Photography News

I don't care much for Halloween; as a miserable Brit, it's all a bit odd to me. However, if Canon is going to offer a 15 percent off coupon code, I'll dress up in costume (read I'll wear a hat or non-matching socks) and celebrate with the best of you. The code is at the bottom of the page; please pretend to read my words while en route to it. I'll know if you don't.

I have been using the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 for quite some time now. It has been my go-to computer for pretty much all the editing I do. It really is an amazing computer. But if I had to pick one of the downsides, it would be the small screen. Enter the Microsoft Surface Studio.

Since 2012, when the Apple Retina MacBook Pro’s introduction set a new standard for laptop displays and did away with the DVD drive, not much has changed in the way of your standard laptop — especially for Apple. Four years before that, Apple simply moved to the now-ubiquitous unibody design. But after well over a year since the last refresh, Apple is back with a generational update that millions have not-so-patiently awaited. It’s about time. Let’s jump right in with the newest features of the latest Apple MacBook Pro range.

Like most parameters in photography, resolution has an upper limit dictated by the laws of physics. However, a team of clever scientists have discovered a way around that fundamental bound, creating new possibilities for imaging in many realms.

While there are many insurance companies that are out there for photographers and drone pilots, Verifly is the first drone liability insurance company that protects pilots and allows them to pay on demand. I recently interviewed Verifly CEO Jay Bregman to find out more about his new company and what they are doing to help drone pilots all around the country. One of the first things you will see about Verifly is that they cover up to $1,000,000 in liability within a flight radius of a quarter of a mile with any drone under 15 pounds. All operators have to do is select their area, after which they are instantly approved and provided with on-the-spot insurance to fly and proof of coverage to show to anyone who needs to see it.

Bad news for drone owners in Sweden! The country has now effectively ban camera drones in its airspace. And if you thought you could bring your drone on your next trip to Sweden, well you better think twice unless you’ve got a permit.

It's already Tuesday, but if you're like me – always open to sponge up as much learning and information as possible – you'll still be in time to get on with a free course on LinkedIn through their "Week of Learning," available until October 31. Last year, LinkedIn bought educational site, Lynda.com, one of the largest online training and tutorial networks. Even though LinkedIn isn't one of the networks that members of the creative industries are most active on, there's still a lot of useful information, and the workshops and tutorials are actually very well produced.

Depth of field fakers rejoice, Apple has just released the official build of iOS 10.1. This update notably includes the heretofore beta Portrait Mode for owners of the iPhone 7 Plus, allowing users to simulate depth of field effects on photos taken with the 7 Plus' new secondary camera. The update is available now via over-the-air download or by updating your phone via iTunes.

Vimeo is a great platform for uploading and showcasing your videos. Although YouTube is still the reigning leader, Vimeo has been the way for many movie-makers to show the world what they have to offer.

Since I fell in love with portraiture I've daydreamed about traveling the world to take pictures of people. It's not a unique dream and it's not an overly farfetched dream, but it isn't a job that often comes up. One of the ways in which artists get commissioned to do something along those lines, however, is the Lavazza Calendar. It has seen the likes of Mark Seliger, Annie Leibovitz, and Steve McCurry behind the camera for them in recent years and this year, Joey L got the nod.

The entire Fstoppers office and many of the Fstoppers writers are at PPE this year. Today we will be wandering around the convention center and we hope you'll come say hello. Tonight at 8pm we're throwing a small get-together with a few big names in the industry.

Eastman Kodak and UK-based Bullitt Group yesterday announced a new smartphone which capitalizes on image-making. The 21-megapixel Kodak Ektra comes with a 6-axis optically stabilized f/2 front camera which sports a 26.5mm equivalent lens and uses a 1/2.4-inch Sony Exmor RS IMX230 sensor.

