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DJI has now officially announced the DJI Mini 3 <250g drone with 3-way obstacle avoidance

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DJI has now officially announced the successor to their <250g DJI Mini 2. And in what will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, it’s called the DJI Mini 3… Pro. I’m not sure what makes this “Pro” or if there’ll be a non-pro version coming at some point (perhaps as a successor to the Mini SE?), but DJI’s announcement today doesn’t actually reveal much that hadn’t already been leaked over the last couple of weeks – including a complete unboxing and first flight.

It’s another <250g drone with a larger battery option for those with the appropriate permits to fly larger drones, it comes in three different packages and the Fly More Combo deal is an extra addon to each of those three packages. And despite any other advancements DJI may have made with this drone, the big news, obviously, is that their Mini line finally has obstacle avoidance.

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SanDisk Professional launches the PRO-BLADE modular and portable SSD ecosystem for creatives

Western Digital has today announced the new SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE modular SSD ecosystem targeted toward creatives. It comprises the PRO-BLADE SSD Mag, available in 1-4TB capacities that offer speeds of up to 3,000MB/sec, the PRO-BLADE Transport USB 3.2 Gen 2 (20Gbps) reader for speeds up to 2,000MB/sec, and a PRO-BLADE Station desktop SSD enclosure that holds four SSD Mags at once with Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) speeds.

Western Digital says that the new versatile NVMe SSD mag allows users to quickly scale storage on location or in the studio, with up to 3m of drop protection and 4,000lbs of crush resistance for durability in those random location environments in which we often find ourselves. They’re designed to ease the high speed and capacity demands of cameras that can record straight to USB-C.

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TTArtisan’s new low-budget 50mm f/0.95 APS-C mirrorless lens isn’t a limited edition this time

TTArtisan has released their new 50mm f/0.95 lens for APS-C mirrorless cameras. Like most of TTArtisan’s lenses, this is a manual focus lens and when used on an APS-C body, it offers a field of view equivalent to that of a 75mm lens on a full-frame body. The fast f/0.95 aperture allows for shooting in very low light conditions. It also offers a very shallow depth of field that’s particularly well suited to portraits.

For APS-C mirrorless cameras, this low-budget $218 lens is available in Fuji X, Sony E and Nikon Z mounts. There’s also a Micro Four Thirds version, which gives the equivalent field of view to that of 100mm on full-frame due to the 2x crop factor of the MFT system. From looking at the product page on the TTArtisan website, it appears versions will also come for Canon EF-M and RF mounts as well as L mount.

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Snapchat’s $299 “pocket-sized” Pixy drone is now available to buy

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Snap Inc, owners of Snapchat, have released their new Pixy drone. It’s a tiny “pocket-sized” drone designed specifically for shooting content on Snapchat. This little plastic drone (a term which Snap doesn’t use once in the press release, preferring “flying camera”) doesn’t come with a controller, as it’s designed to basically fly itself and you use the Snapchat app to tell it what to do.

It’s certainly not going to be any kind of competitor to companies like DJI or Autel but for Snapchat users who want a flying selfie camera? Perhaps. Snap says that it offers everything users need “to capture the moment from a new perspective” without having to hold a selfie stick or drag an extra person along just to hold the camera. It weighs only 101g, so falls well under the 250g drone rules and costs only $229.

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Vazen’s new 135mm T2.8 1.8x anamorphic lens completes their full-frame anamorphic trio

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Vazen has unveiled their new 135mm T2.8 1.8x anamorphic lens for full-frame cameras in EF and PL mount. This completes their 3-lens 1.8x full-frame anamorphic lineup adding to the Vazen 85mm T2.8 1.8x anamorphic full-frame lens announced in August 2020 and the Vazen 50mm T2.1 1.8x anamorphic full-frame lens announced last May.

As with Vazen’s previous full-frame 1.8x anamorphic lenses, this one’s not cheap, coming in at the same $8,000 price tag as the last two, although you can buy the complete set of three in a nice custom hard case for the bargain price of $19,999 (a $4,001 discount). If you’ve already bought some, though and end up getting the 135 to complete your set, the case is available separately for $300.

