Hi everyone, Ahead of the coming busy season, we’re looking for a few new faces to add to our news team here at the Phoblographer. We’re looking specifically for freelancers based in a time zone ahead of our home base in NYC in an effort to cater more to the global photo community. And so …
We’ve spent some time with the new Rokinon 35mm f2.8 for Sony E mount cameras and are liking it in many ways.Rokinon’s glass has long been underrated in the industry and they’re somewhat overshadowed by the likes of Sigma, Tamron and Zeiss. But when it comes down to it all, they’re fantastic lens makers. Perhaps a part of it has to do with the fact that many Rokinon lenses don’t have autofocus. But Rokinon is starting to fix that. For example, the Rokinon 35mm f2.8 is made for Sony full frame E mount cameras and is designed to be small, sharp, and have autofocus. It’s significantly more affordable than the Sony version but it lacks any sort of weather resistance.
Today, Motorola is working to reinvent themselves as a company and to start the initiative, they’re launching the new Motorola Moto Z Force phone with compatibility for the Moto Mods that are apparently making the phones so popular. Key to the photography audience is the fact that Motorola is touting dual rear cameras on the back of the phone–one that has black and white capabilities and the other has color. There’s a flash below it.
What do you do when you come across something related to photography that you don’t know? Maybe a new term or a technique you were previously unaware of? Chances are that you do what most people do when they don’t know something… you Google it. But when you do this you end up with a ton of extra things that may or may not be relevant, or even correct. The Photo Guide is an app for iOS that is designed to fix this problem by giving you access to photography education and learning in an app where you can be sure that you are not wasting your time searching through pages of junk websites to find the answer you were looking for.
With last night’s announcement of the new Nikon D850, the only thing that we possibly know about it is that the camera will apparently have an 8k timelapse mode. But if history is going to repeat itself, we may see something that Nikon has done before–use Sony’s Sensors. The Nikon D850 is said to be a high resolution, high performance DSLR. And when I see that, I think about the Sony a99 II in some ways. Considering that Nikon has been using Sony sensors for a while now for many of their cameras, it would make sense that that’s what we’re going to see.
There are only a few cameras that have been coined “An SLR on steroids” in the medium format camera world: and one of those is the Pentacon Six TL. The Pentacon Six TL is a medium format SLR camera similar in style to its more famous rival the Pentax 67. It doesn’t use interchangeable backs at all but instead opts for one of the quirkiest ways of loading a camera perhaps ever. Shooting square format 6×6 images, it’s also prone to problems like frame overlap unless you’re careful. Though if you can work with its quirks, you’ll have yourself a solid SLR camera that is reliable otherwise.
When you look at Justyna Zduńczyk’s Hong Kong Puzzles, you’ll find a myriad of things to look and and ponder over. The series, which was obviously shot in Hong Kong, puts the city’s apartments under the magnifying glass and tries to make sense of them in an orderly way. One of the most interesting parts of the project is that it was photographed in a way that puts an emphasis on the pastel colors contrasting with the very plain white backgrounds of the city. Perhaps indeed pollution can make for great photography.
Want to know how to choose your first DSLR? Don’t. Mirrorless is where it’s at, read our mirrorless post. But if you really, honestly insist on going the DSLR route as your first interchangeable lens camera – this is the post for you.
Phottix, long known in the industry for their budget friendly but well-built lighting accessories, has launched their new series of Premio Parabolic Umbrellas, which the company says will be replacing their popular Para-Pro line of umbrellas. Similarly to the Para-Pro lineup, the new Premio umbrellas will come in both shoot through and reflective models, and will also come in 33-inch and 47-inch configurations.
Camera bag maker Lowepro has just announced a flood of updates to their Nova and Flipside series bags with a total of 8 new bags being announced. Lowepro has long been a favorite for photographers thanks to their wide variety of bag options to fit the needs every photographer, along with good materials and excellent features – these Nova and Flipside updates continue in that tradition.