Apple and Google haven’t always gotten along, but there are times when the two work together to make life easier for end-users, regardless of what mobile operating system they’re using. One of the latest examples of this is a new feature baked into Google Photos that makes it possible to sync ‘liked’ and ‘favorited’ images between Google Photos and the iOS Camera Roll app.
Screenshots of the new settings in the Google Photos iOS app. Click to enlarge.
As visible in the below demonstration from Android Police, who first reported on the feature, a simple setting within the Google Photos app will make it so images ‘liked’ in the iOS Camera Roll app will become ‘starred’ in your Google Photos account.
We tested the new feature and can confirm we had a similar experience to Android Police; syncing happens slightly faster when ‘starring’ an image in Google Photos than it does when ‘liking’ an image in the iOS Camera Roll. This is likely because when ‘liking’ an image in the iOS Camera Roll, Google Photos is running as a background task, whereas when using Google Photos, the synchronization process can be triggered immediately.
The feature should be live for all Google Photos users and has worked seamlessly across both an iPhone XS and iPad Pro (11-inch) in our testing. If you don’t have it already, you can download the Google Photos app for free in the iOS App Store.
Viltrox has released its new 85mm F1.8 STM autofocus prime lens for Nikon Z-mount mirrorless camera systems.
The autofocus lens is constructed of 10 elements in 7 groups, including five ‘short wave length and high transparency’ elements and one low-dispersion element. Viltrox claims the lens, which uses a stepping motor (STM) to drive the autofocus elements, features full autofocus support, including compatibility with Nikon’s Eye-AF technology. Other features include an aperture range of F1.8–16, a nine-blade aperture diaphragm, an 80cm (31.5″) minimum focusing distance and a 72mm front-filter thread.
Viltrox has also included an onboard micro USB port for updating the lens’ firmware. The lens measures in at 92mm (3.62″) long, 80mm (3.15″) in diameter and weighs 540g (1.2lbs).
The lens is currently available to purchase on Amazon for $ 399. That’s $ 300 less than the MSRP of Nikon’s own Nikkor Z 85mm F1.8 S lens.
The post Focus, Compose, and Expose with Intent in Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Kevin Landwer-Johan.
Why do you take photographs? What’s your intention each time you press the shutter button? Do you visualize how you want your photo to look before you take it? When you photograph with intent, the pictures you make resonate more with the people who view them.
All of us have a unique worldview. No two people perceive what they see precisely the same way. Learning to express what you see through the lens of your camera requires paying attention to more than what you are looking at. You must also have intent as to how you want your photos to turn out.
Just as a musician’s instrument or a painter’s brush creates nothing on its own, your camera does not take photographs.
Instead, the interaction you have with your camera is what creates photos. The quality and creativity of your photographs depends on the level of synergy between photographer and camera. The connection between you and your chosen subject is also significant.
Modern digital cameras are all designed to be as simple as possible to use – especially consumer-level cameras. Scene modes, auto-exposure, autofocus, auto-everything allows unskilled photographers to take snapshots that turn out pretty well.
When I was a kid, our neighbors had a pianola. This was a piano that had a handy mechanism: we could push pedals with our feet and the pianola would play tunes. There were special rolls of paper with holes punched in them that could be loaded into the front of the pianola. As we pedaled, the paper roll would turn. The configuration of the holes determined what tune was played. We were playing music without being musicians.
This is similar to using a camera with its auto-functions turned on. It can be fun, and there will be a certain, but limited, satisfaction as pictures are created. Just as we loved “playing” the pianola, you can take photos with minimal creative input or skill.
To take truly wonderful photos, however, you must interact with your camera and your subject with intent. Relying on camera technology to make it easy to take photos will not make you a great photographer.
Being familiar with your camera and its controls means you can concentrate more on the art of photography. You’ll no longer be distracted by the technical aspects of the camera.
Learn to control your exposure, focus, white balance, and all the other settings. As you do this, you will grow in confidence and begin to “see” what you are photographing in different ways.
Cameras used in auto-exposure mode tend to make very generically-exposed images. Your camera is programmed to do things in certain ways to produce photos with an even exposure. But the more you take charge of what your camera is doing, the more creative your photography becomes.
Understand the exposure meter. Use your spot meter to measure the light from different zones in your composition. Experiment with manual exposure settings. Don’t always adhere to what the meter tells you is “correct.” Control where you are focusing and the amount of the image that is sharp.
This may all seem a bit overwhelming if you’re new to photography, or if you’ve been using your camera for years without adjusting the controls. But remember: We could not add any creative expression to the tunes we played with the pianola. Unless you intentionally set your camera’s controls, your photos will lack creativity.
Think about how you want your photos to look before you take them. Do you want to record a scene exactly as you see it? Or will your frame it in such a way as to exclude some ugly elements?
Make constant choices about what focal length lens you’ll use. How much of what you see will you include in the final shot? The same scene photographed with a 24mm lens will look very different than if you back up and photograph it with a 200mm lens.
