Equipment

Back in the beginning of August, NYC-based camera superstore B&H Photo Video launched a lighthearted contest called "That's Not What It's Meant For!" It asked for videos of photographers and videographers using technology and equipment in unintended ways.

The submission phase ended recently, and now 10 wacky videos have been selected as finalists. Here they are for your enjoyment.

Lost amid the semi-frenzy over Apple's new iPhone models was a provocative photography-related comment made by Apple Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, during Tuesday's announcement.

It goes without saying, but we'll say it anyway: pro photographers deal with a lot of photos. Each assignment can mean several thousands, all of which need to be imported to the computer for sorting and post processing. A new card reader hub from Lexar, however, promises to make at least the importing part of the process that much faster and more efficient.

Today is a big day for tech sites and Apple fanboys alike because it's the day that the Cupertino-based company announces their newest iPhone -- you know, the one that makes you wish your contract was up now and not in 12 months.

This time around Apple announced two new phones -- the more affordable iPhone 5C and the more capable iPhone 5S -- and as you might expect given the smartphone camera culture, the more expensive of the two came with some significant camera improvements.

The Olympus OM-D E-M5's retro styling drew a lot of looks when the camera was first announced back in February 2012. Glowing reviews of the camera subsequently showed that it was more than just a pretty face.

Today, Olympus has finally unveiled a followup camera to continue the new OM-D line: the E-M1.

Back in September of last year, we told you about an incredibly rare Leica M Rangefinder that was being created by Apple design guru Jony Ive. The emphasis there was on incredibly rare, because only one of these puppies is ever going to get made.

At the time we knew the camera would be auctioned off for charity, but it wasn't until today that we found out the specific event. So if you were banking on trying to buy this uber-special Leica, have your black AMEX at the ready: the date is set for September 23rd.

You'd think companies would be shying away from creating new compact cameras -- or maybe going the way of Sony with its lens cameras -- but that doesn't seem to be the case. Earlier today, another big player released a new line of compact cameras: Leica.

Underwater photographer might remember the old 35mm Nikonos waterproof cameras. Originally launched in 1963, the Nikonos underwater system set the standard for underwater imaging for many years until it was ultimately discontinued in 2001.

Nowadays, underwater photography is done digitally using some sort of waterproof housing, but a fresh rumor just cropped up that says Nikon is working on a dedicated 'serious' underwater compact camera. Does that mean a digital Nikonos?

An external iPhone flash actually made our recent list of 13 photo gadgets we didn't need, but that doesn't mean we don't see the potential of a flash accessory for smartphones. That particular retro-tastic flash didn't suit our fancy; the new Nova wireless flash, however, has a lot more going for it.

Up till now, we hadn't heard much in way of specs for Fuji's rumored entry-level X-Series camera, the X-A1. We knew it was going to be a step down from the X-M1 and a step up from the X100, and we'd seen a questionable picture, but that was it.

A Czech site changed all that yesterday, however, when they accidentally published both a press release and more photos of the upcoming shooter.

On Monday, a massive set of Sony Lens Camera photos leaked online just a couple of days before the official announcement was made. Well, the same thing has happened to Olympus, whose upcoming OM-D E-M1 Micro Four Thirds camera was just outed in photos that show it from just about every angle imaginable.

Consumer film scanners don't provide enough detail, and professional models require too much money and pampering. What's a dedicated film nerd to do? For Peter De Smidt, the answer was to build his own high-res scanner using the Nikon D600 and 50mm Micro lens he already had on hand, a bit of lumber and a lot of patience.

Back in early August, we told you about Badass Cameras and their plan to create an adapter that could turn your iPhone into an uber-cheap (relatively speaking) digital back for your old Hasselblad film camera. Well, the wait is over. Arriving on Kickstarter a bit later than expected, the Hasselnuts adapter does just that.

Samsung finally made its move into the world of smartwatches earlier today when the company announced the all new Samsung Galaxy Gear. But where the watch didn't surprise reviewers and testers in many respects, one thing did catch most by surprise: the watch comes with its own built-in camera.

When you first see the all-new Ricoh Theta, it might remind you a bit of those old Apple remotes. But this is no remote, it's a new-fangled camera that can snap 360-degree panoramas in one click -- no swiping or stitching required -- with some help from the free companion iOS app (Android coming later this year).

It wasn't long ago that Canon revamped its compact line-up, adding a new flagship compact G16 and a few minor other updates. Now, just a few weeks behind, Nikon is doing something similar by announcing a new flagship prosumer point-and-shoot, an ultra-portable compact and a movie light for the Nikon 1-series mirrorless cameras.

