Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Shooting food footage has always been changing. Aside from getting the framing, lighting, and general composition right, you also need to make sure the food looks good. And if you want to add motion to the shot, it adds another layer of complexity.
We took the DigitalFoto 360 spinner for a ride and learned quite a few things about feed photography along the way, here is what we learned:
Digitalfoto has announced their new FS-100S bi-colour COB LED light, and the first review already appears to be up on YouTube. It’s an interesting if slightly odd-looking LED light in the fact that it seems to be emulating the look of a (somewhat large) mirrorless camera. It features a “Mini Bowens Mount” and comes with a gobo projector lens and an adapter for using the projector on lights with regular Bowens mounts.
Given the cost of 100W LEDs, the Digitalfoto FS-100S is not inexpensive. At $365, it sits well above the cost of similarly powered bi-colour COB LEDs from companies such as Aputure, Godox, Colbor, Nanlite and others. The Digitalfoto FS-100S does come with a little extra accessory that the others don’t, though; A gobo projector lens to let you project patterns onto a surface or subject. Why’s it shaped like a camera, though?
The season of giving is upon us – which becomes immediately obvious whenever you walk into a store and you’re overwhelmed by Whamageddon. If you want to avoid the Christmas music and prefer to do your shopping online, then have no fear, DIYP’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guides are here to rescue you with some of our favourite new releases of the year, as well as a few old favourites that always seem to find a place in our gear bags.
In this post, we’re going to be taking a look at lighting, but keep an eye out for upcoming guides featuring Tripods, Sliders & Gimbals, and other accessories and gadgets and be sure to check out our previous guide going over the best of this year’s new Cameras and lenses.
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.
Light is something that plagues us all, whether we’re photographers or filmmakers. There’s either never enough, or it’s coming from the wrong direction, or it’s too hard or soft for what we need. So, we often need to add our own to get that look that we really want. So, with cameras and lenses out of the way, that’s what we’re going to be covering in our lighting gift guide.
The Arri Trinity made a big impression a few months ago when Potato Jet got to go try one out in person. But it’s a $50,000 stabilisation system. It’s a bit out of the budget of most people. A lot of people have mashed a bunch of random gear together to try to make their own – to varying degrees of success.
But now, digitalfoto has announced its (almost) all-in-one low-budget Arri Trinity alternative, the Thanos Pro II – which includes the support vest, arm and carbon fibre monopod sled. I say almost all-in-one because you’ll still need to add your motorised gimbal. Fortunately, it supports plenty.
Sometimes, you need to go a little “extra” with your gimbal rig. Sometimes, you need the two-handed holding power that only a solid frame can provide. Digitalfoto’s new Magic Ring II, is one of them. But it’s a little different to most. It allows you to attach a V-Mount battery to its base that passes power through the frame to devices up top.
This means you can attach monitors, transmitters, audio recorders or other devices onto the top of the frame without having to worry about how you’re going to power them or monitoring a bunch of separate smaller batteries. Being able to mount a V-Mount battery underneath also helps to lower the centre of gravity as it takes some of that extra weight away from up high.
Waterproofing (or at least really good weather sealing) seems to have become quite popular with photo and video gear lately, especially when it comes to lights. And particularly small lights that one might occasionally choose to use with their smartphones – given that many new smartphones now are also somewhat waterproof.
Lighting and gimbal accessories manufacturer DigitalFoto has already released one waterproof light tube recently, and now they’ve announced another. Their new Tree Frog RGBWW Pocket LED is an IP67 rated update to their previous pocket-sized RGB LED lights, and offers a couple of other neat extras besides.
Digitalofoto has just announced their new P7RGBPRO and P120 RGB tube LED lights. These bicolour RGB lights offer 36,000 possible RGB colours, with a white balance temperature of 3,000K to 5,700K with a claimed CRI of over 95. And like many other new lights today, you can control a bunch of them at once from an app on your smartphone.
But what makes them special is that they’re IP68 rated. This means that they’re resistant to dirt and dust, but you can also use them underwater to depths down to 1.5 metres for up to half an hour.
With cameras and lenses out of the way, it’s time to light your scene. So, you’ll need lights. I’ve noticed a distinct trend over the last year towards continuous lights, so while there are some flashes and strobes in this list, we’ve put quite a few of our favourite continuous LED lights in this year’s list, too.
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