How do you want your exposure to look? Will exposing for the highlights or shadows create a more interesting atmosphere? Are there things in the shadow areas you want to hide or reveal? When you have control over your exposure, you have the capability to express yourself in more creative ways.
Your choice of when you press the shutter release to take the photo can have an important creative influence on the outcome. This is sometimes a matter of a split second, or it can be a matter of waiting for the season to change. Picking the decisive moment when photographing a child playing versus photographing a landscape is very different. But timing is equally relevant to making good pictures.
Are you seeing in color or in black and white? Will your subject look more interesting as a monotone image? Will this alter the feeling of the photo? If you are intentional about color as you’re taking photos, you’ll create more compelling images.
As you’re taking photos, think about why you want to photograph your chosen subject. What has drawn you to want to make a picture of this person, thing, or scene?
When you think about the why, you can start to see your subject in new ways. Being aware of what motivates you can have an influence on how you photograph something.
Does your subject mean something personal to you? How can you show this in the photos you take? There are many ways you can choose to control your camera, or where you take your photos from, that will influence the final shot. Being aware of how you compose and expose your subjects will help build a story into your images.
Your photos will move from being snapshots to works of art that have depth and convey meaning.
The post How to Take Sharp Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darren Rowse.
Taking sharp images is something that most photographers want – but clean, crisp, sharp images can be difficult to achieve.
Before we start exploring how to improve sharpness, let’s talk about the main causes of a lack of sharpness:
Poor focus – The most obvious way to get images that are ‘un-sharp’ is by shooting them out of focus. This might be a result of focusing on the wrong part of the image, being too close to your subject for the camera to focus, selecting an aperture that produces a very narrow depth of field, or taking an image too quickly without checking that it is in focus.
Subject movement – Another type of blur in shots is the result of your subject moving; this is generally related to the shutter speed being too slow.
Camera shake – You can get blur if you, as the photographer, generate movement while taking the image. This often relates to shutter speed and/or the stillness of your camera.
Noise – Noisy shots are pixelated and look like they have lots of little dots over them (get up close to your TV, and you’ll get the same effect).
10 Ways to Take Sharper Images: Tips for Beginners
Here’s a list of 10 basic things to think about when shooting – so you can get consistently sharp images.
(Note: There’s also a lot you can do in Photoshop after taking your images!)
1. Hold your camera well
A lot of blur in the photos that I see is a direct result of camera shake (i.e., the movement of your camera for that split second when your shutter is open).
While the best way to tackle camera shake is to use a tripod (see below!), there are many times when using one is impractical, and you’ll need to shoot while holding your camera.
I’ve written a tutorial previously on how to hold a digital camera, but in brief:
Use both hands, keep the camera close to your body, and support yourself with a wall, tree, or some other solid object.
2. Use a tripod
Regular readers of this site will have seen our articles on tripods and know that we’re a big fan of using tripods as a way to reduce (and even eliminate) camera shake.
While tripods are not always practical, the result you’ll get when you do go to the effort of hauling one around can be well worth it.
RelatedArticle: A Beginner’s Guide to Tripods
3. Select a fast shutter speed
Perhaps one of the first things to think about in your quest for sharp images is the shutter speed that you select.
Now, the faster your shutter speed, the less impact camera shake will have, and the more you’ll freeze movement in your shots.
As a result, you reduce the likelihood of two of the main types of blur in one go (subject movement and camera movement).
But how do you pick the right shutter speed? I recommend the “rule” for handholding:
Choose a shutter speed with a denominator that is larger than the focal length of the lens.
So:
If you have a lens that is 50mm in length, don’t shoot any slower than 1/60th of a second
If you have a lens with a 100mm focal length, shoot at 1/125th of a second or faster
If you are shooting with a 200mm lens, shoot at 1/250th of a second or faster
Keep in mind that the faster your shutter speed is, the larger you’ll need to make your aperture to compensate (see the next section!). And this will mean you have a smaller depth of field, which makes focusing more of a challenge.
4. Choose a narrower aperture
Aperture impacts the depth of field (the zone that is in focus) of your images. Decreasing your aperture size (which means increasing the f-number) will increase the depth of field – meaning that the zone in focus will include both close and distant objects.
Do the opposite (by moving to f/4, for example), and the foreground and background of your images will be more out of focus. Therefore, you’ll need to be exact with your lens focusing.
Keep in mind that the smaller your aperture, the longer your shutter speed will need to be – which makes moving subjects more difficult to keep sharp.
5. Keep your ISO as low as possible
The third element of the exposure triangle is ISO, which has a direct impact on the noisiness of your shots.
Choose a larger ISO, and you’ll be able to use a faster shutter speed and a smaller aperture (which, as we’ve seen, helps with sharpness). On the other hand, this will increase the noise in your shots.
Depending on your camera (and how much you plan to enlarge your images), you can probably get away with using an ISO of up to 400 (or even 800 or 1600 on some cameras) without too much noise. But for pin sharp images, keep the ISO as low as possible.
6. If you have image stabilization, use it
Many cameras and lenses are now being released with different forms of image stabilization (IS).
