Olympus might take the mirrorless sales crown in Japan, but Sony once held the top spot and is looking to come back with vengeance. It’s newest weapon is the much anticipated Sony a6300, a brand new mirrorless camera that packs in 24-megapixels, incredibly fast autofocus and 4K video capability, all for only $1,000. At the heart of the new a6300 is a 24-megapixel CMOS APS-C sensor with copper wiring, which is said to improve the light collection efficiency and improve readout speeds....

Advertisements The National Awards program supports local photographic communities. It chooses winning images from 63 countries/regions around the world, and each country has its winner to represent it, so to say. The program awards one photographer from each nation for a standalone image. They can showcase their work to a global audience at the Sony World Photography Awards 2020 exhibition which was due to take place at Somerset House, London from 17 April – 4 May....

Spekular is spectacular! Hmmm – a little over the top? Not really. I recently had the opportunity to put this new LED lighting system from Spiffy Gear to the test. Spiffy Gear are the folks that brought us the Light Blaster (buy link). Spekular is a modular lighting system that can take on all kinds of shapes depending on your needs and this can save you money and the time needed to pack and set-up light modifiers especially when you are working on location....

It’s said that the truth is often stranger than fiction. I’m not entirely sure about that, although it can be far more hilarious. In this example of a man who’s confident in his words, we have a sports reporter talking about the light levels on the cricket field. It can become difficult see the red ball when it starts to get dark. So, light meters are often used to measure the light levels....

The Toy Story movies are favorites for so many people, but Morgan and Mason McGrew perhaps like it a bit more than you or me. The two brothers from Des Moines, Iowa recreated the entire Toy Story 3 film from scratch. They used toys and shot them in stop-motion to show what their favorite movie would look like in real life. It took them eight long years to make it, but they stayed committed to their project....

In September last year, photographer Victoria Schafer was tragically killed when she was struck by a falling tree branch during a photoshoot. The incident occurred in Hills State Park, and two teenagers involved pleaded guilty and they were charged with involuntary manslaughter. They have now been sentenced, and they both got three years in juvenile detention. To remind you, Victoria Schafer (44) tragically lost her life while photographing six seniors....

This is big news in Europe, however it has not made a big splash in the US and has flown under our radar. The very day after Photokina, Tetenal announced they’re in financial turmoil. Due to some bad business practices from their suppliers, Tetenal is in a state of insolvency. We learn the film resurgence is real; however, it is still in a very fragile state. Their collapse could potentially decimate film photography industry....

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are everywhere in photography now. I recently wrote about whether we should be worried about AI in photography. My conclusion is that we shouldn’t. Today I’m demonstrating the power of AI in the form of a battle, putting the leading noise removal software head-to-head. I’ve searched through my raw images to find a particularly noisy shot to work with. Here’s what we’re working with:Advertisements...

It’s time for another software battle! So far, we’ve compared AI photo sharpening and AI photo noise reduction. Next up, is AI photo upscaling, and we’re putting Adobe Photoshop, Topaz Gigapixel AI, Skylum Luminar Neo Upscale AI, and ON1 Resize AI 2023 up against each other. Upscaling images is important for print purposes, and it even slips in with pro-stock shooters who need to create images at specific resolutions. Having AI helps us by upscaling whilst preserving details and filling in the blanks sounds great, but which software does it best?...

Quite a few photographers, particularly Pentax shooters, have been getting very excited about the new Cactus RQ250 battery powered strobe. Announced earlier in the year, and shown off in person during The Photography Show, the RQ250 is a pretty nice and compact little unit. The benefit for Pentax users being that they finally have a strobe that supports TTL and high-speed sync. Until now, though, a price and release date has not been announced....

Johnnie Behiri at CineD recently interviewed Canon Product Management Director of Image Communication Business at Canon Europe (that’s a mouthful!), Katsuyuki Nagai to talk about some fo the EOS R5 and EOS R6 overheating issues – and the limitations imposed on the camera. Naturally, the topic of whether Canon was intentionally crippling their DSLR and mirrorless cameras so as not to impact their pro cinema line cameras came up. As one would expect, Mr Nagai not only refuted the accusations but said they belong “on the conspiracy theory pile”....

Well, this is an interesting one. One of the big highlights of the Canon EOS R3 was that out of the various Canon “firsts” it was celebrating, one of them was a brand new Canon BSI stacked CMOS sensor. All of the promotional material from Canon UK even said “designed and manufactured by Canon”. This wording seems to have changed, though. Now, the wording on the Canon UK website now simply reads that the sensor was “developed by Canon”....

We’re only 16 months out from the release of the DJI Mini 2 but people seem to already be expecting the announcement of a DJI Mini 3 at some point during April 22. There are no hard facts to back this up yet and there’s obviously been no word from DJI – not even a teaser or mention of an upcoming event – but already we’re starting to see rumoured spec lists....

The worst fear of most photographers is having their equipment stolen. Yes, it’s “only gear”, and yes you should insure it, but you grow attached to it. You get used to its little quirks that let you bring out the best in it. Even if it is insured, you have to wait, sometimes for weeks, cameraless until they pay up. And any images that might be on memory cards in those cameras will still be gone forever....

We took the Glyph Atom Raid for a spin (excuse the pun), and we were super impressed. It is the fasted drive we have worked with to date! But first let me share some background about SSDs, hard drives and some other nerdy terms. When you are working with 4K files over long periods of time, moving files over becomes a burden. It takes time, it needs “babysitting”, and it hogs computer resources....

Vintage lenses have become really popular over the last few years, mostly amongst the video shooters but also with photographers. And these days, everybody seems to be on the lookout for those great bargains that offer a unique look at a very low cost. Filmmaker and YouTuber Yuval Aloni thinks he’s found something. It’s the Industar 50-2 and it seems quite commonly available on big online auction sites for around $10....

Advertisements Sometimes you want a longer exposure to smooth water for example which is why the scene above was captured using the Haida 150mm M15 filter kit. You can see the review here. While I love the Haida M15 filter kit, the fp camera itself is the smallest full-frame camera in the world. It would be nice to have the option of keeping things compact at times. Introducing the Haida’s Rear Lens ND Filter Kit....

The name Pratik Naik is probably already familiar with you. He’s become a bit of a household name for image retouching and if you haven’t heard of his Infinite tools and Photoshop plug-ins yet I am going to assume that you either shoot film with a vintage camera and develop it yourself, or live under a rock somewhere off-grid. What you probably don’t know Pratik for, however, is his photography....

Usually, lenses of a similar focal length and aperture cost a similar price. Except, perhaps, when they have Zeiss written on them. The Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8 costs $1,199, while the Sony FE 85mm f/1.8 costs a mere $598. Even at $598, the soon to be released Sony lens is a little more expensive than the Nikon and Canon equivalents. But is the Zeiss really worth the extra? That’s what Chris Niccolls and the other folks at The Camera Store wanted to find out....

So this interesting little control deck just went live on Kickstarter. Currently starting at $79 (and will be $149 when it goes retail), the TourBox is a handy little device to give you a little extra control when using Photoshop and Lightroom. It’s a bit like a miniature Loupedeck+ but with way fewer buttons and dials and doohickies. The campaign went live yesterday, and it’s already hammered it’s modest $10K goal....