Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
It seems like the new videography gear t get the “everybody makes one” is the wireless lav. RODE were the first with their RODE GO and RODE GO II (reviewed here), and now you have them from Godox, Joby, DJI, and many more.
SmallRig, who by now is making a lot more than cages and rigs, are the last to enter this product nitch with their Forevala W60. We took the unit for a spin, and this is what we found out.
It’s that time again. Insta360’s announced another camera. This time it’s the Insta360 X3; the successor to the Insta360 ONE X2 (review here) – although they’ve dropped the “ONE” bit from the naming system now. But how does it compare to its predecessor? What’s different? What’s new? Is it really any better?
I’ve had the opportunity to test one for the last couple of weeks and in some ways, it’s definitely an improvement over the ONE X2. It comes with some very useful new features including upgraded 1/2″ sensors that shoot up to 72-megapixel 360° stills, 8K timelapse, a larger touchscreen display and some new shooting modes.
When I first saw the Godox Lux Senior flash, I knew I had to have one. Even before checking the specs. Even before reading the reviews. It was just such s cool looking piece of gear that I could not resist.
Now, I have had it for about a month. Was it worth the hype? Read on to learn more.
I love shooting with prime lenses. Something about the simplicity of having to ‘zoom with your feet‘ combined with a lighter weight and usually better value for your wallet makes them an obvious choice for many photographers. I shoot a lot of portraits and generally gravitate towards the 50mm. However, for environmental portraits and even the odd landscape image, I will often reach for the 35mm prime lens. On a full frame camera, it’s a fantastic focal length for street photography.
So I was curious to find out how Canon’s native full frame RF mount 35mm f/1.8 lens stacked up. It has 5 stops of Optical Image Stabilisation and 1:2 macro capabilities. But, at $499, for a prime, it’s not especially cheap. So I was keen to find out how good it could be. I tried it out on my Canon EOS R.
Camera backpacks come in all shapes and sizes these days, and it can sometimes be a little overwhelming when you’re trying to decide what would best fit your needs. The first port of call then is to figure out exactly what those needs are, and then find something that addresses those.
This engineering approach is something that camera accessories brand Moment has been doing particularly well lately. They have just launched a collaboration with travel photographer Emmett Sparling and have introduced the 35 L Day Chaser Camera backpack. It’s being billed as “rugged, versatile and extremely comfortable” and “built to carry everything”. I was able to try it out and put it through its paces in my most recent travels across Europe.
Whether we like it or not, video has become a part of our everyday lives. We now take it for granted that the ability to shoot good enough quality video resides in our pockets. But shooting stable video is still very difficult to do handheld. That’s where a good stabiliser or gimbal becomes an essential piece of equipment.
I was very excited to try out the Zhiyun Smooth-Q4 smartphone stabiliser and see just how good it was. I ended up taking it on a few short trips to see how it would hold up quite literally ‘in the field’. I tried it using my rather geriatric but still going strong Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 Android phone.
ProGrade Digital has announced a new memory card reader and this one’s designed for mobile creators to let them quickly copy and shift files two and from their Android and other portable Type-C USB devices. It supports UHS-II microSD and SD cards on the USB 3.2 Gen 1 protocol (which is way more than UHS-II SD cards need), letting you transfer to and from laptops and mobile devices at maximum speed.
ProGrade says that the new ProGrade PGM0.5 reader is in response to the “new wave of content creators [that] has emerged over the last couple of years”, primarily targeting platforms like TikTok and YouTube with many creators working in a mobile environment that doesn’t always afford the luxuries of weight and space that a home desktop solution demands. The PGM0.5 is their way to help support these more mobile creators.
As drones go, the XDynamics Evolve 2 drone sits in an interesting place. It’s an entry-level professional cinematic drone that’s above the likes of the DJI Mavic 3 (even the Mavic 3 Cine) and the Autel Evo II Pro but a hair below the DJI Inspire 2. It’s aimed primarily toward hybrid shooters who use mirrorless cameras on the ground for both stills and video and want to get the same or similar quality of photos and footage from the air.
It comes with a price tag to match, but it does feature an interchangeable lens gimbal-stabilised Micro Four Thirds camera, giving you a lot more filming and photography options than most drones below this price point. And if you’re already a Micro Four Thirds shooter, it can use the lenses you already own. But does the Evolve 2 live up to expectations? Let’s find out…
I was lucky enough to get my hands on the brand new Canon EOS R7 camera yesterday, thanks to Canon España ambassadors Paco Farero and Iván Sanchez. It’s Canon’s first offering of a cropped sensor APS-C mirrorless camera, and I was keen to test it out and see what it was like.
Now first, a few caveats. I had the camera in the field for only a couple of hours. I took only still shots so I wasn’t able to try out the video component. This isn’t an in-depth review, these are purely my initial first impressions. And those are pretty favourable, I must admit.
I feel like I’ve kissed a lot of frogs when it comes to camera bags. Sometimes it feels a little like Goldilocks searching for something ‘just right’. Not too heavy, not too small, room for items besides camera gear, but I need to bring ALL THE GEAR! I’m not sure such a thing actually exists, it may actually be a unicorn. I’ve never yet found The Perfect Camera Bag (yes those capitals are deliberate!).
Perhaps a far better approach then is to find a bag that exactly fits the requirements for a particular type of photography. Most of us do more than one type, and I must say that the requirements of an outdoors adventure photographer will be very different from say, a city-based portraits on-location photographer. With this in mind, I got to test out the Moment Strohl Mountain Light 45L camera backpack and give it a good run through its paces in the outdoors.
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