Image stabilization won’t eliminate camera shake, but can definitely help reduce its impact. I find that using IS lenses gives me an extra two or three stops (i.e., I can drop the shutter speed by around two to three stops) when handholding my camera.
Keep in mind that IS helps with camera movement but not subject movement – so it’s not helpful in low-light action scenarios.
Also, don’t use image stabilization when you mount your camera to a tripod.
7. Nail focus as often as possible
Perhaps the most obvious technique to work on when aiming for sharp images is focusing. Most of us use our camera’s autofocusing, and this works well – but don’t assume that your camera will always get it right.
Make sure you check what part of the image is in focus before hitting the shutter. And if the focusing isn’t right, then try again or switch to manual focus. This is particularly important if you’re shooting with a large aperture (small depth of field), where even the slightest focusing error can result in your subject being noticeably out of focus.
Most modern cameras have a range of focus modes you can shoot in, and choosing the right focusing mode is very important. You can learn how to do that here.
8. Make sure your lenses are sharp
This one is for DSLR and mirrorless owners:
If you have the budget for it, invest in good-quality lenses, because this can have a major impact upon the sharpness of your images.
For example, shortly after buying my first DSLR, I was in the market for an everyday zoom lens that would give me the ability to have both wide and telephoto zoom capabilities. I bought a Canon EF 28-135mm lens. It was a good lens (and reasonably priced), but it wasn’t as sharp as some of my other lenses.
A few months later, I borrowed a Canon EF 24-105mm “L” lens (“L” is Canon’s professional series of lenses) from a friend, and I was amazed by the difference in sharpness between the lenses.
While the first lens was good for what I paid for it, I ended up going for an upgrade. The new lens is now almost permanently attached to my camera.
9. Get your eyes checked
Since I was young, I’ve worn glasses. But in recent years, I’ve been a little slack in getting my eyes checked.
Recently, I got them tested for the first time in a number of years, and I was surprised to find that they’d deteriorated significantly. Getting new glasses improved a number of areas of my life, one of which was my photography.
Also connected to this is checking the diopter on your camera, if it has one.
What’s a diopter?
It’s usually a little wheel positioned next to your viewfinder that lets you tweak the sharpness of the image you see when shooting. The diopter is particularly useful for people with poor eyesight, because you can use it to compensate for your vision (so you won’t have to remember to wear glasses when out shooting!).
10. Clean your equipment
Recently, my wife and I went on a window-cleaning frenzy at our place. Over the previous months, the grime on our windows had gradually built up without us really noticing it.
But when we did clean the windows, we were amazed at how much more light got through and how much better the view outside was!
The same can be true for your lens. Keep it clean, and you’ll eliminate the smudges, dust, and grime that can impact your shots.
Similarly, a clean image sensor is a wonderful thing if you have a DSLR or a mirrorless camera, as getting dust on it can produce noticeable blotches in your final images.
11. Use your lens’s aperture sweet spot
Lenses have some spots in their aperture ranges that are especially sharp. In many cases, the ultimate “sweet spot” is one or two stops from the maximum aperture.
So instead of shooting with your lens wide open (i.e., where the f-numbers are smallest), pull it back a stop or two, and you might get a little more clarity in your shots. Learn more about identifying your lens’s sweet spot here.
Further reading about how to take sharp images
Learn more about how to take sharp images with the following tutorials:
Advanced Tips for Tack Sharp Images
Getting Sharper Images – an Understanding of Focus Modes
How to Get Super Sharp Landscape Photography Images
9 Ways to Ensure You Get Sharp Images When Photographing People
5 Tips for Getting Sharper Images
The Secret to Ultra-Sharp Photos
5 Simple Secrets To Sharper Photos
Making Sharper Wildlife Photographs
The post How to Take Sharp Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darren Rowse.
The post dPS Roundup: The Best Photos of November appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
We’re back with our second in the series of monthly roundups! November was a fun month, with Wheels, Down, Coffee, and Dark & Moody as our weekly challenges.
Join the challenges here!
For our Wheels challenge, I was really drawn to the unique red light in this photograph from Ira Papamalama:
Moving swiftly on to our theme, Down, we had a handful of drone photographs along with some other great images; it was really fun to go through the photos posted in the Facebook group and on the blog and see how everyone interpreted the theme!
And our second choice in the Down challenge came from a regular challenge participant, Chinmoy Biswas. The shadow and action in the photograph is really great!
And in the photograph below by Amal, it’s the light and shadow that really sets the shot apart! The layering (as my good friend Deanne Fitzmaurice always tells me) with the coffee, the light, and the newspaper, is all great. Well done, Amal.
Another regular to our weekly challenge, Moncat, dropped a lovely photograph into the Dark & Moody challenge this month! I imagined rowing into the fog on an eerie morning – but maybe that’s just me. Great photo!
And rounding out our best weekly challenge photos of November is this photograph from matt93, another cracking photograph with all the makings of a dark and moody scene. Thanks, Matt!
Don’t forget, you can join all of our weekly challenges for free. To sharpen your skills, go ahead and submit a photo to all of the past challenges (click here). Or enter the latest challenge, Light Painting, which is still open (here).
