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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.

Woman crashes car through frozen river and stops to shoot selfies as it sinks beneath her feet

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I don’t think we’ve had a stupid-selfie post for a while, but here’s a good one. A woman who has not been publicly identified had her vehicle meet a chilling end when she chose to drive across a frozen river in Ottawa, Canada. As she drove across, she hit a weak spot in the ice that caused her car to crash through its surface. While onlookers were figuring out how to get her out of there safely, she climbed onto the car’s roof to shoot a selfie while it began to sink beneath her feet.

While I’ll bet it made for a great photo on her Instagram feed, I’m not sure it was the wisest of decisions. Of course, driving over a frozen lake doesn’t really indicate the possession of much wisdom in the first place.

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Shooting photos with a brand new original Nintendo Gameboy Camera and Printer from 1998

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The Gameboy Camera seems to have picked up in popularity as of late. We’ve seen a plethora of projects using one over the last few years, partly just to show off how beautifully terrible the images are, sometimes just to push the limits of the tech to see what it can actually do, even shooting Formula 1 and eclipses with it. We’ve seen 3D printed adapters to mount EF lenses on it, colour trichromatic photography and even AI-enhanced colour photography.

What we haven’t seen yet, though, is an unboxing of a brand new Gameboy camera and printer, direct from 1998 and stored… well, who knows where for the last 24 years waiting to be taken out of its precious packaging. But that’s what we see here in Vuhlandes newest video as he opens it up, figures out what it can do and even tries to shoot a basketball game with it.

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Capture One has officially killed off Nikon, Fujifilm and Sony-specific versions of Capture One 22

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Capture One has announced that they’ve officially discontinued their brand-specific versions of Capture One for Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm cameras. This means that now, there’s only one version available; The more expensive one. The change, they say, is due to “preparation for the launch of new and existing products, including a powerful new way to collaborate with Capture One Live, and the brand’s first iOS app with Capture one for iPad”.

It seems, though, that all may not be quite lost. If you own a perpetual license for the Sony, Nikon or Fujifilm version of Capture One 22 (which is still available to purchase today at B&H for $199), they will continue to work forever and Capture One says they’ll still see updates throughout the life of Capture One 22. However, you’ll get a free upgrade to Capture One Pro (which is $299) in early April 2022.

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How to colour grade nighttime footage quickly in Adobe Premiere Pro

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Colour grading nighttime footage can be difficult. You’ve often got a lot of contrast to deal with, particularly when light sources appear in your shot and the camera often doesn’t see the muted nighttime colours (or the bright lights!) the same way we do with our eyes. While there are a lot of great in-depth tutorials out there for serious colour grading, sometimes you just need a “quick fix”.

In this video, Stephen from Stephen and Janaka walks us through a quick colour grading process for nighttime footage in Adobe Premiere Pro that literally only takes a couple of minutes to apply.

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Canon has officially announced its video-centric EOS R5c and this beefy beast costs $4,500

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The world has been expecting this camera for a long time and now it’s finally here. Canon has today announced the new Canon EOS R5c, a video-centric version of the Canon EOS R5 with active cooling (so you can actually shoot 8K for more than a few minutes) and a more streamlined UI aimed at video shooters.

Canon says that it combines the “best of both worlds” melding the EOS R5 and EOS C70 cameras into one – which you can see as soon as you turn the camera around to see how beefy it is compared to the EOS R5. The active cooling has meant that the camera is quite a bit thicker and from behind, more closely resembles the EOS C70 than its EOS R5 namesake.

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The Fujifilm X-T30 II is now shipping but supplies are low

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Announced in September 2021, the Fujifilm X-T30 II was reported to begin shipping the following month, in October. Apparently, though, this date seemingly got pushed back until January 2021. Well, now January 2021 is here and the Fujifilm X-T30 II is now shipping, with a number of retailers having the camera in stock and ready to send out the door.

Supplies, however, look to be pretty low, with some retailers already sold out and Amazon reporting only 10 body-only packages in stock (2 silver and 8 black). Other retailers, such as B&H do have them, of course, they don’t report their stock levels and there’s no telling when retailers might get more in once these body-only packages have sold.

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Canon C70 to get 12-Bit Cinema RAW Light in upcoming firmware

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Canon is set to announce new firmware for the Canon EOS C70 on Wednesday, 19th January. The headline feature of the new firmware will be the introduction of 12-Bit Cinema RAW Light recording. While Canon hasn’t announced anything yet, it appears that Canon leaked themselves via their UK website stating that it was on the way and that it would become available in March. Beyond that, it reveals no other information.

That’s not all we’re expected to hear about on Wednesday, either. Canon is also expected to announce the Canon EOS R5C, an active-cooled version of the Canon EOS R5 designed specifically for 8K cinema. We might also see some new Cinema lenses as well as possibly 8K modules for the Canon EOS C300 Mark III and Cinema EOS C500 Mark II.

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This is the world’s first “Sea-Air Integrated Drone” that works both in the air and underwater

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For as long as aerial drones have been a thing, we’ve seen people try to use them around water. Typically, it’s either landing on water or taking off from water with “floating landing gear“. We’ve even seen drones that can both fly and sort of swim (more bobbing up and down, really) underwater, as well as drones that don’t fly but are dedicated to underwater use.

Well, now, a new drone developed as a collaboration between Japanese telecommunications company KDDI, commercial drone manufacturer PRODRONE and underwater robotics company QYSEA which takes the best of both worlds and marries them together. It’s called the “Sea-Air Integrated Drone” that can both fly in the air and unleash an underwater drone payload once it’s landed on a body of water.

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You can use pretty much anything as a camera lens – even shoes and potatoes

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When it comes to weird lenses, Mathieu Stern is pretty much the undisputed king. But it seems we have a contender for that title who’s out to prove that you can use pretty much anything as a camera lens – as long as it’s a pinhole camera lens – as German film director and photographer Simon Meyer has been showing off on TikTok. Everything from potatoes and shoes to rolls of toilet paper and even a cuddly toy Elmo.

As mentioned, you are limited to basically using it as a pinhole camera, but differently sized objects essentially allow you to get a different focal length. Sure, you could just use an empty tube for something like this and cut it to to the length you need, but where’s the fun in that?

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How to put together your own photo and video cinematography cart

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If you regularly work and shoot in the same location, like a studio or a set place in your home, keeping things both organised and readily available at a moment’s notice can be quite difficult. After all, when stuff’s organised, it’s typically packed away somewhere in a cupboard or drawer. This makes it easy to find things, but for things you’re using regularly, it adds a lot of time to the workflow to keep taking it out and putting it back.

That’s where a studio cart comes in handy. In this video, Pal2Tech’s Chris Lee put together his own, based around an inexpensive metal cart with wheels, which is divided up into sections for all of the various bits he needs to have at hand all the time in his studio.

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