Fujifilm: “Giftable” Print Product Sales are Up 40% Year After Year

Fujifilm recently took to New York’s Grand Central to display a number of photos in their FUJIFILM Print Life Photo Exhibition.

Fujifilm is arguably in one of the best positions to push the idea of the printed photograph onto a modern audiences, perhaps even more so than Canon. Go to almost any lab or printing service in America and they’re most likely using Fujifilm’s color paper. Recently, Fujifilm raffled off a few Instax cameras and told participants that their images would be displayed in their new Print Life Photo Exhibit. In additional return for submitting images, Fujifilm let participants know that they’ll be sending them an 8×8 print of their photo after uploading their images. The result: over 13,000 entries–which may not sound like a lot but considering the scope of the prizes and what most folks in marketing will tell you, was significant.

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Bax+Towner’s ‘Farmers of Viñales’ Puts the Spotlight on the Unsung Heroes of This Cuban Town

All images by Bax+Towner. Used with Creative Commons permission.

When Jason Bax and John Towner, more popularly known as the commercial photography duo Bax+Towner, went to Cuba in March 2018, one of their main goals was to meet and take portraits of the tobacco farmers working in the fields of Viñales. The resulting series is called The Farmers of Viñales and it’s exactly what it says on the tin. The Oakland, California-based duo shot the men as they tilled the soil and harvested crops, with each image looking unsurprisingly like a print ad.

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Cheap Photo: Get Over 4000 Spooky Halloween Presets for just $29, and Save Big on Accessories and Storage

Buying photography software, presets, tutorials and accessories doesn’t have to scare your wallet.

If you are on the look out for some spooktacular deals on photography software, and photography accessories you’ve come to the right place. Cheap Photo is all about finding you the best deals on the gear, software, and accessories you want. With Halloween right around the corner, now is the time to purchase and use some fantastic presets and actions that can really help make your Halloween pictures stand out from the crowd. For just $29 you can get over 4000 Halloween presets and actions for Lightroom and Photoshop. Already planning your winter shoots? We have you covered there too with a great deal where you can save $1,671 on winter overlays.

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TourBox Lets You Make Precise Controls on Your Image Editing Software

If precision editing is vital to your workflow, TourBox is a customizable controller especially designed to let you do just that.

Ever dreamed of having more levels of control over your Photoshop or Lightroom work? With the TourBox controller, you can now have more than just your keyboard controls, mouse clicks, or tablet taps to make edits as precise as you need. The TourBox is poised to be the most advanced creative controller for Photoshop, Lightroom, SAI, and other image processing software. Especially designed for photographers and designers looking to boost their work efficiency, this fully customizable device promises to provide a new, state-of-the-art method for editing content.

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Laura Palladino on Using the Nikon DF to Clear Her Mind

All images and text by Laura Palladino. Used with permission

I’m Laura Palladino, a freelance photographer currently residing in a small beach town near Los Angeles. I was born and raised in New Jersey by parents who got me involved in everything from sports, to dance to art. Luckily, art stuck and eventually the drawing and painting transformed into photography. Ever since, I have been shooting film and digital imagery at school, for personal projects, for corporate clients, and for small businesses. I use a Nikon DF with a Sigma Art 24-105 lens when I shoot digitally. When I shoot film, my go-to is my old Minolta or Polaroid Land Camera. Digitally, I shoot in RAW, then edit in Lightroom and/or Photoshop. With film, I develop in a traditional black and white darkroom using Fiber paper.

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Camera Bag Review: Peak Design Everyday Messenger 2

The Peak Design Everyday Messenger 2 is better than the previous version, but it’s not perfect.

The first version of the Peak Design Everyday Messenger bag was a hit with many people, although personally I wasn’t a huge fan of it. The original Peak Design Everyday Messenger wasn’t very ambidextrous and although the second version has surely made strides forward, there is still something very awkward about the bag that I think appeals more to tech bros more than anyone else. There is a lot of great technology and ideas in the bag, yet for what it’s worth I’m still not its biggest fan. Perhaps it’s because I’ve mostly moved over to backpacks, but the Peak Design Everyday Messenger 2 still doesn’t feel like a camera bag to me. Instead it feels like an every day bag that happens to be targeted at photographers.

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LOL! These Film Photography Dad Jokes Are Making Us Giggle

You probably need to take a crash course on film photography if you don’t get these.

