
If you’re a frugal photographer who’s constantly searching for ways to save some dough when buying gear, you might want to look into the new Los Angeles-based startup company Greentoe. It’s a shopping site that’s trying to turn the e-commerce world on its head by taking pricing power from merchants and putting it into the hands of consumers.
Basically, it’s a site that lets you buy camera gear at prices you want to pay.
Read more…

The folks at Hama just announced a new accessory that should make life as an iPad or iPhone toting photographer a bit easier. No, we’re not talking about the guys who shoot with their iOS devices; we’re talking about the people who use them for on-the-go storage, editing and sharing.
The accessory is simply called the Wi-Fi Data Reader for Apple Devices and it does exactly what its name implies: it allows you to upload photos from USB, SD, SDHC and SDXC to your iPad without plugging anything in. Read more…

While on assignment in the Middle East, war photographer Tracey Shelton had her gear stolen during an attempted kidnapping back in August 2011. As a freelance photojournalist, she didn’t have a newspaper’s funding to lean back on, and found herself out of several thousand dollars worth of camera gear.
Her work in the Middle East has been nothing short of an inspiration to photojournalists everywhere, but since the theft she’s had to borrow gear and use sub par equipment to do her job. And so two recent journalism school graduates have decided to turn to crowdfunding to try and get her properly equipped to do what she does best.
Read more…

Holsters are becoming pretty popular for keeping camera gear on your hip and at the ready, and now Washington-based gear company Rhino Camera Gear wants to bring the concept to batteries. It has unveiled a new product that’s designed to cut a few seconds out of the time it takes you to switch out empty batteries for fresh ones.
The accessory is called the Rhino Battery Holster, and moves your juiced batteries from inside your camera bag to your side.
Read more…
Update: This giveaway is now over. The winner was randomly selected and announced below.

Alrighty folks! Let’s do a giveaway! If you’re in need of a way to haul around your large collection of camera gear, this one’s for you. We’re giving away a massive collection of Gura Gear products: a backpack, three cases, three pouches, and three memory card wallets. The entire collection has a combined retail value of $612.40!
Read more…

Disappointed that the full-frame Sony RX1 compact camera doesn’t come with an optical viewfinder? Don’t worry: you can use the camera’s hot shoe to attach a sweet/strange-looking universal turret viewfinder! That’s how DSLR Magazine customized theirs in a recently published review.
Read more…

French optical filter company Cokin has launched a new line of lens filters under the brand name Pure Harmonie. The new filters are unique in that they’re the thinnest and lightest in the world — the UV filter in the set measures only 3.3mm (~0.13in) thick!
Read more…
For a New Year’s greeting ecard this year, Paris-based photographer Noël Bourcier decided to put his camera equipment to good use, but not in the way you’d expect. He gathered up some of the camera equipment at the EFET School’s photography program, recruited a couple of photography students, and turned the equipment into the simple stop-motion ecard seen above.
Read more…

Back in October, we shared some photos taken inside a small Chinese studio lighting maker named NiceFoto. Now we have a look at what operations look like at a much larger manufacturer: Godox. It’s reportedly the second largest studio lighting producer in all of China.
Read more…

Photographer Nick Cool came up with one of the strangest pieces of do-it-yourself camera gear that we’ve seen so far this year. He took an ordinary stainless steel sink filter — yup, the thing that catches food at the bottom of kitchen sinks — drilled various-sized holes through it, and stuck it into a filter ring after taking out the glass. The resulting photographic sink filter takes soft focus photos with pretty strange-looking bokeh in the background. Changing the size of the holes drilled into the plate produces different bokeh styles.
You can find the step-by-step tutorial on the build over on DIYPhotography. There are also some more sample photographs over in this Flickr set by Cool.
How To Build A Soft Focus Filter From A Sink Drainer [DIYPhotography]
Image credits: DIY soft focus filter and DIY soft focus filter by Nick Cool