Sigma has been crushing the competition with its Global vision line up. The combination of no-compromise image quality and a fair price is creating havoc in the Canon and Nikon camps. And the recent launch of Sony E-mount lenses will surely disturb Sony’s first-party glass business (and will also drive Sony’s mirrorless business by providing true 3rd party lens support).
I recently took my Sony A7 III and a rented $2,500 Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM OSS lens to the 2018 Montreal GP. A friend of mine had recommended that I use a polarizer. I remembered that I had a pack of 77mm Vivitar Series 1 filters that came with my 24-105mm, so I threw that onto the 100-400mm and started shooting, completely zoomed at 400mm.
The Sony a7R III, Sony a7 III, and Nikon D850 have been making waves this year and are in the conversation for best camera you can buy right now.
Here's a 6-minute educational video by Shutterstock in which filmmaker Todd Blankenship discusses the basics of diffusing light and introduces three cheap options for doing so... including a $5 shower curtain.
If you're looking to get into shooting medium format film but aren't sure which film stock to start with, check out this helpful 16-minute video by The Slanted Lens. Photographer Jay P. Morgan purchased all the B&W and color 120 film rolls he could get his hands on and did a shootout to compare the different looks and qualities.
Photographer Irene Rudnyk often receives questions about film photography, including from people who wonder why it's even worth doing when you can slap a VSCO filter onto digital images these days. To answer these questions, Rudnyk made this 6.5-minute video comparing film vs digital through a portrait shoot.
It’s been a few years now since smartphones became legitimate tools for professional photography. While a DSLR or high-end mirrorless is almost certainly the preferred choice, phone camera quality has reached the point where it can be used in many situations. TIME Magazine ran an iPhone photo as a cover image in 2012, and since 2017 many other major publications have had their own mobile-shot covers.
Portrait photographers Manny Ortiz and Jessica Kobeissi just did a shootout that pitted flash against natural light. The two each shot portraits of the same model in a studio, except Ortiz used an off-camera flash as his main light while Kobeissi only used the sunlight bouncing around in the space.
Have you seen those ridiculous ads for smartphone clip-on lenses that promise impossible results? Casey Neistat recently came across one on Facebook and decided to order one to see how bad they actually are.
With the release of Lightroom 7.3, the entire ecosystem (Lightroom CC, Lightroom Classic, the Lightroom Mobile Apps) receives access to the updated "Camera Profiles" (now just called "Profiles"). If you weren't using profiles before, you probably should have been.
So, here’s the story: Nikon announced its new 180-400mm f/4 lens, and I’ve been more than a little curious about it. However, I’m not 100% sold on it just yet, so I decided to rent one and give it a whirl for a few days and share what I’ve discovered with you.
In January 2018, I had the opportunity to test a pre-production version of Laowa's first lens in 2018, the Laowa 25mm f/2.8 2.5-5x. It is a niche high magnification macro lens touted to be the answer or alternative to the Canon MP-E 65mm for non-Canon users (especially Nikon macro photographers).
In 2016, I made a video comparing the Profoto B1 and Godox AD600. Since then both models have had an updated release and Broncolor has also released the Siros 800 and 400. I decided to put all three models head to head to help people decide which is the best option.
I've used diffusion filters for years but rarely for their intended purpose. If you haven't heard of them before, diffusion filters are transparent glass or plastic sheets that go in front of the lens and diffuse the light as it enters the camera. The resulting images taken with a diffusion filter have an appearance of reduced contrast that ultimately looks hazy, offering a slightly dream-like effect.
Portrait photographer Manny Ortiz recently got his hands on the newly-announced Sony a7 III full-frame mirrorless camera, allowing him to compare the $2,000 camera to his $3,200 Sony a7R III. Here's a 6-minute video in which he compares the cameras and discusses the strengths of each one.
There are many reasons why people may like one brand of camera equipment versus another. And if you ask a room full of photographers which camera manufacturer they like the best, and why, you will often get a wide range of responses and opinions.
Last week was extremely cold in my country, the Netherlands. February 28th was the coldest 28th of February in history, breaking the record set in 1904. It’s crazy to experience this kind of weather here while some of my friends in Norway and Iceland are having warmer weather.
There has been a wave of updates to raw processors recently, including new releases this week from Topaz and ON1. Consequently, it has been difficult for me to finish this review, but developers updating their software is a good problem. Finally, here it is!
It seems that every new Sony camera announcement these days creates an insane amount of hype because the company keeps pushing the envelope in different directions. Photographer and filmmaker Max Yuryev just tested the newly-unveiled a7 III's low-light abilities against the Sony a7R III, Sony a6500, and Panasonic GH5, and he was "shocked" by how impressive it is.
It's an age-old question: why do people shoot on film? Can you tell the difference between film and digital? Is it enough of a difference to warrant the high cost of shooting film? Or is it just a fad? We are here today to hopefully answer some of these and more!
Canon released its 6D Mark II in 2017, and the Internet has been abuzz ever since then discussing its high ISO performance. There have been reports that the Mark II creates more noise at high ISOs than the original 6D.
