Cameras

Last Updated (19 May’13): - Review by PCMag Panasonic Lumix LX5 is the successor of the highly-rated LX-3 features 10.1 Megapixels, 3.8x optical zoom (35mm equivalent: 24-90mm) f/2.0 Leica DC Lens, Full manual control for both photos and movies, Venus Engine FHD, HD Movie recording, ISO 80-12,800, and 3.0″ TFT Screen LCD Display. The camera [...]

Last Updated (19 May’13): - Review & Sample Photos @ Photographyblog Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 is a 16.0-megapixel Live MOS Sensor Compact System Camera with Advanced Noise Reduction System. It also comes with variety of interesting features like Built-in Flash, Hotshoe, and Traditional Mode Dial including Lumix LightSpeed Focusing system and PinPoint Focusing Control. Besides it, [...]

B&H has the Panasonic Lumix GX1 body for only $249. It retailed for $699 when it was new and is a great Micro Four Thirds camera. See my Panasonic Lumix GX1 review. Check out the GX1 deal here at B&H Photo. Copyright/DMCA Notice: The RSS entry was originally published on Photography Bay and is protected by copyright laws. It is unlawful to (a) edit, modify, alter, or create derivative works of the text, content or links supplied by Photography Bay, (b) use any robot, spider, scraper, other device or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Photography Bay RSS feed, (c) sell, retransmit or commercially exploit the Photography Bay RSS feed, headlines or content in any manner except as expressly permitted in writing by authorized representatives of Photography Bay, (d) incorporate advertising into or the placement of advertising associated with or targeted towards the Photography Bay RSS feed or (e) use the Photography Bay RSS feed for any unlawful purpose or in violation of the rights of others. RSSID#794326 Related posts: Panasonic Lumix LX7 for $299 – Black Friday Deal Alert Panasonic Lumix G5 Kit w/ 2 Lenses for $567 – Deal Alert Panasonic Lumix GX1 for $319 – Deal Alert

Lately I’ve been looking for ways to photograph people besides just my friends and family. I was super inspired after reading photographer Peter Waterman’s account of photographing 80 people in 1 day. I’m a hobbyist just looking to improve my skills and have fun. I like to get the best bang for the buck with my equipment purchases and keep my gear budget contained. I checked my town’s local event website and noticed there was a 10K run scheduled for the upcoming weekend. I had never shot a sporting event before; I usually just shoot portraits and travel. The race map showed the course went right by my house so I had a perfect opportunity to take some pictures. I wanted to experiment and practice with lighting so I made a list of different strategies I could use. I thought about using umbrellas to soften the light, a boom stand to get the light right over the runners heads and using multiple flash locations. When race day arrived it was raining on and off so I changed my strategy. I used a single light stand with a 3 flash bracket. I used 2 YN560II and 1 YN560III flashes on the single bracket. I shot them all in manual, zoomed all the way out (24mm) and ½ power each. Shooting on half power kept my recycle times quick, and extended the number of flashes the batteries could handle. I decided to use no lighting modifiers due to the weather. Going bare flash helped keep the light intensity up since I did not lose any light through the umbrella. I did place a clear plastic sandwich bag over each flash to protect them from the rain. That worked great. I used my trusty YN-603N remote trigger on a Nikon D5100. I got to the race about 10 minutes before it started, so I didn’t have much time to experiment with different lenses. I set up my lights and got in a few test shots. I used manual exposure, ISO 100, 1/200th, varying the aperture from f4 – f5 to control lights. At first I had my 50mm 1.8 mounted which was not wide enough for the position I was shooting from. I quickly switched to a 35mm 1.8 just before the first runners arrived. It turns out I was lucky it was overcast and rainy for most of the race. This allowed me to use the little speedlights to add enough light to be visible in the photo. The sun came out for a few minutes near the end of the race and overpowered my little flashes at the max sync speed of 1/200th of a second. I used continuous focus, which I don’t have much experience with. Usually I use single servo – single focus point, and half press until I’m happy with the focus. In this situation I had to try to keep the focus point over my subject while they ran by. This was harder than I expected. Reviewing later on the computer, I noticed that about 60-70% of the shots were in focus with this method. The hardest part was choosing a subject when there were large groups of runners. There are so many competing interests I found it tough to make the split second decision about who to focus on. Lessons Learned Weather preparation paid off. I was wearing a rain jacket, and had my gear in plastic bags. No issues there. When the rain stopped mid-way through that was just a bonus. I wish I had brought my travel stool. I have a folding camping stool that would have been perfect, but I decided not to bring it. My legs are pretty sore from squatting and kneeling for most shots. I was very surprised the batteries lasted on the flashes the whole time. I took about 400 pictures. The only shots I missed due to slow recycle time was when I used the continuous shooting mode. I quickly switched to single picture mode early on. Since I was shooting at ½ power I could get shots off in pretty quick succession. I had no issues with the flashes overheating or being otherwise damaged. Using the prime lens I found myself having to be patient and waiting for the runners to fill the frame. Since I was using a prime lens, I could not zoom to compose. Many of the runners would see me and make funny expressions waiting f

We try to shed a little light on Lightroom's Catalog to give new users a little more knowledge.

