Photography Life

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 […]

The Promise Of Exposure

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 […]

Resolving To Resist Resolution

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 […]

Camera Modulara: The Perfect Camera That Does Not (Yet) Exist

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 […]

Canon 7D Mark II Review

A comprehensive review of the Canon 7D Mark II DSLR with image samples, detailed analysis and comparisons to other cameras by Nasim Mansurov

How to Use a Tripod

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 […]

Nikon Offers to Fix the Flare Shading Issue on the D750

January 9, 2015 By Nasim Mansurov37 Comments

Back in December of last year, we reported the Nikon D750 Flare Shading Issue that occurs on some D750 camera bodies and talked about the cause of the problem. Although we found the issue to be insignificant due to the fact that it only occurs at a particular angle when pointing at a very bright light source, and showed that other cameras can also be potentially prone to the same issue, some of our readers expressed their disappointment and wanted Nkon to address this issue. If you own a Nikon D750 that is affected with this problem and it has been bothering you, Nikon USA today issued an official statement, in which the company announced that it will inspect and service all affected Nikon D750 cameras at no charge starting from the end of January, 2015.

[Read more…]

DSLRs To Catch-Up With Smartphones?

January 9, 2015 By Bob Vishneski89 Comments

DSLR customers have had a nagging sense that manufacturers were far more interested in having them upgrade their cameras than providing additional capabilities to the customers that already purchased DSLRs. Back in the days of mechanical film cameras, it would have been a challenge for OEMs to deliver upgraded capabilities to existing customers. Customers would have had to bring their equipment into a local shop or send it to the camera manufacturer to be retrofitted with new capabilities – a prospect not very practical or financially attractive for manufacturers or customers. In a digital world, however, enhancing just about any product has become a simple software download and installation process. Thus the idea that any digital product (particularly a sophisticated and expensive one) should remain relatively static over its lifetime has become obsolete. It appears that Nikon may be ready to acknowledge and address this growing concern.

[Read more…]

What is Crop Factor?

January 8, 2015 By Nasim Mansurov82 Comments

Whether you are just getting into photography or have been shooting for a while, you have probably heard the term “crop factor”. With so many different cameras and camera systems available today, this particular term comes up very often in product specifications, marketing materials, articles, books and you might even hear it in conversations between photographers. If you do not know what it really means or want to get a better understanding of crop factor, this article will hopefully make it easier for you to understand it better. Please keep in mind that this article was written for beginners, so many of the terms and explanations are over-simplified.

[Read more…]

Preparing for a Safari Trip to Africa

January 7, 2015 By Guest Poster79 Comments

In September of 2014, my wife and I had the great fortune to take the trip of a lifetime to South Africa, Botswana and Zambia. The trip was more than a year in the planning which gave me the chance to think about what camera equipment I wanted to take along. Our itinerary was not one of the ones designed specifically for photographers however I had no doubt we would have plenty of opportunity to take pictures!

[Read more…]

Nikon 300mm f/4E PF ED VR Image Samples

January 6, 2015 By Nasim Mansurov63 Comments

If you are wondering how the new Nikon 300mm f/4E PF ED VR lens renders images, take a look at the below high-resolution image samples captured by Robert Bösch and Drew Gurian. To open these images in high resolution, please right click and save them to your computer, or open them up individually in new windows (clicking on the image will show them in low resolution). As I find more high resolution images from this lens, I will post more in this article.

[Read more…]

Nikon D5500 Announcement

January 6, 2015 By Nasim Mansurov78 Comments

Along with the exciting Nikkor 300mm f/4E PF ED VR, Nikon also announced a boring entry-level camera. After skipping the D5400 for no reason (Nikon marketing at its best), the D5500 was revealed at the CES with very similar specs as the D5300, except it gains a touchscreen and drops the GPS module. Same resolution, same processor, same fps, WiFi, same menu and features for the most part, except for slightly different design that resulted in a smaller and lighter camera. It seems like Nikon has no clue what else to add to the D5x00 line to make it more interesting and this release is one of those “announce to announce” series, yet another camera to add to the camera pollution just to keep the line fresh. Instead of doing something innovative (mirrorless design, EVF, focus peaking, electronic shutter, etc), Nikon adds a pointless touchscreen feature and gets rid of the far more important GPS component. With all this, Nikon increases the price of the D5500 by $100, pushing it towards $900 MSRP.

