Lenses For Landscapes

Whether you use a super-wide focal length to capture an expansive vista or go tighter to showcase a blossoming fern, your lenses will help you figure out the visual story you’re aiming to tell

Text & Photography By Brian Matiash

Providing a clear anchor at wide focal lengths (18mm, in this case) for viewers is critical. By prominently framing a tree center-frame, you give the eyes a place to start exploring the rest of the busy frame and can return to it as fatigue from browsing sets in. Editor’s Note: This piece first appeared in our Summer issue and reflects the products... Read more

Hands-On Review: LaCie 2big Dock Thunderbolt 3—2big To Be Ignored

To have this much capacity at this speed, with dock functions and without breaking the bank, it’s easy to be excited about storage

Michael Guncheon

Editor’s Note: This hands-on review of the LaCie 2big Dock Thunderbolt 3 posted on the website of our sister publication HDVideoPro, but the drive, of course, addresses the storage needs of photographers, as well. I like storage. I really do. Most of the projects I work on are shot in 4K and beyond, so storage is important. It doesn’t help that... Read more

Hands-On Review: Interfit Honey Badger Strobe

A tough, lightweight and powerful strobe/head lighting unit. Oh, and it’s bright yellow.

Chris X Carroll

A four-foot-wide, brilliant yellow snow shovel sat for several years in the corner of my studio. Without exception, men who saw it would get a kind of gleam in the eye and immediately start asking where I got it, how it was to use, and on and on, no matter the season. Oddly, in the three years I wielded it to great acclaim, not a single woman took the... Read more

Lenses For Travel

Hit the road with your camera and bring home not just keepsakes, but a vivid documentary using these key lenses

Text & Photography By Mark Edward Harris

Aurora, Chena Hot Springs, Alaska. Travel photography is about conveying a sense of space that’s evocative, rather than precise. Lens choice helps to transport a viewer to a destination. Photo by Mark Edward Harris Editor’s Note: This piece first appeared in our Summer issue and reflects the products available at the time of publication. To... Read more

Picking The Perfect Lens For Portraits

Several factors combine to make a lens perfect for portraiture—focal length, optical design and speed, in particular

Text & Photography By William Sawalich

Every focal length reproduces a subject differently. Picking the right lens is as crucial, if not more crucial, than your choice of lighting and backdrop. Editor’s Note: This piece first appeared in our Summer issue and reflects the products available at the time of publication. To see our coverage of new lenses, visit our News section. What makes... Read more

Pro Power From Apple

With a new high-power iMac and the upcoming iMac Pro, Apple recommits to the photographer

David Schloss

Apple iMac Pro Apple’s iMac began life as a purely consumer-level computer—blob-shaped and pointy, the revolutionary all-in-one computer was born out of a need for computing simplicity, not computing power. As computers gained more and more power, the iMac remained largely a product for families and small businesses. Computing power evolves rapidly,... Read more

An Incredibly Big Sigma Lens For Even Bigger Sensors

Photographers now have new class of a cameras that combine speed and resolution

Text & Photography DL Byron

Out shooting street with the 135 attached to an a7R Well, it just so happens I have a max-resolution lens in on demo that performs wonderfully on a first-gen a7R, and can’t wait to see what the Sigma 135mm F/1.8 DG HSM Art will do on the new Sony a7R III. I can only guess Sigma released the lens anticipating the sensors in the latest Sony, the Nikon... Read more

Guide To Lenses

Complete your new camera kit with these essential lenses

William Sawalich

A portrait lens, with good background defocus (often called “bokeh”), is an essential tool for any type of photography. Photo by David Schloss Editor’s Note: This piece first appeared in our Spring issue and reflects the products available at the time of publication. To see our coverage of new lenses, visit our Gear/Lenses and News sections. So... Read more

Hands-On Review: Benro Aero 7 Travel Video Tripod

Collapsible, portable and durable, this carbon-fiber tripod is ready to take on video projects—anywhere in the world

David Schloss

Video tripods have never been known to be particularly light or particularly portable due to their need to provide stability for heavy, delicate camera equipment. Big beefy legs, a large center column and a heavy video head are the hallmarks of most models. This poses a bit of a problem for the traveling videographer, the person who’s looking to take... Read more

We Got That Cooke Look

We shoot with the Cooke miniS4/i 32mm T2.8-22 on a Sony a7S II, and the results are amazing

DL Byron

Have you ever wondered what a one-off cinema lens from a legendary manufacturer looks like attached to a Sony a7S II? After visiting the Cooke Optics factory, we did, so we tried one out. The results were lovely and left us at times amazed by the dimensionality, smooth rendering and quality. A Cooke lens of this type, the miniS4/i 32mm T2.8-22, is normally... Read more

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