating the film industry's favorite high-resolution digital cinema cameras, RED now brings the Weapon upgrade in 6K variants due out this summer and in an 8K variant due to ship by the end of the year. There's quite a bit of new information to go with this announcement, but for now, we'll go over the main and most important points.

G-Technology G-Drive ev ATC with Thunderbolt Hands-On Review
4
by

If you’re a professional in the media industry and a Mac user, you’ve undoubtedly heard of and likely love G-Technology’s storage solutions (not that PC users have a reason not to, though). While G-Tech has largely been typecast an in-studio brand (with the LaCie Rugged drives taking a bulk of the on-the-road abuse), G-Tech’s newest offerings include their ATC lineup that helps close the gap, bringing them into the “all-terrain” hard drive space.

You're Lazy, And What's Worse: You Don't Even Know It
11
by

We’re all working hard. We all shoot as much as we can — a lot of it for free or little pay. We do our studies or go to work and try our best to stay in shape and take care of ourselves. There are a lot of hard-working people in the world. But most are quite lazy inhabitants of this planet; and odds are that you’re one of them.

Freefly Kicks A** at NAB: MIMIC Kinetic Controller, New ALTA Drone, WEDGE Lens Controller, and MōVI XL
0
by

If you don't own one, then you're currently drooling over one of Freefly Systems' MōVI systems (we know the feeling), which have gained incredible acclaim as cheaper and more nimble Steadicam alternatives. This week at NAB, Freefly introduces not one, but four completely new and exciting products, apparently striving for the industry's continued droolworthiness.

LinkedIn Buys Online Education Company Lynda.com for Total Valuation of $1.5 Billion
4
by

LinkedIn has announced its acquisition of Lynda.com, a popular online education platform that teaches technology skills such as how to use Photoshop or how to code in Java or use CSS. The $1.5 billion move will enable the company to offer a broad range of education services as it transitions from simply identifying skills needed for a position to also offering ways to gain those skills quickly and efficiently from with a trusted and proven method.

Image Stabilization, F/2.8, and 15-30mm: Tamron Just Brought Us the Best Wide-Angle Zoom You Can Get
10
by

The extreme wide-angle focal length is an area that I had long ignored. When I was first starting out, I just wasn’t interested in it. I was interested in people – and that meant 85mm f/1.4, 105mm, 135mm, and 200mm lenses with both great compression and bokeh. Leave it Tamron to bring me back to the wide side with the world’s first ultra-wide-angle zoom with vibration control: the Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD.