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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
Redrock Micro Reinvents Focus Pulling With Hālo
NAB 2015, Las Vegas, NV. Focus Has Now EVOLVED, and it is our old friends at Red Rock Micro that have evolved it with their announcement and demonstration here of their new Hālo focusing system. Pretty darn amazing, if you ask me. It is hard to believe but this small bit of technology can do wonders for improving your focus control. Automating the focus pull? No problem. Camera external focus tracking? Of course. Want to do complex focus pulls and returns. Not a problem. In fact, just about every complex move you can think up in the focus world, this new Hālo focusing
Read moreBlackmagic Design Announces Blackmagic Video Assist
NAB 2015, Las Vegas, USA – April 13, 2015 – Blackmagic Design today announced the Blackmagic Video Assist, a portable, all in one professional monitor and video recorder that can be used with any SDI or HDMI camera. Blackmagic Video Assist adds professional recording and monitoring to any camera and features a bright, high resolution 5 inch monitor for checking focus, framing, and reviewing shots, along with a broadcast quality HD recorder for saving quality video files. Blackmagic Video Assist is available in July for $495 and will be demonstrated on the Blackmagic Design NAB 2015 booth at #SL219. Here
Read moreUsing Sony Wi-Fi with PlayMemories, PicTapGo & Instagram
Using Sony Wi-Fi with PlayMemories, PicTapGo, & Instagram – How to Use Wi-FI on your Sony Mirrorless camera in conjunction with the Sony PlayMemories app, PicTapGo and Instagram on the iPhone by Paul F. Gero | paulfgero.com Member, Sony Artisans of Imagery Program One of the great things about Sony mirrorless cameras like the a7II, the a7, the a6000, and the a7s is that they are small, light and professional cameras. And, one of the great bonus features to these cameras is that they are Wi-Fi enabled and thus I can use my little Sony mirrorless cameras to send photographs from
Read moreBlackmagic Micro Cinema Camera
What 1080P video camera features include Super 16 size sensor with 13 stops of dynamic range with both RAW and ProRes recording onboard? Meet the Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera, announced today at NAB 2015, Las Vegas, USA. Blackmagic Design today announced the Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera, a miniaturized Super 16mm professional digital film camera with a revolutionary new expansion port that lets customers use PWM and S.Bus model airplane remote controls to operate the camera wirelessly for capturing action anywhere. Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera will be available in July for $995 and is presently being demonstrated at the Blackmagic Design NAB 2015 booth #SL219
Read moreSony 24-70 f/4 Teardown
Those of you who read our teardowns know that we commonly are tearing down Canon or Nikon mount lenses. The reasons are pretty simple and it basically comes down to the fact that we have a lot more of those lenses. If we have a lot more it’s less of a problem to take a couple out of stock for a teardown. Plus, we’re more likely to be doing repairs on them in-house so we need to know the layout. Not to mention, since we spend most of our day inside those lenses, we know our way around them pretty
Read moreDennis Manarchy – Butterflies and Buffalo
Have you ever heard the stories of Photographer Dennis Manarchy? He goes down in my book as one of the great living American photographers. Not only does Dennis Manarchy have the magnetic powers of a P.T. Barnum, as a photographer Dennis Manarchy possesses an excellent set of photographic craft skills, an eye for classic portraiture, and excellent vision into the souls of the people he photographs. Dennis Manarchy puts a lifetime of experience and thought into every image he creates. Dennis Manarchy: “We have come to a tipping point. There are fewer and fewer cohesive American cultures. The “Greatest Generation” is in
Read morePhotojournalist Reporting Preferred By Readers, Study Shows
Can you imagine what the audience’s reactions would have been down through history if 35mm cameras had been invented 2000 years ago? What historical images do you think you would prefer to see today, crowdsourced digital or the work of a photojournalist with time at the job and training in the crafts? In the new age war of “Photojournalist Professionals” vs. “crowdsourced photography,” eye-tracking expert Sara Quinn concludes her audio interview above with the final observation “… it is the marriage of the images and the words that are crucial” in the general public’s now proven ability to readily separate, quickly identify, and distinctly
Read morePerspective Correction: Meet The BRONICAsaurus
Perspective correction, or “tilt–shift” as it is often called, encompasses two different types of movements: rotation of the lens plane relative to the image plane, called tilt, and movement of the lens parallel to the image plane, called shift. Tilt is used to control the orientation of the plane of focus (PoF), and hence the part of an image that appears sharp. Tilt makes use of the Scheimpflug principle (the math is all there). Shift is used to adjust the position of the subject in the image area without moving the camera back. This movement is absolutely necessary in avoiding the convergence of parallel lines, as when photographing tall
Read moreHow To Structure A Video Essay
Somehow this seems like an appropriate story for the first day of April, 2015. If you want to make video essays, there’s no better film to study than Orson Welles’ 1973 masterpiece, F for Fake. There are a million lessons to take away from it, but today, let’s see what it has to teach us about structure. NO SPOILERS. “F for Fake” is the last major film completed by Orson Welles, who directed, co-wrote, and starred in the film. Initially released in 1974, it focuses on Elmyr de Hory’s recounting of his career as a professional art forger; de Hory’s story serves as
Read moreOlympus 40-150mm F2.8 vs. Panasonic 35-100mm F2.8
The new Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 telephoto is the longest, fastest zoom at F2.8 available for a mirrorless camera. The Panasonic 35-100 F2.8 is incredibly compact and regarded by many as one of the best mid range telephoto zooms on the market for the M43 format. Neither of these lenses is what I call inexpensive, but then few lenses with Pro level build quality and performance ever are. The Camera Store’s Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake put both of these mirrorless Pro lenses through their paces and debate which is the ultimate option for Micro 4/3 shooters. The Olympus 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lens is not
Read moreOlympus OMD EM5 Mark II – First Look
The first opening of the box, and firing up for the first video recording from the new Olympus OMD EM5 Mark II. As you would expect, not perfect without reading the manual, but intuitive and quite acceptable all the same. A testament to Olympus designing an excellent consumer camera that on the surface appears to be able to fill many professional needs too. I look forward to getting to know the OMD EM5 Mark II very well over our coming weeks together. I have a confession to make. I am not a lazy photographer, but I HATE reading the instruction manuals for
Read moreSebastião Salgado: The Silent Drama of Photography
Economics PhD Sebastião Salgado only took up photography in his 30s, but the discipline quickly became a life changing obsession. Sebastião Salgado years-long projects beautifully capture the human side of a global story that all too often involves death, destruction, decay, or some of that other nasty stuff from the dark side of the force. Here, he tells a deeply personal story of the craft that nearly killed him, and shows breathtaking images from his latest work, Genesis, which documents the world’s forgotten people and places. If you haven’t seen the Genesis show and get the chance, you need to. It is
Read moreA Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for The Visual Arts
FAIR USE AND ONLINE VIDEO Contrary to popular belief, United States Copyright and Patent Laws were not put into place to protect creators; they were an attempt to legislate creators to share some rights in their creations with others. The cultural value of copying is so well established that the United States Congress has written it into the social bargain at the heart of copyright law. This is the bargain: we as the United States society give limited property rights to creators, to reward them for producing culture; while at the same time, we give other artists and creators the chance to use
Read moreInternet Cafe Refugees Japan
Japan’s Disposal Workers: Net Cafe Refugees from MediaStorm on Vimeo. Internet cafes have existed in Japan for a couple of decades, but in the mid 2000’s, a few customers began using these spaces as living quarters. Internet cafe refugees in Japan are mostly temporary employees; their salary too low to rent their own apartments. How strange it seems that in today’s modern age, few pause their busy lives long enough to realize there are those among us in every culture just not cut out for a corporate job. One man, a former full time Japanese salaryman, can no longer deal with
Read moreIvanpah Solar Electric Generating System
Ivanpah Solar Power Facility from TheCameraForum on Vimeo. And from the air, DJI was kind enough to fly this same location, and produced this: Legend has it that Archimedes used a “burning glass” to concentrate sunlight on the invading Roman fleet and repel them from Syracuse. In 1973 a Greek scientist, Dr. Ioannis Sakkas, curious about whether Archimedes could really have destroyed the Roman fleet in 212 BC, lined up nearly 60 Greek sailors, each holding an oblong mirror tipped to catch the sun’s rays and direct them at a tar-covered plywood silhouette 160 feet away. The ship caught fire after a few
Read moreDawg Schidt in the Park
Dog Schidt In The Park from Andrew Reid on Vimeo. Shot on Schidt. An experimental test of Schidt Optics FF58 PL mount on Olympus OM-D E-M1, entirely handheld. Full review of the Dog Schidt Optiks Flare Factory 58 (PL Mount) is here: http://www.eoshd.com/2015/02/dog-schidt-optiks-ff58-flare-factory-58-pl-mount-review/ As Andrew Reid says in his excellent review linked above, “In the cinema lens industry Hawk Vantage and Cooke cater very well for the emotionally satisfying less clinically perfect, less flat looking lenses. For us at the more affordable end of the spectrum, Dog Schidt Optiks is the best at doing this.” Speaking of Dog Schidt, let me ask if you know
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