When the Lensbaby Velvet 85mm f1.8 was put into my hands a few months ago, I was really curious about this lens. The previous one coming in at 56mm was incredibly soft. Now, that’s all part of the charm of the Velvet series–but when it’s so soft that focus peaking sometimes won’t even work, then it can be tough to get anything in focus with the lens. But the Lensbaby Velvet 85mm f1.8 is different in a whole bunch of ways. It’s still soft wide open, but you can make that work for you in a number of ways: one of which is to work with a studio flash system.
In many ways, the Lomography Lomo’Instant Wide an almost perfect Instant film camera except for the fact that it doesn’t have manual exposure abilities. But Albertino, the same man that designed the Lego Instax camera, finally has his own hack. The hack involves taking the lens off the camera and using a third party one mounted to it.
I’ve had the Platypod Pro Max in my possession for a really long time now; and my lack of getting this review out doesn’t have to do with laziness or priorities, but instead trying to illustrate how it’s actually useful for many photographers. You see, the Platypod Pro Max is marketed as being able to go where tripods can’t. But at the same time, it doesn’t have a lot of the same advantages of a tripod. You can’t extend its height because it’s a flat plate, but you can indeed place it in a variety of other flat surfaces. So with that said you pretty much just secure a ball head onto this thing, then put your camera on and you’ve got something that you’re ready to work with. But then the question begs why you’d still use it to begin with.
On last week’s episode of Tony and Chelsea Live, I joined them to critique a few portraits from their readers. The portraits ranged greatly with some photographers being very experienced and refined while others were still just getting into it. But the important thing is to never give up. Anyway, when you’ve got a few …
These reviews of film here on La Noir Image have always been targeted more towards the digital photographer out there. So as you’re reading this and are wondering what digital simulation best compares to Kodak T-Max 400, know that you can get it from Olympus. Specifically, the Olympus Pen F has a black and white simulation that is contrasty and also very beautiful. If anything, this looks the most like Kodak T-Max 400. In fact, we were told that the film was an inspiration for that specific color profile.
Photo contests can be a great way to get visibility and recognition for your photography. The key, of course, is finding the contests that are worth your time, and more importantly your money. I always enter the PDN Photo Annual, the Communication Arts Photo Annual, The American Photography Annual, the Sony World Photo Awards and if I were not the APA National President, I would also enter the APA Awards. As president I can’t enter, but several years ago I won the portrait category and found it to be tremendously beneficial.
The FlashQ Q20 is a response to the need for small, simple to use flashes that also do double duty as LED lights. For today’s creative content creator, it’s a dream–but the implementation of the FlashQ Q20 is something far more likely to be in the hands of an amateur or photographer getting started than an actual working photog. To be fair, it doesn’t seem like it was designed to take on the likes of Adorama’s Flashpoint, B&H Photo’s Impact, Godox, Yongnuo, etc. Instead, the FlashQ Q20 sort of fills a totally different niche. Though it’s marketed as being versatile and easy to use, my independent analysis believes the opposite to actually be true–to a point.
Let’s be real here, you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the next computer mouse that you are going to buy. But the fact remains that these are a very important tool for interacting with you computer, be it a desktop or laptop, and having a quality mouse can be the difference between an enjoyable editing session or a frustrating one.
“You know Robert Delpire a french photograph said one day that, ‘What I like in a photograph is the silence and black and white is silence.'” says Photographer Christophe Thillier, who states that he’s a big user of Kodak TMax 400 film in an email to us. Mr. Thillier is a geologist who works in remote places. He shares with us that he’s generally in deserts and that that’s where silence prevails. Deserts, where the light is extremely sharp and hard, also does well with Kodak TMax 400.
A while back we wrote about She Shoots Film: a special analog photography zine put together by a number of designers and photographers using money from an IndieGoGo campaign. The magazine, which has won quite a bit of acclaim thus far, is a continuation of the underground photography culture’s progression into moving off of the social web and back into a distraction free environment. Spearheaded by four women, She Shoots Film may excite some photographers and turn others off simply because, well, we live in a marginalized world. Though if you remove the fact that the magazine is put together by women and features exclusively women, then you’re bound to be amazed by not only the quality of work presented in the first edition, but the very subtle details put into the actual production of the zine itself.