The cat is out of the bag. As rumors foretold, Canon will indeed be announcing its first full-frame mirrorless camera and 7 different new lenses next week on September 5th. Canon Rumors and Nokishita have both published the full list of gear that will be unveiled on that day. Canon has been keeping this camera announcement as an extremely closely guarded secret that was largely under wraps up to this point. The big announcement that photographers will be keen to learn about is Canon’s new R full-frame mirrorless camera and the ecosystem that will be launched around it. The R body will be sold both by itself and with a 24-105mm f/4L kit lens with the company’s new RF mount In addition to the 24-105mm f/4L lens, Canon will also be announcing three other RF-mount lenses: an RF 35mm f/1.8 M IS, RF 50mm f/1.2L, and RF 28-70mm f/2. Canon will also be announcing a new BG-E22 battery grip, an EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens, and two EF super-telephoto lenses: the EF 400mm f/2.8L IS III and the EF 600mm f/4L IS III. It’s still unclear how the new mirrorless camera will support EF lenses, but there are rumors that Canon has created some kind of special lens mount system that will allow the entire range of EF lenses to be mounted. If not, we may also see a separate adapter announced on the 5th as well. Canon Rumors is also hearing that pre-orders for the new Canon R equipment won’t begin immediately at the announcement. The official announcement is only days away now, so we’ll find out the full details soon enough. Stay tuned. from https://petapixel.com/2018/08/31/canon-r-full-frame-mirrorless-camera-and-7-lenses-coming-sep-5th/
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Tamron has announced the new SP 15-30mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 full-frame lens for Canon and Nikon DSLRs, four years after the first generation version of the lens became the first ultra-wide f/2.8 zoom to offer stabilization. The moisture-resistant lens features an XGM (eXpanded Glass Molded Aspherical) and multiple LD (Low Dispersion) lens elements to greatly reduce the distortion and lateral chromatic aberrations often seen in wide-angle photos. The front of the lens features a new AX (Anti-reflection eXpand) Coating that reduces ghosting and flare. There’s also a Fluorine Coating that provides water- and oil-repellent properties. Inside, the lens features a built-in Dual MPU (Micro-Processing Unit) for greatly faster autofocus performance and precision. And like its predecessor, this new lens offers image stabilization (4.5 stops). Full-time Manual Focus override in the lens allows you to make manual focus adjustments at any time. The Canon EF version of the lens also includes a rear filter holder that supports gelatin and other sheet filters. “This makes photography using filters much easier and simpler by overcoming the problem of the curvature of the front lens elements that made shooting with filters so difficult in the past,” Tamron says. As with Tamron’s other new lenses, this new lens is compatible with the company’s TAP-in Console for making firmware updates and fine focus adjustments via USB using your own computer. Here are some official sample photos captured with the new 15-30mm G2: The Tamron SP 15-30mm F/2.8 Di VC USD G2 will be available for Nikon F on September 21st and for Canon EF on October 12th. Both versions will cost $1,299. from https://petapixel.com/2018/08/31/tamron-unveils-the-15-30mm-f-2-8-vc-g2-for-canon-ef-and-nikon-f/ After Erin Wotherspoon and Steve Markle got engaged recently, Steve had the idea of getting creative with their engagement photos by making them 1970s-themed (an era he’s obsessed with). HuffPost reports that the enlisted the help of photographer Robyn S. Russell for the photo shoot held at the couple’s home in the Parkdale neighborhood of Toronto, Canada. The home was already perfect for the shoot thanks to its 70s-style elements, and the couple found their outfits from a TV and film wardrobe rental business. You can find more of Russell’s work on her website, Facebook, and Instagram. Image credits: Photographs by Robyn S. Russell and used with permission from https://petapixel.com/2018/08/31/this-couple-shot-70s-themed-engagement-photos/ Sony has announced the HX99 and HX95, the world’s smallest compact cameras that feature 720mm (35mm equivalent) reach on the telephoto end. Both pint-sized cameras feature 18-megapixel 1/2.3-inch Exmor CMOS sensors with a maximum ISO of 6400 backed by upgraded BIONZ X processors that enable 10fps continuous shooting (and a buffer limit of 155 shots). Autofocus speed is a zippy 0.09 seconds. On the front of the cameras is a Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-720mm (35mm equiv.) 