Snapchat is fun and all, but Instagram is better. Well, in my eyes, Instagram is better for a few reasons, and I quickly deleted the face-filter app that took up just shy of 1 GB of space on my iPhone because I felt Instagram's version of stories had the greater potential. One of the largest reasons I see more potential in Instagram Stories over Snapchat is the virality and reach my Story can have. Today, Instagram announced they will be adding people's public stories to the Explore page, which will essentially let them be seen by more people. If you have not caught on, this means there's more potential for my stuff to go viral.

We have two, fantastic reasons to be happy today in the form of two, long-awaited lenses. First, Nikon announced an update to its flagship 70-200mm f/2.8 professional zoom that features fluorite lens components, an electromagnetic diaphragm, and a slew of other quality and durability improvements. Meanwhile, a new PC 19mm f/4E tilt-shift also features Nikon's latest electromagnetic diaphragm and fills a wide-angle tilt-shift gap where Canon has held an advantage for years.

We know that if something is narrated by David Attenborough, it's going to be special. And to make it even more of a go-see, the original score is produced by award-winning Hans Zimmer who gave us the score to Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Inception to name a few. BBC used the latest filming technologies to get up close and personal to these creatures we seldom see or think about as being part of this eco-system on Earth.

Famed landscape photographer Ansel Adams' Arca-Swiss 4x5 camera that he personally owned and used from 1964 to 1968 will go up for auction at the end of this month via Heritage Auctions in New York. Bidding will open at a staring price of $35,000 on October 27th, so if you have some extra change lying around, you can bid on this one-of-a-kind piece of photographic history.

The 5 Day Deal team is back again with another giant pack of photography resources. Included this time are materials from Trey Ratcliff, Nicole S. Young, Lindsay Adler, Joel Grimes, and a host of other educators and resource creators. If you haven't checked them out before, this is a great time to get on board and score a huge collection of photo swag while supporting some great charities. As an added bonus, they're also running a giveaway that is sponsored by industry giants like Adobe and Fujifilm.

The cult of chasing the most interesting, characterful bokeh is as strong as ever. A trend has begun to take shape that involves feverishly hunting for older, unique lenses to be brought revived with the help of modern optical quality, as an alternative to many mainstream lenses which tend to prioritize optical perfection over distinct character when designing lenses. A month ago Meyer Optik added a new competitor to a quickly growing market by launching a Kickstarter for a 58mm f/1.9 lovingly named the "Wonder Bokeh."

After various setbacks and delays over the past two years, Italy's FILM Ferrania has begun preparations to make slide film for analog still and movie cameras. This puts the company back on track to make a first batch of film for distribution to backers of their Kickstarter project.

Hoya has just debuted a new series of neutral density filters called Solas IRND, bolstering there array of already stellar filters for photography and video. This new line of IRND (Infrared Neutral Density) promises to produce no color casts in your images and videos, which is a very common issue when using ND's.

When LG invited me to their OLED exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London, my ears pricked up. This is for two reasons: the first is that a couple of years ago, I wrote a piece on OLED lighting and how I think it will change how photographers light their subjects in the coming years. The second is because, well, I love technology. LG's OLED 4K TVs and monitors are the epitome of digital clarity, and while I suspected that to be the case, seeing it in the flesh did more than confirm my suspicions.

Today Sony announced a new addition to their APS-C E-mount camera line, the a6500. This 24.2-megapixel camera takes over as the flagship model for Sony's crop sensor interchangeable lens system bodies. There are many upgraded features over the a6300 that was first announced just in February of this year, so let's dive right in.

It's difficult to follow every single photographer out of New York City, but one that comes to mind for me has always been Christopher Serrano, also known as Heavy_Minds on Instagram. His photos of feet dangling from rooftops and outstanding vantage points has always helped me visualize all that I believe NYC to be. Sadly, news has broke that Serrano has passed away scaling a train car.

Just as the Digital Bolex is put to bed, Leica announced a new concept camera that's not too far removed. It may be in the land of dreams, but they certainly mean business when it comes down to the future of cameras. Leica's new cinema camera concept debuted at Photokina, and has proved an interesting foray into digital cinema. Although not their first entry into the market by any means, it's certainly eye-catching and hopes to inspire ideas surrounding what consumers want from a camera.

