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.

Laowa brings three new 9mm, 12mm and 15mm cine lenses to the Canon RF mount

September 28, 2020 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

Venus Optics has announced three new ultra-wide Laowa cine lenses for the Canon RF mount. Designed for use on the Canon EOS R5 & EOS R6, the RED Komodo and the new Canon C70 cinema camera, the three new RF mount cine lenses offer extremely wide-angle views (even for Super 35) with focal lengths of 9mm, 12mm and 15mm.

All three lenses are part of Laowa’s close-to-zero Distortion (Zero-D) lens lineup. Designed specifically for cinema, those lenses are the 9mm T2.9 Zero-D, the 12mm T2.9 Zero-D and the 15mm T2.1 Zero-D.

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Ring’s new “Always Home” camera is actually a drone that flies around your home… shooting video

September 28, 2020 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

This is both cool and super creepy – especially given past stories of Amazon employees being caught (and, thankfully, fired) for spying on Ring customers. But Ring’s newest announcement isn’t just like their regular home security cameras. It’s called the Ring Always Home Cam, and it’s basically a drone that sits there, silently, patiently, creepily waiting to spring into action.

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Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw are getting video-style wheels for advanced colour grading

September 28, 2020 by John Aldred 2 Comments

Adobe has just released a sneak peek of a new Color Grading tool coming to Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Adobe Camera Raw. It’s an upgraded version of the familiar split-toning that’s been around since forever. Split toning allowed you to tone your highlights and shadows separately to create a more stylised look.

All three applications that share the same raw engine are getting the new advanced Color Grading tool, which basically means Lightroom, Lightroom Classic and Adobe Camera Raw. It essentially works like the shadow/midtone/highlight colour wheels in your favourite video editing software and will replace the split-toning feature in an upcoming version.

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Here’s how to shoot a four hour video in under a minute

September 28, 2020 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

Normally, this wouldn’t really make it past my first internal filter. It’s a silly idea and a silly video, but given who’s actually made it, I found it pretty funny. You see, David F. Sandberg, otherwise known as Ponysmasher, is the director of the rather hilarious Shazam. Yes, that Shazam. A few videos ago, David mentioned that as he’s not a “professional YouTuber” he doesn’t need to care about analytics and subscribers and that he’ll post what he wants when he wants.

He joked about a video flipping off the viewer for four hours. The problem with making threats like that on YouTube, though is that you often have to follow through. So, he did. And he made a behind the scenes showing how he shot the whole thing in just 53 seconds. Because who’s really going to stand there in front of a camera flipping it off for four hours?

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These “Indoor Adventures” take you on a miniature motorcycle ride

September 27, 2020 by John Aldred Leave a Comment

Indoor Adventure is a series of images created by Felix Hernandez for BMW Motorrad in Mexico. Shot in miniature (It’s Felix, what else would they be?), the scenes recreate outdoor scenes to show off the motorcycles in a number of environments that many of us aren’t getting to experience right now.

It’s a three-part series, and as always, each comes with some behind the scenes photos and a video to document its creation. And as is usually the case with Felix’s work, all three are both inspired and inspiring.

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This is how Canon’s Dual Gain Output works on the new EOS C70 4K camera

September 27, 2020 by John Aldred 3 Comments

There’s been a bit of misunderstanding over exactly what Canon’s Dual Gain Output (DGO) is on the newly announced Canon EOS C70 4K Super 35mm cine camera. Some have speculated that it might be something akin to dual ISO (given that gain and ISO are often interchangeable in the video world) and, well, sort of, but not quite.

Canon has released a new white paper detailing what Dual Gain Output for their new 4K Super 35mm sensor is and exactly how it works to provide over 16-stops of dynamic range.

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This in-depth tutorial covers every feature of the new GoPro Hero 9 Black

September 25, 2020 by John Aldred 2 Comments

The GoPro Hero 9 Black was just officially announced only 9 days ago. But as usually happens, one gets into the hands of a lucky individuals few rather quickly (sometimes before it’s even been announced). One such individual is YouTuber the daniel life. He hasn’t posted a review of the camera yet, but he has posted is a mammoth long tutorial going over the Hero 9 Black’s feature set.

He’s actually done two videos – one in English (above) and one in German (below) – and each is over an hour and a half long going over just about every topic you can imagine. It’s designed to help everybody from complete beginners through to those who are a little more advanced and just want to find out more about specific features.

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Canon killing their DSLRs? – mirrorless 1DX Mark III replacement rumoured for 2021

September 25, 2020 by John Aldred 3 Comments

Rumours of a mirrorless 1DX level body have been around for a while. Since before the 1DX Mark III development was even announced, actually. But now according to a new report on Canon Rumors, it looks like it might actually be on the cards for 2021. They say that Canon “will definitely be announcing an RF mount mirrorless version of the EOS-1D X Mark III in 2021”.

Whether that means, a literal mirrorless version with pretty much the same specs and features or to replace what would be the EOS 1DX Mark IV is unknown, although it’s set to come in the second half of the year. CR has nicknamed it the “EOS R1” which I think would be appropriate, given the D1/D1X lineage.

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Canon has released a 0.71x EF to RF speed booster adapter

September 24, 2020 by John Aldred 3 Comments

Canon has announced a new EF to RF 0.71x speed booster adapter. Like the speed boosters from Metabones and similar items from Viltrox and others, it allows you to use lenses designed for a larger sensor on a camera with a smaller sensor while retaining a wider field of view and, as the name suggests, effectively increasing the light transmission.

The release coincides with the launch of the new Canon EOS C70 cinema camera, but could it add more fuel to the rumours that Canon is planning to ditch the EOS M camera system in favour of APS-C EOS R RF mount cameras?

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How to recreate the original title card from “The Thing” completely in-camera

September 24, 2020 by John Aldred 1 Comment

The Thing is arguably one of sci-fi’s finest masterpieces, of that there is no doubt. Released in 1982, its creators didn’t have access to even the most modest of modern CG tools that can run on just about everybody’s desktop or laptop computer today. They had to do things practically. For real. In-camera.

Amongst those things shot practically is the initial opening title sequence. After initially seeing a ship hurtling towards the earth, the words “THE THING” are burned into the screen. But how exactly was it done? In this video, Tommy and the team at InCamera walk us through a recreation, sticking as closely to the original techniques as possible.

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