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I got to field test the new Canon EOS R7 for night photography

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I was lucky enough to get my hands on the brand new Canon EOS R7 camera yesterday, thanks to Canon España ambassadors Paco Farero and Iván Sanchez. It’s Canon’s first offering of a cropped sensor APS-C mirrorless camera, and I was keen to test it out and see what it was like.

Now first, a few caveats. I had the camera in the field for only a couple of hours. I took only still shots so I wasn’t able to try out the video component. This isn’t an in-depth review, these are purely my initial first impressions. And those are pretty favourable, I must admit.

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Your camera and phone will shut down in a heat wave. Here’s how to take care of your devices as temperatures soar

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My computer melted. I mean, not like Salvador-Dali-liquid-clocks-style melted, but the internal components. The bits that made it go. I had closed my apartment up for a few weeks to travel that summer. It was a first-floor apartment in the historic old town. Idyllic narrow streets and no air conditioning. That year the temperatures were hovering around 40° celsius, not so different from now.

It has been a record-breaking summer for many parts of the world. The UK just recorded its highest temperature ever, at a brain-melting 40.3° C. Spain, France and Portugal are currently on their third heat wave of the season with wildfires burning. Heat warnings have been issued in Canada, Japan had its worst heatwave since records began, and even Alaska is on fire. Glaciers have collapsed in Italy. We all know to watch out for the elderly and the very young during heat waves, but do you know how to look after your electronic devices too?

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How much should a wedding photographer charge? The general public answer photography questions

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Are you team Nikon or Canon? Or perhaps you’re an outlier and prefer Sony? Here at DIYP we cover all of those bases, but what about the general public? What would they think if asked about camera brands?

In this entertaining video, Vahagraphy takes to the streets of Newport Beach, California to find out just how much the general public knows about photography.

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Drone captures footage of huge swarm of jellyfish off Israel coast

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Is it safe to go back in the water? Well, not quite. At least, not if you’re near Israel’s Haifa Bay. Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority captured the incredible drone footage, which shows a small boat surrounded by what almost looks like white flower petals. The white blobs are jellyfish, however.

While it’s not uncommon to find large numbers of jellyfish in the Mediterranean during the high temperatures of the summer, this intensity and size of the swarm are less usual.

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Egypt criminalises photos and videos that are offensive to the country

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Egypt: one of those truly exotic and enigmatic destinations, steeped in history. It’s on a lot of people’s bucket lists to visit, photographers and non-photographers alike. But of course, like many places, it’s complicated. Political upheaval and terrorism threats have made it less relaxing to visit in recent years. Coupled with that, strict politics have gone as far as to infringe on the freedom to take photos and videos freely in public spaces.

Several vloggers and influencers who visited Egypt in the past year were dismayed to have their camera equipment confiscated by authorities. So it’s good news then for most tourists and visitors that the Egyptian government has announced that it is relaxing its rules on casual street photography and photography in public spaces. As long as it’s strictly for amateur use, however.

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This FROGPOD magnetic mount for your phones and camera turns the world into a tripod

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What’s the collective noun for frogs? No, it’s not a box of frogs much to my disappointment. It’s actually an army. Sounds a little intimidating but they ain’t got nothing on crows. One innovative Kickstarter project is now open and asking people to “join their army” as they turn the world into their very own tripod.

The product is called the FROGPOD. It’s essentially a magnetic tripod mount, which contains incredibly strong magnets. The brand claims that it can hold pretty heavy weights, even a small DSLR or mirrorless camera. The magnets stick to anything metal, leaving you free to use anything you like (as long as it’s metal) to attach your camera or phone to.[Read More…]

Stray cameraman almost causes pile up when he strays onto running track at World Athletics Championships

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If you’ve only got one job to do then you’d better do it, no matter what obstacles get in your way. Like 20 odd runners for example. This cameraman at the World Athletics Championships was so engrossed in the event he was filming that he didn’t notice that he’d wandered onto the main running track.

Spectators watched open-mouthed as the oblivious cameraman stood on the track, back to the oncoming runners. As the gap closed, witnesses could only watch helpless wondering what was going to happen.

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How to control a 7-foot umbrella modifier and create beautiful ultra-soft light

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What’s the most versatile piece of equipment you own? Aside from something like clips, I’d venture that it could be the umbrellas you have sitting in the back of your closet. It’s pretty usual when we start to learn studio lighting and off camera flash that we start out using umbrellas as modifiers, for a number of reasons. Then you decide to get a bit fancy and they are relegated in favour of things like octoboxes, parabolic softboxes and the like.

But the humble umbrella really can create remarkable portraits. In this video from The Slanted Lens, Jay P. Morgan shows us how he uses giant seven foot umbrellas, and tells us why they are a great modifier.

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Spielberg films his first ever music video, in a school gym, with an iPhone

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What happens when an award-winning director and a musician get together in a school gym with an iPhone? Well, from the looks of this latest music video released by Mumford of his song ‘Cannibal’, you get a pretty slick yet incredibly low-budget music video!

Steven Spielberg directed and filmed his first ever music video with Marcus Mumford. It was filmed and released just this month, and it’s honestly both pretty great and also quite reassuring at the same time! It’s also a one-take video, which is awesome.

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Take your images up a notch with colour grading done the right way

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One of the parts of editing and post-processing I enjoy the most is colour grading. You can really add to the emotion and story depending on how you edit the colour palettes of an image.

In this excellent video from Adorama, editorial and commercial photographer Emily Teague shows us how she goes about colour grading an image. Emily is using Capture One to edit her image, however, the same principles apply to whichever software you’re using.

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