Our weekly challenge isn’t about the best photographers showcasing their work. It’s about getting us all out to make photographs and to keep practicing so we get better at this fantastic medium that we’ve chosen! Come and interact and get feedback in the private Facebook group, and submit your photograph there if you’d like!
See you soon!
Simon
The post dPS Roundup: The Best Photos of November appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
The post Your Quick Guide to Understanding Photoshop Adjustment Layers appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
Adjustment layers are one of the most essential aspects of editing images in Photoshop. They let you apply rich, detailed edits to your photos that go well beyond what you can accomplish in other programs.
Now, adjustment layers can be a bit difficult to understand if you’re used to a more streamlined application like Lightroom, Apple Photos, or Luminar. But with a bit of practice, you can easily master Photoshop adjustment layers and take your photo editing to the next level!
When you open a picture in Photoshop, you can’t just start dragging sliders to change its appearance. Before you can do much of anything, you need to start with layers, which serve as the bedrock of everything that makes Photoshop so powerful.
To help visualize the concept of adjustment layers, think about a physical picture sitting on your desk. If you wanted to give the picture a green tint, you could simply drape a sheet of green cellophane over it.
That’s exactly how adjustment layers work in Photoshop: They let you change the visual properties of your image without destroying the underlying file. You can add as many adjustment layers as you want and use them to change things like white balance, exposure, hue/saturation, and over a dozen other properties.
In other words:
Photoshop adjustment layers are like stacking sheets of digital cellophane on top of your images. Each layer can be controlled individually and combined with layer masks to apply edits to specific parts of your images. All of this might seem needlessly complicated compared to the simplicity of other programs, but once you get the hang of Photoshop adjustment layers, you’ll never want to go back.
Another way to think about Photoshop adjustment layers is by comparing them to panels in the Develop module of Lightroom.
However, the Develop panels only offer a handful of adjustments that you can use. Photoshop lets you stack as many layers as you need – even multiple layers of the same type of adjustment – so you can tweak your images as much as you could possibly want. There is a bit of a learning curve, but the results are well worth the effort.
How to add an adjustment layer
The first step when working with adjustment layers is to load an image into Photoshop. Then click on the Adjustments panel, which is usually located above the Layers panel.
(If you don’t see the Adjustments panel, go to the Window menu and choose Adjustments.)
Load an image into Photoshop and then click the Adjustments panel.
The Adjustment panel offers sixteen adjustments to choose from, and sorting through all of these can be overwhelming (especially if you’re used to the simple, straightforward editing parameters available in Lightroom).
Each one of these icons is a specific type of adjustment. Hover your cursor over each one to see a brief description.
Some of these adjustments are similar to what you might find in Lightroom, such as Brightness/Contrast and Color Balance. But using the adjustments is much different from working in Lightroom and, in some ways, more complicated. Fortunately, that also means you can get much better results.
To see how this process works, I’ve included an image (below) that clearly needs some editing. Thankfully, Photoshop adjustment layers are here to help!
Fujifilm X100F | 23mm | 1/4000s | f/8 | ISO 200
I’ll start by adding a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer, which is a simple matter of just clicking the Brightness/Contrast icon in the Adjustments panel. Immediately, two sliders appear, which you can use to make the picture brighter or darker and to add or remove contrast.
After clicking an adjustment layer icon, the available editing parameters show up for you to start working with.
A few seconds later, my picture is much improved, thanks to a brightness boost. However, there is still a lot of work left to do.
Brightness +75, Contrast -5
One other thing happens when you click an adjustment layer icon that you might not notice but is critically important:
The Layers panel will create a layer specifically for that adjustment.
Clicking an adjustment icon automatically adds a new layer to your image with the selected adjustment as its title.
This new layer, along with all the icons associated with it, is what gives an adjustment so much flexibility. In Lightroom, you can enable and disable individual panels in the Develop module, but you don’t have this level of control over your adjustments.
Note the different icons in the short screen capture above:
Indicates layer visibility: Click this to hide or show the adjustment.
Layer thumbnail: Double-click this to show the editing parameters (sliders, eyedroppers, etc.) for the adjustment layer.
Indicates layer mask is linked to layer: Click this to unlink the adjustment layer mask from the adjustment. If you’re new to adjustment layers, you can just ignore this altogether.
Layer mask thumbnail: This is a very tiny preview of the layer mask that is created by default when you click on a new adjustment layer icon. Click this to show the editing parameters of the mask.
While my picture of the Minnesota sign is better than when I started, it still needs a lot of improvement. The next thing I want to do is set the white balance, but this option is missing from the Adjustments panel.
Instead, you have to use the Curves adjustment, then click the gray point eyedropper. Next, click a neutral or slightly gray portion of your image to counteract any color casts. Note that this process essentially replicates the White Balance function of Lightroom.
Select the gray point tool, then click a slightly gray or neutral area of your photo to set the white balance of the image.
One thing you might notice is that the Curves options in Photoshop are much more comprehensive than the Curves options in Lightroom. This should give you an indication of how much more flexibility you have with adjustment layers. You can use Curves to do everything you would do in Lightroom, along with much, much more.
