Do you admire breathtaking images of the Earth from space? Would you like to take photos like that with your own camera? Well, now you can, as NASA is opening the International Space Station (ISS) for tourists. For the mere $60 million, you also can go up there and who knows, perhaps shoot another iconic photo of our home planet. NASA has announced that the first mission is set to start as early as 2020....
A father-son duo Charles and Jake Riddel have designed and produced a new tripod head, which should be an improvement when compared to the ones already existing in the market. They named it Hitch Hiker, and it should provide you with smooth and precise control and more accurate photo composition, along with some other benefits. The main feature of the Hitch Hiker tripod is so-called “balanced motion”. In other words, it is the feature that allows this tripod to move up and down without defying gravity....
Feiyutech has announced two new motorised 3-axis gimbals. These are the Scorp and the Scorp Pro. Unlike many other gimbals, though, the “Pro” model isn’t just the regular gimbal with a bunch of extras added. In this case, it’s actually a completely different gimbal. Like the regular Scorp, but modular, adding a lot of versatility and shooting options over the basic model Scorp. The Scorp is a motorised 3-axis gimbal with a design that reminds me of the Zhiyun Weebill 2 if the handle were permanently attached – but without the cool flippy out LCD....
The Godox V1 is the new and somewhat controversial round head speedlight from Godox. The controversy is a topic for another discussion, although feel free to do so in the comments if you really feel you have to. For now, we’re going to take a little more of a look at the Godox V1 flash itself. This morning, the folks at Pixapro received a pre-production unit – it’s essentially the same as the final thing except for the firmware version....
Sony isn’t the only one suffering from leaks today, as Nokishita has also leaked Sigma’s upcoming 28-70mm f/2.8 DG DN Contemporary lens for mirrorless cameras. Just one week ago, it was rumoured that Sigma was expected to announce the new lens for Sony FE at the upcoming CP+ show in Japan. But L-Rumors is reporting that the lens is expected for L mount, too. It’s not really all that much of a surprise that it’d be coming for L mount, as well as E mount, given that the L mount is now Sigma’s mount of choice since joining the alliance with Panasonic and Leica and dumping their previous SA mount....
There have been one or two rumours that Sony might be about to introduce a 100mm f/1.4 GM lens. They may not be true, but it would be a great lens for Sony to add to their lineup. Nikon has its 105mm f/1.4 and while there is an FE mount version of Sigma’s 105mm f/1.4 “Bokeh Master” Art lens, it’s essentially still an adapted DSLR lens. Sony Alpha Rumours has posted what might a possible spec sheet for an upcoming Sony 100mm f/1....
Composition is one of those things that often gets talked about in photography. After all, it’s one of the fundamental aspects of it. If your composition is bad, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve got the exposure good or if you’ve even got your subject in focus. We all know about the “rule of thirds” and the “golden ratio”, but there’s so much more to composition than that. In this video, photographer Joris Hermans talks about the five compositional mistakes he sees being made all the time....
My name is Nina and I am a Surrey-based photographer and photography trainer. I am often asked how I find great locations for my outdoor shoots so I thought I would create a blog which gives some guidance on how I find my locations. Location choice is very important but I also want to make clear that you do not need to pay for grand locations – you can absolutely shoot at places close to your home....
As part of the brand’s 100th Anniversary celebration, Nikon have established The Nikon Storytellers Scholarship. It is designed to help support the next generation of visual content creators. To kick things off, Nikon are offering $10,000 scholarships to 10 lucky students in the USA or Canada. The scholarship is open to undergraduate and graduate students who will have finished their freshman year by Fall 2018. It’s available to those in the USA or Canada pursuing degrees in visual arts, fine arts, journalism, film, photography and multimedia/content creation....
The Atomos name keeps popping up all over the place lately. They’re teaming up with a lot of different camera brands to try to give filmmakers the tools and features to best create what they want to create. We stopped by the Atomos stand at IBC 2019 to have a chat with their Founder & CEO, Jeromy Young about some of those collaborations, as well as some news on Atomos’ own products, including a free firmware update for the Shogun 7 which doubles its brightness from 1,500 nits to 3,000 nits....
