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Adam Ottke

Los Angeles, CA
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Articles from Adam Ottke

What Would You Do With This Massive 9x11 Large-Format Digital Camera?

Marketed as an 8x10 digital camera, the sensor of LargeSense's LS911 is actually a bit larger at 9x11 inches. That's nearly 30 times the area of medium format digital cameras. All things considered, the price is somewhat reasonable if still relatively unaffordable.

Tips on Traveling with Film: Don't Be Naive, X-Ray Scanning Kills Film

Airport authorities officially say that film at or above ISO 800 may be damaged by X-ray scanning. But they really should tell you that ISO 800 film will be damaged and that less sensitive film still could be affected. I found this out the hard way. Here's how I learned an important lesson along with a few other tips for avoiding issues while traveling with film.

OWC Releases 2,800 MB/s ThunderBlade External SSD

NAB 2018 seems to be the year of ultra-fast NVMe solid state drive releases. Now, OWC's newest ThunderBlade external SSDs fit for editing 8K video are available to ship today in capacities from 1 TB to 8 TB.

Fstoppers Reviews the Ultra-Portable Western Digital My Passport SSD

Western Digital’s 1 TB My Passport SSD is the latest in a line of ultra-compact, portable solid-state drives that have come out over the last few years. My personal favorite (at least until this point) has been the Samsung T5 SSD, which I reviewed earlier this year. But Western Digital’s entry in this space is very worth looking into.

G-Technology Announces Mobile and Desktop Professional SSD Storage Options

G-Technology, Western Digital's pro-line storage arm, announced three new series of SSD-based storage solutions for professional editing workflows including a portable SSD in 500 GB and 1 TB capacities, a desktop drive from 960 GB to 7.68 TB capacities, and a larger array in 8 TB and 16 TB capacities.

ProGrade Digital Demonstrates First CFexpress 1.0 Cards and More

ProGrade Digital, a new memory card company started by industry veterans, announced the first CFexpress 1.0 cards featuring capacities up to 1 TB and read and write speeds of 1,400 MB/s and 1,000 MB/s, respectively. These cards could also be compatible with XQD formats and come alongside new V90-rated SD cards.

Instagram Adds Hashtags and Profile Links to Bios

Instagram has always limited the bio field on your profile quite strictly. However, today, they're allowing full linked support for hashtags and profile links in your bio. But what does this actually mean?

National Geographic: 'For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist'

As National Geographic prepared to look at race in its April issue, the company had to take a hard look at its own history in how it told stories and portrayed differences in both skin tone and culture. After enlisting the outside help of John Edwin Mason, a professor of African history and the history of photography at the University of Virginia, they found that indeed, for decades, their coverage was racist.

Sony a7 III Now Available for Pre-Order

The newly released Sony a7 III body is now available for pre-order. With 4K HDR, up to 120 fps 1080p 100mbps recording, the latest autofocus updates, and 10 fps stills shooting, what's not to like?

Sigma Art Lenses Coming to the Sony E-Mount

Monday evening, Sigma announced it would be bringing its Art-series lenses to the Sony E-Mount. On the heels of the Sony a7 III announcement, this is great news for all the latest a7R III and a9 shooters, too.

Sony Unveils the 24 MP, 4K HDR a7 III Body at $1,999

Sony just unveiled its next big body. The third-generation a7 III brings a much-needed update to the more reasonable-resolution a7 line. Here are all the specs and everything you need to know about this new 4K mirrorless beast.

Kodak to Bring Back T-Max P3200 High-Speed Film, Can Push to ISO 25,000

If you've ever wanted a film that you can shoot the way you can shoot with your digital camera in the dark, you'd normally be looking for the discontinued Kodak T-Max P3200. But now, thanks to a few coy teasers on Instagram, Kodak is telling us we're getting it very, very soon.

Fstoppers Reviews ProGrade: A New Professional Memory Card Company with Pro-Level Support

ProGrade Digital is a new professional memory card built by former executives and employees from both Lexar and SanDisk. Today, ProGrade Digital launches its first product lines including CFAST 2.0 and SD UHS-II memory cards as well as a dual CFAST 2.0 and SD card reader. But the best part about ProGrade is its professional-level support and rigorous testing.

BTS: The Incredible 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Drone Light Show

What is it like to see a larger-than-life bird made up of a record-setting 1,218 individual drones fly seamlessly over a full stadium? What did it take to plan for that number of drones to come together to create the shapes of snowboarders and skiers and the five Olympic rings? While that was the plan, that didn't quite happen as expected, possibly due to hacking. But take a look behind the scenes of Intel's Olympic drone team as they prepared for this year's winter Olympics ceremonies and completed the record-setting flight that made NBC's delayed U.S. broadcasting of the opening ceremony.

