Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
With all of our 2020 Gift Guides now posted, we thought we’d pop up one more just so you have a handy link to all of them in one place. We’ve covered cameras, lenses, lighting, tripods, sliders, gimbals accessories and more in our guides this year and we’ve seen quite a few cool new toys in 2020 – as well as one or two old favourites that still reign supreme.
What are you getting the photographer or filmmaker in your life this year? What are you hoping to receive?
Fuji shooters know that there are virtually no real third party alternatives to Fuji lenses for their cameras. Sure, there are a few manual focus ones and even cine lenses out there, but nothing autofocus that really competes with Fuji’s own lenses. This is because Fujifilm has typically always declined to share the X mount spec with 3rd party lens manufacturers.
Of course, Fujifilm’s Toshihisa Iida said back in April that they were going to start sharing them with 3rd parties soon, although we’ve seen no new lenses yet. A response by Sigma to a customer enquiry, however, suggests that might be changing and that X mount Sigma lenses could be coming in 2021.
Anamorphic lenses are an asset in any filmmaker’s toolbox. As a creator, you’re faced with tough choices when it comes to your masterpiece. However, when asking yourself ‘How do I make this story look great on the screen?’ that’s where an anamorphic lens is pretty badass.
The anamorphic lens is a filmmaker favourite, mainly because of the look it brings to a shot. Check this guide out before considering your next lens hire or camera hire!
To be quite honest, I almost never use a lens hood. On the other hand, I know photographers who never take it off their lenses. In this video from Adorama, David Bergman will tell you why you should use a lens hood on your lenses. Do you agree with him?
It looks like Panasonic is expanding its lens roadmap to help introduce some lower budget lenses to its system. With the Panasonic S5 expected to be released within the next hour or two, Panasonic will soon have relatively low-budget full-frame L mount mirrorless cameras aimed at both stills (for the S1) and video. So, it wants lenses to match.
According to the new roadmap, leaked by Nokishita shows several common and popular f/1.8 primes at 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm focal lengths, as well as a variable aperture 70-200mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens on the way.
Landscape photography isn’t only about wide-angle lenses as we’ve seen before. You can use a wide range of lenses for landscape shots, from ultra-wide to really long, even over 200mm. But which one to pick? Nigel Danson has the answers you need. In this video, he’ll help you choose the ideal lens for different scenes and compositions.
You’ve been into photography for a while, you’ve upgraded your skills, and it’s time to upgrade your gear. If you ask me, that’s always exciting, but it can also be stressful: what should you upgrade first? In this video, Scott Choucino discusses this topic and helps you choose between your lens, camera, light, or modifier. And to some of you, the answer may be surprising.
People are paranoid about scratching their lenses. So much so that they’ll actually put filters over the end of them, intentionally degrading the overall image quality to prevent “ruining” them and degrading the image quality (yeah, I know). But is it really that big of a deal? Is a fingerprint or a scratch on your lens that bad?
In this video, Chris and Jordan at DPReview test out a bunch of different levels of dirt and damage on lenses on both the front and rear elements to see exactly how much difference it makes to the image quality. Some of the results are actually quite surprising.
It’s something that all of us have run into at some point or another, particularly when we’re still learning the basics of photography. We learn that when we stop down our lenses, we get more depth of field and a sharper image. So, if I need the most depth of field, I should just stop it down all the way, and everything will be in focus and super sharp, right? Well, no, not exactly.
Diffraction is a topic that gets thrown around a lot when people start talking about stopping their lenses all the way down, but a lot of people don’t really know what it means. They’ve seen the effects, but how and why does it happen? In this video, ZY Productions explains what diffraction is, and how it affects your images.
Viltrox has posted their updated lens roadmap to Weibo and it shows nine new lenses coming between now and next year. Viltrox is traditionally known more for (relatively) inexpensive lens adapters and various accessories, but they’ve actually been making lenses for a couple of years now for various mirrorless systems including Sony, Fuji, Nikon and L mount.
The new lens roadmap shows Viltrox’s existing 9 lenses along with 9 new ones, expected to come out over the next year or so. There is a mix of Micro Four Thirds, APS-C and full-frame lenses coming and while they don’t mention the mounts for the APS-C and full-frame lenses, I think some can be fairly safe bets.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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