Articles from Wasim Ahmad

The floodgates for artificial intelligence’s interference (or improvements, depending on your point of view) in digital photography have opened up since Apple and Google made it mainstream, with advancements such as Portrait Mode and Night Sight. Adobe took it another direction when it added an A.I.-powered “enhance” feature that enabled the enlarging of photos beyond what’s naturally possible. But is this making photography less real than it should be?

The new iMac is here, and of course, it’s sporting the fancy new M1 processor that’s inside everything Apple these days. That’s great news all around, but I have a feeling that Apple’s got something even bigger up its sleeve for the real creative set.

With a global pandemic precluding many from physically visiting places, you’d think that 360 cameras would move beyond niche status into the mainstream, as the immersive aspect can somewhat create an effect of being somewhere in-person. While that hasn’t really happened, maybe capturing those spaces in 12K 360 video will change that. At least that’s what Kandao is hoping for its new Obsidian Pro 360 camera.

While a $20 Best Buy tripod might seem like a good value, that’s not the case when in just a few short years you have to buy 6 of them because they keep breaking on you. I know from experience. After missing enough shots because my tripods kept breaking, I broke down and bought a professional tripod and haven’t looked back since.

Here’s an interesting thought exercise: Given the same amount of money, is it better to buy a low-end new camera, or a high-end old camera?

When I first wrote about using mirrorless cameras for journalism in 2014, the Sony Alpha series had just been launched a few months before in 2013. Panasonic was just hitting its stride with the GH series of cameras and Fuji had just really started kicking off its X-Series cameras. Things have certainly changed.

Hasselblad has had a storied history in the camera business. Even today, they’re making some impressive cameras, such as the medium-format X1D II.

As the discourse around Black Lives Matter and police reform grows ever coarser, racism is revealing itself through protests in all small corners of the country. And that means communities unfamiliar with the role of photojournalists are encountering firsthand the consequences of exercising free speech to spew hate in public spaces.

Though my current Mac lineup has been more than adequate for heavy-duty photo work, I’d be lying if I haven’t given an M1 mac a look or seven.

It's the battle of the best of the best from two titans of the photography industry. No, I'm not talking about Sony versus Canon. I'm talking about the Canon EOS R5 versus an iPhone 12 Pro Max, and the results are surprising, to say the least.

Times have really changed for 360 shooters. When the cameras first came out, there was no ecosystem of products to make shooting easier. In 2021, that's definitely not the case, and YouTuber and 360 shooter Ben Claremont looks at some of the gear that will make life in 360 a little bit easier.

While the Canon EOS R5 and the Sony Alpha 1 may represent different classes of cameras in their respective company hierarchies, there's a lot more that's similar about the two than initially meets the eye. It's with that in mind that Tony and Chelsea Northrup put the two cameras through the gauntlet to see how they compare on the big stuff.

As a photography and video educator, I’ve advised people to “zoom with their feet” more times than I can count. On its surface, it makes sense. But photographer Matt Granger gives us a few reasons why that’s not necessarily the best advice in his latest YouTube video.

When it was released in 2017, the Nikon D850 could be considered the alpha and the omega of the SLR photography world. It represented almost every advancement ever made for cameras with swinging mirrors. But are there still reasons to buy one of these, or any DSLR, in 2021?

It’s ironic that despite a pandemic, where virtual presence is all the rage these days, 360 camera manufacturers haven’t stepped up their game to fill that need. 2020 was a quiet year for 360 cameras, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some interesting ones to choose from at the start of 2021.

One of the unique aspects of the Black Lives Matter movement in the last year has been how it has spread to even the smallest of communities. It’s made covering the protests as a minority photographer a wholly different and vastly more frightening experience.

I’ve lived in many places and every time, as much as I’ve wanted to set up a small studio, most apartments were not conducive to doing so, or I’ve had partners with so much junk that even a free wall was a luxury I couldn’t afford. I’ve finally had the occasion to leave one wall free for that mini portrait setup and I’m glad I did. It’s something every photographer should plan their furniture arrangements around.