30x zoom lens that’s image stabilized with Optical SteadyShot technology. Zoom Assist allows photographers to zoom out temporarily to view a wider scene while shooting on the telephoto end. The cameras may be compact while powered off, but when you’re shooting at the telephoto end of things, the lens extends quite a bit from the body. In the area of video, both cameras can shoot 4K with full pixel readout and no pixel binning. There’s also HD video recording at up to 100fps for slow motion. The back of both cameras features a 180-degree tiltable LCD screen for vlogging and selfies. Other shared features between the two cameras include a pop-up OLED Tru-Finder electronic viewfinder, a pop-up flash, Eye AF, RAW images, and Bluetooth connectivity. There are a few differences between the two cameras as well (of course). The slightly-more-expensive HX99 has a touchscreen that allows for Touch Focus and Touch Shutter functions. You’ll also be able to use the Touch Pad for smooth focus point shifting as you’re looking through the EVF. The Control Ring on the HX99 can be customized to control things like manual focus and step zooming. The new Sony Cyber-shot HX99 and HX95 will begin shipping in Europe in October 2018 with price tags of €520 and €500. Pricing and availability in the United States have yet to be announced. from https://petapixel.com/2018/08/31/sony-hx99-hx95-worlds-smallest-compact-cameras-with-720mm-reach/ A volunteer at a rally for President Donald Trump reached out his arm last night to block a photojournalistâs camera as he tried to photograph a protester. Another photographer caught the move on camera, and today that photo-blocking volunteer has unintentionally become a viral news story. This curious case of the Streisand effect â in which an attempt to censor something makes it publicized much more widely â is courtesy Evan Vucci, the Associated Pressâ Chief Photographer in Washington. Vucci was at the campaign rally in Indiana when a protester disrupted the event. He then spotted and photographed the advance team volunteer attempting to prevent the photo by sticking his hand in front of the DSLRâs lens. âA volunteer member of the advance team for #president #donaldtrump blocks the lens of a photographer trying to take a photo of a demonstrator during a #campaign rally in #evansville #indiana,â Vucci wrote in the caption.
Interestingly (and ironically) enough, Trump had strong words about censorship during the same rally. âThereâs a thing called free speech rights,â Mr. Trump said at the rally. âIâve made it clear that we as a country cannot tolerate political censorship, blacklisting, and rigged search results.â
Itâs unclear whether the photo block was successful, but the volunteerâs attempt at suppressing news of the protester has backfired: the photo of him blocking the lens has gone viral today and is being published by major media outlets both in the United States and internationally. from https://petapixel.com/2018/08/31/trump-volunteer-blocks-photographers-camera-plan-backfires/ How literally should you interpret a histogram? Where do the lines intersect between artistic expression and photographic technicalities? It’s important to first recognize that a histogram is nothing more than a mathematical representation. A histogram doesn’t grasp the concept of what looks good versus what looks bad and it certainly doesn’t equate your artistic vision into its calculations either. It wasn’t until I became fully aware of how a histogram operates that I was able to determine where my own artistic expression overcomes the technical side of photography. If you look up the definition of histogram you’ll discover this: “A graphical representation of the tonal values of an image.” With that said, I see two use cases for the histogram: as an in-camera exposure guide and a reference tool used during post-processing. In camera, I use this as a means to quickly determine “acceptable” exposure and to ensure that I’m not losing any detail in the highlights or shadows of my image. When it comes to post-processing images in Lightroom, you’ll notice a combination of the luminance (grey) and RGB histogram. This might look intimidating at first, but once you spend some time with it, you’ll quickly become comfortable with the information it provides. Along the X-axis, moving from left to right, you have black tones, shadows, mid-tones, highlights and whites..simple as that! I find the most useful histogram feature in Lightroom to be the clipping indicators that allow you to easily identify areas of your image that have clipped or “blown out” highlights or shadows. In order to see this use the shortcut key (J) to toggle the indicators on and off. Clipped highlights are displayed in red and clipped shadows are visible in blue. Below is the final image after some additional edits and resolving the clipped areas, notice the difference in the before and after histogram. So where does this leave us? Once you’re comfortable with how to translate a histogram and understand how to use the resulting information