The desktop on which I’m writing this article is a PC I built myself in 2013. I built it with 16GB RAM. Back then it was considered a “decent” amount of memory. It was plenty to satisfy most needs, but not overkill. Nor was it a particularly expensive quantity of RAM. Here we are seven years later, in 2020, and Apple thinks that’s the amount of ram you need in a computer today....
When I go to a photography exhibit or show, I find myself looking at similar work. Photographs made from an inkjet printer, that are just stylised archives. Be it a photo of a bird, a photo of a dress, subject or event. Whatever it is, it’s just a photograph. A photograph that can be easily duplicated with the simple press of a button. A print on a piece of paper, nothing more, nothing less....
I get emails every week from people asking how I manage to bring in so many new clients all the time, as well as keeping the ones I have to build my business. Each year, I give a business masterclass in Zurich talking all day about this very subject. However, one thing that I wanted to share very quickly here is the basics of how you might view winning a client and the actual reality of things from the clients perspective....
The photography crowd might laugh at Arri’s use of the term “large format” when we’re talking about a sensor only a hair larger than a “full frame” DSLR or mirrorless camera. When it comes to video, though, that is rather large. At 36.7 x 25.54mm, the sensor offers 4.5K (4448 x 3096) resolution and is the same one found in the much larger Alexa LF released last year. The newly announced Alexa Mini LF cuts the size down dramatically over the full sized Alexa LF and is compatible with LPL and PL mount lenses, supports full frame and Super 35mm recording as well as all anamorphic de-squeeze ratios....
Back in March, Apple started showing an advertisement on UK TV for the iPhone X. It claimed “radically new cameras with Portrait Lighting. Studio-quality portraits. Without the studio”. Not everybody was impressed by this claim, and two filed a complaint with the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority. They alleged that the claim “Studio-quality portraits” was misleading and could not be substantiated. Well, it seems it’s not all doom and gloom for Apple right now....
There are a lot of options out there for scanning film these days, but there’s just something about building a device yourself. This one from Benjamin Bezine does so using Lego and a Raspberry Pi. What makes this solution a little special, though, is that it uses machine learning and vision AI in order to determine the edges of frames, so you don’t need to sit and operate it manually or worry about the number of turns changing as roll thickens and thins out or counting sprockets....
If you’ve not yet discovered DaVinci Resolve, it’s essentially Blackmagic’s answer to Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audion all rolled into one – but with a way better colour correction system. Now, Blackmagic, the company behind Resolve, has just released 8 solid hours of video training to show you how to use it. Initially created back in 2004 by da Vinci Systems, the then “da Vinci Resolve” was to be the ultimate next-generation colour correction tool and has since become the Hollywood standard for that task....
Recently added to the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K firmware to replace CinemaDNG, Blackmagic RAW (BRAW) is an impressive format, capable of producing some pretty amazing quality footage in relatively small file sizes. At NAB 2019, we had the chance to sit down and talk with Blackmagic about the new BRAW format, the recent firmware update for the Pocket 4K, as well as the new battery grip. The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K has proven to be a wildly successful camera....
If you like action sports photography, here is a real treat for you. The Red Bull Illume Image Quest has announced its 2021 contest winners, and there are truly striking. In this article, we bring you the overall winner, as well as the category winners that will take your breath away. Will Saunders from the USA was awarded the overall winner in this year’s contest. His stunning image shows a climber falling from a rock tower in Indian Creek, UT, USA....
Bay Area photographer Bruce Getty is facing legal action over a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. According to the Bridge District, Getty took a photo of the bridge from an “illegal angle.” This led to him getting a cease and desist order and he’s threatened with prosecution if he shoots near the same area again. If you visit Getty’s Instagram page, you’ll see plenty of photos of the Golden Gate bridge....
Canon has today announced the new EOS M50 Mark II mirrorless camera. Not much appears to have changed on the outside between the original Canon EOS M50 although it’s had a few significant enhancements on the inside, including improved Dual Pixel CMOS AF (but not for 4K) and Eye Detection AF. For vloggers, there’s a new vertical shooting mode, and it now has a clean HDMI output signal for when you want to feed into a capture device on your computer for live streaming – although it’s also compatible with Canon’s webcam software....
