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The Hollywood Distagon at f/2: A Single Daffodil and the Contax Zeiss 28mm on the Sony A7RV
April 28, 2026
Can you Dig it?
Dig – Sony F55. Looking for a hearty new camera rig to add some spice to your next indie film? Not satisfied the new Panasonic GH3 will be sufficient upgrade as a video answer for your client’s needs? Are you one of those people who won’t settle for anything less than the very best available in the marketplace? Or do you just enjoy playing around with all the best new toys? Start Saving! Sony finally released the pricing for its PMW-F5 and PMW-F55 CineAlta PL-mount cameras, projected to start shipping in February 2013. Only a couple months to start raising the cash
Read moreWhen Size Matters
By Jim Quinn With some photo subjects, extending the frame to the left or right, or even up or down, can work far better than the usual 3×2 format that photographers have been dealing with since the earliest Leicas. And with the Sweep Panorama feature in Sony cameras, and similar features offered by some competitors, breaking out of those rigid rectangles is easier than ever. But with the exception of Sony’s new SLT-A99, that technology hasn’t made its way into Old School DSLRs, at least not yet. If your favorite camera doesn’t share that feature, don’t despair. Photoshop’s Photomerge
Read moreLens Design and Software Corrections
Lens design is a major act of compromises. Field of View (focal length) Quality Zoom or Prime Size Weight Image circle (targeted sensor size) Price (depends also on number of sold copies) All lenses show to some extent different lens artifacts: Chromatic Aberrations (Lateral and Longitudinal ) Distortions Vignetting Corner softness Software can improve your lenses The better the lenses are corrected the lower the artifacts. But often correcting a lens to a very high extent drives weight, size and especially the price up. Since about ten years software manufacturers like DxO and for some time now also other raw
Read morePhotos – To Die For?
This one minute commercial was published by Canon on November 20, 2012. As of this morning, twelve days later, it has racked up 319,692 YouTube views. It’s received 2,830 likes, 12 dislikes. It has over a hundred comments. Someone is paying attention. I have no knowledge whether or not this commercial is intended to air on National TV, but it’s one minute length suggests it is. Should it air nationally, in the USA alone nearly fifty million people will see it. As a professional photographer and like so many other viewers, I find it funny as hell. It had me rolling
Read moreThe Mirrorless Party Animation
First up, here are Canon’s marketing claims for their first mirrorless camera system, the EOS-M: “Inspired by Canon’s EOS technology, the EOS M digital compact system camera allows limitless creativity. Capture full HD video with smooth, quiet continuous autofocus made possible by Movie Servo AF and STM lenses, advanced CMOS sensor technology, and the processing power of DIGIC 5. Take spectacular still shots using the 18.0-megapixel CMOS sensor with the included wide-angle 22mm f/2 lens, plus Canon’s extensive family of interchangeable lenses (optional adapter required for EF and EF-S lenses). The touch-screen monitor, Scene Intelligent Auto, and a host of
Read moreDark-Side Of The Lens
Surf photographers are an interesting lot. Heroes of the surf all, the best bravely move with fierce determination directly towards a force of nature that engulfs, mangles, and tries its best to break their bodies into many tiny broken pieces. How do they manage to survive, let alone capture beauty in the blink of a moment? Surf Photographer Mickey Smith shares his thoughts on it with poetic prose. The photography and cinematography is fantastic. Judging by the list of awards this film has already received, I’m certainly not alone in this opinion either. Here’s a list of the awards this
Read moreA Musical Meld of Stills
Since moving imaging has become so easy and inexpensive to produce and post, many photographers wonder if there is any room for still photography to exist and thrive as an art form. Indeed, one of the purposes of this forum is to share ideas for creating art, and so we point you to the following video. Featuring the photographic art of Wyman Meinzer and the original music of Doug Smith, the video entitled “West Texas” is a stand alone Work of Art. Many photgraphic slide presentations show a selection of photographs, set a time of separation, add generic music,
Read moreThe Bicycle Series
