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Daredevil instagram star dies train surfing in New York

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“Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking Instagram account” seems to be the mantra these days. The trend of doing whatever it takes to get the shot with little thought for personal safety has risen tremendously over the last couple of years. One such person was photographer Christopher Serrano, who died on Wednesday while attempting to “train surf”. Serrano also went by the name HeavyMinds on Instagram where he has over 107,000 followers.

The New York Post reports that he had been riding the F Train in Brooklyn with a female friend around 5am. He went between two of the subway cars, where he began to scale the outside of the train. Investigators told NYP that Serrano may have been clipped by something while on the outside of the train. Police found Serrano lying dead on the track.

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GearEye wants to be the only solution you need for tracking your equipment

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Update: right on, this project is now on kickstater, get your wallets ready!

Losing equipment is one of a photographer’s biggest fears. But, it happens. You’re out on location, having a good time, you pack away your stuff and think you’ve got everything. Then you get home and realise you have to walk 90 minutes in the pitch black to go back to the location you just left to go and find a microphone (yup, happened to me last week).

GearEye aims to solve this problem by tagging and cataloguing all your equipment. It keeps track of it all, so that you don’t have to. We’ve heard promises like these before, though. The failed KitSentry project from F-Stop Gear left a sour taste. That GearEye is also being hosted on Kickstarter will make a few feel hesitant. F-Stop cited part of the problem being down to patent issues. Will GearEye face the same issue? Let’s hope not.

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How to create the dolly zoom effect without a zoom lens

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The dolly zoom, also known as the “Vertigo Effect” or “Hitchcock Zoom” can be an amazing technique to add tension or drama to a scene. It’s a process whereby the camera is dollied in toward your subject while the lens zooms out wide. Or, the reverse, where the camera moves away from your subject while the lens zooms in.

It’s a difficult technique to master, and almost impossible if shooting on your own. You have to move the camera, adjust the zoom of the lens, and try to keep your subject in focus all at the same time. This video from Lewis McGregor shows a technique to create a similar effect without doing any zooming whatsoever. But, there is a caveat. It won’t really work if your camera only shoots 1080p.

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Increase your DSLR or mirrorless audio recording quality for only $23

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DSLRs & mirrorless camera internal microphones are pretty much useless. They also have notoriously bad preamps when using external microhpones. No matter how good a microphone you plug into it, when you bump up the record level on your camera, you add noise. Lots of it. The typical solution to this is record to an external unit, like the Tascam DR-70D, and then feed a line from your recorder into your camera to make it easy to sync up in post.

But what if you could skip the external recorder and actually get decent quality inside the camera to begin with? Well, Caleb Pike at DSLR Video Shooter has the answer. A $23 adapter for using your microphones with your cellphone. In this case, that adapter is the Saramonic SmartRig. Caleb offers two ways to use SmartRig to get quality audio into your camera.

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Cinematic headshot lighting with just one light and a few flags & reflectors

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Working with minimal equipment can be a fun challenge. If you’re just starting out and have only limited gear, it can be your only choice. But what can you do to help make that one light produce more interesting results? Well, with the help of some flags and reflectors, you can do quite a bit.

This video from Morgan Cooper of Cooper Films shows us how it’s all set up and what task each component achieves. He is demonstrating the setup in relation to film, and he is using a rather expensive Arri SkyPanel LED light. But, the techniques can be used with much less expensive lights, such as the Aputure Amaran AL-HR672W. You can also apply the same principles to stills photography using a speedlight in a small softbox.

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Sony’s new A6500 features five-axis in-camera stabilisation and RX100 V shoots stills up to 24fps

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Sony’s much anticipated A6300 was finally released in March this year. An eagerly awaited update to 2014’s A6000. Now, a mere 8 months later, Sony have announced the new Alpha A6500 at a Sony event in NYC. It contains a 24MP APS-C Exmor CMOS sensor and like its predecessor shoots 4K video. Let’s hope it doesn’t overheat like the A6300, too.

The big news with the A6500 is the new built in 5-axis in-camera stabilisation. If you wanted stabilisation with the A6300, you had to be using a lens that supported it. Now, with the A6500, it’s built into the camera, and can be used with any lens, offering up to 5 stops of stabilisation. The buffer has also been significantly increased, jumping from the A6300’s 44 RAW frames to 107 shots in the A6500.

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Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt on photographs that transcend time, place and subject

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Photographers often talk about advancing themselves, and improving their craft. Rarely do they talk about why. At first it appears obvious. They want to shoot great pictures. Becoming proficient with the technical side of photography is pretty easy, though, thanks to digital. There’s a wealth of information online on every photography technique and principle you could imagine. But what happens next? What’s the reason you want to be good at photography? What motivates you?

This short video featuring Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt presents a thought provoking perspective on the work. What he and many other photographers attempt to achieve. What brings the “magic” to photography.

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Are filters even necessary for landscape photography anymore?

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This is a topic that seems to come up every few years. As sensors increase in dynamic range, ND grads sometimes aren’t so essential. Raw processing software becomes more capable with each new release. Even filters that cut through haze aren’t always needed. But what about things like circular polarisers and big ND filters for super long exposures?

In this video, landscape photographer Thomas Heaton offers his insight and thoughts on the question. When it comes to polarisers, Thomas is of the opinion that they absolutely are necessary. It’s an opinion I share. The function that they serve just cannot be reproduced in post. But what about the rest? Watch the video to find out.

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In-depth 5D Mark IV Review – Probably not worth upgrading if you have a 5D Mark III

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I’ll save you some time and give you the short version. If you thought the 5D Mark III was awesome, then you’ll think the 5D Mark IV is awesome. It’s at least as good as its predecessor. It has a few significant new features, but overall, it may not be worth the cost for 5D Mark III owners to upgrade. But it might. If you want to know a little more, keep reading and watching.

In this set of videos from Jim Goldstein at All Things Photo, we get a great in-depth look at the 5D Mark IV’s features. There’s a lot of videos, so you might want to sit back with a large drink, and schedule a bathroom break. There’s a big review, a quick review, and a look at some of the 5D Mark IV’s most asked about features.

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Get your GoPro airborne by shoving it into a giant Nerf football and throwing it

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Drones have become the go-to method for getting you GoPro up in the air. But in more and more locations, new regulations limit where we can fly. But what other options do we have? Well, you could gaffer tape it to a coat hanger and swing it around your head on a piece of string. Or, you could stuff it into the front of a giant Nerf football and just throw it.

The latter is the option taken by Aer co-founder Mark de Boer and his friends. Sort of. It’s not an actual Nerf football, but the design of the Aer is very similar in appearance. You will notice, though, that this has much larger fins. These should help to keep it level and not spin wildly through the air as it travels, making for cleaner, steadier footage.

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