Keeping your pack as light as possible while documenting your adventures can be a real challenge. But with the newer GoPro cameras, as unbelievable as it sounds, considering their size you can actually capture awesome cinematic footage by simply changing some settings and filming like the pros. On a recent multi-day backpacking trip, I was determined to get nice footage, maybe even cinematic shots, with just my GoPro and a little help from my iPhone....

Tokina has today announced its new SZ 2x Extender (TA-020), a T-mount 2x teleconverter for the Tokina SZX Super Tele 400mm f/8 Reflex MF lens released in July 2020. The SZ 2x Extender sits in between the lens and the mount adapter for your camera system – Canon EF, Fujifilm X, Micro 4/3, Nikon F, Nikon Z, or Sony E – and while it’s being marketed specifically with Tokina’s 400mm f/8 – they’ve even launched a new kit bundle that includes the two together – it should hypothetically work with just about any T-mount lens....

Automotive photographer can be very dangerous stuff, especially when it comes to racing. Over the years, some very close calls have been caught on camera, but few are as close as this. When Canadian drag racer Shawn Mcfalls had a 4 link bar break at the start of a race at the Grand Bend Motorplex in Ontario earlier this year, he was quickly sent off course. This sent him and his Camaro right into the guardrail, then flying above it, straight over the head of an unnamed trackside photographer....

TTArtisan has announced its manual focus 40mm f/2.8 Macro lens for APS-C mirrorless and Micro Four Thirds. Despite being an APS-C lens and only manual focus, there’s no EF-M or APS-C Z mount for this one (not yet anyway, although I hear EF-M might be on the way), just Fuji X and APS-C Sony E mounts. The lens offers a minimum focus distance of 17mm with 1:1 magnification. Update: October 25th – It’s now available in Nikon Z flavour....

Photographer Ray Dauphinais of Creative Concept Studios, just sent me those two image with the following text attached. The first uses a 2$ level to make sure that the Blaster projection is 100% leveled. The other hack is placing the Blaster on a mini ball head rather than on a light stand. This makes shifting from horizontal to vertical projection a breeze. So a huge hats off goes to Ray for sharing those hacks....

Have you updated to version 2017.1 of Adobe Premiere Pro? According to some users on the Adobe forum, their files are disappearing, and in some cases, they even get completely deleted. One of the users reports that after clicking on the “clean unused” Media Cache Database, the files from one of the previous projects were completely missing when he tried to reopen the project. Can this be an accident and an isolated case, or is it the global problem?...

Choosing prime or zoom lenses is mainly a matter of preference. And what to choose when you’re shooting portraits? Many photographers would rather reach for primes, but modern zoom lenses can also give you sharp, high-quality images. In this video, Manny Ortiz discusses his choice when it comes to the lens for portrait photography. He tests an 85mm f/1.4 and a 70-200mm f/1.8. They are both great, but they have both advantages and disadvantages....

We’ve all seen the effects UV from sunlight has on human skin and why you should be heading for the sunscreen. But what about using it safely in a more creative manner? Thats’ what French UV and IR photographer Pierre-Louis Ferrer wanted to find out. So, he developed a UV ringflash, to shoot some crazy UV portraits, and see how different substances react to UV light. In collaboration with weird lens guru, Mathieu Stern, this pair of videos show some pretty awesome results....

While other third parties might not be in a rush to produce autofocus lenses for the Nikon Z mount, Viltrox certainly seems to be. With a trio of APS-C as well as 85mm f/1.8 and 24mm f/1.8 full-frame autofocus lenses, they’ve now expanded their set with a new 35mm f/1.8 autofocus lens for Nikon’s Z mirrorless format. Priced at $399, the Viltrox 35mm f/1.8 Z mount lens is pretty reasonable....

Yet another company has come under the wing of The Vitec Group. The company has now acquired Savage, the leading backdrop brand in the industry, and the two companies will merge by the end of this month. Those of you who do studio photography have probably had experience with Savage backdrops. The company is based in Phoenix, US and it’s been around since 1937. It offers high-quality, specialist, seamless paper backdrops....