Phase One introduces its third feature update for the XF camera system. The freshly released firmware adds a couple of new features, including the world’s first complete electronic shutter in medium format photography. The Danish manufacturer proves once again its devotion to offering its customers a future-proof system that can evolve with time and professional photographers’ needs.

In the past week or so we have seen a lot of big things happening in the drone industry. It seems that there is almost a battle for portability, where drones should be able to be used anywhere by anyone. That being said, GoPro came out with an awesome new system that packs into one slim bag and can be brought and flown just about anywhere. The GoPro Karma folds up and packs into one small bag fitting the drone with the props on, the batteries, the remote, and the camera attached to the gimbal. On top of their drone idea, they decided a consumer may not always want to fly, but might still want to film some stable footage. In this case, they made the gimbal on the Karma removable so it can also be hand held and steady.

A prominent civil rights attorney and Arkansas state representative who sponsored the passage of a 2015 bill protecting the right of citizens to film events in public places was arrested along with another attorney today while filming police.

Drones are becoming more popular, cheaper, smaller, and overall better than the ones released years ago. Many more are being sold each day. With that comes new experiences for many of us. Recently, Mike Rowe took to Facebook with his recent experience, or should I say recent invasion. We all know when it comes to celebrities, privacy is always being pushed to the limits. They usually experience cameras sneaking into their daily and private lives, but this is a particularly intrusive instance.

For most, light painting photography is out of reach. Usually requiring a DSLR setup, most photographers don’t want to spend the time, energy, or coin to create dynamic images painted with light. But, for those who love the idea of using concentrated light to add flare to their images with little to no effort, Pablo is here. The new app for iOS helps even the most amateur photographer create long exposure photos and video at the touch of a screen.

Snapchat is no more. Long live Snap Inc. Snapchat pulled a double whammy today by announcing both the new name of their company and their first foray in camera hardware with the connected sunglasses they're calling Spectacles.

It seems that almost all the major brands of the photography industry have something new to share at Photokina 2016, and Arca-Swiss is no exception. The France-based company announced several new and improved camera support products this week that you’ll want to check out.

While camera manufacturers seem to focus on resolution, high ISO, and dynamic range, in the strobe industry the past few months have been all about fast shutter speeds synchronization. However, Broncolor still didn’t have any in-house solution to offer to their client until Photokina and the new RFS 2.2 transceiver.

For most people in the industry, the name "Hasselblad" is synonymous with quality and high resolution. The company has been around since the 1940s and whether you remember it or not, many moons ago, a lot of cameras did not shoot the familiar rectangular format so many of us are accustomed to. They in fact shot in a square format, and that's exactly what Hasselblad is doing with this new camera concept, going back to a square format with a 75-megapixel back.

When it comes to time-lapse photography, there are a great number of items available for you to do just that. In fact you can head over to B&H Photo to really see just how many options there are. Most are fairly simple to use and come with some sort of remote allowing you to set the path and duration of your pass. Some are intuitive, others aren't as simple between setting keyframes, setting durations, or in some extreme examples, using a different module for each axis and having to program each independently in order to achieve a multi-dimensional movement. How much simpler would it be though if you could draw your intended path for your time-lapse and have it up and running in a matter of a minute or two?

Just when you thought Amazon's reach couldn't get any bigger, they've launched a new service: Amazon Prints. With competitive prices, it could be an intriguing alternative, particularly for those who are already Amazon Prime or Drive members.

A few days ago MIOPS posted their new project up for funding on Kickstarter, the MIOPS Mobile DSLR/mirrorless camera trigger system. Fundamentally, it's an enhanced version of their previous trigger, the MIOPS Smart Trigger. It has all its same modes plus a cool brand new feature that is the central idea behind the new trigger system, which is the ability to use your smartphone as a triggering sensor.

I've always seen SanDisk and Lexar as the two main companies when it comes to camera media. Having used Lexar for some time now, I'm always excited to see what the company releases given my success with them in the past. This week they have shown a few new products for a variety of uses from CCTV to action cameras, to still photography and filmmaking.

