Posts

When last we met, I pointed out the perils of using Apple’s iCloud Photos for photo backup for one simple reason: if you delete an image off your iPhone, Apple will in turn also delete it from iCloud*. This time I’d like to go over the best alternative photo backup options for you in more detail, because like it or not, in today’s world, just like paying for food, shelter and taxes, if you snap photos on your smartphone or camera, you will be paying for online storage....

There are so many ways to convert an digital photographs from colour to black and white it’ll make your head spin. Personally, if I know in advance I want black and white, I’ll just shoot it with film. But, sometimes, converting a digital colour image in post is your only option. The most common ways to convert images to black & white are through either Lightroom or Camera Raw or to use the Black & White adjustment layer inside Photoshop....

Earlier this year, Apple announced that it would scan your iPhone and iCloud photos for child sexual abuse. A fierce backlash ensued, and now it looks like that the company has ditched the project completely without telling anyone. Apple first announced the feature in August 2021. It was designed to scan your child’s messages, as well as your images, Siri, and searches. It was all in an attempt to detect Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and to stop it from spreading online....

Apple recently announced a new set of features aimed at combatting Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM), which include the ability to scan a user’s phone and iMessages. Since the announcement, the company has reiterated the numerous safeguards that they developed, but privacy advocates have bemoaned the potential for abuse and “mission creep.” The issue of CSAM proliferation has become an epidemic. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is the U....

Fujifilm’s newly promoted President and Managing Director of Fujifilm in Europe, Toshi Iida, has spoken in an interview with Amateur Photographer. In it, they talk about how Fuji’s dealt with COVID-19 and their “significantly better” performance this year compared with the rest of the industry. They also spoke about the future, including Fuji’s decision to stick with APS-C going forward. COVID-19 has had a pretty big effect on Fujifilm this year, but Mr Iida acknowledges that it’s had a big effect on everybody else in the industry as well....

Atomos has released a new version of AtomOS for the Ninja V monitor recorder. The new AtomOS 10.3 comes with frame guides for social media, a 9 grid overlay, a legalised HDMI input, IRE scale for false colour, Anamorphic 1.25x and 1.8x desqueeze and rolling filenames (even after formatting). The new social media frame guides, designed for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram videos adds 1:1 and 1.99:1.1 while portrait Instagram mode brings 4:5 for your regular feed and 9:16 for Stories/IGTV – as well as other platforms that make use of vertical video....

Landscape photography is such a joy. It was probably the thing that got me into photography in the first place and since the lifting of the lockdowns I’ve been having an absolute blast getting outside and rediscovering my love of capturing epic scenery and sunsets (I’m definitely more of a sunset person than sunrise, particularly if I haven’t had coffee!). But it’s not easy. Two weeks ago I found myself at the top of a mountain lookout in the Pyrenees with nothing short of breathtaking views, and I found it very difficult to come up with a pleasing composition....

B&H recently made headlines after being accused by the New York Attorney General’s office of being short on sales tax by at least seven million dollars over the past 13 years. They allege that B&H intentionally miscalculated sales tax in order to make their prices look more attractive to customers to outsell the competition. A statement has now been issued by B&H spokesperson, Jeff Gerstel, disputing these claims, stating that their approach is the same way the entire consumer electronics retail industry works, and that the AG just wants to tax New Yorkers on money they haven’t spent....

This is an interesting piece of kit. It’s not the first product of its kind (nor the cheapest), but it does offer a couple of unique advantages. It’s called the BAD Wrap and they’re wraps for your camera gear. But these ones are padded, waterproof and hold their shape without velcro. BAD Wrap currently funding through Kickstarter, with pledges starting at $18 for the smallest one. It’s a neat idea and I’ve used microfibre cloths and velcro straps for similar uses in the past – usually to stop lenses from banging together inside my camera bag....

A few weeks ago I noticed that I had not received any new emails for a day or two. Odd I thought, but it’s summer and maybe people are just on holidays. This was a day before I was leaving for a trip, so I was in the process of checking in my family for our flight, and making a number of last-minute AirBnB reservations…using my email – which I quickly realized was offline....

I’ve processed a lot of film. My first rolls were processed in the bathroom sink when I was a 13 year old kid. Later, I had the run of two darkrooms in my high school; they were crazy enough to give me a set of keys and I almost moved in. One of my first jobs was as the darkroom technician (and as an occasional photographer) for the Comox Valley Record on Vancouver Island in Canada when I was 16....

There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence is becoming more and more used in photography and photo editing. But can in compensate for cheap and not so great gear? More specifically, can AI help you get sharp photos even with a soft lens? In this video, Anthony Morganti addresses this question and shows you how to sharpen your images even if your lens is not the sharpest there is. Anthony was inspired by an email he got from one of his followers....

Macro photography is such a fascinating subject. Getting that close to something isn’t something we normally see. We get to observe minute details that we’d never otherwise notice. A lot of things macro subjects are obvious, like bug parts, for example. But not everything is quite so easy to identify. You might remember British contact lens retailer Lenstore from when they teamed up with Nikon to create 24 Hour London....

Video editing programs allow us to add all sorts of effects to our videos, including motion blur. But can you distinguish the one that was done artificially from the real motion blur? This video from biscuitsalive is like a little quiz that lets you try and distinguish between real and artificial motion blur. And if you ask me, it’s harder than it looks. Biscuitsalive filmed with two identical GoPro cameras attached to an FPV drone, both with the same settings....

The Royal Museums Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition is one of the highlights of the astrophotography calendar and one of the world’s most prestigious awards for this particular subject matter. In July, they released the shortlisted images and announced the winners just over a week ago. The list of equipment used to shoot the shortlisted images was released and analysed by the folks over at Skies and Scopes....

The tracks begin to ring. I listen closely with the engine roaring louder and louder as each second passes and ready my camera…my finger resting steady on the shutter. The forest; the leaves; the freight train tearing by and then slowly fading; everything falling quiet again — it all makes me think of Riley. After his passing, my therapy was walking along these tracks, camera in hand. Many times I would never even take a shot, instead preferring to immerse myself in the stillness and color around me....

For the sake of this review, I took the EOS R5 with me to shoot a concert. It was a perfectly safe concert, with no live audience. The lighting, stage, and singer were very real though. So aside from the minimalistic audience, this was a real, live show. That allowed me to test the camera in a real-life concert-shooting scenario. Before jumping into the review, I want to talk a little bit about my lens choice....

One of the claims Canon’s made in the past over its DSLR and mirrorless cameras and the lack of certain video features compared to their higher end (more expensive) dedicated video cameras (and the DSLRs and mirrorless cameras their competition is releasing) is that they can’t keep the bodies cool enough. Whether or not that’s true, a new Canon patent showing a camera with a built-in fan behind the LCD might suggest that they’re getting ready to start stepping things up a bit....

Canon has posted a big announcement teaser to its official Weibo account for something coming on February 24th. And a new image leak suggests it might be the upcoming super long RF mount 800mm f/5.6L IS USM and RF 1200mm f/8L IS USM lenses. February 24th would mark the third day of the now-cancelled CP+ event in Japan. With an event as big as CP+, such lenses wouldn’t be unusual, but now it looks like we might see a simple online announcement....

Capture One recently announced an update that afforded the app with native support for Apple M1 desktops and MacBooks. And now that the M1-based iPads are here, Capture One has also announced via Instagram that they’ll be releasing a version for the iPad next year. The Instagram post explains that the app is currently in development and that the company is “hard at work” to bring it to us. It’s expected to come “by early 2022” but beyond that, there isn’t anything specific just yet....