Articles written by Usman Dawood

Ten years ago if you posted a video of kittens playing, you may have gained a significant number of views. YouTube was still relatively new at that point and the perception towards it was very different. The perception has gradually changed and this is due in part to the kind of content now on YouTube and the success it has developed for many content creators. In his latest video, Casey Neistat discusses an article posted on Bloomberg describing how success on YouTube still means a life poverty.

NiSi Filters is currently developing a filter holder system with square filters for your smartphone. On the surface this may seem like a gimmick, however the more I think about it the more I start to like the idea of this product

Ever since the Canon 5D Mark II, it seems as though Canon has been dragging their feet when it comes to innovating. Their new announcements and releases tend to be met with quite a strong negative response, and although this may not be an overall consensus, it's prominent enough.

There have been far too many occasions in the past where I've been holding back from either starting a project or completing it. I would start procrastinating, finding different reasons and excuses to do anything but the project at hand. This mostly came down to the fact that I was unhappy with the work I was producing. I wanted my work to look like the stuff I saw on Instagram or Fstoppers, however, no practice no progress. Fortunately, for the most part, I have been able to remedy that mentality, although the feeling does creep up from time to time.

When it comes to filming, using a fast shutter speed is generally a bad idea. For most applications, you'll probably want to keep your shutter speed somewhere around 1/60 of a second, maybe even slower, depending of course on what frame rate your shooting at. The reason for this is because it allows for more smoother and cinematic looking footage which isn't choppy or harsh looking. Faster shutters speeds generally can be a little jarring to look at. The problem with this is that to compensate for this slower shutter speed you may need to stop your lens down. This, in turn, prevents you from getting that shallow depth of field, especially when filming outdoors.

Medium-format cameras have long been known for their excellent image quality and incredible ability when it comes to rendering colors. Phase One's latest camera, the IQ3 100MP Trichromatic, takes this a step further and you can now get extremely accurate and effective colors, straight out of the camera. To learn more about the Trichromatic and how it compares to the "standard" 100MP back from Phase One, check out my previous article. The main issue with medium-format cameras such as these is that they cost significantly more than what most of us would like to pay. What if we could attain that level of quality without needing to spend anywhere as close?

Medium-format cameras have long been known for being able to produce incredible and vibrant colors. This is one of the main reasons behind why many professionals upgrade and spend so much on these systems. The colors that you can achieve with the 16-bit sensors are very desirable and allow much more flexibility in post. Currently, the 100MP sensor is the only CMOS sensor that is 16-bit capable based on the hardware, and most people who shoot with these cameras are very happy with the results. Phase One, however, decided it wasn't good enough and released their new Trichromatic back.

On the surface, this may seem crazy, performing a drop test on a glass ND filter, but, hear me out. I've been speaking with Breakthrough Photography about their filters and one of the things that came up was the fact that their filters are made of tempered glass. They seemed really confident about how strong their filters were so I, of course, wanted to know how strong. After a few initial, probing questions, I asked them if I could do a drop test on their filters to demonstrate their durability. To my surprise, they not only agreed but, they sent me an extra filter specifically for the test.

In the last few years, it seems a number of new filter manufacturers have popped up, significantly improving the competitiveness in this particular market. Neutral density filters have been known for being quite expensive and this one of the key reasons why many photographers still avoid using them. In recent years, however, companies like NiSi Filters and Breakthrough Photography have been delivering some incredible products with much more palatable prices to help photographers get the look they desire. In a previous comparison done by Fstoppers, Patrick Hall demonstrated how good the filters from Breakthrough are, and in fact, they won that particular comparison. Breakthrough claims their filters are the sharpest and most color neutral in the world, so I wanted to see how they perform against NiSi.