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Sony has now officially announced the new 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II lens

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It had to come eventually and now it’s finally here. Sony has announced its new Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II lens to go along with its recently released FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS II announced last October. Like its predecessor, the Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II is designed for full-frame Sony E mount cameras and comes with a number of new improvements that should help the shooting workflow.

Sony says it’s the “world’s lightest f/2.8 standard zoom lens”, but we usually have to take Sony’s “World’s” claims with a pinch of salt and a few caveats. In this case, though, weighing in at only 695g, they might actually have a point. It’s 20% less than the original and significantly less than its Nikon and Canon counterparts.

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Edelkrone’s JibONE v2 brings improved connectivity and new features for a better user workflow

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Edelkrone has announced its successor to the Edelkrone JibONE, announced in 2020. No, it’s not the JibTWO, it’s the JibONE V2. It offers all of the features of the original. In fact, according to the specs, it’s pretty much identical. It’s the same size, the same weight, has the same mounting options, same load capacity, same camera travel, same speeds, same power inputs and power consumption, same everything.

But it does have some new features, too. It comes with better wireless connectivity with a longer range, improved power management with auto power-off, an information screen with instant feedback for the user to see what it’s doing and can be fully wired when you’re shooting somewhere with a lot of interference. And right now, there’s a $300 launch discount that makes it cheaper than the original.

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The new IP65 rated Samsung T7 Shield SSD is built to handle the most demanding of rough situations

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Samsung has announced their newest portable SSD, the Samsung T7 Shield. Now, on first glance, especially given the name, it might just sound like a regular Samsung T7 drive in a fancy rugged enclosure and… Well, yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what it is. But now that the world is opening back up and photographers and filmmakers are getting back on the road to start shooting in extreme locations, backup storage that can handle those extreme conditions is handy.

The Samsung T7 Shield offers the same transfer speed as the regular Samsung T7, with sequential read speeds of up to 1,050MB/sec and sequential write speeds of up to 1,000MB/sec over USB 3.2 Gen 2. It only weighs 98g, adding 40g onto the T7, but can handle drops of up to three metres and it’s IP65 certified for water and dust resistance.

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Aputure goes full spectrum colour with its new LS 600c Pro RGBWW Bowens mount LED light

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Well, when Aputure decides to do something, they sure go big, huh? They’re finally going RGBWW on their LED spots and they’re doing it with the newly announced 600W Aputure Light Storm 600c Pro. The new Bowens-mount Aputure LED light offers a bi-colour range of 2,300K up to 10,000K (greater than the LS 600x Pro) with a CRI of 95 and a TLCI of 98 but it also offers the full RGB colour spectrum, too.

It boasts 17,480 lux of brightness at 3 metres, with the LS1200 hyper reflector (sold separately) with 600W of output. It has over 300 gel presets, with XY colour control, a variable HSI white point, flicker reduction with selectable frequency, maximum and constant output levels between colour changes, with 10 user presets, 15 built-in lighting effects, Art-Net & SACN compatibility,  Sidus Link control, weather resistance and more.

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The Trexo Slider is a mini motion control camera slider for creatives who like to pack small and light

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Trexo Innovation has announced their new Trexo Slider, a motorised mini slider aimed at content creators who like to pack a small lightweight kit. Designed to handle everything from DSLR and mirrorless cameras to smartphones, it allows for shooting of both video and timelapse, with speeds ranging from a super slow 0.001mm/sec up to a rather nippy 30mm/sec. It’s also strong enough for vertical slides up to a rate of 25mm/sec.

It’s launching via Kickstarter and claims to be “the world’s most compact camera slider”. I’m not entirely sure about that claim, but it is pretty small. Unlike most camera sliders on the market, the Trexo slider uses a leadscrew instead of a belt for camera movement, allowing for smaller movement increments, increased accuracy and better torque for moving heavier cameras.

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