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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 and Facebook.

Canon hosting online virtual press conference on April 20th to announce new camera gear

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Given that The Photography Show didn’t happen, NAB and Photokina aren’t happening, and many governments around the world are telling us that we could potentially be in lockdown for more than six months, IBC, PPE and the rescheduled TPS might not happen, either. But Canon is pressing on with their gear announcements regardless.

Canon has announced that they’re hosting a virtual press conference on April 20th to announce some new gear. NAB was scheduled to begin on April 19th and go on until April 22nd, so April 20th falls in line with what was likely their original announcement schedule. I wouldn’t get your hopes up about the EOS R5, though.

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Apple has released a beta that adds ProRes RAW support to Adobe apps for Windows

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ProRes RAW was lauded as a high-end raw video codec for high-end video shooters and editors. But it had one fatal flaw; You could only edit it with a Mac. Well, now that appears to be changing as Apple has released a beta of Apple ProRes RAW for Windows which adds ProRes RAW support to some of the applications in the Adobe CC suite including Premiere Pro, After Effects, Rush and Media Encoder.

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Godox has now officially announced the AD1200Pro – and it’ll cost you $1,599

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The leaks have been floating around for a while, but now the complete specs for the Godox AD1200Pro have been released, including the price – which is not insignificant. Strangely, though, it’s not showing up on the Godox website yet, although B&H now has a listing up with the full specs – although no photos. Pixapro in the UK also has a listing with a price now, which is where the photos in this post have come from.

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The Huawei’s P40 Pro anti-shake stabilisation could see the death of smartphone gimbals

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Huawei announced the much anticipated P40 line of smartphones a couple of days ago. There’s the P40, the P40 Pro and the P40 Pro+. As usual, they contain “Leica” cameras and lenses which this time shoot 4K 60p video, 50-megapixel stills, ISO up to 51,200 and offer up to an insane 7,680fps for shooting slow-motion.

But what’s really impressive, as the above video posted by the YouTuber Mobiler shows, is its stabilisation. The P40 Pro features both optical image stabilisation as well as AI-powered image stabilisation and from watching the video, it looks like it might just make smartphone gimbals obsolete.

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This is how Photoshop’s “Divide” blend mode works and how to use it to remove colour casts

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Photoshop has a whole bunch of different blend modes but knowing what they all do… Well, even many of the most advanced Photoshop users don’t know what they all do. That not knowing could be holding you back, though. And this video is a perfect example as to why.

I’ve been using Photoshop since about Version 3.0 (yes, I’m that old), but I don’t recall ever once using the “Divide” blending mode. After watching this video from Unmesh at PiXimperfect, though, I wish I’d started looking into it years ago. Unmesh starts by showing how it works in a practical sense, and then explains the underlying maths behind it to help you understand how it does what it does.

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Laowa is developing six new f/0.95 lenses for Sony FE – but the first won’t be here until 2021

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Laowa announced back in January that a new series of super-fast f/0.95 “Argus” lenses would be coming at some point, although there were no real clues as to what they might be. At first it was thought that they would be available for different mirrorless and DSLR systems, both full-frame and APS-C.

Fuji Addict suggested that the first might fall somewhere between 20-35mm. We still don’t know what the focal length might be, but now Sony Alpha Rumours reports that there will be six lenses coming for full-frame Sony E mount, although the first probably won’t be available until 2021.

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Draganfly is developing “Pandemic Drones” that can detect fever, coughing and other health aspects

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US drone manufacturer Draganfly has announced that they’re developing a drone system that can act as a “global early warning system” for signs of a pandemic. Its camera can detect signs of a fever, detect coughs and even breathing and heart rates through the use of deep learning AI.

You might not have heard of Draganfly, but they say that they’re the oldest commercial drone manufacturer in the world, with their first being sold in 1999. But they don’t make consumer drones like companies such as DJI. Their focus is more on the industrial, commercial and research sectors.

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Metabones has released a Canon EF to RF speed booster to reduce the EOS R 4K crop factor

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It might seem strange to produce a speed booster that converts full-frame lenses to full-frame. But with the Canon EOS R and EOS RP mirrorless cameras, when you’re shooting 4K video, you’re not exactly using the entire full-frame view of the sensor. The Canon EOS R has about a 1.75x crop factor, and the EOS RP has a 1.64x crop factor (similar to APS-C).

The new Metabones EF-RF Speed Booster ULTRA 0.71x, however, helps to reverse this problem. It widens the view when EF lenses are used on the EOS R and EOS RP to 1.24x and 1.15x respectively when shooting 4K video.

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Calling all wildlife photographers (and their kids) – Here’s how you can see wild animals in your home

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This is an awfully frustrating time for wildlife photographers right now. And anybody who has kids. You’re stuck at home, can’t go anywhere, can’t do anything, can’t see anything interesting. Well, Google has the answer – augmented reality.

Google’s mobile search has a feature which allows you to search for an animal which can then be placed into your environment using your smartphone’s camera and augmented reality. It even appears to pick up on the ambient lighting and be able to apply it in realtime, too.

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Fujifilm has filed a new patent for XF 300mm f/4 and super-long 500mm f/5.6 lenses

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Given the social distancing measures in place around the world right now, this seems like a good idea. Fujifilm Japan has filed a new patent for a couple of long telephoto prime lenses. Specifically, XF 300mm f/4 and 500mm f/5.6 lenses. Designed for Fujifilm’s line of APS-C cameras, these would offer the equivalent field of view to about 450mm and 750mm respectively on full-frame systems.

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