Articles written by Ryan Mense

Venus recently released the KX-800 Twin Flash for macro photography which updates their previous KR-800 model. The new KX-800 model features stronger articulating arms that promise to hold their position better than before. In this review, macro photographer Thomas Shahan examines the Venus Twin Flash and goes over how to get the best results in real-world application.

The photo gear bag market is saturated with so many options of style and size that new products within this space really need to come out swinging with never-been-better looks and features in order to catch interest. The California-based company Booq, most known for their line of laptop bags and Apple product cases and covers, recently released the Python Catch shoulder-carry camera bag into this market. In this review I'll share my experience with the Python Catch and uncover what features it offers that separates itself from the competition.

Leica has just released their new full-frame 24-megapixel camera, the Leica Q (Typ 116), which fashions a Summilux 28mm f/1.7 fixed lens. While following Leica tradition in many aspects of its beautiful design, the Leica Q doesn’t shy away from incorporating fresh advancements into the camera such as a 3.68-megapixel viewfinder, a 3-inch 1.04-million dot touchscreen LCD, quick autofocus, and the ability to shoot 10 frames per second.

Brooklyn-based photographer Jessica Lehrman is the subject of Format’s first video in their new documentary series, InFrame. In this debut episode, Lehrman brings us into her unique childhood experience, explains her start and development in photography, and explores the inspirations to her raw style of images that she is well known for.

When Nashville-based photographer Jake Harsh was tasked with coming up with an original photoshoot where he could flex his artistic freedoms, things turned slightly dangerous. His brave subjects for this shoot, the electro-pop band Hand of Hearts, would stand in a room with 18 pounds of fireworks being ignited and what transpired after that would be unpredictable. Here’s a behind-the-scenes video of what happened and the resulting images.

The natural beauty contained within Enrique Pacheco’s latest time-lapse video “Reflections from Uyuni” is striking and remarkable. During South America’s rainy season, Pacheco journeyed through the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world, down to the Bolivian desert capturing surreal landscapes of these flooded lands. Fstoppers is happy to share the Spanish cinematographer’s insight as to what the experience was like shooting in such surreal locations.

Polish cinematographer Maciej Tomków’s “Treasures of Zakynthos” is a beautiful, award-winning time-lapse that highlights the titled Greek island. Going far beyond only filming for the final project, Tomków also took the time and care to create incredibly well-done behind-the-scenes videos that give a true sense of what production is like shooting epic time-lapses. If you’re passionate about photography or videography, you’re going to love these "Behind the Time-lapse" creations.

If you’re a fan of both the “Game of Thrones” series and filmmaking, then today’s your lucky day as HBO has uploaded to the Internet behind-the-scenes footage from the Season 4 finale, “The Children.” This featurette from the Blu-ray boxset shows how the visual effects team came up with the wight’s design for the ambush scene and how they implemented a blend of CGI and live-action to get everything looking right for showtime.

Photography book publisher Rocky Nook recently released several new titles which join their now expansive library of topics. I checked out two of these new books, and in this article I review “Street Photography: The Art of Capturing the Candid Moment” by Gordon Lewis. In addition to the review, we are giving away two free copies of “Street Photography” to two lucky readers.