Posts

According to some recent reports, we’re only two days away from the official announcement of the Nikon Z50 and two new Z lenses. And it looks like the Nikon Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct lens will join the party, too. The latest reports say they will all be launched together, and we now have the expected prices of the upcoming gear. The Z50 is an upcoming APS-C mirrorless camera from Nikon, and it will work with the new EN-EL25 battery....

Figure to ground means that a subject or idea (figure) is clearly defined against a background. This can be achieved through technical means, ie depth of field, or compositional means. My preferred method is to make sure that everything in my photographs fit neatly in place. Unless elements are specifically interacting then they do not need to touch. No lampposts coming out of heads in portraits, no walls going through bodies....

The folks at SLR Lounge were kind enough to let us post one of their premium tutorials here. While none of the techniques they show requires special gear, I am really impressed with the results you can get with some creativity. They were actually even sweeter and gave us a discount code if you want to register. Use the code DIY50 for a $52 discount (valid till the end of the month) when you register here....

With Photokina coming it is no surprise that many announcements are reeling in. Olympus just Olympus announces the uber retro Pen E-PL8 Micro Four Thirds camera (pre-order here). The PEN E-PL8, follows the Olympus line of retro cameras only doing it with more style. So this camera has quite a design dialog with the recently announced PEN-F. This leads me to think that Olympus is aiming to be a design and style oriented company....

Eliminating the notch (or the little peephole) has been the goal of smartphone companies ever since they became a thing. There’s nothing better than a nice big unhindered display that fills your device. And while there have been popup cameras and flip-up cameras, under-screen camera technology looks like it’s going to be the way. OPPO, Xiaomi and others have shown off prototypes in the past and while they’ve been impressive proof of concepts to demonstrate the principle, they haven’t really given the results that other front cameras have....

Large productions using several cameras shooting 8K means that there will be a lot of data to both store and somehow get from the cameras to the rest of the creative team working on post-production. Add to this infrastructure problems and teams often being situated around the world and you’ve got some quite complicated problems to solve. Luckily, OWC specialises in solving these exact issues. DIYP spoke to Sam Mestman from OWC to find out more about larger storage options for productions and teams....

When the GH5 was announced, there was a big deal made about its ability to shoot 10Bit 4:2:2 video. But there were a few issues. Mostly that it didn’t offer it in all resolutions and modes. The first of two planned firmware updates has now officially been announced. Available from April 24th, it offers 4:2:2 10Bit capture at 100Mbps for 1080/59.97p resolution, with 4:2:2 3328×2496 anamorphic at 150Mbps. Also announced today is a new Micro Four Thirds lens....

Panasonic is set to launch some new firmware on November 19th for both the G series (GH5/GH5S/G9) cameras, as well as their full-frame S1 and S1R mirrorless cameras. The firmware updates offer some nice functionality for all models, but most interesting is the addition of 10-bit 4:2:2 4K video to the G9, bringing it largely in line with the GH5 in terms of video. The S1 and S1R feature a dual XQD and UHS-II SD card slot arrangement....

With lenses skyrocketing in price lately, especially on the mirrorless front, it can be difficult for beginner mirrorless shooters to find inexpensive lenses. For DSLRs there are plenty, but for mirrorless cameras, the selection isn’t quite as broad. For Fujifilm X users, though, that selection has just expanded a little, with two new lenses from Pergear. Earlier this month, Pergear released a 25mm f/1.8 lens for Fuji X, but now they’ve added to the lineup with 35mm f/1....

Using her photography and photo manipulation skills, photographer Karen Alsop created her version of a time travel. When her mother found a photo of Karen’s Great Great Great Grandmother and Great Great Grandmother, it made Karen wonder: what it would be like to meet her ancestors, sit down and talk to them? Even more, how incredible it would be for her kids to meet them? And so, the idea was born....

I’ve seen some rather interesting Halloween photos cross my desk over the past week or so. Few that are quite as interesting as this project from photographer Markus Hofstätter, though. Shooting some Halloween portraits on large format wet plate. Best of all, he shot a behind the scenes video showing how it was done. While it’s not a 360° video, it makes some fairly heavy use of a 360° camera, with some pretty cool effects and transitions....

Has your Facebook feed been flooded with the photo of impala a few seconds from death by hungry cheetahs? Allegedly, she sacrificed herself to save her younglings from the hungry beasts, and the photo shows his final glare as her young ones escape. Well, this touching story of “motherly sacrifice” turns out to be totally fake. Alison Buttigieg herself, who took the photo, shared the true story behind it. And it has nothing to do with the mother impala offering herself to cheetahs so her cubs can survive....

For most of us, simply grabbing a quick snap or our plane at the gate, or perhaps the wing through the window by our seat is enough to satisfy out thirst for photography. Not for Mike Kelley, though, oh no. He camped out at some of the busiest airports in the world to photograph planes all day long as they took off and landed. These shots were then composited to create some of the most amazing commercial airline images you’ve ever seen....

This is something I’ve been pondering for a while now and man has it got me excited! What happens when you get a photographer who retouches his own images vs a retoucher who does it for high end clients as a living? Let’s find out the results! So I contacted the awesome David Neilands about joining me on this nuts idea about us “battling” if you will over an image....

There’s an interesting discussion that’s popped up on Facebook recently, started by award winning photographer Rutger Geerling, over what we may be able to do to help better protect our equipment out in the wild. We’re not talking about the bags we leave laying around filled with gear we’re not currently using, but items actually on our person that are all too easy to steal. Without intervention and design alterations from the manufacturers themselves, it seems there’s very little we can do, but there are some great suggestions offered in the comments on the Facebook post, though....

Mahmoud Abou Zeid, an Egyptian photojournalist also known as Shawkan, is facing a death sentence in Cairo, Egypt. He was arrested in connection with an anti-government protest back in August 2013, and prosecutors requested a death sentence for him on 3 March 2018. As Reporters Without Borders write, Shawkan is one of more than 700 people currently facing a death sentence in Cairo. The prosecution requested the “maximum penalty” for all of them: death by hanging....

A couple of photos of Sigma’s upcoming 105mm f/2.8 DG DN Art series macro lens for Sony E and Leica L mounts. Pictures of the L mount version leaked a week or so ago, but now Nokishita has leaked some new slightly higher quality product images showing it mounted to an actual Sony body. The lens is expected to be officially announced by Sigma later today, but the specs have also already been leaked....

I sometimes think how awesome it must be for pilots if they love photography. And an Ecuador-based pilot and photographer Santiago Borja Lopez proves me right. He captures night skies from his Boeing 767, and sometimes, these images involve lightning bolts and incredible storms. The sky from an airplane is magnificent on its own, but if you add lightning bolts above the clouds to that picture – you’ll get something completely astounding....

Adobe’s just announced their newest Creative Cloud updates for Premiere Pro and Premiere Rush, adding some new features including native Apple Silicon support for Premiere Rush, speeding up its capabilities on Apple’s latest M1-based computers. And Adobe Premiere Pro gets some H.264 & HEVC performance improvements for hardware acceleration. Premiere Pro also now gets dynamic previews for your Lumetri presets, allowing you to quickly and easily see how they’ll all look on the footage actually in your project rather than just a generic scene....

It’s been only ten days since Profoto released their B1X strobe, and now they are recalling the battery unit due to “potential safety issue.” This recall doesn’t affect the strobe, but only the battery. However, it doesn’t only concern the battery, but also affects any B1X kits you might have bought. Profoto has issued the recall notice with more details about the issue and the information what to do....