The final operation to fix this image involves a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. Click on the Hue/Saturation icon to bring up a panel that looks like this:
The Hue/Saturation adjustment layer parameters
The key to this panel is the hand icon in the top-left. Click it, then click on a part of your image that you would like to saturate or de-saturate.
In this case, I want to start with the grass below the sign. Clicking and dragging to the right makes it much greener, and gives a sense of vibrance that is sorely missing from the original.
The grass and foreground elements really pop, thanks to a quick tweak with the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.
This is a good start, but I need to fix the sky, and that is where a layer-based approach really starts to come in handy.
Instead of editing the sky with the adjustment layer I just created, I can add a new adjustment layer and use that for the sky. This allows me to control my Hue/Saturation edits for individual parts of the image, instead of having just one Hue/Saturation adjustment layer that affects the entire scene.
The sky colors are now improved. These edits are applied using a layer separate from the grass edits, and thus can be controlled independently.
While the resulting picture is much better than the original, there is still some tweaking that needs to be done for it to truly feel finished.
Adjustment layer masks, explained
Eagle-eyed observers might notice something amiss with the picture above:
The Minnesota sign now has a purple tint to it.
Never fear, adjustment layers are here! Click the white rectangle next to a layer name to edit its mask:
You see, by painting black onto a layer’s mask, you prevent that area of the photo from being affected by the adjustment. So if you don’t want the sign to be affected by the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, simply paint black over the portion of the mask that covers the sign!
Here’s how it works:
First, select the Brush tool (press B or click the Brush icon in the left-hand toolbar).
Make sure your foreground color is white and your background color is black (to do this quickly, just hit D).
Now it’s time to actually paint the mask. Press the X key to switch between white (revealing) and black (hiding), and the [ and ] keys to increase or decrease the size of the brush.
For tricky shapes like the sign, you can use the Magic Wand tool to select the shape. Then, with the shape still selected, use the Brush tool to mask (remove) the adjustment from that portion of the image.
A closer inspection of the Layers panel now shows a black silhouette over the portion that has been masked out of the top Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. I have also renamed the top two layers so as to accurately describe the type of effect they have on the image.
(Double-click a layer name to rename it, and press Enter when you finish typing.)
The mask for the Hue/Saturation Sky adjustment layer shows a black patch where the adjustment has been concealed.
Nondestructive editing
One mistake some beginners make when editing images in Photoshop is applying adjustments directly to the original photo. This can be done using the Image>Adjustments menu, which gives you common editing options such as Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, and more. Unlike adjustment layers, these edits are not easy to work with, nor are they easy to alter once they have been implemented.
Photoshop adjustment layers, on the other hand, are nondestructive. You can tweak and change layers after they have been implemented, and you can easily delete them. That’s why layer adjustments are much more flexible than edits applied directly to an image.
Adjustment layers can be renamed, re-sorted, locked, disabled, and made transparent. And that’s just the beginning!
You can perform all manner of custom tweaks and changes to adjustment layers, such as:
Showing/hiding a layer by clicking the eye icon
Editing the adjustment by clicking the light/dark circle icon
Adjusting the opacity of a layer
Changing the blend mode, which adjusts how the layer interacts with layers below it
Adjusting the order of the layers by clicking and dragging
Locking a layer to prevent further changes by clicking the lock icon
Photoshop adjustment layers open up new editing possibilities that simply cannot be achieved in Lightroom. For example, the image of a leaf from the beginning of this article can be altered with a selective color adjustment in a matter of seconds. All I need to do is add a Black & White adjustment layer. I can then select the leaf with the Magic Wand tool and paint over the selection on the layer mask.
Adding a selective color black and white effect took about four seconds.
Photoshop adjustment layers: conclusion
If you have a Creative Cloud Photography subscription, you can use Photoshop in addition to Lightroom at no extra charge. Now, if the sheer level of options and buttons in Photoshop makes you want to run to the comfort and safety of Lightroom, I get it. I have been there, too, and I still have that feeling from time to time.
However, learning to use Photoshop adjustment layers is one of the first steps in understanding how powerful and flexible Photoshop can be. If you have not yet tried working with layers, take a moment to test them out. See what layers can do for you.
You might be surprised at how easy it is!
The post Your Quick Guide to Understanding Photoshop Adjustment Layers appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Ringsmuth.
Sony has announced a small but significant update to the Sony Software Development Kit (SDK). This update allows users to craft custom imaging solutions using Sony cameras.
The new camera automation software SDK has been created with product photographers in mind and is designed to streamline a product photography imaging workflow using Sony cameras. Sony writes, ‘It’s especially useful for large e-commerce businesses, allowing them to simplify, speed up and standardize product photography.’
This streamlining is achieved by the SDK enabling ‘virtually every facet’ of the camera and lens to be automated and controlled. This includes automation and control over white balance, image resolution, compression options, zoom, focus and video triggering. Multi-camera support is included, meaning that it will be easier than ever to capture 360° interactive product shots, for example.