Dad jokes are everywhere, and if you think you can escape it in the photography world, you’re sorely mistaken. Today, we bring some brilliant (or face palm-worthy) bits of humor peppered with puns and sprinkled with wit. One thing to note: you’ll have to know your film photography well to get everything and join in the fun.

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Four Delectable Pancake Lenses Perfect for Mirrorless Camera Owners

Cue the breakfast food jokes, no but really, these pancake lenses are as sweet as maple syrup.

If you like to keep the weight of your gear down to a minimum, don’t want to draw attention to yourself, and absolutely do not want to compromise on quality, these small, lightweight pancake lenses could be exactly what you’re looking for.

Pancake lenses have a special place in the hearts of many street photographers, and documentarians. They get their name from their small, thin form factor, and from their weight (or lack of it). With these lenses attached, photographers can pick up cameras and walk around with them almost like they are a point and shoot. When it comes to smaller Mirrorless bodies, when they have a pancake lens attached you can just about throw the camera in your pocket and go on about your day.

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Here’s How Bokeh-licious the Hasselblad XCD 80mm f1.9 Images Get

If you’ve been wondering how the Hasselblad XCD 80mm f1.9 performs in actual shoots, this quick video is worth a watch.

In case you missed it, Hasselblad introduced last month three new additions to the XCD lens family, one of them the XCD 80mm f1.9, pegged as the company’s fastest lens ever. That, of course, also means that the mind-blowing wide aperture brings the bokeh-licious aesthetic to the X1D-50c, along with increased light-gathering ability. If you’re toying with the idea of grabbing this lens for your mirrorless medium format camera, you’re surely curious about how it performs during an actual shoot. We got just the right video for you to check out.

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Sports Photography: Five Outstanding Lenses That Will Help You Capture the Play of the Game

Sports photographers need to capture game winning plays, and with these lenses, your odds of  being the MVP of sports photography will improve.

It can happen in the blink of an eye. The game winning pass, the half court shot, the game saving tackle. In these situations you have to be able to rely on your gear to keep up with the action. Lenses for sports photography need to be able to handle the elements well, cover multiple focal lengths, have great image quality, and be fast to focus. These five lenses offer all of that and more.

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New HUAWEI Mate 20 Series Comes with 16mm Leica Ultra Wide Angle Lens

If you like your smartphone with not one, not two, but THREE Leica lenses, the newly-launched HUAWEI Mate 20 Series is something you might want to check out.

Huawei continues to make significant enhancements to up its mobile photography game with the announcement of the HUAWEI Mate 20 Series. Building on the camera system of their P20 Series, the company equipped the HUAWEI Mate 20 Series with an additional 16mm Ultra Wide Angle Lens that also supports macro distance. With this powerful addition, the company’s latest flagship smartphones promise that you can easily go wide (and fit more people into your group selfies) or get close (to capture as much detail in your favorite latte shot as possible).

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Nissin Announces New Powerful and Compact i400 Flash

The new Nissin i400 flash is an ideal option for mirrorless and introductory DSLR cameras.

If you’re looking into doing flash photography using your mirrorless or entry-level DSLR camera, you might want to look into the new i400 Flash recently announced by Nissin. This new offering is pegged as a compact and powerful all-around flash for several major mirrorless and DSLR camera mounts.

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Opinion: I Dream of a Camera with a CCD Sensor Again

Though CMOS sensors do so well, I yearn for the CCD sensor found in the Leica M9.

Digital photography in my opinion has become too simple; and that’s fine if you’re a beginner but I also think that it breeds a number of bad habits based solely on human laziness. You may call it evolution, but in the world of communications and journalism there is the idea that as we create technology, we become the technology. So we end up just relying on it to do all the things for us. And indeed that is true–I still laugh at my old teachers who told me that I’d never bring a calculator while grocery shopping. These days, I simply order my groceries via Fresh Direct unless I need something specific that I can get a few blocks away.

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Unhappy Backers Report Multiple Issues in the Yashica digiFilm Y35

Backers have started to receive their Yashica digiFilm units, but they’re not happy about it.

If you’re one of the backers who helped bring the Yashica digiFilm Y35 to life, you’re most likely very unhappy about it. Either you still haven’t received your unit or you’ve just discovered that it’s actually a crappy camera with lots of issues. The Kickstarter campaign’s comments section is exploding with all the angry feedback from backers, and the skeptics are most likely relieved that they had no part in this fiasco.

