News entries for March, 2015

 

 

I was three when Apollo 11 touched down on the moon, and I grew up watching with great interest the space program ebb and flow with the times. And like most young kids I knew back then, I also became an enthusiast model rocket builder. But until I saw an actual rocket launch from Cape Canaveral about ten years ago...

 

 

There was a video on YouTube floating around recently that was cleverly produced by a commercial photographer mocking all of the questions that people ask someone who has an expensive looking camera hanging around their neck.

(I want you to know that I try to be as friendly as possible with these people. This...

 

 

As technologically inclined as many of us may be, that’s not always the case for our friends and family. But, just because they’re technically challenged doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to keep up with the latest family happenings and share life’s most precious moments through images.

Here to help is Skylight...

 

 

Last month, Ricoh launched its brand-new Pentax K-S2 DSLR and weather-sealed, retractable 18-50mm lens at the CP+ Camera and Photo Imaging Show in Japan. We posted our First Shots from the feature-rich and enthusiast-grade K-S2 a couple of weeks ago, and now it's left the lab and headed out into the real...

 

 

At this most recent Photokina tradeshow, Sigma introduced a pair of updated full-frame supertelephoto zoom lenses: the 150-600mm f/5-6.3 'Sport' and a smaller, lighter 'Contemporary' version. We had a brief weekend to experiment with the Sport version back in October, but now we've been able to get our hands on the...

 

 

Phase One Industrial has announced the iXU 180, the world’s smallest 80-megapixel medium format camera.

Boasting a 4:3 ratio 80-megapixel CCD sensor, the iXU 180 is designed from the ground up to be a modular, customizable medium format camera, especially for drone operators who would like to add a few more...

 

 

The life of a retoucher is an oft misunderstood one. In the minds of many, a retoucher’s job is merely corrective, not creative. But Becci Manson, a retoucher who has worked with the likes of Christopher Griffith and Annie Leibovitz, is determined to show just how important of a role retouchers play in the final...

 

 

This may not be the most educational photo tip I’ll do this year, but I’ll be proud of myself if I come up with anything more fun. It’s one part science fair project, one part after-dinner parlor trick, and one part miracle. This is really astounding. I hope all of you do this and I hope you bring a kid along. It’s...

 

 

It might not be an official app, and it may not last long, but Uploader for Instagram is the first app for OSX that allows you to upload your photographs through your computer, rather than your mobile device.

Built by Anobot LLC, the app is able to get around Instagram’s API through the clever reverse-engineering...

 

 

[UPDATE 3/30/2015: On several reader requests we've added additional gallery images with the Sony FE 24-240mm lens paired with the Sony A6000 to obtain the 1.5x crop factor advantage and see the results. Scrolling down past the original images paired with the full frame A7 II will take you to the updated section...

 

 

Firmware Friday returns this week with a raft of camera updates from Nikon, Pentax and Sony, as well as updates for Nikon's UT-1 Communication Unit, two of Canon's professional camcorders, and the software Ricoh bundles with (or sells for) some of its Pentax-branded camera. It's quite the week for updates, in...

 

 

It might not be the most widely-used setup for post-production, but Canon’s Digital Photo Professional and EOS Utility programs offer a solid option for anyone looking to organize, process and export their RAW photography workflow.

To help those looking to give its a try, Canon has released six tutorials, each of...

 

 

A new patent from Sony, published March 19th, shows off what could very well be the schematics of the first full frame camera with a curved sensor.

Even the abstract of the patent is a bit complicated in nature, but in essence, it describes a full-frame image sensor that would allow future lenses to be more...

 

 

Italian camera accessory manufacturer has released Lumie, a new series of consumer-level LED lights. Powered by rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries, each of the lights offer continuous, flicker-free lighting for over an hour.

The three units are called Lumie Art, Lumie Play and Lumie Muse, which put out 220lux,...

 

 

The long awaited successor to the popular Nikon D7100 has just touched down in our lab, and we wanted to get you our First Shots without delay! The big story with the D7200 is a big increase in buffer depth over the predecessor, granting sports and wildlife shooters greater image capture ability for burst shooting....

 

 

Lightroom is one of the — if not the — most comprehensive photo management and editing applications out there. However, with an application as rich in features and capabilities as Lightroom is, it’s easy to miss small aspects of it that can truly take your workflow to the next level.

 

 

Amazon has announced two new unlimited storage plans, taking on the likes of Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and Apple.

The first plan, called ‘Unlimited Everything,’ lets you store unlimited files of any type to Amazon’s cloud platform for only $60 a year. The second plan, called ‘Unlimited Photos,’ is a...

 

 

After spending time out in the Maine wilderness for its Shooter's Report, and then more time back at Nikon's repair shop for a fix to the widely-reported flare problem, the D750 is back and our full, in-depth Nikon D750 review is now complete. The latest enthusiast full-frame DSLR from Nikon sits in a sweet spot...

 

Don’t tell people what they can already see. “The cousins went swimming with Uncle Greg” will always be trumped by “Alexander was scared of the water, but Uncle Greg’s kindness and humor soon had him swimming with all of the cousins.” Words make a difference.

Today’s topic is difficult to photograph. It’s all about...