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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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The Digi Swap DoF adapter to use your smartphone as a “digital sensor” for film cameras is finally available (sort of)

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Back in January, we heard about the Digi Swap. It’s essentially a depth-of-field adapter that parks on the back of your 35mm film camera and lets you use your smartphone to actually take the shot instead of using film. But because it’s a DoF adapter, you still retain that 35mm format depth of field. It’s a bit like the Letus DoF adapter that let you use Nikon F mount lenses on the Sony PMW-EX3 way back when. Except, for your film camera and your phone.

The big difference between this and the Letus adapter, though, is that other than the ISO (which is set in the app), you’re using the controls from your camera to expose your scene and shoot your photos. Aperture and shutter speed are both controlled by your camera’s settings, not the phone. And now, finally, it’s available on Kickstarter (hence the “sort of” in the title).

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Benro Aureole – Yet another lens mount adapter with a built-in proprietary filter system

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Oh, look. It’s another established company jumping on the Kickstarter train to try to launch a new product. This time, it’s Benro, with their new Aureole, a “modular 3-in-1 drop-in filter adapter system”. Essentially, though, it’s just another Canon EF lens to whatever camera mount adapter with filters you can slot in between the two – a bit like Canon’s own EF to RF drop-in filter adapter.

Except, this one comes in options to let you mount those EF lenses to Canon RF, Sony E, Micro Four Thirds, Nikon Z, Leica L, Fuji X and Fuji GFX cameras. There’s also a Nikon F lens to Nikon Z camera body version and they say that more will be on the way in the future. And all of them use the same filters – which are proprietary to the mount making it kind of limiting.

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The Rhino Dolly is a portable motorised 10.5ft camera dolly that fits in a suitcase

Popular manufacturer of motorised motion control camera sliders, Rhino Camera Gear has launched their new Rhino Dolly. Its release is in response to what Rhino Camera Gear says is customer demand for longer rails and higher load capacities. And they sure seem to have satisfied both of those requests with a motorised dolly that provides up to 10.5ft of length and a total claimed load capacity of up to 100lbs (~45kg).

There are some caveats with that load capacity, but whichever way you slice it, it’s way beefier than anything they’ve released before. The whole thing fits inside a single case – if you’re not using the carbon fibre legs to raise it up, and it’s designed to be put up in mere minutes. The team at Rhino says their best time so far is an even 60 seconds. But for some strange reason, they launched on Kickstarter.

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The Lens Flipper Versatile now works with your Spider Holster and comes in Nikon Z mount

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The original Lens Flipper has been going for over eight years now, and essentially acts as a mount that can hold one or two spare lenses for you with easy access to swap them out at will. Until now, though, it essentially hung from a strap that went over your shoulder or a carabiner for hanging from your backpack strap.

But now GoWing, the company behind the Lens Flipper, has released a new device. Introducing, the Lens Flipper Versatile, which now attaches directly to 3rd party carry systems like the Spider Holster, Cotton Carrier, Hold Fast Gear and others, allowing seamless integration into the system you already own.

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Thingyfy’s Pinhole Pro Max is a pinhole lens that offers both 18-36mm zoom and a variable aperture

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The folks at Thingyfy have released some interesting pinhole lenses over the last few years. 2017 brought us the Pinhole Pro, the world’s first multi-aperture pinhole lens and then in 2019 we got the Pinhole Pro X, an 18-36mm variable focal length pinhole lens with a fixed aperture. Now, the company has combined the two to bring us the Pinhole Pro Max, which offers both variable 18-36mm aperture and six different apertures.

The new lens just launched on Kickstarter and is designed for both DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, and is available in Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony A, Sony E, Fuji X, Pentax K and Micro Four Thirds mounts. It even has a 58mm filter thread on the front allowing you to add a polariser or even an ND if you want to shoot some super long (even longer than a 0.15mm f/233 aperture normally offers) exposure photography.

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Slite is a portable magnetic 55 watt LED light for photos and video

While Slite’s claim of being “the world’s most portable light for creators” might not be entirely accurate (there are a lot of small portable lights out there for creators these days!), this new LED light currently running on Kickstarter does look rather interesting. It’s an ultrathin panel about the size of a laptop, runs off a Type-C USB power bank, has a magnetic back and offers the full RGB spectrum as well as 96+ CRI/99+ TLCI white LED lights.

At only 14mm thick, these continuous LED panels can fit into very tiny spaces, and thanks to the magnetic back they can easily attach to metallic surfaces. You’ve also got a couple of 1/4-20″ attachment points for sticking it on a traditional light stand or articulating arm. Once up and running, it offers 16 million colours and you can control one or multiple lights easily from a smartphone app.

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NONS SL660 – Medium format Instax camera with a built-in frame-filling adapter for 35mm SLR lenses

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We’ve seen a couple of great projects from the folks at NONS over the last couple of years, like the original NONS SL42 in February 2020 followed by the NONS SL42 Mark II in 2021. These cameras shoot the 4:3 aspect 645 medium format Fuji Instax film. Now, NONS has launched their newest camera, the SL660 which takes the slightly larger 6×6 Fuji Instax square film.

Like the previous models, the NONS SL660 features a passive Canon EF mount with no electronic signal for autofocus or aperture control. The mount might seem like an odd choice, but it allows you to easily adapt to M42, Nikon F, Pentax K, CY as well as medium format system lenses through the use of adapters. and as with the previous models, this one’s launching on Kickstarter.

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This ultra-wide 4K monitor gives your computer a ZenBook Pro Duo-like editing experience

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Well, this is pretty cool, if a little expensive. Lukos is an ultra-wide HDMI IPS display offering 100% sRGB and 3840×1100 resolution for a whopping 32:9 widescreen view, advertised as an “advanced monitor for entertainment and productivity”. The size and aspect ratio of it is very reminiscent of the “Duo” laptops from ASUS that kicked off with the ZenBook Pro Duo a couple of years ago.

And it looks like it should provide a similar level of functionality, too, acting as an extra super widescreen monitor onto which you can place all kinds of small apps to keep them handy but out of the way. Or, drag your Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects panels on there to free up screen space on your main monitor.
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The Digi Swap is an adapter to shoot your old cameras with your smartphone’s sensor instead of film

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Well, we never really did see “digital film” come to fruition, but this might be the next best thing to let you use your film cameras digitally – sort of. It’s called the Digi Swap and it’s an attachment that allows you to connect your iPhone to the back of your camera and see through its lens. They’ve posted a couple of videos to show how it works and the kind of results you can expect.

But essentially you remove the back from your camera, connect the Digi Swap, which features a built-in focusing screen for the lens to project on and a macro lens allowing your iPhone’s camera to focus on it, and then fire up the app. What makes it special, though, is that the only setting on the app is the ISO. It monitors your actual camera’s shutter for shutter speed and the aperture is defined by your lens, so you just shoot your camera as you normally would.

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