Treasures are often buried under dirt. Well, that's usually the case, anyway. Treasures for photographers may mean finding a working copy of their dream camera at a flea market or on the second-hand camera market. However, more often than not, the camera may not be looking great.

Earlier today, after weeks worth of rumors and leaks, Sony finally announced the 'lens cameras' we had heard so much about. No need to parse through rumors and speculate about what's truth and what's fiction, the company's QX100 and QX10 smartphone-attachable lens-style cameras are officially here.

It's no secret that Sony will soon be announcing its new QX10 and QX100 lens cameras, which can be paired with Sony smartphones to form a serious -- and seriously flexible -- compact camera. A large set of product photos leaked yesterday, and now a promotion video of the lens cameras has leaked as well.

The video above is a short 1:39 ad that offers a peek at how the novel lenses will work and what features they'll pack.

One of the two Canon Speedlite flashes above is fake. Can you tell which one?

About a month ago I walked into the Canon Quick Repair Centre in Shanghai. I had a minor problem with a Canon 580 EX II: the high-speed sync refused to work.

Enfojer is a new darkroom kit that mixes age-old analog photography processes with digital smartphone photography. It's a simple and portable photographic enlarger that's designed specifically to turn your smartphone photographs into physical prints created with chemicals.

It looks like Sony isn't the only company interested in attaching some external camera hardware to your smartphone. According to a recent announcement, Chinese electronics company OPPO is making its own attachable lens cameras.

Less than 24 hours before we're supposed to officially hear from Sony about the company's upcoming SmartShot lens cameras, a whole set of press images showing both models from every angle have leaked online.

It looks like we don't have much longer to wait until the QX10 and QX100 Sony 'lens cameras' actually make their official debut. And just in time for the rumored announcement on Tuesday, we've got ourselves some more specs and photos of the groundbreaking system to share with you.

When I first heard of the CamRanger in October of 2012 in New York City at PhotoPlus Expo I was immediately intrigued.

I don’t actually own a laptop, so tethering to an iPad tablet has been a long awaited process with trial and error. My first experience was with the Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card; a memory card you place in your camera, the card transmits a wireless signal and supposedly you connect to that signal source, boom, you're tethered. Except it didn’t really work.

A lot of people love the "vintage look" in photography these days.

Of course, it's one thing is to capture it with the plethora of software readily available -- or by applying "vintage filters" (like the ones on Instagram) to a digital image -- and it's another thing entirely to get old technology to work for us today and create photographs just like we would have done 30, 40 or even 100 years ago.

The most recent camera announcement news and rumors have come mainly out of the Sony camp, but it looks like Nikon has a couple of new cameras up its sleeve as well, including a new D610 that will finally put to rest the D600's sensor speck issue by replacing the camera all together.

When Nikon released its D800E and D7100, people were surprised to learn that these models did without the optical low-pass filter (AKA the anti-aliasing filter). The resulting images from these cameras were sharper, but more easily fell pray to moire patterns in certain situations -- in other words, it was a tradeoff.

But Nikon would like you to have your cake and eat it too, at least according to a recent patent the company filed with the Japanese Patent Office.

The 3D camera movement never really took off like some people hoped that it would, but that doesn't mean 3D doesn't have its merits. Many people still love the idea of capturing photos or videos in 3D, but they're not necessarily willing to buy/carry around a camera dedicated solely to that purpose.

The Kúla Deeper side-steps this problem. It's not a 3D camera in and of itself, but a DSLR add-on that enables your existing camera to capture 3D one second and 2D the next.

You remember that one time when you wanted to put four of your 16:9 aspect ratio wide-screen TVs side by side and watch the game in super-panorama? Yeah, neither do we. But apparently Panasonic does, considering the 64:9 ultra-wide camera system the company has developed.

After weeks of speculation and leaks, Sony has seen fit to officially announce both its Alpha 3000 DSLR-style E-Mount camera as well as the rumored NEX-5T and three new E-Mount lenses. For details on the first of those, click here. As for the NEX-5T and the new lenses, it looks like the rumors were spot on.

In addition to a few rumored specs that have been thrown around, we've actually seen pictures of the new Sony Alpha 3000 camera taken both in the studio and out in the real world. But tonight the rumored camera became an official announcement when Sony unveiled the DSLR-style E-Mount camera to the world.

Are ordinary macro lens attachments for your smartphone not enough for you? Want to zoom in closer? 22-year-old mechanical engineer Thomas Larson has just the lens for you. It's called the Micro Phone Lens, and is a tiny little attachment that instantly lets you focus on and capture very small subjects.

