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New YouTube app update lets you convert your long-form videos into shorts on iOS and Android

YouTube has updated its iOS and Android apps with a new feature that lets you convert up to 60 seconds from your existing long-form content YouTube videos into Shorts. The new feature offers all of the usual editing tools you’re used to from the YouTube app including text, timeline editor filters, etc. and will let you bring some of your older content back to the forefront of your feed.

As well as letting you pick pre-existing videos, you can also extend clips shorter than 60 seconds with the Shorts camera or upload more videos from your phone’s gallery to make it fill up to the 60-second Shorts limit. The new Shorts created from your previously-uploaded videos will also link to the original content where viewers can see the full length version.

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This $20 DIY ring light isn’t the kind of ring light you think it is – it’s for light painting

When we hear the term “ring light” in photography, one thing immediately springs to mind and it offers a very distinctive look. But there is also another type, which isn’t meant to wrap around your lens to create that “shadowless” (which isn’t really) beam of fill light coming directly from your camera, and that’s what Pye Jirsa shows us how to make in this video.

It’s an interesting idea, basically wrapping a string of lights around a ring to create a unique look. And sure, while you could potentially try to use it like a traditional ring light, it won’t do much good, as those little LEDs aren’t going to light a subject very well from any kind of distance. But for light painting? Well, that’s where it really shines.

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How to recreate the lighting setups for six scenes in Stranger Things 4

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I don’t know about you, but I find movies and TV shows a great source of inspiration. And I don’t mean the story, but the technical side of things. The blocking, the lighting, the editing, the grade, the music used and more all set the tone for what we’re viewing and it’s fascinating to try to reverse engineer and figure out not only how but why they made the decisions they did.

But here, we’re looking at lighting. And specifically, the lighting for certain scenes from Stranger Things 4. Bangkok-based photographer and filmmaker MIXXPST, along with his friend Gift Lee, decided to have a go at recreating some of the scenes from the popular show as they’re both big fans and I while they’re not pixel-perfect replicas of the originals, they illustrate some of the principles very well.

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Projecting backgrounds behind your subject with the Wemax Nova 4K UST ALDP laser projector

Projectors have been a part of photography for a very long time. Originally, they were designed for boring your friends and family members with slides of your holiday snaps. Since then, though, projectors have become much more useful and now regularly play a creative or practical role in our photography and filmmaking needs.

We’ve shown how you might be able to incorporate projectors into your workflow before, using one as a full-screen preview monitor for video editing. This time, we’re going to take a look at the Wemax Nova 4K ultra-short-throw (UST) ALDP Laser projector with an Ambient Light Rejecting (ALR) screen as a sort of “virtual set” background projection system in the studio.

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DIYP reviews the SmallRig RC220B LED Light – a small but mighty light

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So, it looks like SmallRig is here to stay as far as LED lights go and the RC120 (reviewed here) family got some new double-the-power members – the RC220B and the  RC220D. (Those stand for bi-colour and daylight).

From what I can tell, it seems that SmallRig has refitted the RC120 body with a more powerful LED. And this is a good thing. If you have any bags, cases, or kits that you’ve built for the 120, the 220 would feel right at home for those.

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OWC Atlas S Pro V90 UHS-II SD cards are fast, reliable and reasonably priced

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In January, OWC announced their new Atlas S Pro V90 UHS-II SD Cards, available in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities. They’re priced very competitively, too – that is to say, they’re less expensive than many of their V90 competitors but still a little more expensive than V60 UHS-II cards.

As V90 cards, they guarantee sustained write speeds of at least 90MB/sec. According to OWC, real-world testing has provided write speeds of up to 276MB/sec and read speeds of up to 290MB/sec. Such claims are easy enough to verify – at least, one would think so – so when OWC offered to send us some to try out, we decided to put these speeds to the test ourselves.

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Sabrent and Wise announce world’s first 512GB V90 UHS-II SD cards but who will get them to market first?

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Manufacturers of memory cards, amongst other things, Wise and Sabrent have both announced their new 512GB V90 UHS-II SD cards, with write speeds guaranteed at a minimum of 90MB/sec. The Wise card was technically announced first, a couple of days before the Sabrent, although neither card is actually available just yet. There’s also quite a price discrepancy between the two.

The Wise 512GB V90 SD card is to be priced at $800, while the Sabrent is going to be $600. Not only is the Sabrent significantly cheaper than its only competition right now, they also believe they can get theirs to market and on sale first, with pre-orders already open and a release date of April 24th, 2022. Wise, however, is also expected to release in “mid-April”. So, the race is on.

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Autel Evo Nano drone – Is it really a DJI Mini 2 killer?

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This review of the Autel Evo Nano has taken a little longer than I’d anticipated to complete due to the abysmal weather we’ve been having here in this part of Scotland over the last few weeks. But I think this has turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise.

You see, when the Autel Evo Nano first came to me, there were quite a few features missing or not fully working. Even after its general release and people could actually buy it, it still had a few issues. But now, most of them seem to have been resolved and I’ve been able to fly it to its current full potential now that the weather has perked back up.

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“Great Joy” launches full-frame 60mm T2.9 1.33x Anamorphic lens and 1.35x Anamorphic adapter

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Seems to be a big anamorphic thing going on lately. We’ve had the launch of Sirui’s full-frame 50mm T2.9 Anamorphic lens, stacking Anamorphic lenses with Anamorphic adapters and now we’ve got the new “Great joy” 60mm T2.9 1.33x Anamorphic lens and 1.35x Anamorphic adapter being launched through Kickstarter.

The new Great Joy 60mm T2.9 lens offers a 1.33x anamorphic aspect ratio. The adapter provides a 1.35x anamorphic aspect ratio. When stacked together you’ve got 1.8x anamorphic, offering some pretty wide field of view. Of course, like other anamorphic adapters, you can also put this one onto a regular lens to give it that anamorphic look.

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Canon’s monster 1200mm f/5.6 lens fetches a record $580,000 at auction

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Canon’s 1200mm f/5.6 is generally regarded as the stuff of myth and legend. Of course, the lens exists, but there are so few of them out there that the vast majority of us will never even see one in person, let alone get to try one. Originally manufactured in very limited quantities by special order only in the 1990s, it came with the princely sum of around $90,000 and it’s estimated that only around 20 were ever made.

One of these extremely rare lenses popped up at the Wetzlar Camera Auctions last week, and a bidding war sent the price sky rocketing to a whopping €500,000 (around $580,000). This isn’t the most valuable lens out there, but this is the highest amount that a lens has ever fetched at auction.

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