I switched to Sony from Canon on December 31, 2014. Since then, I’ve cranked through over 50,000 frames on my Sony cameras in the past 4+ years of shooting. I upgraded to the A7 III in October 2018, following a brief stint where I considered a switch to Fujifilm or Olympus. So now’s a good time to take a look back at the pluses — and minuses — of my switch to Sony from Canon....
Flash equipment can be a pain. No matter who the brand is, they all have their little issues. Maybe the buttons stop working, perhaps there’s too much interference on the frequency they use stopping them from firing, too many cryptic buttons and menus? Sometimes they decide to just not play ball for no apparent reason whatsoever. This video comes from US-based lighting and accessories retailer, MoLight and parodies one scene in the movie Office Space perfectly (if you’ve seen it, you know what I mean), including the pre-cursor clips of frustration leading to the inevitable demise of… well, you know....
Fujifilm has announced that it is ending production of both 35mm and 120 format versions of its PRO 400H colour negative film. In a notice posted to the Fujifilm website, Fuji says that it has become “increasingly difficult to procure the raw materials needed to produce PRO 400H”, so they’ve decided to drop it. It appears that in this case, they’re not just ending it because they can, but because of real logistical issues....
Well, this is an odd one. Rather than making the Fujifilm X-T30 successor the X-T40, as logical numbering would dictate given Fujifilm’s history, they’re apparently going to be calling it the X-T30 II, according to a report on Fuji Rumors. There aren’t many details on this at all, really, or any, but it’s expected to be announced on September 2nd, alongside the much anticipated Fujifilm GFX50S II. Exactly what the two cameras will bring to the table over their predecessors is unknown, but knowing Fuji, it’ll probably be something pretty awesome....
Fujifilm has just expanded its line-up of medium format lenses. The Fujinon GF 30mm f/3.5 R WR is a wide-angle prime designed for the G-mount GFX medium format camera system, and it’s a pretty compact and versatile lens. The Fujinon GF 30mm f/3.5 R WR offers a 24mm equivalent focal length, which makes it a pretty versatile lens even though it’s a prime. The lens packs 13 elements in ten groups with two extra-low dispersion elements which reduce chromatic aberrations and color fringing....
Geekoto is a relatively new brand when it comes to lighting. They offered both a speedlight as well a portable GT200 Fresnel strobe. Now, they’re teasing a new GT250 strobe with a round head, and it’s actually compatible with the Godox X flash system. We caught up with Geekoto at PhotoPlus 2019 to find out more. The Geekoto GT250 is a 250Ws strobe with a round head fixture on the front....
It’s nice to see the band back together and pushing out content regularly again. Gav’s great n’ all, but I’ve missed seeing Dan on The Slow Mo Guys videos and the interactions between them – especially as Dan’s slightly less sane than Gav and willing to take more needless risks for the sake of an entertaining video. There’s not much risk in this video, though, as Dan spends his time living in a bubble....
Other than having a good microphone to pick up voices, sound is something that new filmmakers often ignore. But sound is easily as important as the visual, if not more so, when it comes to video production. Sound sets the mood and tone for the video as a whole, or for individual scenes. It can create tension and excitement. Or, it can make the viewer feel comfortable and relaxed. In this video, young filmmaker and YouTuber Rory Marion talks us through some of his tips and tricks for the sound design process....
A couple of weeks ago, Godox teased us with their new A1 flash trigger for mobile phones. The Godox A1 is designed to give your phone the ability to trigger their popular line of X1 compatible flash units (and various rebrands). But that tease is all we’ve seen, until now. Godox have now released some images from a studio portrait session shot using the iPhone 7 Plus, the Godox A1 and Godox QT-600II studio strobes....
The trend in camera flashes over the last few years has generally been to make them more powerful, yet more portable at the same time. Well, bucking this trend, Godox has gone the opposite way, producing a flash that’s on the lower end of the output scale, with the new Godox MF12 Macro Flash. It’s very reminiscent of Nikon’s R1C1 “Wireless Close-up Speedlight System” but at a much lower cost....
