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Canon planning to replace focus rings with touch panels on the lens?

Mar 19, 2021 by John Aldred 17 Comments
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Canon has filed a pretty interesting looking patent at the Japan Patent Office. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it yet, but it replaces the focus ring on the lens with a touch panel which would let you control the lens with your thumb as you handhold it.

On the plus side, it’d make people start to hold their cameras properly, but it does seem like it’d be a bit of a pain for a lot of photographers, particularly those shooting on tripods – like landscape or product photographers. It does offer a lot of potential for cool features, though.

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Here’s a simple way to refocus your images in Photoshop after they were shot

Oct 31, 2018 by Dunja Djudjic 1 Comment
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With fancy dual and triple camera phones, you can set the depth of field of your images using a simple slider. But did you know you can do it in Photoshop, too, after you’ve taken the photo? Colin Smith of photoshopCAFE figured out a way to refocus images in Photoshop after they were shot, and he’s sharing it with you in his latest video tutorial.

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How and where to focus on landscapes to shoot sharper images

Oct 13, 2018 by John Aldred 2 Comments
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When you’re shooting landscapes, the biggest challenge is getting images clean and sharp from front to back. You’d think it’s quite simple. Focus on infinity and away you go right? Well, not so much. That often puts things in the foreground out of focus. So, how you can you get everything sharp?

In this video from NatureTTL, Ross Hoddinott walks us through various techniques to get maximum sharpness throughout your scene.

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Contrast vs Phase Detection autofocus – What it means and why it matters.

Mar 5, 2018 by John Aldred Leave a Comment
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Often, we hear much talk about the advantages and disadvantages of phase detection vs contrast-based autofocus systems. But not everybody knows what that means or why it matters. I had a rough idea, but I didn’t really understand it myself until I watched this video from photographer David Flores for B&H. In it, David explains how each of the two systems work, when it’s best to use one or the other, and how various camera AF systems work today using one or a combination of both methods.

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How zone focusing will help you to get better street photography

Jan 2, 2018 by John Aldred 11 Comments
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Zone focusing is a term that often seems to confuse people. But if you don’t know what it is, then it’s quite easy to understand why. It’s a common technique for a lot of subjects, and particularly for street photography. I often use it myself because it means I can just raise my camera, take the shot and know it’s in focus where it needs to be.

This video from photographer David Coleman explains exactly what zone focusing is, with several ways to implement it in your shoot workflow. Once mastered, it can be a fantastic way to let you shoot with confidence on the street, just knowing that your subject is in focus.

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4 ways to keep your subject sharp and in focus when shooting video

Aug 9, 2017 by John Aldred 6 Comments
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When you’re a one man video shooting band, keeping your subject sharp and in focus can be a huge pain. If you don’t have a focus puller following you around, or fancy remote control focus systems, it’s a constant struggle. That’s why we often see cameras locked off on tripods and sliders with static subjects that rarely move.

But there are some techniques you can use to keep your subject sharp and in focus when filming solo. Filmmaker Parker Walbeck demonstrates some of these techniques in this recently video. None of these techniques are always perfect, though, and Parker talks about the advantages and disadvantages of each.

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Nail your focus every single time with this DIY lens calibration solution

Mar 27, 2017 by John Aldred 2 Comments
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Whenever I buy a new lens, I have to calibrate it and AF fine tune five different DSLRs. Two are my primary stills shooters, and three are for video. But if I only have the video DSLRs out with me, and want to grab a few quick behind the scenes shots, I need to know their AF is spot on. So, I use the SpyderLENSCAL to calibrate every lens with every body. For me, it’s worth the cost.

If you’ve only got one camera and one or two lenses that you’ll only need to calibrate once, though, it might seem like a bit of a high expense. You buy it, use it once or twice, and then it just sits in a box. Well, there are other options. You can make your own. This video from Crafty Cams has been out for a while, but it’s recently become popular again and it’s well worth a watch.

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How To Calibrate The Focus of Your Lenses – And Why You Should do it

Lens Calibration Tutorial

Jan 19, 2017 by JP Danko 6 Comments
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Here’s a (semi) fun way to start the year off right – it’s time to calibrate the focus of your lenses!

Most DSLRs offer options for “micro adjustment” or to “fine tune” the focus of attached lenses. If you happen to use Sigma ART series lenses, you can also use Sigma’s USB Dock for even more refined lens focus calibrations.

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Sigma Art Lenses – Great glass, shitty bokeh.

Aug 28, 2016 by Joseph Parry 25 Comments
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It’s died down a little now, but last year there was an insane craze surrounding the Sigma Art series lenses so much so that I actually ended up buying 2 of them, selling them, then borrowing them again in the future for other shoots when I had no money.

To be clear from the outset, I actually think the Sigma Art lenses kick serious ass, the sharpness, the focus ring, build quality, the price. They are “cheap enough” ($900 for 35mm f/1.4 or $950 for 50mm f/1.4) and give you some serious firepower in the lens department. But after all of this, after all of these wonderful points, I STILL sold the 50mm and the 35mm because of one key factor. I think the bokeh sucks.

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A guide to nailing focus and depth of field

Jul 12, 2016 by John Aldred Leave a Comment
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Focus and depth of field are those kinds of topics that can quickly confuse newer photographers. When we’re just starting out, we think we know what it means, but our pictures are still blurred or everything’s too sharp and detailed and we don’t understand why.

In this video from Wolfcrow, filmmaker Sareesh Sudhakaran walks us through the basic principles of focus and depth of field in a very easy to digest manner.

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Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

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