The Bicycle Series It was just after sunrise on an October morning in 1989 when Arturo Monroy, a brilliant watercolor painter living in Antigua, Guatemala, opened his window to 7A Avenida Norte. A neighbor Arturo knew to possess unquestionable psychic talent greeted him as he passed below, proclaiming: “Arturo, something transformational will happen to you today that will change the direction of your life. Have a nice day.” The morning passed without incident. Around noon Arturo took the bus to Guatemala City… returning home following an intense thunderstorm around 7 pm. As he walked through the front door his
Read moreAnamorphic Illusions
And you think video doesn’t lie? Here’s 3 anamorphic illusions; a Rubik’s cube, a roll of tape, and an old tennis shoe. Every one of these fooled me. Which one is your favorite? I think I like the tennis shoe the best, but they are all pretty incredible. From: BrussPup PLEASE RATE THIS STORY! [ratings]
Read moreThe Marmalade
Did you ever wonder how food commercials capture that perfect shot of beer cascading into a glass, or perfectly moistened vegetables falling elegantly onto a plate? Let’s go behind the scenes for a visit to the German studio The Marmalade, where they specialize in slow motion capturing with a high speed motion control system, their robot they call “Spike”. This is a short movie about the company techniques to achieve beautiful footage used in advertising. Yes, it is a promotional video reel of their work, no question. It’s still a shining example of the highest quality standards both in the
Read morePhotoshop Tutorial
It’s Monday after the long Thanksgiving Weekend here in the USA so something fun is called for as we all head back to the grindstone. Here’s a tutorial from the Webby Award nominated site Glove And Boots that’s just the ticket. Many thanks to our friends at mirrorlesscentral.com for bringing this to our attention! PLEASE RATE THIS STORY! [ratings]
Read moreGordon College – Boston, Massachusetts
Long ago and far away in my distant past – about 25 years to be exact – I had the crazy idea of learning to fly an R/C Helicopter. I wasn’t all that interested in the R/C bits of it, my vision was to mount a camera to it and shoot aerial photography. To carry the weight of even a small film camera (a $2 Kodak cardboard disposable in this case) the R/C Helicopter necessary was a monstrous beast. Almost four feet long, my Cherry Red Lucite covered rube-goldberg grand prize winning contraption outfitted with servos, radios, batteries, and that horrible
Read moreBut Is It Art?
I ran across an interesting story at The Jesuit Post and found it to be very inspirational as well as disturbing in some ways. So much in fact, I contacted the author Jesuit Tim O’Brien for his permission to repost it here as a Feature Story. While it is not directly on point discussing photographic images, it does address directly the question of what is Art, photography’s future, and the current trend of combining prior art into a new “restoration” or form. Post Instagram, photography has changed forever; so have many people’s ideas about what constitutes “Art.” As to this
Read moreFolioBook for iPad: Present Your Portfolios!
The Latest From DigitalOutBackPhoto: FolioBook for iPad The iPad is an excellent device to show your portfolios to clients or friends. Unfortunately the Photos app is not really very good to show your work. The main reason is that the Photos app is a photo browser (even a very limited at that). When you show images to your clients it is all about your photos and how you present them. Here the FolioBook app comes into play. This application is all about letting your photos be the center stage and not a limited photo browser. FolioBook allows you to create
Read moreThe RAW vs. JPG Debate:Which Way To The Front Lines?
I Couldn’t Make This From JPG’S Okay! Giulio, Fro, Will and all the rest; I get where you’re coming from. I did shoot the parts for the video at the top using a mirrorless camera, but I could not have created this production without having RAW files to use in the post processing. For Giulio and Will; in your workflow JPG makes all the sense in the world. Your images are delivered small. Primary use is for the web, or for integration into your short video segments. Will Crockett: he’s so far down the JPG road he’s even playing
Read moreRAW or JPG? Which one when?
This week’s Hybrid Hangout™ From DiscoverMirrorless.Com Both jpeg and RAW photo file formats are good these days, but they are very different. Now that we are adding more video into our everyday imaging, we realize that there is no RAW for video. Ouch. So, when is it a good idea to use RAW, when is it best to shoot in JPEG, or what about shooting both at the same time? The answers depend all on you, your camera, your camera skills, and what you need to shoot. To explore the best options for today’s growing hybrid image maker, we’ve assembled a
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