Popular Gear Reviews

DxO PureRAW is a permanent part of my photographic workflow. Before anything else, I take my raw files from my mirrorless camera and my drone through PureRAW first. It checks my camera and lens data and outputs a raw file with corrections that eliminate lens distortions, vignetting, noise, and a host of other issues specific to my hardware. Here's my review of what was a must-have the last time around.

CineStill film is hyped to the absolute max, and whether you love it or hate it, they have built a pretty impressive company and injected new life into the film community. Thanks to them, we now have packaged motion picture stocks, ready to shoot in film cameras and be developed in C-41 chemicals.

I find a 70-200mm lens one of the most versatile lenses available. It is a perfect lens for different types of photography. Canon released the 70-200mm lens for its mirrorless camera system at the end of 2019. I was able to use this lens for a while, and these are my findings.

Helped by great design, marketing, and a superb product to boot, Syrp’s motorized time-lapse aid, the Genie, became incredibly popular with photographers. As the product that launched the company on Kickstarter three years ago, it was a premium offering, though. And sometimes, it’s useful to have something fantastic in a “light” version. Enter the Genie Mini.

Infinite Tools released a range of great plugins for Photoshop. Being a fan of black and white, I decided to delve into it and see how well it works. Would it help Photoshop compete against the ever-growing and very good competition?

Fujifilm have placed themselves squarely at both ends of the sensor-size war, skipping 35mm full frame altogether and instead concentrating on APS-C and medium format. In this review we'll be taking a look at the second addition to their GFX series of cameras, the rangefinder-styled GFX 50R.

While the Pixel 4 may soon be upon us, right now, the Pixel 3 and 3a series arguably represent the high-water mark for smartphone photography today through a combination of decent optics and more-than-decent artificial intelligence.

Adobe touted much faster speeds with the release of Lightroom Classic CC (essentially, Lightroom 7). However, results seemed inconsistent. Even so, these early inconsistencies seem to have gone away with subsequent updates and bug fixes. And thankfully, Adobe will soon release another update to Lightroom that promises even better speed increases. We’ve been playing around with it for a few days to get a better idea of what to expect.

The current king-of-the-hill 35mm, the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 A DC HSM, costs $900. That's not too shabby for a lens that absolutely dominates its "L" and high-end Nikon competition, which both cost significantly more. Canon and Nikon offer budget 35mm options: a f/2.0 IS and f/1.8G, respectively, both of which cost under $600 and are no slouches themselves. With the availability of extremely well performing 35mm lenses at the sub-thousand-dollar price point, why on earth would someone buy a slow (f/2.8) 35mm for $800?

If you are looking for your first cinema camera or thinking of upgrading your current rig there are tons of options out there but if you are looking for the best bang for your buck. Then you will want to make sure you read this Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro review.

What's the best way to optimize photos so that I can deliver quality to my clients while reducing the file size for faster uploads into the cloud? This has been a question I’ve been thinking about for sometime. I have tinkered with settings in Lightroom to try and find the right export recipe but it wasn’t till another photographer told me about JpegMini that I finally felt I had the solution. Using image optimization technology they developed, JpegMini was able to deliver maximum quality at minimum file size. I ran it through some tests and here are my results.

Every now and then, it’s good to have a quick update to know what the biggest, fastest, or most affordable drives are for the money. We’re always on the go and in need of more storage, so portable hard drives go to the top of the list when new ones come out. Though it’s not that new, Western Digital’s newest and largest portable 3 TB, single-drive offering is still sometimes out of stock, but the 3 TB My Passport Ultra is certainly not alone in its segment.

For many forms of photography, an off camera flash should pop-up (pun intended) at some point in your career. Whether you’re a portrait photographer, a product photographer, or a sports photographer, some sort of flash other than what is built into your camera will be necessary. Whether you’re keeping it on or off camera, picking a speedlight can be a daunting task. Here is a guide to picking the right speedlight.

I have always preferred simplicity when it comes to lighting portraits. When connecting with a model or subject, especially when working without assistants, I hate having to deal with several lights or various flags, cutters, and bounce cards. This way I can work the camera and move around without having to worry about tripping over my whole setup, and my subject feels more comfortable without obtrusive equipment crowding them. Also, if the model can move around a little, I feel that I can get far more natural poses when they aren't confined by specific lighting. My favorite lighting tool to "keep it simple" with is the Westcott 7-foot Parabolic Umbrella.

