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Zeiss Loxia 50mm f/2 Review

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Zeiss created the new Loxia line specifically for Sony, adding high-quality manual focus primes to the growing list of native lenses for the Sony FE mount. With the Zeiss Loxia 35mm f/2 targeted for everyday use, the Loxia 50mm f/2 is a bit more specialized for such needs as portraiture, street, travel and landscape photography. Although Sony already had the excellent Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 from the beginning, the Loxia 50mm f/2 nicely fills the 50mm gap. And just like its 35mm f/2 counterpart, the Loxia 50mm f/2 is superb in its quality and build, designed to be similar to other traditional Zeiss lenses, with manual aperture control and a very compact size. This review is based on my 3 month shooting experience with both Loxia lenses on a variety of different Sony A7-series cameras.

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Oben CC-2361L Tripod Review: A Cure for My ‘Tripodiphobia’

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By 11 Comments

Recently during the filming of a safety video project for a client I needed to capture some video footage looking straight down on a machine in operation. In order to film the required footage I used one of my existing tripods, which can be configured in a non-adjustable, lateral position. It occurred to me as I was fiddling around with this existing tripod that it would have been much easier to get the required video footage if I had a tripod with a range of lateral movement, rather than just one lateral position at 90-degrees. Since I’ve been pleased thus far with my other Oben tripod (CC-2491), I decided to give the Oben CC-2361L lateral tripod a try since it met my key shooting criteria for tripods.

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LG G4 Camera Review

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A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article titled “Mystery Camera – Can You Guess What It is?“, where I posted some images without any embedded EXIF data. Along with the images, I provided a couple of clues about the camera to see if our readers would be able to figure it out. Although some of our readers did guess that the images were captured by a camera phone and some even correctly guessed the specific model, most answers varied greatly from the Canon 5DS to the newly announced Sony A7R II. It was a great exercise to showcase just how good modern smartphones have gotten and the fact that most people have a hard time differentiating images between small sensor cameras and expensive large sensor cameras when web-sized images are posted on the Internet. This again reiterates the point that one does not need a high-end camera if all they do is output to the web. But that’s not the subject of today’s review. Instead, I will be talking about the new LG G4 Android phone, which AT&T kindly sent me for a review.

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Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Review

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This is an in-depth review of the Tamron SP 15-30mm f/2.8 Di VC USD, world’s first f/2.8 image stabilized ultra-wide angle zoom lens for full frame cameras, the development of which was announced in September of 2014, with the lens officially released in January of 2015. It is a very unique lens not just because of its very useful focal length range with a constant aperture of f/2.8 throughout the zoom range, but because it features image stabilization – something you practically never find on ultra-wide angle lenses. For many years now, I have been shooting with the Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G lens, which is a monster of a lens when it comes to size, weight and performance – it truly is a legendary lens optically. But with its $2K price it is far from being an affordable choice, so Tamron decided to challenge the 14-24mm with the 15-30mm f/2.8 VC in a number of ways: longer focal length coverage extending to 30mm, built-in image stabilization and a more affordable price point of $1,200.

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Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery Review

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One of the worst feelings as a photographer is to realize that you have accidentally deleted one of your photos, and you have no way to recover it. Most photographers have horror stories about such situations — I once nearly lost all my photos from a trip to San Francisco — but it is often possible to recover deleted photos using special software. One such software is Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery, which claims to be able to recover images from memory cards or hard drives, even after reformatting the drive or deleting an image.

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Venus Optics KX800 Macro Flash Review

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Macro photographers tend to struggle with two crucial variables when lighting their subjects. First, high-magnification macro photography usually involves apertures between f/16 and f/32. To use an aperture this small, you need a high-powered flash — especially if you want to use a diffuser. The second major issue is that many macro photographers work with just one on-camera flash, meaning that the lighting can appear flat and dull, even when diffused. So, when Venus Optics announced their alien-looking KX800 dual flash, I was excited to see that they had put considerable effort into solving these two major problems.

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Sony A7R Review

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Sony unleashed the Sony A7 and the A7R in October of 2013. With the Sony A7 aimed for general use sporting a 24 MP sensor and hybrid autofocus, the A7R differs primarily with its 36 MP sensor, therefore making the A7R more suitable for specific types of photography that need high resolution such as landscape, architecture, studio and product photography. I had an opportunity to test both cameras in 2014, however, I did not have a chance to write detailed reviews for a number of different reasons. Hence, this is more of a catch-up type of a review showcasing some images from my recent trips, along with the usual analysis.

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Zeiss Loxia 35mm f/2 Review

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Zeiss has been pretty active lately, releasing a number of solid and much needed prime lenses for the Sony FE mount. The first Loxia line is comprised of two manual focus lenses, the Zeiss Loxia 35mm f/2 and Loxia 50mm f/2 and the second Batis line is even more exciting, with the Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 and Batis 85mm f/1.8 lenses, with full autofocus capabilities. While both lines of lenses are superb in quality and build, the Loxia line is designed to be similar to other traditional Zeiss lenses, with manual aperture control and compact size. I had the pleasure of shooting with both Loxia lenses for the past few months using a number of different Sony A7 cameras and I decided to start off my reviews with the 35mm f/2 lens, which I happened to use a bit more than the 50mm f/2 due to the type of photography I have been primarily engaged in.

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Polsen ULW-16 Wireless Microphone System Review

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If you’re an enthusiastic still photographer who’s started to dabble with video a bit, you’ve likely run into issues with fine visual footage, but substandard audio. Crappy audio can ruin the viewer’s experience every bit as quick as lousy visuals. It soon becomes apparent that your camera’s built-in microphone records not just your subject, but also the camera’s noises (focus motors, VR, heavy-breathing operator) as well as the nearby highway, airport, dragstrip, playground or pig farm. The first step taken usually involves buying a hot shoe-mounted directional mike, AKA shotgun mike. This is great for emphasizing the sound coming from the direction the camera is pointed, but it gets not just the subject speaking or softly purring, but also the jackhammers in the construction site across the street behind your subject. It is a poor choice if you want to record dialogue. For recording talking subjects, the next step is to add a lavalier microphone system. A lavalier microphone, AKA lav, AKA lapel mic, is a tiny microphone that clips to the user’s lapel, collar, or ZZ Top beard. It is very sensitive to sound coming from very close to the microphone and not to sounds further away. Therefore it is ideal for recording the wearer’s words without too much interference from background noise.

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