during post-processing, it becomes easier to discern between your artistic vision and the exposure technicalities. The below example illustrates this point well. This is a RAW file from a recent backpacking trip where I envisioned a dark, subdued image with a moody edge to it, as you can see it’s quite underexposed with a large amount of shadow clipping which I was able to correct. If I hold down ‘Shift’ and double click ‘Exposure’, Lightroom indicates that according to the histogram this image requires over 3.5 additional stops of exposure in order to “properly” expose the photo — below is the result. This is obviously not what I envisioned the end result to appear like. Below is the final edit I landed on that closely aligns with my original artistic vision for the scene. If you were to look only at the histogram, you could easily draw the conclusion that this photo was underexposed, but in reality, it’s exactly how I envisioned the end result — I love it! I believe we all have similar images and situations as this in our portfolios where the photo may not be “technically” sound, but it matches the output in our minds and at the end of the day, that’s really all that truly matters. P.S. If you enjoyed this video and article, you can find more by subscribing to my YouTube channel. About the author: Mark Denney is a landscape photographer based in North Carolina. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of his work on his website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. from https://petapixel.com/2018/08/31/histogram-or-artistic-expression-what-matters-most/ Polaroid has announced the new Polaroid Mint 2-in-1 instant digital camera and printer, one of the company’s “newest innovations in photo printing.” “The Polaroid Mint camera makes it easier than ever to capture and print instant photos that last a lifetime,” Polaroid says. “With its sleek, vertical design, the Polaroid Mint camera instantly prints vibrant, high-quality photos.” The device features a 16-megapixel digital camera for snapping memories of your everyday life. Photos are stored through a MicroSD card slot that supports up to 256GB of storage. Other features of the camera include an automatic LED flash, an integrated selfie mirror on the front, and a self-timer. When you’d like to print a photo, simply choose a look (color, black and white, or sepia), add a frame if you’d like, and press the shutter button to have the instant camera create a physical ZINK print. The Polaroid Mint 2-in-1 Instant Digital Camera and Printer is available in black, white, red, blue and yellow with a price tag of $100. Polaroid Mint Instant Digital Pocket PrinterPolaroid has also announced a new Mint pocket printer. It pairs with the Polaroid Mint smartphone (iOS and Android) app via Bluetooth and can create 2×3-inch full-color glossy photos in less than a minute. The app offers editing, filters, frames, stickers, and more. The printer has a battery life of 50 prints per charge via the USB port. The Polaroid Mint Instant Digital Pocket Printer is available in black, white, red, blue and yellow for $130. from https://petapixel.com/2018/08/31/polaroid-unveils-the-mint-2-in-1-instant-camera-and-mint-printer/ I hated every single one of my photos. My personal hero, Jimmy Chin, would have too if he could have seen them at the time. This existential crisis of Lightroom library disgust became so overwhelming that it eventually became a good reason for me to sell all of my expensive camera gear, writing a crisis post on Reddit’s /r/photography sub, and later sharing that story as an introspective rant of self-discovery on PetaPixel. Both of these posts really seemed to jive for a lot of people, garnering lots of comments on both platforms from people who could relate in their own journeys. (In hindsight, I apologize to anyone who sold all their camera gear and later had major regret over it). Maybe I wasn’t the only one who was missing something about photography. Maybe photography wasn’t actually even really just about nice cameras and fancy lenses. Considering I was making a living from photography up until that time, I felt like this self-loathing wasn’t exactly a healthy place to be in. I am an outgoing enough person, so I did enjoy working with clients to create great images. All my wedding and commercial clients at the time liked my work, even if I hated it all for not representing what I was passionate about. For all intents and purposes, I was successful as a photographer, even though I knew that I really wasn’t doing photography for the reasons I should have been. But I had turned something I loved into something I hated, and I knew it was the wrong path. I misunderstood my love of adventure photojournalism for a love of photography by itself. I naively believed that wedding photography could be a path to adventure photography. It sounds stupid when I type it out here, but at the time (as a father and partner), it really did seem like the only reasonable and viable option. I’ve always been an adventurer at heart. I grew up on a diet of jaw-dropping National Geographic photojournalism pieces. My dream was always to be one of those hardened travelers who called traveling the world, snapping photos of gorillas their day job. It is an unrealistic dream of course, but maybe I could find a way to at least become the kind of photographer I wanted to be, even if it meant I would not ever be able to do it in some professional capacity. It was time to find a way to become the most bad-ass weekend warrior on the planet. Photography, as a priority, would just have to wait. In 2012, I took a full-time job working in IT for a marketing firm in Calgary — only an hour’s drive from the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Even living this close, it was still was only possible to get out there every other weekend or less. I made up for it by starting to climb in a local climbing gym. It wasn’t much, but it was a start in the right direction. Rock climbing, even at the beginner level I was at, was clearly the part of my life I had been missing. But I knew only 4ish days per month in the mountains wasn’t going to be enough to transform me from a ghostly desk pilot into a grizzled and chiseled mountain man. I started looking for work further west in the Bow Valley to try to make a go of it living in the mountains themselves. Banff and Canmore to be precise. A desk job in IT at one of the municipalities turned up. Despite the high cost of living in the area, I took a risk and applied for, and got the job. The move into the mountains resulted in a lot of positive changes for my “adventure career”. Not only could I get outside more than 4 times per month, I also started to become a part of the local climbing community. I began meeting and partnering up with all kinds of mentors, ranging from old-time Alpinists like Barry Blanchard to modern climbing heroes like Sonnie Trotter. My climbing skill and experience began to improve in leaps and bounds. I went from a total beginner in the 5.8 range (that’s really easy for you non-climber folks) to around 5.12 (which is somewhat of an advanced amateur) in 2014, which was by far the most successful year of climbing in my career. Since I was only shooting with a cell phone at the time (my old Samsung broke), I didn’t have a lot of photos to show for all this progression. But this was ok because I was really starting love the few grainy, low-resolution photos I could snap with my Nexus 5. Those photos represented adventure, suffering, hard work, and a love of the outdoors. In the back of my mind, I knew I would someday be able to dedicate myself to photography again, but I still had to hone my skills more. I dedicated myself to intense training cycles, and outdoor adventure trips every chance I could get to keep pushing myself. Fast forward to today, and countless adventures and hours of training later. I (finally) love my photos. I’m definitely not Nat Geo or Red Bull worthy. I’m not a pro climber, or a pro adventurer, or a pro photographer, but I have finally grown into the adventurous person I’ve always wanted to be (and have still been able to be a good father in the process). I picked up a Sony Alpha a6300 this year, and slowly but surely I’ve started to add photography back into the mix. I think the biggest lesson I could have learned from my journey so far is that it’s not what you shoot with, or how much money someone pays you to shoot, but what you are shooting that matters. Focusing purely on shooting what I love the most hasn’t made me rich or famous, but it has given me the kind of personal satisfaction that I always looked for in photography. Maybe someday it could lead to a career, but that doesn’t matter, because the journey has become the best part. About the author: Jonathan Coe is a photographer, climber, and skier based in Rossland, British Columbia. He shares his mountain adventures on Instagram. from https://petapixel.com/2018/08/31/the-camera-comes-second/
Labor Day weekend is here and that means cheap deals galore. Here is a round up of the very best deals on new cameras, lenses, accessories and software. Don't miss out.
from https://www.thephoblographer.com/2018/08/31/cheap-photo-amazing-labor-day-deals-on-cameras-and-more/
The humble camera bag is often overlooked, but it's actually incredibly important, after all, you are placing thousands of dollars worth of equipment into it. You owe it to yourself to get a good canvas bag that looks good, and that you can trust.
from https://www.thephoblographer.com/2018/08/31/the-best-canvas-camera-bags-for-photographers/ |
Paul DeckerHi I Paul Decker,32 years old from Arizona,AZ,USA,working on 3D animation from the last 4 years.Here I am sharing tips about it. Archives
April 2019
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