Adobe Releases More Efficient Lightroom Classic, CC, and Mobile Apps

We already had good reviews of a pre-release version of Lightroom Classic version 7.2 earlier this month, but today, it's finally out. As other software companies such as Apple have announced a slowdown of software feature developments and a concentration on bug fixes and performance improvements, so, too, has Adobe promised a renewed focus on Lightroom performance across all platforms. And this is just the beginning.

Sigma Announces New 14-24mm f/2.8 Art Wide-Angle Zoom Lens

Sigma's Art-series lenses represent its top-of-the-line image technologies for the highest-end lenses at competitive prices. Now, the company fills in a gap at the wide end with a fast, f/2.8 wide-angle 14-24mm zoom lens to finally fill in the wide end of its f/2.8 lineup.

New Phantom High-Speed Camera Does 4-Megapixel Shooting at 6,600 fps, 1080p at Nearly 12,000

We're all likely familiar with Phantom's line of ultra-high-speed cameras. These cameras have been used to film the most viral "bullet-time," slow-motion sequences you've seen everywhere online, but scientists also love them for their ability to reveal otherwise-hidden, split-second reactions. Phantom recently announced a new camera that can record 6,600 frames per second at a nearly square 2,048 x 1,952 resolution. Only need full HD? The new V2640 scream through at 11,750 frames per second at 1920 x 1080.

How Minimal Skill and Effort Can Have a Huge Impact on Foster Dog Adoption Rates

Every holiday season (and sometimes in between), we see the typical high-end pet photography shoots as excellent photographers put their time, money, and skill into creating impressive setups and wall-worthy images to help breathe life back into adoption rates. But it can be a lot to commit to a proper studio setup to shoot dogs every month, let alone every year. However, even with minimal effort, skill, and time, the difference you can make at any time of year in a foster dog’s life as a photographer is incredible. You just wouldn’t believe it. So I’ll prove it.

Hands-On First Look with a New Lightroom Update that Promises Faster Speeds

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.

RED Hydrogen One: Details and Specs Emerge Surrounding RED's Holographic Smartphone

The RED Hydrogen One smartphone was announced last summer, but details about a release date and more solid specifications are finally emerging thanks to a post by RED Founder and CEO Jim Jannard. The Android-run smartphone will operate with a Snapdragon 835x processor (as what is currently in the Samsung Galaxy S8) and will feature a massive 4,500 mAh battery (125 percent the battery capacity of the similarly sized Galaxy S8+). But there's much more than just a big battery in RED's 5.7-inch smartphone.

Nikon Tops Holiday Sales in Full-Frame Interchangeable-Lens Camera Category

With all the news about Canon's ever-steady lead in general camera sales, it might be surprising to find that Nikon sold more full-frame, interchangeable-lens cameras than any other manufacturer December 2017. Of course, this is helped greatly by the success of the still-hard-to-find Nikon D850. But Nikon credits one other camera for its continued success.

Go Retro-Nouveau with Kodak and Its Dreamy Super 8 Reel

Film lovers and analog purists are not-so-patiently awaiting the release of Kodak's new Super 8 camera, which should finally come out sometime this year at a cost of $2,500-$3,000. In the meantime, Kodak took CES as an opportunity to release some new test footage that looks rather incredible. At times, the reel displays a properly vintage look reminiscent of 1960s French films. Yet, in other sequences, the footage looks much more updated. It's sharper and boasts much higher contrast, which gives hope to directors that this will be a very flexible, very capable setup.

Hasselblad Announces H6D-400c MS 400-Megapixel Medium Format Monster

Hasselblad announced an updated multi-shot camera based on its flagship 100c 100-megapixel, full-frame 645 CMOS sensor. The result: the Hasselbald H6D-400c MS. The 400c MS allows for a 400-megapixel image by shifting the sensor in one-pixel and half-pixel increments as it takes six shots that are then combined later for a true 400-megapixel file.

Kodak Places Its Trusted Name at Massive Risk by Joining Bitcoin Mining Game

Kodak made a number of surprising announcements Tuesday regarding its involvement in cryptocurrency, including the creation of its own, KodakCoin. But nothing risks its name more than the actual Bitcoin mining operation that is rather misleading to likely unwitting consumers, and all at a potential benefit to the company that’s rather uncertain.