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About John Aldred

John Aldred is based in Scotland and photographs people in the wild and animals in the studio. You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.

Watch this complete guide to Canon EOS M system lenses before they’re all killed off

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The timing of the release of this particular video from Christopher Frost is curious, but release it he has. It’s a complete guide to every EF-M lens made for the Canon EOS M system from brands such as Canon themselves, Sigma, Viltrox, Samyang and Laowa. The reason the timing is a little odd is that Canon seems to be preparing to completely kill off the EOS M system at any time.

The Canon EOS M6 Mark II has been discontinued, with no signs of a replacement and two new “RF-M” mount APS-C bodies are expected to be announced at some point soon – possibly on May 24th. But that might mean that the used market is about to get flooded with EOS M gear. So, maybe now is the perfect time to brush up on what lenses are out there for anybody looking for a potential bargain.

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One of the biggest features of the Sony A7 IV is one that almost nobody’s talking about

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There’s a group of people out there that are often ignored when it comes to photography. That group is the visually impaired. With photography being such a visual medium, it’s an easy group to ignore. That being said, I don’t think camera manufacturers are intentionally neglecting this group of users. At least, no more so than they ignore any other kind of impairment. Accessibility options common to other electronic devices have always been lacking from cameras.

Sony appears to be changing that thought process, though, building a screen reading feature into the Sony A7 IV. This video from Sam at The Blind Life, who lives with Stargardt’s Disease, walks us through enabling the feature and its current state of usefulness. It appears to be an “in development” feature, for the most part, but it’s a fantastic start that other manufacturers should take note of.

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Stop paying through the nose for OEM batteries – Your camera might support USB power banks

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Do you ever get that feeling that you never have enough batteries for your camera(s)? I do, especially when I’m shooting video. OEM batteries for most mirrorless cameras can be insanely expensive, but many people shy away from third party batteries. But there is another, much less expensive power option available to many mirrorless camera shooters these days, and that’s USB Power Delivery.

I’ve spoken about USB-PD here on DIYP before. I use USB-PD cables that negotiate the voltages for me and let me feed it into a dummy battery inside my camera. But now, most new cameras are coming with USB-PD support natively built right into the camera. And we’re not just talking about charging up the battery here, either. No, you can actually power your camera from a USB-PD power bank (personally, I’m a fan of OnSite 100W PD battery)

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Caught on camera: Lightning strike hits storm-chasing photographer’s car and disables it

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With the advancements in tech, the proliferation of relatively inexpensive camera equipment and the ever pervasive advancement of social media and YouTube over the last decade or so, storm-chasing has become a big thing. Once a task only pursued by scientists and the absolutely insane, it’s now become pretty normal. For a storm chaster who goes by the name Pi (and More Pi on YouTube), though, this trip was anything but normal.

While looking for tornadoes in Iowa, his car (which he was inside) was struck by lightning and completely disabled. It also fried one of his in-car cameras. Fortunately for us, he had his own cameras recording and the whole event was also captured on camera from the vantage point of his friend, High Risk Chris, in a separate car.

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Leaked photos, video and specs reveal new Laowa 90mm f/2.8 2x macro lens for full-frame mirrorless

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Well, it looks like Venus Optics is getting ready to announce at least one more lens. Not surprisingly, it’s a macro lens. Photos and specs have leaked for an upcoming Laowa FFii 90mm f/2.8 CA-Dreamer 2x Macro lens, that will be available in mounts for Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z and Leica L.

The lens is expected to be officially announced on May 23rd and while are no sample photos to show what the view through the lens looks like, enough specs have leaked to cover the basics. There are also some leaked photos and Sony Alpha Rumors even posted an unboxing video to YouTube by Camera Beta.

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The UK’s Royal Mail is planning to start delivering mail by drones

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Well, if Royal Mail’s service wasn’t bad enough already, they’re about to add drones into the mix. They’ve announced plans to open up 50 postal routes for delivery drones over the next three years as part of an operation to ultimately deploy over 500 UAVs to remote areas of the country. The whole thing is subject to Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approval, of course, but this is Royal Mail, so they’ll probably figure out a way.

It’s happening in partnership with Windracers, a drone logistics company and the goal is to reduce the emissions of current mail delivery systems including ferries, aircraft and land-based delivery methods. The first routes chosen to receive the new service will include the Isles of Scilly, Shetland Isles, Orkney Islands and the Hebrides.

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Nikon’s F mount legacy takes one step closer to death as Nikon kills off another seven lenses

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The demise of Nikon’s DSLR product line, along with the F mount lens system that Nikon has been using for over 60 years, was pretty much inevitable with the company’s transition to mirrorless. We’ve seen them slowly kill off their DSLRs and a few of the F mount lenses, and now a few more appear to have been added to that list, according to the Nikon USA website.

Seven lenses have disappeared from the current model lens list on the Nikon USA website with product pages for those lenses indicating that “This product has been archived”. This is code for “Don’t bother, it’s been discontinued”. While they’re still available from some retailers, they probably won’t be available for much longer and once stocks run out, new ones are gone forever.

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These are the only three types of lens filter you probably ever need

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Filters – no, not the Instagram kind – have been a part of photography and filmmaking for decades. Back in the days of film, particularly with black and white, they were often used to eliminate issues like excess UV light from the sun, to wrangle the brightness of the sky down to the relatively dark land for an even exposure, they were used to add contrast between different colours to black and white film or one of a multitude of effects.

These days, most of the problems we used to solve or effects we used to create with filters are done in post, on the computer. Now if you want to add contrast or alter the balance of colour in a shot, you just drag a slider. But there are some filters that are still valuable and useful in this digital age. And in this video, Mitch Lally talks about three of them and why he brings them to every shoot.

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Wide-angle lenses are not “landscape lenses” – All lenses are landscape lenses

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Whenever we turn our hand towards photographing a landscape, I think most of us tend to go for the widest lens we own. Or at least, if not the widest, something pretty wide. It’s a logical and natural choice to make, though. We’re confronted with this beautiful view and we want to be able to capture as much of it as possible. But is it potentially doing more harm than good for your photography?

In this video, Mads Peter Iverson talks about this issue and that we really need to start breaking out of the mindset that we need a wide-angle lens in order to be able to shoot good landscape photography. It’s an interesting discussion that not only discusses the benefits of using longer focal lengths to shoot landscapes but the downfalls of only using wide angle lenses.

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Report says UK households are sitting on $23 billion worth of unused camera gear

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MPB, the world’s biggest retailer of used photography gear recently took a survey on unused tech in people’s homes. I mean, it makes sense, they’re a used good retailer, so they want to know how much potential inventory is out there. Despite having a presence in both the USA and the UK, MPB’s survey only covers the UK, but their research states that 53% of adults in the UK have a camera they don’t use.

According to their survey, 83% of UK adults have at least one piece of unused tech in their home and almost two-thirds of adults have never sold their old tech when they no longer need it. When it comes specifically to camera gear, the average value of unused kit is £293.50 (~$360). Extrapolated out to the population as a whole, that equates to a whopping £19 billion or around $23 billion.

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