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Here it is. The new iMac. With a gorgeous Display. Well. At least with a high resolution display.
First, I have to say: I love Apple Products. Most of them. In my household, there are plenty of them. iPhones, iPad, (the old) Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacMini and iMacs. Darn. It’s actually a lot of computer gear, but who cares.
Earlier in august this year Hong-Kong based company YongNuo announced that they are releasing the YN600EX-RT – A Canon compatible strobe.
Some Canonistas, especially off camera flashers (AKA strobists) were pretty excited about this announcement. Mostly because the strobe was said to be compatible with Canon’s new 2.4GHz RT radio system that their 600EX-RT strobe features. The RT is a pretty awesome TTL triggering and strobe control system working on radio rather then on IR. But, Canon’s strobe sells for about $499 while the new Yongnuo which appeared on eBay today only sells for about $185. Roughly a 1:3 ratio.
DIYP are the last to be blamed with lack of frugality, but looking at the images that popped up on YongNuo’s sites got me thinking. Look at the two photos on the top. See any resemblance (aside the obviousness of the names). The strobe on the left is Canon’s 600EX-RT flagship, and the right one is the new YN600EX-RT.
If you ever had a set with lots of cables you know how important it is to have them all secured. Even with the best insurance plan you really don’t want anyone stumbling over one of the ‘bumps’. In the ‘good’ scenario, they will stumble curse a little and continue, in the medium scenario they will fall. And in the worse scenario they will take down your $20,000 lights.
So what do you do? You get down on your hands and knees gaff like crazy. Sadly, Gaffing a cable to the floor, while classified as grantwork, is not an easy task. It involves tapping small bits of gaff on the cable and then going back and reapplying gaff to the whole thing.
And this is what the GaffGun is here to solve. The GaffGun is somewhat of a packaging tape dispenser on steroids. You drop a Gaffer roll in the thing and simply roll it on the floor. It has rails to guide the cables and securely gaff them to the floor. This means that it is almost trivial to run cables in a straight line.
Have you ever had to balance LED lights? If you have, you know it is a nightmare. For once not all 6500K are created equal and even if all the LEDs on your setup are set to 6500K, they light output is slightly different. The other thing is that regardless of the color temperature, LED lights (and other pulsing lights, such as fluorescents) do not show a consistent light pattern.
This inconsistent light pattern means that a graph showing the color signature of an LED light may have spikes on certain colors. (have you ever heard on the horrible green spike?). Here is the thing though, (in general) the color meters that we currently have are not built to measure those color spikes, they assume that the signature is linear and sample the light color at wide intervals. Those wide intervals may cause the light meter to miss a spike (or a valley).
This is where the Sekonic C700 comes into play. We had a chat with Sekonic International sales director, Lorenzo Gasperini and he explained to us how the C700 is coping with those issues. There are some good news. Apparently, Sekonic rushed production and only had 2 of the C700 units produced, and even those were not guaranteed to be the final models. And there is nothing more exciting than putting your hands on a one of a kind unit :). And yes, the screen was stellar :)
It seems like as soon as quadcopters came onto the market, photographers began adapting them for more than just disastrous fun on Christmas afternoon. Since then, hobbyists, photography enthusiasts, and even corporate giants (let’s hear it for Amazon!) alike have been putting them to multiple uses, both business and pleasure.
AIRganoy, a “quadcopter racing fanatic association” based in eastern France, holds regular events for remote control pilots, including races like the one below that would seem more at home on a Lucasfilm set. The contestants race through the forest along a pre-marked course where, as seen in the video, “eating dirt” is a bit more reality than euphemism. Each copter is equipped with a video camera which sends a live feed back to the pilot, allowing them to navigate the treacherous, obstacle-laden course.
We know that lenses are some of the most innovative piece of technology around. It actually quote surprising how much technology one can cram into what once was “just a piece of glass”. But today’s lenses feature so much tech and innovation that it is scary. This promotional clip from Nikon Asia shows how each of the different lens technologies look like once you take the lens shell away and look inside it.
The music is horrible, but it gives some great understanding on how a lens actually works, including some insight into the VR mechanism.
There has been a lot of discussion going on about what are the impacts of using a crop sensor vs full frame when using a particular lens. How are crop factor sensors impacting depth of field and what are they doing to composition. In fact if you went to any photography forum on the web, you are likely to get as many answers as forum members.
Of course, the answer to that question really depend what you are comparing and how you are doing your tests. Photographer Neil van Niekerk did a thorough test accompanied with clear explanations on what actually makes a difference when using a crop sensor vs a full frame and the answer is not that simple.
One of the awesome things about being a well known photographer like Scott Kelby, is that Canon sends you pre-production models of their latest cameras just so you can test them out. When Canon asked Kelby if he’d test out their forthcoming Canon 7D Mark II, of course he accepted.
Once the 7D arrived, Kelby wasted no time before he took it our for a test drive, shooting with it at couple sporting events over the course of a weekend. Check out his full review, along with a heap of sample images, in the video below. (In case you skip through the video and miss the disclaimer, all of the images Kelby shot were JPEG, not RAW. Since the camera hasn’t been released yet, there is no RAW support for it in photo editing software. Except where noted by Kelby, they are also “out of the camera”, meaning no post processing was performed.)
When we did the Benjamin vs. Rebecca Challenge a few months back I asked Ben how much the Broncolor cable between the pack and head costs? It was around $800. So, in Photokina, I was quite surprised and pretty happy to see that Broncolor are coming out with Siros – a ~$1,000 strobe.
Here is the interesting part, according to the discussions we had with Broncolor those $1,000 heads will have all the features of their big $10,000 brothers. They will not be as fast, or as powerful, but they will still give you that super fast T.1 t to completely freeze water splashes.
Mirrorless cameras have been picking up steam as manufacturers continue to advance the technology that goes into the small, but powerful camera bodies. Many photographers have already abandoned their DSLR’s to make the switch to mirrorless and it’s a trend that probably isn’t going away any time soon.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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