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Posts Tagged ‘Releasing’

Fujifilm confuses users by releasing a promo video for its 8-year-old 35mm F1.4 R lens

05 Aug

The saying goes, ‘better late than never,’ but Fujifilm might be pushing the boundaries of the phrase with its new promotional video.

It’s been eight years since Fujifilm released its XF 35mm F1.4 R lens, but a new promo video showcasing the features of the lens has popped up on the Fujifilm X Series YouTube channel. Understandably, this new promo video has left some Fujifilm users confused and even disappointed, as an upgraded version of this lens is high on the request list of many Fujifilm users.

Unfortunately, this new four-minute video, which showcases numerous Fujifilm X-Photographers talking about the lens, isn’t a teaser for a new, upgraded ‘Mark II’ version or anything of the sort. It’s simply a self-described ‘ode’ to ‘one of the original X mount lenses [that] has captured countless numbers of precious moments over the years.’

The timing is curious, as is ‘The Original’ nomenclature, but the video links directly to a landing page for the XF 35mm F1.4 R, suggesting Fujifilm is still working hard to promote one of the first XF lenses.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photography Life is releasing all of its courses, for free, on YouTube

09 May

In the event you’ve already taken advantage of all of the other free educational resources that have come to light amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, photo education website Photography Life has announced it is releasing all of its premium photography courses for free on YouTube.

Normally, each course costs $ 150, Photography Life founder Nasim Mansurov explains, he and his team wanted to give back to the community in these challenging times. In the announcement post, he writes:

‘We spent many months filming our courses both indoors and in remote locations, in order to provide the best education we can possibly deliver to our readers. With the world dealing with possibly one of the worst health and economic crises the world has ever seen, we thought it would be a good idea to give away everything we got to our community. We hope that these courses will help our readers in getting solid photography content to learn from, for many years to come.’

Currently, the first course ‘Level 1: Photography Basics Course’ is available on YouTube, with each chapter broken into a separate video. Photography Life’s two other courses ‘will be uploaded to YouTube in the next two weeks,’ according to the announcement page. Below is the introduction video for the first course:

To be notified when the new videos drop (and to support the Photography Life team for offering up its courses), subscribe to the Photography Life YouTube channel.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Nikon Releasing 900 Dollar Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera?

19 Jun

The post Nikon Releasing 900 Dollar Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.

According to Nikkei, Nikon plans to release a mirrorless camera before the 2019 fiscal year is out.

And it’ll likely be a budget option, one that comes in at about half the price of the Nikon Z6.

Here’s the direct (translated) quote from Nikkei:

Nikon will introduce a new mid-price mirrorless camera product in fiscal 2019. The same interchangeable lens can be used in the product that corresponds to a sister model such as the high-end model “Z7” launched by the company in the autumn of [2018]. It is expected that the price will be in the 100,000 yen range, which is easier for the general consumer to pick up than the leading 200,000 to 400,000 yen model. The aim is to develop the demand of users other than existing enthusiasts.

Regarding price: 100,000 yen falls around 900 dollars, which would be a dramatic reduction in price compared to the Z7 and even the Z6, Nikon’s two current full-frame mirrorless models.

A 900 dollar full-frame mirrorless option would likely be welcomed by those DSLR shooters who just can’t afford the current Nikon mirrorless prices, but are looking for something lighter than their current DSLR setup.

But we also have to ask:

What Z-level features will Nikon leave behind in order to cut costs?

First of all, we can’t be sure the new mirrorless option is full frame. The original report doesn’t say this outright. But the claim that the new product “corresponds to a sister model such as the high-end model ‘Z7′” suggests the new camera won’t be fundamentally different. And an APS-C Z mirrorless body would be fundamentally different.

But even if the camera is full frame, other important features might be dropped.

For instance, might we see the loss of an EVF? Personally, I would see this as deeply frustrating. Mirrorless EVFs are one of the strengths of mirrorless systems. I wouldn’t like to see it go.

What do you think? What will this new mirrorless camera be like?

And would you be interested in purchasing it?

The post Nikon Releasing 900 Dollar Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.


