Macro lenses are often seen as this weird special purpose thing, that only those interested in shooting bugs should buy. But they’re so much more than that. Photographer Peter McKinnon believes everybody should own one. In this video, Peter talks about the versatility of a macro lens. That it can be used for so much more than typical “macro” use. As Peter mentions, the biggest misconception with macro lenses is the name....

If you like listening high-quality podcast about photography, there’s a real treat for you on RGGEDU. Gary Martin and Rob Grimm talk with some of the most talented and famous photographers of today. There will be four seasons in total, and Season 1 is ready for free download or streaming. Rob and Gary sat down to chat with some of the creatives advancing the photography industry to discuss how they got to where they are now....

Vision Research has announced its new Phantom cameras. The first is the TMX 5010, which is considered an entry-level camera in the Phantom TMX series – yet still goes up to 1.16 million frames per second. This series also includes cameras like the insanely fast TMX7510 (which goes all the way up to 1.75 million frames per second). The other is the T3610, which only goes up to a relatively modest 875,000 frames per second at minimum resolution....

The concept of a camera that can follow a subject all by itself isn’t a new idea. Well, I say all by “itself”, the camera was usually paired with some kind of “homing device” on the wearer to tell the camera in which direction to point. But the Obsbot Tail needs no homing device. It uses AI tracking to follow a subject automatically, even if visual line of sight is broken....

Well, this is pretty unique. A motion-controlled motorised orbiting camera rig. Developed by Josh Yeo of MAKE. ART. NOW. along with Axibo, the Marbl Orbit is a motion control rig that gets suspended from your ceiling to… well, spin a camera around you or whatever your subject is. And it can do it in realtime, slow motion or even timelapse. The video above explains the goals of the product, who it’s targeted towards and what it attempts to achieve for them....

My daily stroll through the newly built but already decaying park near my apartment in Hanoi listening to Spotify on a brisk (by SE Asia standards) morning has me in deep thought. We only get this type of weather for a couple months a year here and I absolutely love it. I grew up in New England and this is the temperature I was built for, I truly am a different person....

Why is it so difficult to compare one light to another? It would be bad enough to say that watts, LUX, watt-seconds, and guide numbers aren’t directly comparable. And unless you’ve been around lights for a long time, these measurements won’t even make intuitive sense. Born from this frustration, I give you the Strobepro Power Scale! Before we get into it, here are a few disclaimers: 1. Practicality was the goal If I set out to do an apples-to-apples comparison in every respect, I believe the usefulness of the data would have suffered....

The Tamron 70-210mm f/4 Di VC lens has had a lot of hype. Leaked in February, announced a day later, and subsequently reviews on its own, it’s seems to be quite a good lens. But how does it stand up against the Nikon 70-200mm f/4 VR and the brand new Canon 70-200mm f/4 IS II? And which should you buy? That’s what this video from DPReview TV aims to find out....

The recently announced Moza AirCross 2 is the latest 3-axis motorised gimbal from Gudsen. It was originally teased at NAB 2019, but now it’s been officially announced and is available to order. Gudsen were showing off the Moza AirCross 2 at IBC 2019 in Amsterdam, so we went to go talk to them and find out more about it. And, yes, while this will upset some and make others giddy, you can mount your camera to it vertically....

The Laowa 24mm f/14 2:1 Probe lens is definitely the weirdest macro lens I’ve ever seen. It was presented at Photokina way back in in 2016, and now it’s finally available for preorders. Venus Optics has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund this “weird, but revolutionary” lens and the funds have already gone through the roof. The company has also published a video with plenty of sample footage, and seeing that, I’m not surprised that so many people want to own this crazy lens....

200TB SSDs are currently in development according to Nimbus Data CEO Thomas Isakovich, who told TechRadar that they’re actively working on a 200TB SSD to beat the world’s current largest capacity SSD record holder… themselves. Nimbus Data set the record in March 2018 with a massive 100TB ExaDrive Solid State Drive. At the time of that drive’s announcement, there was no word on price, but it later transpired to be $40,000....

In both our life and our creative journey we’ll deal with all sorts of challenges, obstacles, and questions. But both of them could come down basically to two phases: “the morning” and “the afternoon.” Building upon Carl. G. Jung’s theory, Sean Tucker explains how our creative journey can be divided into these two phases and why it’s important to recognize and enjoy both of them. Sean believes that the way in which we develop as creatives mirrors the way in which we develop as human beings....

If you watch Stranger Things, you know there’s a lot to love about this show. And if you know at least a bit about filmmaking, there’s a lot more to love and pay attention to. In addition to the marvelous acting and exciting story, I particularly noticed the use of light and sound to cause tension. Another feature I started noticing in Season 2 are some creative transitions – and I’m not the only one who did....

Junebug Weddings, one of the world’s most popular online wedding planning resources, has recently finished their 10th annual contest. Out of nearly 9,000 images, they selected the top 50 wedding photos from around the world. We have selected some of them, and it’s a gallery of strong emotions and wonderful moments captured on camera. The photos arrived at Junebug Weddings’ contest from across the globe. Among the selected 50, there are photos of different styles and moods: from funny moments that will put a smile on your face, to the emotional ones that will make you tear up a bit....

Landscape photography is one of those genres where lens choice is a hotly debated topic. Everybody has their favourites, and people always seem to argue about what’s “best” or “essential”. Mads Peter Iversen tackles this topic in the above video and believes you can shoot just about everything you need with just three lenses. The three lenses Mads mentions aren’t specific makes or models of lens, but types of lens....

For the 12th year in a raw, iPhone Photography Awards (IPPAWARDS) has selected the best iPhone photographers of the year. We may argue forever (and we probably will) if gear matters or not. But these photos show us a fact that remains true: no matter what gear you use, you still need talent and knowledge to capture a great photo. (IPPAWARDS) is the first and longest-running iPhone photography competition. It was founded in 2007, with a goal to celebrate the creativity of iPhone photographers worldwide....

In a world where many CG artists are aiming for photorealism, one very skilled photographer seems to be going the opposite way. These images look like something straight out of 3DS Max or Blender. They’re not, though. They’re actually very carefully designed photographs, created by Norwegian design duo Lars Marcus Vedeler and Theo Zamudio-Tveterås at their studio, Skrekkøgle. Looking at the final work is pretty surreal, and if nobody ever told you that they weren’t CG renders, you’d never be able to tell....

While the usefulness of surgical masks, in general, is quite well known (surgeons have been using them for years) there is little-to-no data on many of the DIY face coverings people have been using during the coronavirus pandemic. So, researchers at the Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science have done some tests of their own. The experiment was published in the journal Physics of Fluids and demonstrates the effectiveness of wearing a face covering when you cough using some pretty cool flow visualisation using lasers....

In July 2019, Photographer Dan Marker-Moore set up his gear on a remote mountaintop in Chile to capture a total solar eclipse. Using his recognizable time-slice style, he created a very unique collection of images. Combining hundreds of photos, he created several captivating, chart-like composites that show various stages of the eclipse. Dan used a Sony a7R III paired with a 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM and a 70-200mm f/2.8 GM to shoot photos for his time slice collection....

If you have a bunch of old analog cameras that you want to use, you may be interested in this Raspberry PI project from befinitiv. According to befinitiv, the module is capable of mimicking a modern digital camera, so you’ll have “everything that you expect from a digital camera nowadays [it] can do video, it can do a stream-video over wi-fi and store things on an SD card.” Obviously, I got drawn in, and I was quite impressed....