Canon currently offers three different 85mm lenses: the $370 85mm f/1.8, the $1,600 85mm f/1.4L IS, and the $1,900 85mm f/1.2L II. If you're wondering how they stack up, check out this 9-minute video by self-proclaimed photography nerd Kai Wong, who recently went hands-on by comparing the trio in a shootout.
Want to see how popular full-frame cameras from Sony, Nikon, and Canon stack up? Here's a 20-minute comparison video from Dan and Sally Watson that looks at the differences between the Sony a7R III, Nikon D850, and Canon 5D Mark IV.
Is it worth upgrading to the latest fully loaded iMac Pro, which will cost you $14,000? Filmmaker Parker Walbeck recently went hands-on to find out. Here's his interesting 4-minute video review that looks at the speed comparisons between a fully loaded iMac Pro and a fully loaded $6,000 iMac.
In the pantheon of lens focal lengths, 28mm is a bit of an outlier. Photojournalists are more apt to reach for the 35mm, while many manufacturers have settled on 24mm for primes and the wide end of their zoom lenses. But 28mm has become visually familiar to consumers because its field-of-view equivalent can be found on many smartphones like the iPhone.
Photographers Anita Sadowska and Alex Hutchinson recently did a "film versus digital" comparison through a fashion photography shootout. They photographed the same subject with Sadowska using a digital Canon 5D Mark IV DSLR and Hutchinson using an analog medium-format Pentax 67 as a comparison of film vs digital.
Over the last few months, I have been in contact with Phase One to test their latest medium format camera, the IQ3 100MP Trichromatic. The standard 100MP backs from both Hasselblad and Phase One, already have incredible colors, due to being able to produce 16-bit raw files. Phase One, however, decided this wasn’t enough and their latest sensor is a genuinely brilliant update.
How does the image quality of a top-of-the-line smartphone camera stack up against a top-of-the-line professional camera these days? Photographer Tyler Stalman decided to find out by pitting a Google Pixel 2 smartphone against a $20,000 Hasselblad medium format camera in the 8-minute video above.
In recent years, the number of new ND filter manufacturers has risen quite dramatically and this, of course, is great for competition. This competition has helped push companies to create even better filters that are sharper with better color rendition.
Dual cameras have become ubiquitous in the smartphone world, and with them has emerged a new technique for simulating a shallow depth of field -- the feature commonly called ‘Portrait Mode’. This 10-minute video from Marques Brownlee explains how it works, and it also pits Portrait Mode on an iPhone X, Note 8, and Pixel 2 against the $8,000 medium format camera Hasselblad X1D.
Here's a 10-minute video from Nature TTL that looks at the best lens for star photography. Comparing the Sigma 14mm f/1.8 lens with the Rokinon 14mm f/2.4 and f/2.8 lenses, photographer Matthew Saville says that each has its place in the astrophotography world.
re.photos is a new website decided to helping people create and share then-and-now photos. The site helps you automatically align before-and-after photos to show how things have changed over time. Known as "rephotography," this is the act of taking a photo of a scene that has already been photographed some time ago.
The new iPhone X has a number of Portrait Lighting looks that allow users to "fake" professional lighting styles. Here's a 4-minute video by photographer Daniel DeArco that compares the iPhone X's Portrait Lighting with the real studio lighting setups they're designed to mimic.
Here's an 11-minute video in which landscape photographer Thomas Heaton looks at how much the camera you shoot with really matters for the vast majority of viewers. Given the opportunity to try the Canon M5 and Fujifilm GFX 50S, Heaton pits them against his trusty Canon 5D Mark IV.
The new Google Pixel 2 smartphones announced yesterday has a new feature called "Fused Video Stabilization." The short side-by-side comparison video above shows how effective it is at smoothing out extremely shaky footage.
The iPhone 8 Plus' reign as the sole top tested camera at DxOMark didn't last long. The camera testing lab just published its review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, which now joins the iPhone 8 Plus with the same highest-ever overall score of 94. The Note 8 also has the highest-ever still photo score of 100, beating the 8 Plus' 96.
Do you think you can tell the difference between full frame and crop sensor photos of the same scene and subject? Photographer Manny Ortiz did a shootout that you can use to test your eyes.
The GoPro HERO6 is finally here and many of you are probably wondering if it's worth the upgrade or not. In this 13-minute video, the Canadian camera store Vistek compared the HERO6 with the HERO5 and came up with some startling results.
Nikon's marketing says the $3,300 D850's autofocus components are the same as the $6,500 D5, but how do the two cameras stack up in real-world autofocusing? Photographer Matt Granger decided to put the systems to the test, doing a shootout to see how the two cameras' focus and tracking abilities compare.
Photographer Mathieu Stern has been doing shootout comparisons showing how the same models look when captured through different vintage lenses. For this 5.5-minute video, Stern used the Konika Hexanon 28mm f/3.5, the Minolta 100mm f/2.5, and the Industar 50mm f/3.5.