The SDK is the first to support full-frame multi-camera control, allowing for multi-angle image capture. It has also gained macOS compatibility, which Sony states is the most-used operating system in the product photography industry. The SDK is also compatible with Windows and Linux. The SDK also launches alongside a Sony team and website prepared to offer support. Further, Sony states that bespoke apps are possible.
Yasuo Baba, Director of Digital Imaging for Sony Europe BV, said of the SDK, ‘This is a key part of Sony’s long-term vision. Sony’s Alpha range are the world’s most trusted mirrorless cameras, and this new move helps to back this up with the best software and the best support.’ Baba continues, ‘By doing this, we aim to make it easier and quicker for companies in e-commerce, and other B2B sectors, to automate every part of the image creation process.’
Many high-end Sony mirrorless cameras are supported by the SDK, including the A9 II, A7R IV, A7 III, A7C and the RX0 series. While a niche SDK, it should prove very useful for some photographers and allow for a streamlined, more efficient workflow. It will also be interesting to see what sort of creative uses enterprising photographers come up with for the new SDK.
This is not Sony’s first major SDK release of 2020. In February, the company released a remote control SDK kit. This SDK allows key camera controls and still image data to be captured via remote access, which Sony stated at the time is of interest to industries including security, entertainment and ‘many others’.
A lot of great things can be created when a platform is opened to development, so it’s nice to see Sony developing new software development kits for its cameras. If you’d like to learn more about the latest SDK, click here.
An overview of the aftermath at AKM Semiconductor factory following a three-day fire, captured by Nikogorio and used with permission.
Australian imaging publication, Inside Imaging, is reporting that some camera manufacturers could see supply chain issues following an October fire at an AKM Semiconductor audio chip factory in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan.
According to the report, the fire started on October 20 and burned uncontrolled for three days, effectively destroying the entire factory, which products various audio chip components used by ‘most Japanese camera makers.’ Inside Imaging stops short of stating what components in particular camera manufacturers source from AKM Semiconductor. It does mention AKM produces analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), but there’s no confirmation whether or not these ADCs are used by any camera manufacturers.
A close-up of the burned AKM Semiconductor factory, captured by Nikogorio and used with permission.
Inside Imaging claims to have been told by a source that Canon, Nikon and Sony ‘[had] pulled back support for Black Friday promotions’ due to a shortage of supply, but that is yet to be confirmed elsewhere and we have yet been able to confirm that ourselves. We have contacted representatives from Canon, Nikon and Sony for comment and clarification on the matters and will update this article accordingly when we receive responses.
According to other reports, there were no casualties from the fire and all 400 employees were safely evacuated before the fire spread. Repairing the factory will take at least six months, according to SemiMedia, who also notes the audio industry is panic buying to ensure manufacturers’ supply chain isn’t affect in the near future.
The post Stellar Photo Recovery Software Review: An Easy Way to Reclaim Your Precious Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.
Have you ever accidentally deleted photos or videos from your memory cards? Or, even worse, have you ever formatted your card, and only then realize it contained valuable photos or videos?
It happens to the best of us.
In fact, if you’ve never experienced either of the above situations, consider yourself lucky. Because while digital files are convenient, they’re all too easy to lose – and if you don’t have the right recovery software, those files will be gone forever.
That’s where Stellar Photo Recovery comes in.
You see, Stellar Photo Recovery offers an impressive set of DIY recovery tools for photographers and videographers; according to the website, you can recover almost any file on almost any device. And you can purchase a package that lets you repair corrupted files, which is tremendously useful for situations where your photos or videos have been damaged.
But how does Stellar Photo Recovery perform? Does it work as well as advertised? And how do you use it for file recovery?
That’s what this article is all about.
In it, I put Stellar Photo Recovery to the test, using some formatted memory cards of my own.
And I share all my findings with you.
So to find out whether Stellar Photo Recovery is a worthy purchase…
(Spoiler alert: The software works incredibly well!)
…keep reading.
Stellar Photo Recovery: Why might you need it?
Stellar Photo Recovery is a DIY recovery package, designed to help you find and recover lost photos, videos, and audio files.
But why, specifically, might you need Stellar Photo Recovery?
Imagine you’re out taking pictures and fill up several cards. You go home, download all the photos to your storage drives, and then – as many photographers do – format every card in-camera.
Moments later, you feel a dawning sense of horror, as you realize that you failed to transfer the photos from one of the now formatted cards.
At this point, your hard-earned photos are deleted, the card has been wiped, and your only real option is recovery software.
That’s just one of the many ways you could accidentally delete photos and videos. You could also format a hard drive and realize it had photos you needed. Or you could stick a full memory card into your camera while out shooting, format it, then suddenly realize that you hadn’t transferred the previous photos over to your storage drives. Or you could clear a flash drive, then realize it had valuable media that you needed for a client.
You could also end up with corrupted files thanks to faulty memory cards or old drives or viruses.
If you’ve been doing photography for a while, then you’re probably aware:
This sort of thing happens all the time. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, then it will, because it’s just the nature of having lots of easy-to-wipe memory cards. You’ll make a mistake.
And when you do, you’ll want to have software like Stellar Photo Recovery.
