As we all know, photo gear is pretty expensive. And if you suffer from the so-called Gear Acquisition Syndrome, you’ve probably spent tons of money on gear so far. But, there are some clever ways to buy the gear you want but at significantly lower prices. In this video, Miguel Quiles gives you five clever tricks that will help you save thousands of dollars both on new and used gear.
Kamlan 7.5mm f/3.2 is a $230 fisheye lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras
Chinese manufacturer Kamlan has announced a new fisheye lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras. It’s a manual focus 7.5mm f/3.2 lens, and it will soon be introduced at the CP+ show in Japan.
How to use a $6 slide projector lens for stunning portraits
Photographer Mathieu Stern is passionate about finding and even making unusual lenses. This time, he hit a flea market and found a $6 treasure: Rollei 90mm f/2.4 MC. It’s a slide projector lens, but Mathieu adapted it to his Sony mirrorless camera and found out that it’s also great for portraits.
Building a photography career on three cheap lenses
Photography is one of few industries where perception of skill feels quite so inextricably linked with equipment. For a lot of people, the start of their interest in photography is tied directly to the gear they buy: working out just enough about how aperture works to want to invest in a fast 50, getting enough of a handle of artificial light to crave a speed light or two, the eventual step into full-frame. But eventually there comes a point where the next step in your photography isn’t in your next lens, flash or camera body.
New Lensbaby Sol 45mm f/3.5 is a $200 tilt-shift lens
Lensbaby has just announced Sol 45, a budget-friendly tilt-shift lens. The Lensbaby Sol 45 is a 45mm f/3.5 lens, designed for both DSLR and mirrorless cameras. The company describes it as its “most playful and accessible lens yet,” so let’s see what you get with this $200 creative lens.
Yongnuo releases new 50mm f/1.8 II: better image quality and closer focusing distance
Yongnuo is known for dirt cheap lenses, and they have just added another one to their line. The company has released a new 50mm f/1.8 II lens. It’s almost as cheap as the old model, but with some improvements.
An $80 DLSR kit gives you more than you’d expect
Cameras and lenses are expensive. Really expensive. Even the cheapest entry-level DSLR kit today costs $500 and upwards. But what if you would buy the cheapest possible used DSLR? A camera that is over 10 years old? How would it stack up against today’s modern cameras? I was curious about this and decided to find out for myself.
After two weeks of watching classified ads closely, and missing a couple of good bargains because I wasn’t fast enough, I finally managed to purchase a Canon 400D (also known as Rebel XTi) with a battery grip and a Canon 50mm f1.8 II lens on it. All this for only $80. It seemed like a great deal to me. It even came with a 2GB CF card!
I bought a $200 camera and lens so people would stop giving credit to the camera for my photos
When I began posting my photos online, I started getting comments like ‘wow, you must have a great camera’ or ‘anybody can take photos like these with expensive gear’ or ‘I can’t take photos like these because I can’t afford an expensive camera like yours’. It breaks my heart when I hear people say things like this. Or when they feel like they can’t get any better or they don’t have a chance because they have a cheap camera.
So I had enough of these comments and decided to prove them wrong by finding the cheapest camera and lens I could find and take some photos with them!
This cheap lens makes square bokeh thanks to its aperture
Why only have round bokeh, when you can get it all sorts of shapes? You can achieve shaped bokeh by cutting a shape in black paper and placing it on the lens. Or if you’re too lazy or not really precise, you can even buy premade shapes. But what if I told you there’s a way to achieve square bokeh with nothing but a lens? Mathieu Stern presents you with a cheap lens that has a square aperture, so it creates super-interesting square bokeh.