I’ve waffled and flip-flopped on Apple’s computational imaging claims in its new iPhone 12 series, and so, to finally put my curiosity to rest, I decided to pit what’s (to me) the most compelling iPhone, the iPhone 12 Mini, against my previous favorite phone photography standard-bearer, the Google Pixel 3a.

It seems like there is always a video from a major YouTuber about selling his or her gear, and these videos can rack up hundreds of thousands of views. I’m not sure why that is.

There are a lot of guides telling beginner photographers that they’ll need this lens or that filter to make good photos.

There are a lot of things that go neglected during the pandemic. But while a little undone personal grooming won't harm anyone, leaving your printer unloved for some time can cause some headaches.

Historically, a “raw” file from a camera has typically been considered the purest form of image a camera can produce, a straight dump of sensor data that leaves a lot of leeway for editing — a digital negative, if you will.

What camera should I buy? It’s a question that, as a photographer and professor, I get asked all the time. It’s also a question that has no straight answer.

When you look at Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” videos, oftentimes what’s left unsaid is the amount of extra gear beyond the iPhone the cinematographers had to use. Whether that’s expensive drones, camera stabilizers, or underwater gear, chances are, if it’s on Apple’s website, it’s not only shot with an iPhone.

Despite the headline, I’ve always thought that Final Cut Pro X was cool. It still is, and it’s still my favorite non-linear video editor. That said, industry inertia has always pushed me to use Adobe’s bloated Premiere Pro, but Apple’s new Macs using their own silicon in the form of the M1 processor may have just given the industry to come back to an old favorite.

Photojournalists usually pack a pretty standard kit in the field. A full frame camera is usually a must, along with the requisite 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses that can cover 90 percent of situations a photographer might encounter. For some of that other 10 percent, a really good idea might be to pack a 360 camera in the bag as well.

The last time I wrote anything about the iPhone 12 series when it comes to photography, commenter Blake B wrote, “… computational imaging is way more important than you make it out to be.” I’m starting to think he might be right.

Photographer Sana Ullah got the idea for her “Places You’ll Pray” photo project while shopping with her sister, who ducked into a fitting room once to pray as part of her Muslim faith, and so, it’s fitting that the first photo she took for the series several years ago was in a shopping mall.

The iPhone 11 Pro hit the market last year with not two, but three lenses. It was a novel idea to have three lenses, a wide, medium and telephoto, on one phone body. Given that the iPhone 11 series was widely regarded as a stepping stone year, I had high hopes for something big for photography in the iPhone 12. And I was disappointed.

I am a long-time user and fan of Fujifilm’s excellent XF 56mm f/1.2 R lens. I’ve never even thought twice about another portrait lens for the system since I bought it, that is, until I saw the specs on the company’s new XF 50mm f/1.0 R WR lens.

There are a lot of cameras out there that are aimed at the burgeoning “vlogger” segment, from interchangeable lens cameras with flip-out screens, to converted action cameras. Kandao takes a different approach, repurposing some of its 360 technology to create the QooCam Fun.

With masks required basically everywhere, I’ve been able to get away with small things, such as not shaving as often since no one can see my face. Unfortunately, what makes personal grooming easier makes autofocusing a bit harder as my camera struggles to find a face with a mask on.

There's a new political ad out from the Trump campaign that is slickly produced, with a large number of seemingly average people artfully showing their distaste for Joe Biden's vision of America should he become president. Or is that actually the case? In what's an epic takedown of the ad, a former Obama spokesperson digs up every clip used in the video to show that not a moment of it is real, raising the question of whether such uses of stock footage have a place in ads that can easily sway the electorate.

The Panasonic Lumix S5, in many respects, seems like it could be a spiritual successor the much-loved Lumix GH5, or at least it's certainly trying to be its full-frame big brother.

Wish is a great place to go shopping if you’re looking for an odd assortment of Nicholas Cage themed home items, but it may not be the best place to go shopping for cameras, even in 2020 when cheap cameras should be a thing by now.