SanDisk broke yet another record. Western Digital, its parent company, just unveiled the highest storage SD card in the world with a capacity of 1 terabyte.

Printing photos is a technical and complicated process, especially when it comes to getting accurate colors on paper. If you want to print your own photos, your monitor, the software you use, your printer, and the paper type should be in harmony to get the same colors and depth you create on screen. To make the color matching process easy and hassle-free, EIZO has created a software solution in collaboration with Adobe, Epson, and Canon: EIZO Quick Color Match.

As Photokina is kicking off, almost every brand is releasing new products. The Danish medium format manufacturer is no exception and is introducing a new digital back, the IQ1 100MP, along with two new Blue Ring lenses and Capture One 9.3. One might wonder why Phase One decided to have two 101-megapixel backs in its product line, so let’s dive into the specs and see what the reason(s) may be.

Yesterday, Profoto announced their Air Remote TTL-S and mentioned an unknown Pro-10 in their press release. It was not long before it was made official as the press release came in today. It’s a 2,400 Ws studio pack, and it’s fast — extremely fast! Not only that, but it’s the first of its kind, as it offers TTL and HSS capabilities.

Today, Adobe has released Lightroom CC 2015.7 (6.6), which provides raw support for several new cameras, new lens profile support, and fixes bugs from previous versions. It also offers the ability to publish directly to Adobe's new Stock Contributor Site.

Today, Adobe has announced the public beta of the Adobe Stock Contributor Site. Meant to integrate deeply with its Creative Cloud platform, the new service allows photographers, videographers, and illustrators to directly upload and sell their work with a high degree of efficiency and automation.

Three months ago, Elinchrom released the Skyport HS for Sony. Back then, many seemed to complain there was no version for smaller bodies. It’s not the case anymore with the introduction of a new Skyport HS specifically designed for Olympus cameras, making it the fourth version of this pioneering flash trigger.

Lately it’s been a road of uncertainty for A-mount system users, as Sony remained quiet on specific plans for their DSLR line while making leaps and bounds in the mirrorless world. Today Sony has made their intentions clear by announcing the new Alpha 99 Mark II, a 42.4-megapixel camera with 12 fps continuous shooting, internal UHD 4K video, 399-point autofocus, and 5-axis in-body image stabilization.

Photographer Paul Nicklen recently released a two-hundred page ebook titled "Photographing Wild: Techniques of a National Geographic Photographer." Mr. Nicklen has been taking photographs for the magazine for over twenty years now in some of the most remote places on earth. He is also one of my personal favorite photographers out there today, so buying it for myself was an easy decision to make. His underwater images are always fantastic, and just seeing all of his wildlife photos come across my social media feeds is always inspiring to me.

GoPro has brilliantly teased us with its careful, controlled releases of Karma drone videos. Today, they've launched the new Karma alongside a pair of Hero5 cameras that are as wonderful to see as the Karma itself. Advanced stabilization looks impressive in the videos (see the mountain biking scene at 1:53), but something to note is how cinematic the image quality now looks. It won't be as easy to tell GoPro footage from other high-quality cameras. And about that Karma: does $799, remote, backpack case, and gimbal handgrip included get you excited?

Your eyes do not deceive you. Sigma has gone for the triple crown, not only announcing the long-anticipated 85mm Art lens, but updating their ultra wide angle zoom and introducing an optically stabilized supertelephoto lens. Things just got interesting.

We created the Fstoppers Flash Disc two years ago as the most portable and convenient softbox for speedlights on the market. We currently sell Flash Discs on Amazon US, B&H, and Amazon UK, which ships to the entire EU. Amazon UK only has 11 Flash Discs left in stock. When they are gone, the Flash Disc will no longer be available in Europe.

"The world does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera." Fujifilm quoted W. Eugene Smith as they unveiled their first digital medium format camera system. Featuring a custom-designed sensor and a complement of six new lens, Fuji is dead serious about turning the medium format market on its head.