Right off the bat, you’ll be impressed by the sheer volume of scenarios Stellar Photo Recovery can handle. You’ve got the option to recover:
A whole host of image file formats, including Canon RAW files, Fujifilm RAW files, Sony RAW files, Nikon RAW files, Olympus RAW files, Pentax RAW files, Panasonic RAW files, JPEGs, TIFFs, GIFs, PNGs, and PSDs, plus quite a few others
Lots of video formats, including MP4, AVI, MPEG, AVI, 3GP, and so much more
Audio file formats, including MP3, WAV, MIDI, M4P, and AU
And you can do your recovery on a bevy of storage devices, including CF cards, SD cards of every kind, XQD cards, flash drives, HDD drives, and more (even if the drives are encrypted).
Plus, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve deleted individual files or simply formatted the storage device, because Stellar Photo Recovery can deal with both.
Honestly, if you’ve lost any type of photo, video, or audio to deletion or corruption, Stellar Photo Recovery Software probably has you covered.
Using Stellar Photo Recovery: A simple, three-step process
Using Stellar Photo Recovery is incredibly easy.
Once you have the software downloaded on your computer (you can grab your copy here), you’ll simply need to follow a three-step process:
Step 1: Select the drive in need of recovery, and hit “Scan”
When you first open Stellar Photo Recovery, you’ll see a list of all accessible drives:
By placing a checkmark next to the location you need to recover files from, you’re telling the software where to look. To save time on the scan, I’d recommend checking only the precise drive/memory card on which your files originally existed.
Then hit Scan:
As soon as you’ve done this, the software will start checking your drive for any and all media. This might take a while, depending on the size of your drive; I used a 32 GB SD card for my test, and the scan lasted around 30 minutes.
You can minimize the window while you wait and leave it scanning in the background.
By the way, if you’re in a hurry, you can always shorten the scan time by heading into the Advanced Settings menu:
And clicking on File List:
You’ll then see a list of all file types you can recover. By checking the files you’re after, you’re telling Stellar Photo Recovery where to focus its search.
Neat, right?
Step 2: Go through your recoverable files and select the ones you’d like to restore
Once the scan is complete, the software will report the number and size of the files it found:
Then you can go through the folders and preview files for recovery (not all file types will offer previews, but my Olympus RAW files showed up nice and clear).
By putting a checkmark next to a file, you indicate that you’d like to recover it:
So make sure you do this with all relevant files.
Step 3: Hit “Recover” and watch as your images appear!
Once you’ve checked off all the files you want to recover, hit the Recover button:
Then select the folder where you’d like to save the recovered files:
Finally, click Start Saving.
You can then watch (in the Saving Data window) as your files are recovered and saved. This isn’t a long process; each RAW image I recovered took about one second to save, which means that you can recover quite a few images in a minute or two.
Then, if you go to the folder where you’ve saved the files, you’ll see them completely intact and unharmed.
One nice additional feature here is the ability to go back and recover different photos, even once you’ve done one recovery sweep. So if you accidentally recovered the wrong files, you can just go back into the list of recoverable media and check off a different set of files – without having to scan the drive again.
What’s even nicer is that you can save your scan data when you exit Stellar Photo Recovery. So if you’re tired of recovering images and want to continue later, you can work from a previously-scanned drive without needing to go through the whole process again.
Stellar Photo Recovery: Performance
Speaking as a longtime photographer, I’m always worried about losing my photos.
Yet I’ve never managed to find any recovery software that I really, truly trust, especially because there’s all sorts of dodgy options out there that aren’t worth the money.
But I am genuinely so impressed by Stellar Photo Recovery. It’s easy to set up, easy to use, and it works amazingly well. I tested it out on a 32 GB SD card that was full of Olympus RAW files. The card had been formatted twice in recent days – but Stellar Photo Recovery managed to bring back every photo from before the second wipe, and what appeared to be all 400+ photos from before the first wipe, all in perfect condition.
The most difficult thing about Stellar Photo Recovery is the waiting – as I explained above, the scan takes some time. But you don’t have to babysit the software, so you can easily get the scan started, go do something else, and come back in 30 minutes or so.
Now, I do think it’s important to be up front, here:
I didn’t try to restore any corrupted files, and my sense is that Stellar Photo Recovery works here but won’t always do a perfect job. So it’s certainly worth using for that sort of thing, but while recognizing that repairing corrupt files is inherently difficult and might not happen.
Also recognize that the more you overwrite files, the more Stellar Photo Recovery will struggle to recover the originals.
In other words:
Don’t take pictures, format the card, take more pictures, and only then try to recover the originals; instead, make sure any accidentally-formatted cards are immediately put aside for recovery.
If you don’t do this, your results will vary, depending on the amount of new photos you took.
Make sense?
Ultimately, I’m now a huge fan of Stellar Photo Recovery. And I guarantee it’ll be the software I turn to the next time I lose images.
Stellar Photo Recovery: Pricing
There are three Stellar Photo Recovery packages (all are available for both Mac and Windows):
The Standard package, which costs $ 39.99 for a one-year subscription, and offers complete recovery capabilities, but cannot repair corrupted files.
