Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
I’ll be honest. I’d never heard of Hollyland when they reached out to me and asked if I could have a look at their Mars 300 wireless video transmitter (Amazon | B&H). Will I be keeping my eye out for more stuff from them after having tried read? Read on to find out.
The Mars 300 is a new entry-level wireless video transmitter. So why would you need or use one of these?
Well, there are a few different use cases for wireless video transmitters.
Feelworld’s range of entry-level monitors have become quite popular over the last couple of years. Although they don’t offer all the bells and whistles we might find on monitors from Aputure and SmallHD, they’re plenty good enough for many hybrid shooters and specific use cases where those bells and whistles might be overkill.
The Feelworld F6 has been a very popular monitor, but Feelworld was showing off a new F6 Plus at NAB 2019, so we spoke with them to take a closer look and find out more.
Initially announced last April, the Atomos Ninja V finally went on sale in January of this year. Since then, it has rapidly become one of the most popular 5″ monitor recorders out there. It has a wide range of versatility and some unique interaction with certain products like the Nikon Z6 & Z7 as well as the Panasonic S1 and S1R. We spoke with Atomos at NAB 2019 to find out more about the Ninja V and what it offers.
The new SmallHD Focus 7 brings not only a size upgrade over the previous SmallHD Focus model but also some tech upgrades. It has a 1920×1200 touchscreen display, supports 4K video input, it a compact design weighing only 386g that features four separate 1/4-20″ mounting threads, and is powered by a pair of hot-swappable Sony L series integrated batteries.
Camera monitors seem to be popping up a lot for me lately. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve been thinking about getting a couple lately. Or it could be the increase in photographers adding video to their repertoire that’s causing them to simply be more popular. Regardless, there are a few names that keep popping up. Aputure, Atomos, and SmallHD amongst them.
Today, I noticed that B&H are running a huge sale on the SmallHD 702 Bright on-camera monitor. It’s a 7″ 1080p display, with 1000 nits brightness, LUT support, HDMI passthrough, waveform, vectorscope, false colour, focus peaking and a whole bunch of other features. And it’s currently seeing a $700 discount. But if you want one, you’ll need to make a decision quick. The sale ends in just 15 hours.
With more DSLR and mirrorless owners turning to video, the topic of camera monitors comes up fairly frequently. As a result, there’s a lot of choice out there now when it comes to camera monitors. They come with a whole host of different features, too. Some of those features are more beneficial to certain types of filmmaker while they may be overkill for others.
But which is the best? In this video, Caleb Pike at DSLR Video Shooter takes a look at four popular 5″ monitors ranging from $179 to $499 to see how they stack up against each other.
SmallHD only just announced their new 703 Bolt wireless monitor a couple of months ago. And it should start shipping this week. But that’s not enough for SmallHD. Oh, no! With NAB just a day or two away, they’ve now announced five other new monitors, too. The SmallHD Focus now comes in an SDI flavour. There’s two new 1920×1080 Touchscreen OLED Focus monitors in both HDMI and SDI varieties and a new pair of Focus Bolt TX and RX wireless monitors.
The idea of streaming liveview from your phone to your camera is not a new one. I’ve been doing it over USB and WiFi now with my Nikon DSLRs to qDslrDashboard for a while now. Other solutions, such as the TetherTools Case Relay. But, both of these systems are quite limited. You have to have one of a set list of specific cameras, for a start.
This device, called LukiLink, though, actually gives your phone HDMI capture abilities. So, you can use it with any camera that has an HDMI output. You can use it to monitor, record, and even live stream your DSLR, mirrorless or other camera’s output. The product is currently about a third funded on Kickstarter with 23 days to go. But if it can deliver on its promise, it looks fantastic.
Getting a monitor on a DSLR* can be tricky. Base plates, cages, and magic arms all come to mind. If you want something a little more compact, cold-shoe ball mount is the go-to option.
Caleb Pike has a sweet little solution that uses GoPro parts that make a mount that only tilts and does not rotate or pivot. This makes it extra easy to tilt the screen with one hand and not worry about it rotating around. It stays perfectly aligned.
During photokina we payed a visit to the Aperture booth, had a chat with Ted Sim, and we totally fell in love with their new products. Actually, we have been using Aputure’s LEDs for quite a while now, so we were not surprised. What we were surprised with is the price points for the various products. THe fact that they can deliver a $500 field monitor with vectorscope and color parade is quite awesome.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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