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The Adaptalux Pod Mini is a small, lightweight power control unit for Adaptalux macro flashes and LED lights

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Adaptalux has expanded their mini macro lighting range with the new Adaptalux Pod Mini. It’s a compact and lightweight power supply unit for the Adaptalux Studio Lighting Arms. It offers up to eight hours of battery life and can supply power while charging through its USB-C socket. As well as supplying power, the Pod Mini also acts as the controller for the Adaptalux lighting range.

It’s a miniature version of the Control Pod, the Pod Mini works with both the Adaptalux continuous LED lights, including the UV ones, as well as their Xenon flash units. It offers up to 8 hours of battery life, has an easy minimalist button control layout, they’re small, lightweight and durable and they’ve been launched on Kickstarter.

Nikon Small World winners show the giant beauty of the microscopic world

Nikon has announced the winners of its annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition. For almost five decades, Nikon has shared the best microscopic images from this contest, and just as always – they are absolutely marvelous.

This year’s first-place prize was awarded to Grigorii Timin for his remarkable image of an embryonic hand of a Madagascar giant day gecko. But Nikon also recognizes the best 20 images from the contest, so let’s take a look and enjoy them together.

Laowa announces new T2.9 Cine versions of its 65mm and 100mm 2x Ultra Macro APO lenses

This one might come as a surprise to some of you but guess who’s released two new macro lenses? I’ll give you a minute. I bet you’ll never get it… Oh. Yes, that’s correct, it’s Laowa! Well, technically they have and they haven’t. They’ve taken two of their popular full-frame and APS-C stills macro lenses and packaged them up into cinema housings. So, they’re sort of new, but also not.

Anyway, today, Venus Optics has officially announced the Laowa 65mm T2.9 2x Macro APO Cine for Super 35mm and the Laowa 100mm T2.8 2x Macro APO Cine for full-frame cameras. Both lenses come in an array of mount options and are optically identical to their stills counterparts, but with all the filming benefits of a cinema lens housing.

Luminar Neo’s latest Focus Stacking extension lets you get that perfect focus

If you’re a Luminar Neo user, I’m sure you know that Skylum has been launching extensions since July this year. Four out of seven are already out, and now the fifth one in the row is here:  Focus Stacking.

As with most of Luminar Neo’s tools, the Focus Stacking extension is also AI-based. It lets you focus-stack up to 100 source images and create super-sharp macro photos, portraits, landscapes… Or anything else you want.

Loawa has released another macro lens – the 58mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO for mirrorless cameras

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When it comes to macro lenses, the name that springs to mind most these days is Laowa, produced by Venus Optics. Now, they’ve added another new one to their lineup, the Laowa 58mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO designed specifically for mirrorless cameras. Like Laowa’s other lenses, it’s a manual focus lens, and this one comes in four full-frame flavours. Sony E, Canon RF, Nikon Z and Leica L mounts.

The new lens offers a 40.9° field of view on full-frame sensors and focuses all the way from 2:1 magnification to infinity, making it suitable for not just macro but also portraits or a general walkaround lens. It features an apochromatic (APO) design to suppress chromatic aberration as well as 3 ED and 3 Ultra-High Refractive Index lenses for maximum sharpness.

Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro goes head-to-head against its EF mount predecessor – Is it really worth upgrading?

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Canon’s EF mount 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens has been one of the most respected macro lenses out there for years, for any camera system. Even amongst non-Canon photographers, it’s a lens that many of us have occasionally wished we could use. With Canon’s transition to mirrorless, though, EF is making way for RF, so Canon released an RF mount 100mm f/2.8L IS Macro, too.

It’s actually been out for a while now. It was announced last April, but this review from Gordon Lang looks at the more recent RF mount version side-by-side with the older EF mount version to see if the new one really lives up to its predecessor’s reputation and whether you should get the RF one for your Canon mirrorless camera or if you should stick with the EF mount lens and an adapter.

These magical slo-mo macro videos reveal the hidden beauty of everyday objects

I always say that macro photography helps us reveal a whole new world even in the most mundane, everyday objects. But if you pair extreme close-ups with video and slow motion… Well, you get a whole new level of beauty.

Macrofying, a 21-year-old macro photographer from Germany, combines all of these techniques. They zoom into the depths of everyday objects to reveal whole new worlds and show us things like candles, lighters, sand, or popcorn in an entirely new light.

How to get started with macro photography on the cheap using extension tubes

If you’ve always thought about dabbling in macro (and let’s face it, that’s most of us) but really can’t justify going out and spending a fortune on the usual (expensive) popular macro lenses out there like the Canon 100mm f/2.8 or Nikon 105mm f/2.8, then you’re just plain out of luck, right? Well, no. Of course, there are other third-party macro lens options out there with varying levels of ability but there are also extension tubes.

Extension tubes sit between the camera and the lenses you already own in order to turn just about any lens into a macro lens. And in this video, Dustin Abbott walks us through how we can use extension tubes to shoot macro as well as the pros and cons of using them rather than a “real” macro lens.

Want to take macro wildlife photos? Start with these five tips

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Macro photography is fun and it opens up a whole new world of creative possibilities. Naturally, the same goes for macro photos of wildlife such as snakes, frogs, spiders, and other tiny creatures roaming the earth.

If you’d like to start photographing the wildlife up close, especially in remote locations, there are a few things to keep in mind. And in this video from B&H, photographer Colby Brown shares with you five tips to help you get started.

Fotodiox release new auto extension tubes for shooting macro with L mount cameras

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Extension tubes are one of the best ways to get started in macro. They’re easy to use with your existing lenses to be able to get started shooting really close-up subjects and they’re a lot cheaper than buying an actual dedicated macro lens. Up until recently, there haven’t been too many options when it comes to extension tubes for L mount, though. There are a couple, but not many.

Well now, Fotodiox has entered the fray with their new 15mm and 35mm L mount Auto Macro Tubes. The “auto” bit means that they maintain electronic communication between the lens and camera, giving you full control over your aperture and autofocus system when using them.

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