Digital editing is performed by all photographers. In fact, the more WOW! Factor a photo has, the greater the likelihood the photo has been digitally edited, perhaps even to the point of “manipulation.” This is the dirty secret that most point-and-shoot photographers never learn: your camera, however sophisticated and expensive, will never take these pictures out of the box; you have to post-process the pictures. So, when readers pointed out that the winning entry in the recent Word Press Photo contest looks obviously digitally manipulated (with a very pronounced tone enhancement), World Press Photo got defensive and, after submitting the photo to Fourandsix Technologies for “forensic analysis,” declared the winning entry’s digital editing totally acceptable. Just what did photographer Paul Hansen do to his winning photo to stir such controversy? The experts at Fourandsix Technologies found that though Hansen’s winning photo was “retouched with respect to both global and local color and tone,” they “find no evidence of significant photo manipulation or compositing.” So, what is the problem? Why is there even a controversy? It is because the tonal enhancements applied to the photo is so very obvious to the naked eyes. Many photographers who have played with so-called HDR photography can spot the over-the-top digital enhancements right away. However, World Press Photo has officially given its blessing that such heavily enhanced photos are acceptable as journalistic photos and so falls within their rule that “retouching which conforms to currently accepted standards in the industry is allowed.” Even without any digital editing, the content of Hansen’s winning photo packs such a punch as to stop you in your track and elicits a reaction. In our view, that photo deserves to win but requires zero to minimal digital editing. It is sad that the controversy about how much digital editing is acceptable has relegated the content of the photo into the background. View the before and after pictures. via Imaging Resource

More bumps in the road are probably in store for Bitcoin. The virtual currency has seen some massive swings in value over the last several weeks, but that volatility is not likely to end soon, its lead developer suggested on Saturday."We've been on a rollercoaster ride," said Gavin Andresen , chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, which provides much of the core backend development for the currency."I expect for the next few years we're going to remain on a rollercoaster ride," he said, speaking in front of a packed room of developers, enthusiasts, venture capitalists and other industry players at Bitcoin 2013, the first conference in Silicon Valley to be held on the topic.Bitcoin is a digital currency that is managed and traded on a peer-to-peer computer network. Often referred to as a form of "crypto-currency," it is intended to be a decentralized form of payment not regulated by any financial institution or governmental body. A variety of online retailers and a growing number of brick-and-mortar stores are now accepting Bitcoins, which can either be purchased through exchanges on the Internet or "mined" by using specialized hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Canipre — short for Canadian Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement — is a Canadian anti-piracy company that has joined hand-in-hand with film studios and record companies to track down those who steal and share stolen content over the internet. On the surface there’s nothing wrong with this, what is wrong is when an intellectual property advocate is found using photos without permission, which is exactly what happened to Canipre a couple of days ago. According to Vice Canada, who broke the news, three photographers found their photos were being used by the site a few days ago, and none of them had given the anti-piracy company permission. The three photogs are Steve Houk, Sascha Pohflepp and Brian Moore, the last two of which licensed their images CC, which means Canipre had only to credit them to avoid any embarrassment. Unfortunately, they had not done so. For their part, the company responded promptly (if, in some opinions, inadequately) when Houk contacted them via e-mail to get his photo taken down. Canipre managing director Berry Logan contacted him immediately apologizing and explaining that it was a third party web developer who had licensed the photo through an image bank. Houk claims he has never licensed his photo out to anyone: I pointed out to Logan that if that was true, he had basically paid his vendor to rip off other people’s creative work. Logan told me that he would contact his web provider and have the image removed. He also told me that he would provide me with the name of the website developer and the name of the image bank where they obtained my photo. I did notice that they took down my photo, but I have not heard back from Logan regarding the name of the developer and where they sourced my image. All of the photos have actually been taken down, and we assume that Canipre will get in touch with all of the photographers to, at the very least, apologize profusely. The damage to the company’s reputation, however, is done. As Houk explained in an email conversation with Vice, “it was disheartening to see a company that champions intellectual property rights pirating someone else’s creative work.” (via TorrentFreak)

A few weeks ago, we reported that Sony may be in the process of dropping its unique pellicle mirror SLT technology. The rumor claimed that the company would be saying goodbye to the translucent mirror in favor a fully mirrorless A-Mount line. Well, if patents are to be trusted, that rumor has been confirmed just as another exciting Sony rumor hits the mill. According to Photography Bay, Sony has recently filed a patent application that confirms the company’s intent to move away from the SLT. The A-Mount line will continue in both APS-C and full frame variants, only the resulting bodies will be fully mirrorless. Additionally, Sony Alpha Rumors is claiming that some of their best sources are confirming previous whisperings of an upcoming Sony A-E Hybrid bridge camera. The camera would somehow accept lenses from both the A and E-Mount lines, and according to SAR’s sources, it just got the go-ahead from upstairs. In addition to a followup to the NEX-7 expected sometime in October, we apparently now have FF and APS-C mirrorless A-Mounts to anticipate in early 2014, and a possible game-changing A-E Hybrid Bridge camera that should arrive by the end of next year. For now, no further details are available, but as release and announcement dates draw near, Sony owners would do well to keep an eye out for spec and photo leaks. (via Photography Bay and Sony Alpha Rumors)

Earlier this week, French software company DxO Labs released an update to its flagship Optics Pro workflow app, right on its regular monthly schedule. Compared to the preceding release, DxO Optics Pro adds support for a number of new camera models including the Canon Rebel T5i, as well as adding a vast selection of new lens modules. It also fixes several problems discovered in the earlier version. New cameras supported by DxO Optics Pro version 8.1.6 include the following Canon EOS Rebel T5i (aka EOS 700D / EOS Kiss X7i) Leica M... (read more)