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Laowa 15mm f/2 Sony FE Review

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Most of you have probably heard of the name Laowa by now. They were a rather unknown brand up until recently when they made name for themselves in the landscape photography world with the Laowa 12mm f/2.8 wide angle lens that was well received. Laowa (Venus Optics) is a Chinese brand known for their innovative lenses. Laowa is showing support to the Sony E-mount with releasing their 15mm f/2 that was specifically designed for the E-mount making it possible to make it smaller and lighter than the lenses they make for DSLR mounts. 2 years ago I met the Laowa guys at Photokina and I already briefly tested the prototype of the 15mm there. I was impressed with the sharpness across the frame and was eager to try out the final version. Now that I have this lens for a while I feel confident to write a decent review about it. I used this lens in my own country the Netherlands and took it to Dubai, Norway and Iceland. I have seen a bunch of reviews online but they were mainly technical without a lot of real world examples. In this review I’ll discuss how this lens performs in ‘real world usage’. Most people who are reading my articles know that I am a landscape photographer so you can expect a lot of landscape photography use with this lens.

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Action light Death Match: Lume Cube vs. Litra Torch

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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.

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Moment lenses for Smartphones: Thoughts after a month

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You may remember that a little while back I wrote a first look at the Moment lenses (these: Moment lenses) and I was pretty impressed with the build quality. The image quality was pretty good too. One of my concerns, though, was that they are pretty large and heavy compared to other lens systems that I’ve used in the past and I wasn’t sure whether that would affect how I used them or not. We all know the old adage of the best camera is the one you have with you. So I thought that maybe because of the size and weight, I would eventually decide that I couldn’t be bothered to carry them around with me, which would make them not that useful.

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DIYP reviews the Zhiyun Crane 2 motorised 3-axis gimbal stabiliser

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Ever since I got to play with the original Zhiyun Crane at Photokina 2016 I’ve wanted to put one of these things to work and see how it handles. I’ve used a number of smaller gimbals for phones, but the ability to load up a DSLR or mirrorless camera offers huge benefits. I almost never invest in the first generation of anything, but then they released the Zhiyun Crane 2.

GearBest got in touch with us to see if we wanted to check one out for ourselves and how it might help with the content we create here on DIYP. With The Photography Show and other events coming up where we need to shoot video, it seemed like a great opportunity to give it a good workout and really put it through its paces. But it’s quickly become one of my favourite video creation tools.

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Four weeks hands on with the iMac Pro

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I am not going to bore you with the how and why I was able to get my hands on a $5,000 iMac Pro for a few weeks. Let’s just say I’m glad that I’ve already had my firstborn, otherwise I think I’d be delivering him to someone else.

Let’s start with the packaging – yes I know, the packaging. I really, really wanted to not be a fanboy about this and I really don’t appreciate other reviews that talk about the packaging of a product because who cares, right?

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Using diffusion filters – LEE ‘Soft’ Filters 1 to 5 comparison test

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I’ve used diffusion filters for years but rarely for their intended purpose. If you don’t know or haven’t heard of them, then diffusion filters are transparent glass or plastic sheets that go in front of the lens and they diffuse the light as it enters the camera. The resulting images taken with a diffusion filter have an appearance of reduced contrast that ultimately looks hazy offering a slightly dream-like effect.

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This Sony A7III review shows it’s as good in the real world as it is on paper

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Since its announcement at WPPI recently, the Sony A7III has been the hot topic around the camera body water cooler. A lot of people had a something to say in the day or two that followed after having tried it for a little while. But now we’re starting to see some proper hands-on reviews with tests to see just how it performs in the real world.

In this in-depth video review, Jay P Morgan takes the Sony A7III for a spin around Vegas. He gives it a pretty thorough workout to test the limits of Sony’s new “basic” mirrorless camera. Looking at it on paper, it certainly seems to set the bar rather high now for entry level full frame cameras. With high ISO, video, burst mode and autofocus tests we get to see if it stands up to those specs.

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Loupedeck vs Palette Gear Review: Faster Editing in Lightroom

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Loupedeck and Palette Gear are two completely different types of consoles that essentially aims to do one thing: help you edit a little faster in Adobe Lightroom. That’s a general statement, but if you’re here, you probably have a bit of an idea about the two devices. I have both and I’ve spent a few weeks with each to see which will find a more permanent place on my desk, so let’s get to it. First, a quick overview about each device.

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