[Read more…]

Fujifilm XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R Lens Announcement

January 6, 2015 By Romanas Naryškin6 Comments

Fujinon XF 16-55mm f2.8 R LM WR Lens on X-T1

We’ve known for a while that this lens was coming thanks to Fujifilm’s most recent lens roadmap. Some details were still under a question mark, though, and with the official announcement we finally know everything about the most recent – and one of the most expensive – Fujinon lens for X-mount mirrorless cameras, the XF 16-55mm f/2.8 R LM WR.

[Read more…]

Nikon 300mm f/4E PF ED VR Announcement

January 5, 2015 By Nasim Mansurov93 Comments

Nikon has just announced a couple of new products during the Consumer Electronics Show 2015, among which is a lens that many of us have been waiting for a long time. I will start the coverage with this lens, because after seeing the details of the announcement earlier today, I knew that it was something to be truly excited about. As many of our readers know, the Nikkor 300mm f/4D AF-S lens has been my favorite budget telephoto lens for many years now. It is optically superb, has amazingly fast and accurate autofocus, works really well with 1.4x and now even with 1.7x teleconverters (with the new generation Nikon DSLRs like D750), it is compact, lightweight and priced just right. In short, it is a lens with amazing value for many wildlife and sports photographers. Despite all these strengths, the lens has not been updated for 15 years and it lacks image stabilization. Although rumors about an update have been circulating on the Internet for a few years now, it has not seen the light of the day, until today. The all-new Nikkor 300mm f/4E PF ED VR is not just an update though, it is a completely different lens.

[Read more…]

Oben CT-3481 Tripod Kit Review

January 4, 2015 By John Sherman7 Comments

Face it – tripods aren’t as sexy as lenses or camera bodies and shelling out a bunch of dough on a tripod just isn’t that satisfying. After selling my left kidney to pay for my Really Right Stuff tripod to support my super-telephoto wildlife lenses, I wasn’t real eager to cough up ~$900 to get a Gitzo Traveler for my landscape work. But I wanted a lightweight compact tripod I could take on hikes. A tripod that would fit inside my daypack, weighed under 4 pounds and had a working height that on level ground would let me (6’2”) work at eye level when I wanted. Enter the Oben CT-3481 4-section Carbon fiber Folding Tripod and BE-126T ball head. It’s a 3.9 pound, full-featured tripod that folds to 19 inches long and has a working height of 68 inches. As well, it has plenty of adjustments to allow you to work low to the ground or on uneven terrain.

[Read more…]

Quick and Simple: Post-Process Using Layer Blending

January 2, 2015 By Romanas Naryškin20 Comments

Layer Blending With Photoshop_Soft Light Blending Mode

Adobe Photoshop is really not about speed. I can’t say it’s ever been – even back when I was using the then-current version 5 (and the more capable 5.5), it was packed full of features and required not only lots of time to even begin to master, but to use for the simple things, too. Not to say it’s slow to work with, exactly, but if you want to accomplish your task quickly without any excuses, Lightroom is perhaps more suitable. It certainly ought to be. Yet if you work slowly and methodically, if you spend not minutes, but hours and even days post-processing a single image or a series, that is what Adobe’s heavyweight is most suitable for. Not for the sort of work where you click a few buttons and move on, but for the patient sort, where every detail matters, where there can be no sloppiness. Simply because of its vast, enormous capability. To own Photoshop just for one or two features is, more often than not, a bit of an overkill.

[Read more…]