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Photography Life provides various digital photography news, reviews, articles, tips, tutorials and guides to photographers of all levels

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iPhone 7 Plus Camera Review

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By 42 Comments

Less than a year ago, Apple introduced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus phones to the market. The iPhone 7 Plus was the first Apple phone to have a dual lens design (28mm wide-angle and 56mm telephoto equivalent), so Apple put quite a bit of emphasis on photography with this model. Although I was quite happy with my iPhone 6 Plus at the time of the announcement, I decided to upgrade to the latest version, primarily because of these camera features the phone offered. Since then, I have captured thousands of images in different environments, which not only allowed me to get a deeper understanding of the camera capabilities of the phone, but also understand its many issues and limitations. In this review, I will be going over my experience with the iPhone 7 Plus camera and discuss its pros and cons.

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Experimenting with Flower Photography at f/1.2

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Like many other photographers I enjoy letting my mind wander, seeing if it will lead me to some kind of new photographic experiment that I haven’t tried in the past. The idea of photographing flowers with a prime lens and an extension tube fell out of my old, porous brain this week. So, for a couple of mornings I grabbed one of my Nikon 1 J5s, my 1 Nikon 32mm f/1.2 prime lens (efov 86.4mm) and a 10mm Vello Deluxe extension tube, then headed out for my daily 5km early morning walk. This article shares some images created while experimenting with flower photography at f/1.2. Except for the last image in this article, all photographs are displayed as 100% captures without any cropping.

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Could the Nikon D850 Have a Hybrid Viewfinder?

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The news of Nikon developing the next generation high-resolution D850 DSLR camera have been generating a lot of buzz all over the photography community. The Nikon D810 has set such a high benchmark for a DSLR, that any thought of an upgrade is certainly getting a lot of people excited. Nikon’s promise to deliver a product that will exceed customer expectations is surely intriguing Nikon fans, and there are all kinds of talks in regards to the not-yet-revealed specifications of the camera. One of the hot topics that is surrounding the upcoming Nikon D850 is its viewfinder – people are speculating whether the camera will feature a hybrid viewfinder, something we have never previously seen on a DSLR before. If Nikon does indeed make it happen, we could see the very first DSLR with a hybrid viewfinder. Interestingly, I wrote a detailed article about how this could happen two years ago in an article titled “Transitional DSLR with EVF Capability“. Let’s revisit that article and shed a bit more light on how this might change the way DSLRs work today.

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Happy 100th Anniversary Nikon!

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It is a big day today at Nikon, since the company is celebrating its 100th year anniversary. Nippon Kogaku K.K. was founded on July 25th 1917 and the company has been making everything from consumer cameras to industrial optical equipment ever since. As part of this important day and celebration, Nikon’s president Kazuo Ushida gave an important statement that reassures the future of the company, particularly when it comes to addressing the “rapidly changing consumer needs”. With the announcement of the development of the Nikon D850, the company wants its customers to know that it is working on a next generation DSLR that will exceed their expectations. That’s a bold claim for sure, and many of us Nikon shooters cannot wait to see what Nikon is planning with the D850. There is a lot of excitement surrounding the camera and we at PL really hope to see a true D810 successor! And let’s not forget that Nikon has also promised to release a mirrorless camera, something many of us also are very excited about. For now, sit back, relax and enjoy some of the great videos Nikon put together for its 100th year anniversary.

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Nikon D850 Wishlist

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Earlier this year, I published an article with a long wishlist of features that I would like to see on the Nikon D820. Since Nikon decided to skip this model number and jump directly to D850, I figured it was time to revisit that article with more realistic goals and features many of us would be willing to upgrade our D810 DSLRs for. I think as a large community of Nikon shooters, we should do our best to reach out to Nikon directly and put in our requests, so that the company knows what its dedicated user base expects from the future generations of their cameras.

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Nikon D850 Development Announced

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Tomorrow is the 100th year anniversary of Nikon. While we have been patiently waiting for the company to announce something new for this big date, it looks like we will only be seeing a teaser in the form of the Nikon D850 “development announcement”. Unfortunately, aside from the teaser video (see below) that does not reveal much aside from the ability to shoot 4K video and 8K timelapses, no additional information is provided as part of this development announcement, which is quite unfortunate! Perhaps Nikon is still going through some changes to the camera features, or perhaps there are other reasons for not giving us any further details, but it will be a painful few months of waiting for additional details on this highly anticipated camera…

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The Death of Beautiful Rendition and 3D Pop on Modern Lenses

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With the release of high-quality modern lenses that are made to satisfy our insatiable appetite for sharpness, it seems that they also come with a curse. Unlike older classics that shone with their stunning look and feel, along with their beautiful rendition qualities that resulted in particularly attractive photographs with subjects popping out of the scene (also known as “3D pop”), it seems like modern lenses are no longer equipped to give us this magic – they are made to look flat and dull, lacking the character of the old classics. In this article, we will go through a number of different images shot with modern lenses and compare them to their classic counterparts and see how they do. Grab a cup of coffee, sit tight and put on your glasses, because you will need them. And yes, that even applies to those with 20/20 vision.

Note: Since this is a rather controversial subject, I highly recommend that you read the whole article through, especially the last paragraph.

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Composition Tip: Give Your Subjects Breathing Space

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Composition, in general, can seem like a fuzzy concept to many photographers. Trying to frame an image in a way that “works” is not something that is intuitive, even for people who have been taking pictures for years. And, unlike other aspects of photography — focusing, selecting a sharp aperture, exposing properly — composition has no correct answer. The best you can do is to create something that looks good to you, or looks good to your intended audience. Still, there are some composition tips that can help make this abstract topic a little more concrete. One of my favorites is to give your subjects their own personal, breathing space in your photos, so that they aren’t cut off or bunched up against anything else in the image.

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Why I Prefer Shooting with Nikon 1

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Before getting into this article, I’d like to state upfront that its intent is NOT to suggest that other people do what I have done in terms of choice of photographic equipment. Just because the 1″ sensor Nikon 1 system is the best choice for my specific needs does not mean it will be appropriate for other photographers. It very well may not be. I regularly get emails and calls at the office from people asking why I prefer shooting with Nikon 1 which I handle on an individual basis. Since I receive a good number of these inquiries each month, I thought I’d also respond in a public forum with this article.

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How to Calibrate Your Monitor

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Color calibration should definitely be an essential part of every photographer’s workflow. Otherwise, it is impossible to tell whether the colors that are displayed by your monitor are truly accurate and whether what you see will match the print. There are many ways to do it and the process can be fairly simple or complex, depending on how accurate you want to reproduce the colors and whether you are also printing your work in-house. The simple method involves a hardware colorimeter for color profiling your monitor for everyday photo editing and image viewing, and there is also an end-to-end professional-grade color profiling that requires very concise calibration of all display and output devices, such as printers. In this article, I will only focus on simple methods to make your monitor show more or less accurate colors, so that you could rely on it for everyday photography needs.

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