I’m always looking for good stock images to use in my photoshop composites. I find them online, or use the awesome Texture Store. Or I make my own. But sometimes its impossible to find the right image that fits your idea. And if you do find the right image, it’s at the wrong angle or too small, or not lighted the way you want to. So you’ll just end up with a crappy composite, or spending hours of time to get it right....
Viltrox has announced a new Canon EF to Sony E mount “smart” lens adapter. As with most other “smart” lens adapters, this one allows you to pass through autofocus and EXIF information for complete data communications. This one, however, has a shiny new OLED display on top of it. The $199 Viltrox EF-E5 Smart Mount Adapter is the fifth generation of Viltrox’s Canon EF to Sony E mount lens adapter, released over the last nine years....
Wacom has announced two Cintiq Pro models, which should replace the current Wacom Cintiq 27QHD. One of them will be their largest pen display so far, with a huge, 32-inch screen. The other model is smaller, with the 24-inch display. Both models are improved over the 27-inch Wacom Cintiq 27QHD. They come with the new Wacom Pro Pen 2, which also has improvements over the previous model. The new displays combined with the pen should provide the artists with the best drawing experience yet....
Viltrox has just issued an official statement that some of their lenses can damage your Fujifilm X-Pro3. So, if you use this camera, you might not want to pair it with Viltrox 23mm f/1.4, Viltrox 33mm f/1.4, and Viltrox 85mm f/1.8. According to the statement, these three lenses don’t agree with the X-Pro3. “Due to the structural conflict, they will scratch a little big against each other,” Viltrox writes. Fuji Rumors explains the issue a bit further, adding that the problem is in X-Pro3’s lens release button which is too close to the bayonet....
The song Go Up by Cassius begins with the words “Everybody, close your eyes.” But you should do exactly the opposite. Keep your eyes wide open and watch this creative video that follows this song. The entire video is created from short sequences of videos displayed two by two. And every pair is connected as a diptych to form an entirely new context. It brings together the things you couldn’t imagine together....
The Solar Obiter has sent an incredibly detailed timelapse video of its approach to the sun. The timelapse was taken over a 20-day period, from September 20th to October 10th. The video was made during one of the star’s most active phases, so the video shows a lot of plasma plumes shooting out from the surface. The Solar Orbiter Mission is managed by the European Space Agency (ESA). The timelapse was shot with the help of the spacecraft’s Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation (EUI) camera with high resolution....
When you think of street photography, a super-telephoto lens probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But Evan Ranft thought: why not? He teamed up with Chris House to test out a Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens in the street. While it still wouldn’t be his first choice for street photography, it does have its perks, and Evan shares his impressions and some photos in this interesting video....
This is a pretty interesting video from Manny Ortiz talking about an observation that I think a lot of people have come to notice over the last couple of years. And that’s that the photography community, particularly online, can be extremely toxic. To the point where I’ve actually seen people give up photography completely due to the harrassment they’ve received online. Is it the same in the real world? outside of Facebook and other social media?...
Studying works from other artists is an important part of learning and improvement. It makes sense to study those better than yourself, right? But does it make sense to you to study bad art in order to make your own art better? Darious Britt talks about this topic in his video. Although he aims it mostly at storytelling in filmmaking, some of these points can apply to photography as well....
Does your camera resolution matter when you need to choose the side of the print? This is what many people wonder, and basically, it’s not important. If you can take a photo with your camera, print it at 6 x 4 inches and be happy with it – you can print that same photo in basically any size that you like. In this video, James Popsys will tell you in a simple language why megapixels aren’t important when choosing the size of your print....
The recently announced Nikon Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S lens caused a bit of a stir amongst wildlife and sports photographers – at least, the ones who shoot Nikon. It may be a third of a stop slower than its F mount DSLR predecessor, but it comes with $10K shaved off its price tag and its weight over its predecessor has been cut almost in half, too. But how does it stand up to the job of actually shooting?...
We’ve recently seen the fascinating micro-worlds in the winning videos of Nikon Small World in Motion competition. Now there are also the results of 2017 Nikon Small World photo contest, and they are simply amazing. Some photos come from scientific labs and show a colorful world of bacteria, algae or cells. But the others show stuff we see every day in a whole new perspective. Have you ever thought mold on a tomato, a credit card hologram or a daddy longlegs’ eyes can look beautiful?...
A UK woman recently fell out of a window of a car that was driving 110 mph. How is that even possible, you may wonder? Well, of course, she was filming a video for social media. The incident happened on the M25 motorway south of London, as Surrey police wrote on Twitter on Saturday. She was on the passenger side, hanging out the car window and filming a video for Snapchat....
The regional winners for the 65th World Press Photo Contest have been announced, and they cover four different categories: Singles, Stories, Long-Term Projects, and Open Format. This means dozens of striking images, and you can see them all below. Each year, The World Press Photo Contest receives tens of thousands of submissions from every corner of the world. This year, the winners were chosen out of 64,823 photos and open format entries, including 4,066 photographers from 130 countries....
Well, this is interesting. Panasonic and Olympus have officially welcomed three new companies into the Micro Four Thirds System Standard Group. Those companies are Venus Optics, Mediaedge and, surprisingly, Yongnuo. The Micro Four Thirds System standard was established by Olympus and Panasonic back in 2008. They’ve been working together to develop and promote the system ever since. A joint statement was issued by Panasonic and Olympus welcoming the new members to the group....
Instagram has announced today that they are allowing the option for users to prevent the embedding of images on third party articles and blog posts. The ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) spearheaded the 9-month long campaign who tout it as a win for photographers and visual creators on Instagram. The ASMP sent Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter backed by 6 other organisations asking for the right to embed to be revoked....
With a raise of hand, how many of you have more than one battery for your photography gear? More than 2? More than 5? More than 10? I personally have more than 20. Each with its own proprietary charger. Actually, with all those chargers, I am not surprised that some people build a small shrine to worship all those battery maintenance devices. With some engineering background, this seems highly inefficient....
Zhiyun has announced the new Zhiyun Smooth Q4 gimbal for smartphones. It comes with some ergonomic improvements over its predecessor with a redesigned arm that lets you deploy and start shooting with it very quickly when you’re out and about. And like many of Zhiyun’s smartphone gimbals, it features a built-in extendable selfie stick for when you want to get a bit more vlogging range with a wider background. It’s available in two packages....
If you shoot macro, there are several options: buying extension tubes, reverse rings, or a macro lens. The first two solutions are cheap, but don’t always give the results you want. On the other hand, macro lenses are quite expensive. But ZY Optics has launched Super Macro 20mm f/2 4.5x, a lens that takes the best from both worlds. It’s both affordable and gives very good results. As you can guess from the name, Super Macro provides you with maximum 4....
Every job has its good and bad sides, and it carries a certain level of stress, challenge, and risk. But according to a recent report, “photographer” is on the list of 25 worst jobs in the U.S. due to low pay and lack of security. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 2018 Jobs Rated Report from CareerCast to determine the worst jobs in America. The ranking is based on the criteria such as overall quality of work environment, amount of stress, occupational outlook, and income....