Lens adapters to put Canon EF mount lenses onto M mount bodies are nothing new. Canon’s had one for a while now. But when it comes to speedbooster style adapters, one company’s pretty much had the market sewn up, and that’s Metabones. But Metabones only produces such adapters for Sony, Micro Four Thirds and Fuji crop cameras. At least for now. A new Japanese patent (2018185393) suggests that Canon will be working on their own, now, though, breathing some new life to their EOS M mount line of cameras – as well as their EF mount lenses as they make the push towards full frame mirrorless....
Canon has launched its first set of cinema prime lenses made for PL-Mount cameras. The series is named Sumire Prime, and it consists of seven prime lenses covering focal lengths from 14mm all the way to 135mm. The lenses are rather fast, ranging from T3.1 to T1.3, depending on the model. Canon has also implemented the optical design that creates a nuanced look as the aperture approaches its maximum setting....
Along with the pricey (but pretty impressive) EOS R3, Canon has also announced two new lenses: the RF 16mm f/2.8 STM and the RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 IS USM. Both lenses are made for Canon’s full-frame mirrorless cameras, and unlike the latest camera – they aren’t expensive at all. Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM The Canon RF 16mm f/2.8 STM is a sleek, compact, and lightweight wide-angle prime. It’s a rectilinear lens, so it can be used for shooting interiors and architecture, among other things....
Canon has announced the EOS M6 Mark II, a new member of the mirrorless M family. A leaked promo video has recently revealed some of the major specs, but the camera is now officially out, and it brings some improvements over its older version, the M6. The Canon EOS M6 Mk II packs a 32.5MP APS-C CMOS sensor and a DIGIC 8 imaging processor. For comparison, the M6 from 2017 has a 24MP sensor, so we can say there’s quite a notable difference in the megapixel count....
Well, that didn’t take long. First rumoured over a year ago and with news yesterday that announcements were imminent, Canon has now today officially unveiled the new Canon RF 15-30mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM and Canon RF 24mm f/1.8 Macro IS STM lenses. Both of the new lenses are full-frame lenses designed for the Canon RF system. The Canon RF 15-30mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM is a fairly compact lens with ultra-wide-angle versatility....
I’m quite surprised that it’s taken this long for something like this to appear. Even just in patent form, it’s taken quite a while. To have not seen it in an interchangeable lens camera yet has always struck me as a little odd given the prevalence of this feature in smartphones and countless other devices – especially given the need for silent shooting in many genres, like weddings and events....
In an interview with Mynavi News, Canon executive Kengo Iezuka says that their recently released 600mm f/11 and 800mm f/11 lenses would’ve been impossible to produce for DSLRs. They had planned to attempt these for DLSRs, but due to AF limitations, it couldn’t be done. Their creation only became possible due to the design and capabilities of their new RF mount mirrorless cameras. Mr Iezuka is one of the executives responsible for the planning of lenses at Canon and also hinted that more such lenses might be on the way, depending on the success of these two....
Long before people were complaining about the ridiculously high resolution, storage and editing demands of the RED 8K Helium sensor, Canon had already announced that it was working on an 8K camera, a prototype of which was shown off at the Canon Expo 2015 in Paris. Since then, it’s been radio silence. 8K doesn’t have quite the same impact that it had back in 2015 and Canon has now also released the EOS R5 which, for better or worse, shoots 8K RAW video....
It looks like the Canon EOS M system’s death knell is ringing loud and clear. After discontinuing the Canon EOS M200 only last week, the final remaining camera in the EOS M lineup is also on its way out. It appears that the Canon EOS M50 Mark II, released only in 2020, has now been partially discontinued at Canon Japan. Asobinet reports that the Canon Kiss M2 (that’s what Canon Japan calls the EOS M50 Mark II) body-only kit is now listed as discontinued on Canon Japan’s website....
