Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
How do old lenses fair against new lenses? The question is often easy to answer: new is better. How about Pro lenses? With most brands releasing mirrorless glass, it’s easy to dismiss the older pro lenses as bad. For me, a fashion and portrait photographer, the old 70-200 is as good as the new one. And not only because I have a sentimental connection to it. Here’s why I’m not upgrading my seemingly antiquated 70-200.[Read More…]
Over the last few years, I’ve become a big fan of small pocket-sized LED lights. They used to not be as good as they are now, offering pretty limited functionality and they just didn’t produce great colour. But LED tech has come a long way since in a few short years, leading us to where we are today with products like the Digitalfoto Tree Frog.
I have two DigitalFoto Tree Frog lights that I’ve been using to light my 3D printer for live streams and for shooting small product photos and b-roll. We’re still in lockdown here, so that’s pretty much all I can point my cameras at right now. One of Tree Frogs I have is a pre-production model and the other is a final retail version. For this review, I’m only going to focus on the retail version.
It was not so long ago that I was traveling quite a bit, and as such, I needed portable solutions for my workflow. The Wimaxit M1400CT monitor has the right mix of size, weight, and features to make it into my trolly when travel returns. And for a price that will not break your wallet – $189.88.
Let’s dive into this piece of gear and see how it performs.
The Légende is the newest travel tripod and bag combo from Gitzo, with both products sharing the same name. It’s currently running as an Indiegogo campaign and will go on general sale once it’s over, with the ability to buy either item individually or both as a kit.
I’ve been trying out both the tripod and backpack for a couple of weeks now and putting them through the limited paces I can while we’re still on lockdown here in Scotland, but here are some of my thoughts on Gitzo’s new Légende tripod & backpack combo.
Can a filter really help make digital images look more organic/film-like? We take a look at the new Black Mist filter from K&F Concept.
Essentially, the Black Mist filter is designed to add some atmosphere into an image. As if there was a slight fog or mist present. You can see it here in this shot of my son. Taken on a nice clear but overcast day. Using the Black Mist filter makes it look like there’s a slight haze in the distance.
Today, March 10, 2021, Adobe dropped its latest software updates via the Creative Cloud and among those updates is a new feature in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) called “Super Resolution.” You can mark this day down as a major shift in the photo industry. I have seen a bit of reporting out there on this topic from the likes of PetaPixel and F-stoppers, but other than that the ramifications of this new feature in ACR have not been widely promoted from what I can see. The new Super Resolution feature in ACR essentially upsizes the image by a factor of four using machine learning, i.e. Artificial Intelligence (AI). From the PetaPixel article on this new feature they interviewed Eric Chan from Adobe, who was quoted as saying:
Like how Nikon has been aggressively marketing the internal diameter of the Z mount being 17% larger than the Nikon F mount, the larger mount allows more flexibility in the optical design of the Z lenses just like their newest 58mm f0.95 Noct lens. Today I won’t be testing on the 58mm f0.95 as I’m not really a fan of manual focus. We will take a look into how Nikon latest 50mm F1.2 lens will hold up against the popular 3rd party lens – Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art series.
The more I’ve travelled to shoot photos and video over the last few years, the more I’ve come to appreciate the benefits of smaller and lighter kit. Ok, so I haven’t done much travelling in the last year… Ok, I haven’t done any at all, really, but the point still remains that smaller is often better suited to the task when you’re out exploring.
And today, Insta360 has announced something very small to help document your exploration adventures. It’s the update to their popular Insta360 GO wearable FPV camera, the Insta360 GO 2. I’ve been testing one for a few weeks now, and I’ve really come to like it. Oh, and they’re releasing a Minions version, too. Yup, a Minions version.
The Godox ML60 is an interesting little light. I say little because it’s similar in size to the company’s AD300Pro strobe, which is really tiny. The ML60 isn’t a strobe, though. It’s a 60 Watt continuous LED light and it can be powered either from an AC adapter in the studio or a pair of NP-F style batteries out on location.
For its size, it puts out a whole heck of a lot of light, and with the Godox S2 modifier, you can use it with Bowens S mount modifiers. It’s also near-silent, too, which has been a big problem with a lot of LED lights over the last few years. But how good is it? Let’s take a look.
Many of you know I’m a fan of big memory cards. Sometimes you just need a lot of tiny portable storage. Some of you might have seen my thoughts on the SanDisk Extreme Pro 1TB microSD card (review here), and it’s still going strong as both a portable backup card and for shooting footage in my Insta360 cameras.
So, when Silicon Power reached out to me to try their 1TB Silicon Power Superior microSD card, suggesting that it was just as quick but less expensive than the SanDisk, I had to see for myself. After all, that’s a pretty bold claim.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!