Digital Photography School

 
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Apple is releasing its Live Photos API, which means more moving photos in more places

21 Apr

Apple has revealed the API for its Live Photos feature, meaning more app and web developers will be able to support the company’s short 1.5 second video ‘moving photo’ video clips. Apps like Facebook are already able to display Live Photos for users running iOS 9, but making the API available will allow any developer who wants to put a Live Photos viewer on their website or in their iOS app to do so.

Live Photos debuted in 2015 with the iPhone 6S. Owners of recent iPhones including the 7 and 7 Plus can capture the moving images in the stock camera app, and anyone running iOS 9 or later can play the video clip by pressing and holding the image.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Flickr Close to Releasing a Redesign of Global Navigation, Explore and Groups

16 Oct

Yesterday I was contacted by a Flickr member asking me if I knew about the redesign that was being done on Flickr. Although I’d assumed that more redesigning was coming to Flickr after earlier releases this year, I wasn’t aware of what specific changes were being implemented or considered. I’ve seen screenshots of some of the new redesign but haven’t had a chance to seriously examine it yet.

Apparently a beta group is currently testing changes to Flickr’s Global Navigation, Explore section and most significantly Groups. Rollouts of the new design have begun and some users are now seeing a different layout on Flickr.

I’ve long believed that Groups represents Flickr/Yahoo’s most significant chance for winning at social. Although it doesn’t sounds like the new Groups layout is set in stone yet, some of the comments made by beta testers would seem to suggest that more emphasis is being placed on Group photos and less emphasis on Group threads. Here are some of the comments in the thread

“That would be a complete disaster and kill off what remains of the active discussion groups on Flickr. Good luck getting new members to ever click over to the threads.

The Groups List page redesign is also, quite frankly, atrocious. Much harder to find groups, not to mention the graphics are messed up.

I will personally lead the revolt if the new group page design sticks. It will KILL any attempts to integrate new users into group discussions.”

AND

“Oh lordy, that’s terrible. The group rules page and intro is completely hidden and while the emphasis on photos is kind of nice, it completely destroys any importance of the description and the discussion.

Not liking that at all. It makes groups look about as social as a set is now. Completely wrong direction and neuters the group other than a photo collection.”

AND

“Let me rephrase that. If you go ahead, and make the groups look like what I just saw, I will mothball every group I have, log out and never log back in. This is not out of some idea that I’d be contributing to an effort to twist Flickr’s arm into doing anything, but because navigation will have broken down so badly, that the site will no longer be worth my time.”

These initial comments regarding Groups are disappointing. It sounds like Groups may be headed in the wrong direction. I’ve long been critical of Yahoo executives who can’t/won’t join Flickr publicly including current Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer (Mayer posts her photos on competitor Instagram instead of on her own company’s photo sharing site Flickr). Previous CEOs Scott Thompson and Carol Bartz likewise did not have public Flickr accounts.

Part of my criticism of Yahoo execs not using Flickr is that without dogfooding it, without really digging into it, I don’t believe that they can begin to understand the promise that Groups represent for social on Yahoo. Based on early comments on the Group redesign page I’m also beginning to worry that even Flickr staffers don’t truly understand the power of social that Groups represent.

Whether or not this new Group redesign will be rolled out to other users or not remains to be seen. I’m concerned though that time/engineering/design talent wasted making Groups *less* social might just be another blunder after a long line of previous blunders made by Flickr in terms of the guesswork on what users may or may not want.

Last year Flickr rolled out a wonky photo/chat feature, for example, that was quickly killed earlier this year. Time wasted going in the wrong direction hurts Flickr and hurts their chance at social.

Photo sharing is a super competitive space and becoming more and more important. Great care should be taken to make photo sharing as social as it can possibly be. Every single step towards redesign should be asking the question, will this make Flickr more social or less social?

Although I’m not part of this beta or test group, I’m usually not one to keep my opinions to myself, so I’ve also written a companion post to this one entitled “Ways to Redesign Flickr Groups to Make Them More Social, Addictive and Powerful.”


Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

 
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