As Canon has begun focusing more adamantly on making its DSLRs capable video capture machines, the company has had to adjust its glass to match. The new Dual Pixel AF on the 70D is a great improvement (check out these videos if you doubt that) but if you're planning on shooting video using the autofocus, you'll probably get to the point where you have to choose between buying a USM lens and an STM lens.

When that time comes, the video above by YouTube user marconilanna should make that choice a little easier by showing you the differences -- in both noise and speed -- between one of Canon's STM lenses and a few older USMs.

Well, if you had any doubts that Sony is on the cusp of releasing a new DSLR-style E-Mount camera, they should be long gone by now. Yesterday we shared a leaked product photo of the Alpha 3000 (or ILC-3000), and today we have a couple of photos of one being used in the wild.

Here's a quirky product in case you're spending your Saturday online shopping for things you don't exactly need but might not mind owning. It's called the MeCam, and it's a wearable clip camera that can shoot 720p video and take 5MP photos during the day and night.

Over the last couple of weeks we've mentioned more than once that Sony has a lot of releases coming up, and as those releases draw near, inevitable photo and spec leaks also spring up. Yesterday it was the upcoming NEX-5T and a few new E-Mount lenses, and today it's the first photo of the upcoming Alpha 3000 (sometimes referred to as the ILC-3000).

Sony is primed to announce quite a few new products in the coming months. Some of the more exciting rumored products include the groundbreaking Lens Cameras and the NEX full frame mirrorless camera everyone has been salivating over.

The photos that leaked earlier today, however, don't show either of those. Instead we get a peek at three upcoming lenses and an updated NEX-5 series camera.

It seems the retro design movement has finally begun to infiltrate something other than the mirrorless market. In a move that makes its Instax line of instant cameras look a lot more like the X-Series line, Fujifilm has just announced the retro-styled Instax Mini 90 seen above.

Last night was packed full of announcements from Canon, as the Japanese company saw fit to announce four new point-and-shoots (including a new flagship), update the PowerShot N and release a new lens in one fell swoop.

There's a new compact camera on the block, only this one isn't made by Sony or Samsung or Nikon or any of the other brands you might expect to see scrawled across the front of the device. No, this one is made by a little-known Swedish lifestyle company called theQ, and its all-new theQ Camera comes touting the self-assigned title of "world's first social camera."

A month ago, we heard some rumors that Fujifilm was working on an entry-level X-Series camera for those of us who didn't want to spend on the X-M1 but wanted something better than the X100. Details were (and to some degree still are) a bit thin, but now we have what seems to be the first leaked photo of the upcoming mirrorless camera.

Back in 1948, The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers defined high-speed photography as any 3 frames or more captured at a rate at or above 128 frames per second, but even back then high-speed cameras performed well past that mark.

The public domain video above gives us a short peek at how far high-speed photography tech had advanced by the mid-1960s, when Wollensak's Fastax models were some of the foremost high-speed cameras on the market, capturing action at speeds of up to 18,000fps.

It's the newly released Olympus E-P5 PEN. A 16.1MP Micro Four Thirds retro-styled pocket shooter capable of 9FPS. But will it raise your heartbeat to 100BPM? Let's find out.

Last week, we reported on a rumor that Canon has been investing heavily in a major European medium format camera manufacturer. Some believe the company to be Phase One.

Now, murmurings of Canon's involvement in the medium format space are heating up. The latest word is that Canon may be planning to launch a digital medium format system of its own by the end of 2014.

The world of photography is awash with gear and accessories for an eager public. But not every invention is worthy of merit as seen by this glorious collection of “WTF were they thinking?”.

French smartphone device startup SmartMobilAccessoire is working on a new product called the Biiwatch. It's a watch-like device that's worn around the wrist, but instead telling you the time, it's designed to let you tell your smartphone when to snap a photo.

The idea of fitting electronics into a film SLR in order to capture digital photos with it is not new. The thing is, most of the ideas we've shared ranged from April Fools jokes to promising concepts that never seem to advance beyond that.

The DigiPod is the first product we've seen actually become a reality. It's a digital cartridge that fits inside your old film SLR, and if it makes it to market, it could be quite groundbreaking.

Earlier this week, we got a close look at how Sony's upcoming "lens cameras" will look, thanks to a set of leaked press photos, and now we have a better idea of how they'll work, thanks to some leaked owner's manual pages.

We were introduced to the “Ghetto-Flo” lights after reading the excellent blog of New York-based photographer Brad Trent. He had mounted 4 standard workshop fluorescent light fixtures into light-stand mountable strip lights. “Ghetto-Flo” because they're similar in use to the much more expensive Kino-Flo lights, though there are advantages to the later (variable power and output).