Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
The number of people who get to photograph is not huge, but the number of people who get to see a Polar Bear actually using a camera is close to zero.
Photographer Roie Galitz was leading a photography workshop in Svalbard when the team encountered a big male Polar Bear. Little did they know that the bear had artistic aspiration.
Roie tells DIYP:
Face it, if you want an action-light (those small on-your-motorcycle cube lights), there are two options in the market: the Lume Cube (Amazon, B&H) and the Litra Torch (Amazon, B&H). They are both great lights if you are doing any sorts of action sports photography, they are compact, light, have some resistance to the elements and hold a few hours if you avoid max power. But which is the better light? Which of those light will give you the most bang for your buck? we set out to find out and ran the two lights through a battery of (sometimes ridiculous) tests.
The GNARBOX (pronounced narbox) solved a major issue for many: How to work in the field with no laptop. A decent laptop that supports backing up, exporting short bits for social media, handle RAW files and similar tasks, cannot be a weak small laptop. But many times, you don’t actually need a laptop, you just want to backup some files, or post a short shot to social media, and a laptop is too much to carry for that. Not to mention the weight and extra care a laptop demands.
Now, the GNARBOX 2.0 SSD takes that concept and turns it into an eco-system. The new GNARBOX 2.0 SSD has more storage, is definitely sexier, and supports four apps or workflows to enable working in the field. The only caveat I have with the box is that it is launching on Kickstarter.
April’s fools is a day of fun but also a day of caution for anyone getting near the internet. If you look at some of the past jokes, you’ll see that some of them came true. (Heck, DIYP once got the world to believe that we own the term Bokeh.)
If you are not sure if you are seeing a real new story or being hoaxed, head here and check to see if we covered this joke. Check back as this page updates every 30 minutes. Did we miss anything? let us know.
If you are in the video creative world, RØDE is now starting a competition where there is $1,000,000 of prizes up for grabs for making a killer short. If this does not get your creativity going, I don’t know what will.
Competition rules are simple: shoot a short of maximum of three minutes, a BTS movie, and enter both into MY RØDE REEL. You will have until July 31st to submit your entry.
We’ve seen quite a bit of film being discontinued in the last years. Some Velvia and Provia, Agfa Vista, and many others. We reported that some Fuji Acros was going to go away back on October 07, and completely forgot about it.
But it seems that the time has come, and the Casual Photophile reports that communication was sent to Japanese dealers telling them that Fuji will stop production on the 35mm and 120 Acros films. (Get some here, here and here while stock lasts).
We all know the exposure triangle. The exposure triangle deals with the relations between shutter speed, Aperture and ISO. Those three aspects are dealing with the way that the camera sees light.
To better understand light, we can look at the complete path light goes through from the second it leaves the light source (say a strobe), through hitting the object, reflecting the light into the lens , and going through the different lens and camera elements, until it hits the sensor (or film).
This is quite a journey, and it sheds some light (sorry) on many of the aspects that contribute to exposure.
When SYRP first introduced the Genie in 2012, we did not quite know how to swallow this new animal. It was a motorized panning head, but it had a wire-wrapping function that allowed to travel great distances, creating some very interesting results. Ever since SYRP evolved the system to include a second motor, a pan-tilt head a Cable Cam and a complete eco-system in general.
Now, the company is releasing their second version of the Genie – Genie II, and I have to say it makes a lot of sense.
The two most notable things are integrating PAN and TILT into a single unit. I mean, you could always kinda pan and tilt with the Genie, but it was a cumbersome solution involving a big bracket and two Genie minis. No,w this function seems a lot more mature and integrated.
The other big thing is that SYRP is bringing their app control (bluetooth) to the main unit. I have not seen the app yet, but I assume it will be similar to the app that drives the mini which is pretty easy to use.
Along with your gentle reminder about the being extra curious in the next few days, here is a short reminder of how April Fools Day was celebrated in photography blogs over fifty years ago. Well, lacking internet and blogs, they had to pre-conceive their jokes in advance and put them to print in time for magazines to hit the shelves for Aprils 1st. (certainly, not being obvious like Trademarking Bokeh, heh).
In 1966. Tony Karp, a guy who knows his gear* put togetheran extensive Aprils Fools piece for Modern Photography. This included a tilt lens, screen guides, large format reflex, a camera that will give you an electric shock if you screw up, and a few other gadgets.
Here is the amazing thing. Many of those gadgets are now actual products. The Flexagon is very similar to a Lensbaby composer, EVFs can do composition overlays (see this crazy one from the Sony A7III if you drool over EVFs).
Go through the different pieces of gear and see how many of them turned up to be real in the last few years (hint: all). Hit us in the comments with the modern version of these shenanigans.
Ever since the Sony A7III was announced, it drew quite a bit of attention. Some of the features like eye-tracking seem almost too good to be true. Photographer Manny Ortiz takes us for a ride in the driver’s sit photographers viewfinder on a shoot with the camera. I gotta say, it’s an impressive piece of kit.
The first thing Manny highlights is the eye-tracking autofocus. Look at the Gif below to judge if this is something you would enjoy working with.
You can find out more about John on his website or follow him on Facebook and YouTube.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
Find my work on My website or follow me on Facebook or My page
