Photography Life provides various digital photography reviews, articles, tips, tutorials and guides to photographers of all levels
Although the megapixel race has been going on since digital cameras had been invented, the last few years in particular have seen a huge increase […]
Let me first be clear. Anyone who knows me well would tell you I’m not a materialist and money is not my primary aspiration. I […]
Just as the market is once again graced with higher resolution cameras, so too is the Internet awash with salivating consumers desperate to lap them […]
Having spent quite a bit of time talking to many other photographers, one of the discussions that comes up every once in a while has […]
A comprehensive review of the Canon 7D Mark II DSLR with image samples, detailed analysis and comparisons to other cameras by Nasim Mansurov
When dealing with slow shutter speeds, a solid tripod is a must-have tool for eliminating camera shake and capturing sharp photographs. Although setting up a […]
When I submitted my photos of Acadia National Park as a guest submission on Photography Life, I was amazed at the response, especially on the fact that the majority of photos were shot using a Nikon F100 with Fuji Velvia 50. Nasim contacted me to do an article on film considerations for landscape photography as a follow up. So this is my stab at it.
Sony is very, very serious about the full-frame mirrorless cameras and would seem they plans no break for the competition. The Japanese giant has just announced a replacement for the first and (currently) cheapest full-frame compact system camera, the A7. Dubbed the A7 II, it brings, more than anything, refinement to what is essentially the same core feature set. Mind you, so far it has only been announced in Japan. It is still interesting to see where the manufacturer is going with all the full-frame offerings.
I will be honest, I am not a fan of Adobe as a company. I never liked their business model: their practice of gobbling up competition (sometimes out of fear), their Creative Cloud extortion and their sleazy management that only cares about their next quarter revenues. But most of all, I never liked Adobe’s poor software development practices. In my past tech life, Adobe products were always a big pain due to numerous security holes and huge, frequent updates. In fact, Adobe has been notoriously bad with releasing poorly tested software with too many security holes. In 2011, Adobe dominated Kaspersky Lab’s top ten PC vulnerabilities list, with “extremely critical” security vulnerabilities that allowed attackers to gain access to computer systems and execute arbitrary code. These security vulnerabilities spanned several Adobe products, which most PCs had at the time and even today: Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash Player. No wonder Apple did not want to support flash in its iOS (which thankfully resulted in the slow demise of the Adobe Flash), since Flash was a very badly written, resource intensive platform to begin with. Although Steve Jobs mostly blamed Adobe Flash for being a PC-era platform, two of the biggest reasons why Flash support was excluded from iOS were in fact related to security and stability concerns.
If you have been waiting for Adobe to release full RAW support for the new Nikon D750 (see our detailed Nikon D750 review), for the new Canon 7D Mark II (see our first impressions preview), or for a number of other new cameras from Fuji, Leica, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, Samsung and Sony, you will be happy to know that Adobe has just delivered the final production version of Lightroom 5.7 and Camera RAW 8.7 that not only provide the RAW support, but also come with a huge list of newly supported lenses. Along with these updates, Adobe also delivered some updates to the Synced Collections in Lightroom, integrated a utility to import images from Apple Aperture and Apple iPhoto Libraries, enabled support for HiDPI displays in ACR 8.7 and provided a number of bug fixes for both Lightroom and ACR. For those who like to shoot tethered, both the Nikon D4s and the D810 are now fully supported. Another huge news is for Nikon D810 owners – the color profiles have now been finally fixed, so you will not see any banding issues when using Nikon camera profiles anymore!
If you have been checking our site during the past week, you’ve probably noticed that we had a few outages and changes. We have been working hard on migrating the site to a new hosting platform, so we decided to make a few changes while at it. The first major change is security – the site is now fully secured through 2048 bit SSL encryption! If you look at the URL, you will notice that it now starts with “https://”, whether you are looking at an article, or logged into the site with your account. We want to encourage our readers to register and participate in our forums and articles, so we want to make sure that your information is protected. In addition, we want to host a few contests (more on this later) and we want to be prepared!
When I first received the box with my Feisol Tournament Tripod and CB-50D head, it was unbelievably light. I almost wondered if they forgot something in the shipment. When I opened the box I found a very nice looking carbon fiber tripod and ballhead, but how would this super light combo perform in the field? In this review, I will be going over my personal experience with the Feisol system and compare it to my Manfrotto setup that I have been using for several years.
Many have been hoping Nikon would start a rebates program on lenses alone. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened yet, but don’t run off. If you look past it, you will notice some truly staggering rebates taking place. To start with, Nikon D610 price is down to $1600. Look closer and you will notice that the camera comes with a handful of gifts, too – worth over $140, no less. And there’s the 2% rewards program, too. Oh, and free Expedited shipping. A good time to buy a full-frame Nikon camera, then, but even better if you need a lens to go with it as some of the best Nikkor lenses are now up to $400 off the original price, whilst certain cameras coupled to kit lenses add up to savings of up to $800.
As the maximum temperatures slowly drop below 40 F (6 C), the ephemeral autumn silently gives way to a long winter in New England; but not before weaving its colorful magic yet again. This year, I was fortunate to witness this magic from up close during a weekend camping trip in Acadia National Park in Maine. Colors in Acadia usually peak around mid-October, which roughly coincided with my trip and I found the foliage in good shape: either peaking or just past peak. Moreover, the forecast called for cloudy skies and occasional rain with breaks both in morning and evenings, which meant I can photograph all day: golden light at the fringes and soft, overcast light in between. My equipment was a Nikon D610 and a Nikon F100 (loaded with Velvia 50) along with the a host of Nikkor lenses (with polarizers): Nikon 24mm f/2.8 AI, Nikon 24-120 f/4G VR, Nikon 18-35mm, Nikon 50mm f/1.2 AIs, Nikon 85mm f/1.8G and Nikon 70-200mm f/4G VR.
Horse Polo is normally played on a field that is nine times the size of an American Football field, making it a very challenging sport to photograph. A smaller version of the game, Arena Polo, is played on a field that is slightly smaller than a Football field. For purposes of this article, I will mostly discuss the large field version of Polo.
As a dedicated sports photographer, I look forward every year to fall. The American school year starts, plus horse polo season is just around the corner. So you can imagine my reaction when my wife announced that we would be taking a month long vacation in September; my heart damn near stopped. I looked sadly at my new D810, with the attached 70-200mm f/2.8G forlornly staring back at me. Football, Golf, Swimming and Volleyball seasons were just starting, and I would not be there. Instead I would be at the beach for the next month, with nary a chance to photograph any sports. So I packed up the D810, the D800E (with an attached 24-120 f/4), threw a 50 f/1.8 in the bag for good measure, grabbed a tripod, some memory cards, etc., and off to the beach we went. A felt like a fish out of water (or, since we would be at the beach, a bear chained to a stake). Just what would I take pictures of?