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Review: Sigma 105mm f1.4 DG HSM Art “Bokeh Master” (Nikon F Mount)

Portrait photographers will love the Sigma 105mm f1.4 DG HSM Art lens; and not just for the bokeh!

Marketed by Sigma as the “Bokeh Master,” the Sigma 105mm f1.4 DG HSM Art lens is one the latest additions to the Japanese optics manufacturer’s Art series of lenses. The ninth lens in Sigma’s Art series to feature a wide aperture of f1.4 (six for Full Frame, three for APS-C), it is also the longest focal length currently available in the series. Bokeh addicts will sing songs of praise about the Sigma 105mm f1.4 DG HSM Art lens, provided that they’ve got the adequate arm strength to wield it.

So with that said, start doing those arm curls–because you’re gonna need it.

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Reports State that Meyer Optik Parent Company is Apparently Bankrupt

Read this especially if you backed via Kickstarter lenses from brands under Net SE and have yet to receive them.

The Internet is now abuzz with reports that Net SE, the German company behind brands Meyer Optik Görlitz, C.P. Goerz, and Oprema Jena and several Kickstarter campaigns, is now officially bankrupt. We first spotted this report over at Mirrorless Rumors, which had German website Photoscala as its source. Given this major development, the chances of backers receiving their pre-ordered lenses or at least their money back from Net SE – who’s also behind Emil Busch A.-G. Rathenau, Ihagee Elbaflex, and SCHACHT – now looks very, very slim.

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HP Announces a Slew of Stuff for Creative Professionals at Adobe MAX

These latest creative solutions recently unveiled at the Adobe MAX could be of interest to you if you’re a long-time HP user.

On the first day of the Adobe MAX Creativity Conference, HP Inc. showcased its latest creative solutions especially geared at creative professionals, combining its lineup of high-performance computing systems along with its leading print and packaging capabilities. You may find the announcement’s highlights interesting, especially if you’ve been eyeing the Z by HP portfolio.

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Sony’s New Cyber-shot HX99 Is the World’s Smallest Travel High Zoom Camera

The new Sony Cyber-shot HX99 is worth considering if you’re still looking for the compact, travel camera of your dreams.

Sony has recently introduced the Cyber-shot HX99, a versatile camera geared toward travelers and weekend photographers, and touted as the world’s smallest camera of its kind. It boasts of an upgraded image processor, 4K video recording capabilities, an extreme zoom range, and a bunch of other advanced features packed into an ultra-compact body.

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Review: Canon EOS R (the Mirrorless Camera That Truly Surprised Me)

I genuinely didn’t think I’d like the Canon EOS R, but I bought one not only for business reasons, but because I actually like it.

If you had told me a year ago that Canon would come out with a camera like the Canon EOS R, and that I’d actually purchase one from Adorama, I would’ve laughed in your face. But Canon has genuinely surprised me. The Canon EOS R camera is targeted at the semi-professional and high-end enthusiast and can be looked at as a bit of a fusion between the Canon 5D Mk IV and the Canon 6D Mk II stuffed into a mirrorless camera body and given a few new adjustments that make it a unique Canon product vs being another Sony copycat. The camera houses a more-than-sufficient, full frame 30.3MP sensor that is a happy medium between many of the 24MP sensors and the 42MP+ sensors out there in full frame cameras. To that end, one could argue that it is sort of positioning itself to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

In real life and extended use with the camera, I can say with all confidence that it’s doing a pretty darn good job.

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Opinion: I Think Instagram Is One of the Worst Things That’s Ever Happened to Photography

Instagram’s role in democratizing photography has also devalued it despite increasing its demand.

If I were to think about all the apps and communities that have added value to photography, I’d say that Instagram isn’t one of them despite it changing the way that we communicate more in pictures. I’d give credit to Tumblr, Behance, EyeEm (also questionable due to their AI rankings of your images and despite how awful they’ve become over the years), 500px, and Flickr. These were places and communities for actual creatives. Tumblr was all the rage for a while when it changed, and arguably it’s a place for creatives all over again with just how much emphasis there is on giving credit to creators. Instagram allowed anyone to be a “photographer” and also allowed more people to become professional photographers. But what is the bigger issue is that it has also arguably devalued the price of an image.

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