I received the brand new Sony a7R V from Sony Netherlands for a review. It was a wonderful opportunity to find out if the autofocus is as good as advertised. Looking at the camera in a critical way makes me wonder: which photographer is the camera intended for?

I was sent the 25mm f/1.8 lens for review. I went out testing in the center of Paris, and I must say, it was a lot of fun with it on my Fujifilm X-T20. Although it's a manual focus lens, you get a lot for $69.

It's hard to believe but the Nik Collection is 25 years old, going back to a commercial product that was very popular long ago. It was snagged by Google, then, as often happens, Google sold it to DXO, who has made a great many enhancements with each release.

I've been looking at photo apps for the iPhone since the phone was first released in 2007. From the start, it was pretty clear Apple wasn't getting the most out of their own camera with the built-in app, and third parties rushed in. If you wanted to take serious photos, many of the apps were wanting, offering stickers and other features most pros would disdain. But not this app.

Portable LEDs are now more powerful than ever with some manufacturers claiming they can replace strobes for most outdoor flash work. We took the Rotolight AEOS into the field on a sports fashion shoot to see if these claims are valid.

The new Canon EOS R8 mirrorless camera can be considered the replacement of the older EOS R and EOS RP cameras. It promises to be a great camera at a reasonable price point. Canon Netherlands sends me this camera for a review. Let's find out how it performs.

If you are someone who spends many hours or even days away from a power source, you know how difficult it can be to keep all your devices properly topped off. With a huge battery and a variety of smart features, the Anker PowerHouse II 300 seeks to remedy that conundrum. In this review, we take a look at the PowerHouse and how it performs.

The 30mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary Lens from Sigma is an affordable, fast prime lens. On paper, it looks like it should be a fabulous piece of glass. I put it through its paces to see if it lived up to its marketing blurb.

Sharing your images on the web from point A to point B, in this case, from your desktop to Instagram, can be quite a hassle. You have to make a separate folder in your Dropbox, email it, or send it to yourself (there are a variety of ways), and clog up a bunch of storage on your phone. Yes, I know there several back door methods that have been discussed prior on this issue, and while Instagram has not yet made a plunge into the desktop world, we'll have to make do until then. But in the mean time, I came across this super user-friendly, free Lightroom plug-in that solidifies a solution!

I’ll admit I was seduced by digital medium format, with its ridiculous resolution and that “medium format look.” It has been two years of full-time use. Do I still think it was worth it? Better yet, should you drop $10K+ for a medium format digital camera kit?

As a relatively recent convert to Instagram, a former outsider-looking-in, there are a few things about the app that I don’t particularly care for or make use of. Like most people I know, I’m not at all tempted to make use of the built-in, over-cooked, HDR-gone-wrong filters. When I do post a photo taken on my phone, it’s been edited in VSCO Cam. I’m also not a huge fan of the user interface in Instagram. It’s a little clunky, oft overwhelming, and features a rather uninspiring design. For a better viewing, browsing, and exploring experience I’ve turned to a seemingly unknown app, Primary.

A good pair of binoculars are often invaluable to photographers. There are many important things to learn about buying them. Here's what led me to the OM System Olympus PRO binoculars, why they are my perfect choice, and why my old ones were a mistake.

The BenQ SW2700PT monitor is a hard sell on paper to those that only look at pixel count. At just over $600, it teeters on the edge of premium monitor territory, but you’ll soon see why it gets a strong recommendation here. Hint: it's not about the pixels.

The Laowa 10mm f/4 Cookie lens is one of the new offerings from Venus Optics. With an impressive 109.3-degree field of view, it's currently the widest rectilinear APS-C lens on the market, so how does it perform?

Phase One’s new XT is the modern-day version of the large format field camera, complete with field camera movements and spectacular large format style lenses. Its distinctive design combined with an IQ4 brain and its innovative tools make for a head-turning technical camera solution.

This week, ON1 Software released their new Photo RAW 2017 processor. It functions as both a raw processor and a simple editing workflow that can be used as a standalone application or as a plugin within various other editing applications such as Lightroom. In this article, we will take a quick look at Photo RAW 2017 in order to provide some first impressions on what ON1 is touting as one of their most powerful tools to date.

In a move that potentially threw the Profoto marketing team into a frenzy, Godox recently released their V1 hotshoe flash. Sporting a round fresnel head and all the features of a great flash system, the V1 is a hefty contender at its price-point. But, how does it perform? Let's check it out after the jump.