Cosina has announced two new lenses for the Nikon Z mount mirrorless system. One is an extremely impressive-sounding Voigtlander NOKTON 50mm f/1.0 Aspherical full-frame lens. A standard field of view with an ultra-wide and bright aperture that’s anything but standard. The other is the Voigtlander SUPER WIDE-HELIAR 15mm f/4.5 Aspherical lens, which is also full frame, offering an extremely wide field of view. The lenses aren’t entirely new. The Nokton 50mm f/1....

Virtual and augmented reality has become a big deal in the last couple of years. There’s a lot of different options out there now for shooting and streaming 360° content. If you want to get into VR content, though, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Most of the currently available solutions are quite expensive. The ones that aren’t may be inadequate for your needs. This video from Pixvana walks us through the basic options....

An almost unbelievable video showing a Florida alligator ingesting a drone has gone viral this week. The TikTok video shows a small drone (the DJI Spark) hovering extremely close to the alligator’s mouth. The alligator, quick as lightning, snaps up the drone and holds it in its jaws. Smoke starts billowing out of the alligator’s mouth, appearing to be on fire. The TikTok user @devhlanger posted the video clip online earlier this week while on a tour of the Everglades and is captioned “Trying to get a close up of this alligator in the Everglades… Wait till he chews through the drone’s battery....

Some photographic accidents are lucky and end up in fantastic images. Sadly, way more of them just end up in broken gear. This photographer knocked over his camera simply by opening a collapsible reflector, and it’s caught in a video that’s pretty painful to watch. https://www.facebook.com/photographersmemes/videos/591973434544331/ The video was shared by Photography Memes and we don’t know who the unlucky photographer is. But you can see the moment when he opens the reflector which knocks his camera over....

I believe all of us fantasized about having superpowers when we were kids. Now that we’re grown up, maybe we do have some as photographers. A short film “Photoreal” by Corridor Digital shows us what it would look like if cameras really had superpowers. “Photoreal” shows what superpowers of camerad would look like in real world. I believe we actually all have it in a certain way – we capture the moments in time, freeze them and make them last forever....

An invisible force is arguably what propelled Donald Trump through this controversial, tumultuous election, landing him in the Oval Office to lead the entire nation of America as its 45th President. The unexpected and shocking force that swept the country into a populist fervor culminated on January 20th, 2017, Inauguration Day, and I was there to capture it with the help of a unique and similarly silent force–infrared wavelengths....

For most of our readers who are also Star Wars fans, today is a big day – Star Wars: The Last Jedi premieres today. The movie cast has been under the spotlight for the past few weeks, giving interviews and being photographed. Photographer Jesse Dittmar got to capture their group shot for The New York Times, and he only got two minutes to do it! Last week, the cast of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was being interviewed and photographed for various publications....

Have you ever stopped to wonder why DSLR’s with large sized sensors are called Full-Frame? I must admit that up until now I hadn’t really questioned it, but while technology and in particular digital cameras can include a bunch of somewhat confusing terms and descriptions, often there is a reason for them. In an interesting new video, Dave McKeegan explains all about the history of 35mm film and why we have ended up with the term “Full Frame”....

I started my journey in film photography in late 2016, and have since been working my way through the various film stocks I can get my hands on; in production, expired, experimental or alternative. Kodak Tri-X is usually at the top of most peoples list for films to work with, so when I recently loaded my first ever roll, three years after I started with film, it gave me pause for thought....

This is an interesting little rant from James Popsys on camera LCDs. Essentially, his question is why don’t all cameras have a fully articulating flippy out LCD? It’s a question I’ve often wondered myself in the past. The lack of one has definitely put me off buying certain cameras, too. But are they really essential in the grand scheme of things? What makes James’ rant interesting, though, is not necessarily the rant itself, but the response to it....