I've gotten to play with the Sony a6400 for the last couple of days and although it's not exactly what I'm looking for, it still may be the best camera for sale currently under $1,000.

Photographers today demand a lot from their equipment, and we expect a lot when purchasing gear that we plan on traveling with. Fstoppers takes a look at a lightweight carbon fiber travel tripod that’s packed with the features you may be looking for.

Portable hard drives are no longer just boxes that let you carry large amounts of data on the go. They now aim to be hubs around which your mobile life is centered, offering card ingestion and backup, device charging, wireless access, streaming, and more. Western Digital recently upgraded their My Passport Wireless line with an SSD version. Check out our review!

As photographers, we have a never-ending, ever-perpetuating growth of photos piling up on our hard drives. Inevitably, whether that work is professional or personal, our photos end up taking space on cloud storage accounts that we keep upgrading whenever we reach the limit. But what if you could cut the size of these files in half without losing any visible quality? You could save a lot of headache, not to mention, money.

New features added to Photoshop and Lightroom today might change how you edit your photos, but it entirely depends on what kind of images you make and what your current workflow is like. This is my review of the new features and whether you'll want to dive in or avoid them.

Sigma’s newest Art series lens, the 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN II, takes the winning formula of its predecessor and dials it up a notch, boasting significant advancements in sharpness, autofocus speed, and overall handling. The lens isn’t content with simply meeting the high expectations set by the original; it surpasses them, delivering exceptional image quality that will impress even the most critical photographers.

Samsung’s SSD T1 was among the first drives like it, expanding on SSD features like speed and compact size to deliver an almost business-card-sized, ultra-fast drive that was perfect for the road. More robust in an all-new enclosure, the SSD T3 is the next advancement of the T1.

With ON1 Photo Raw 2023 having just won a Pop Photo Award for its AI features, it is apt to compare the app with Lightroom next. How would it stand up to different camera raw files?

The worst part about being a wedding or event photographer is having to edit thousands of photos, but I've recently discovered Narrative Select, software that uses AI to make the culling process much faster.

The Godox AD200 has been around for a few years now, and in 2019, Godox released the "Pro" version of the AD200. Is this small, lightweight, powerful flash the right choice for you in 2023? Why do so many photographers think so highly of this pocket flash?

In the photography world it is all about lighting, lighting, lighting. For videographers the main emphasis is not necessarily lighting as much as it is motion. Perhaps the easiest and most affordable way to add motion to your DSLR video is by using a slider. In this video we take a closer look at the Rhino Slider and why it might be the best sub $800 slider on the market.

Much to the excitement of the Fujifilm community, Fuji released their XF 90mm f/2 WR in the middle of 2015. Many a voice hailed it Fuji's best yet, and pixel-peepers rejoiced. Some claimed it had the nicest bokeh from a Fuji lens yet, and others the fastest autofocus. Just how good is this latest prime offering from Fuji?

Remember that feeling you had as a child, every time you pass a toy shop window and you could see your favorite toy? You pass that window, and your favorite toy sits there, waiting for you to play with it regardless of all the other forgotten toys you have waiting for you back home. All you can do is just imagine the fun you could have with it every day. The toy you'll never get tired of playing with. The toy that allows every day to become a new adventure. The toy that becomes your new best friend.

To go with my new OM-1 Camera, I’ve bought the new OM System 40-150 f/4 PRO. I took it out for the first time in a violently windy afternoon to put it through its paces. Here's my real-world review of this lens.

Another magnetic filter holder system option for landscape photographers. Let’s take a look at how this can improve your shooting process out in the field.

Earlier today, Sony announced the a9, a revolutionary mirrorless camera with a spec sheet that at first looks like it's full of typos. Did they really mean 20 frames per second? Is it actually 693 phase-detect autofocus points? Continuous burst raw capture up to 241 frames? But sure enough, the a9 delivers on it all. After spending a brief time getting familiar with the new camera, here's what made me most excited about using it.

Tamron's new telephoto lens is honestly quite compelling. Is it the telephoto lens for you?

The Godox X3 is a premium flash trigger, with a crystal clear OLED touchscreen and minimalist design. But does this trigger have the brains to match the beauty? In this review, I'll test the X3 versus Godox's previous flagship trigger and help you figure out which option is best for your flash kit.