The Professional package, which costs $ 49.99 for a one-year subscription, and offers complete recovery capabilities plus the ability to repair corrupted photo files.
And the Premium package, which costs $ 69.99 for a one-year subscription, and offers complete recovery capabilities, the ability to repair corrupted photo files, plus the ability to repair corrupted video files.
Which should you get?
If you’re just looking to recover deleted files, the Standard package will work just fine.
But if you have corrupted image files, then the Professional package is a must.
And if you have corrupted video files, you’ll want to go for the Premium option.
So make sure to grab your version of Stellar Photo Recovery software here.
Who should get Stellar Photo Recovery?
Stellar Photo Recovery is a fantastic option for photographers and videographers looking to recover files.
It’s simple to use, its performance is impeccable, and I can’t recommend it enough.
So the next time you find yourself needing to perform file recovery or repair…
…turn to Stellar Photo Recovery.
Stellar is a paid partner of dPS.
The post Stellar Photo Recovery Software Review: An Easy Way to Reclaim Your Precious Photos appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Jaymes Dempsey.
Hähnel recently launched the Lantern Diffuser, a new speedlight diffuser that creates an exceptionally wide-angle spread of illumination in a very compact form factor by using a clever folding design. This new lighting accessory is just one part of Hähnel’s modular flash system and is designed to attach to hotshoe flash units via one of the company’s magnetic accessory clamps.
Jump to:
What is it? | How it works | What the light looks like | Conclusion
Key features:
Compact, folding design
Comes with six color gels
Works with Hähnel’s other modular magnetic accessories
Hähnel magnetic clamp is required and is a separate purchase
Compatible with most larger speedlight-style flashes from various manufacturers
The Lantern Diffuser is available now at B&H and other authorized Hähnel retailers for $ 99 USD.
What is it?
The Lantern comes in a kit that includes the diffuser along with a set of six colored gels and a gel holder that gets sandwiched between the magnetic clamp and the diffuser frame. The whole kit comes in a folding wallet that also has room for the magnetic clamp that isn’t part of the kit – but which is essential for its use. The clamp is central to the company’s range of clip-on accessories and needs to be bought separately.
The diffuser is made using a fan of concertinaed white material that both diffuses the light and sends it out over a 180° angle as the flash passes through it, with the idea of producing a very soft light that covers a very wide area.
I was initially concerned about how well the fanned out diffuser would survive lots of use, drops and getting its delicate design dented, but in all the use I made of it I didn’t manage to damage it. I guess if you dropped your flash with it attached and it landed face down the consequences mightn’t be good, but so long as you don’t do that it should be fine.
The kit comes in a roll-up pouch and includes 6 colored gels, a magnetic gel holder and the diffuser itself
When not in use it folds away into itself and is protected by the rigged plastic-covered metal ends. I haven’t used it long enough to know whether it will yellow with time, and the weather has been too good to test it outside in the rain – I’d be nervous to do that with the Lantern, while my softboxes would just dry out.
I’m a big fan of good speedlight accessories that are easy to use, which don’t take up a lot space and which have a dramatic impact on the characteristics of the light produced. And I have quite a collection, from inflatable frosted panels to snoots, softboxes and those yogurt-pot-like tubes the flash fires up into. This Lantern is quite different to anything else I’ve used, so I wanted to give it a try.
How it works
This video from Hähnel shows how the Lantern folds and attaches to a flash of your choice.
I used this diffuser on the Hähnel Modus 600RT flash unit, both on the camera and off using a Viper TTL trigger for Micro Four Thirds cameras and Panasonic full-frame S-series cameras. The Modus 600RT is the more powerful of Hähnel’s speedlights, and offers a guide number of 60m at ISO 100 at the 200mm zoom setting.
To attach the Lantern to the flash, I used the Module 600 clamp which, with its sprung grip, will fit most larger hotshoe style flash guns from all manufacturers. The clamp grips the head of the speedlight with the Hähnel logo facing forwards and the Lantern diffuser sticks to it when the magnets in each item attract. The gel holder can go on first, which offers a more obvious placement for the diffuser, but it doesn’t have to. Take a look at the video above for a clearer picture of how it all works.
Used in the hotshoe the light from the Lantern Diffuser is direct and straight on, but very much softer than you’d expect from such a small accessory.
Overall, the Lantern diffuses light more than you’d expect from such a small flash accessory. With a bare bulb the light would be much harder and highlight on the sun-creamed forehead would be dramatic and distracting. The accessory is small enough to create a definite direction, but the multi-layered diffusion makes that light seem quite gentle.
The Lantern diffuser folds in half, so we attach one half to the magnetic clamp and then unfold the other half to get the full 180° dome effect.
What it looks like
I started by testing the spread and the evenness of the light the diffuser gives by clamping the flash onto a stand using Hähnel’s Bowen’s mount adapter and firing the flash at a blank wall.
The difference in spread is immediately clear when you compare the Lantern-diffused exposure with that of the bare head and even when an 80cm/31in double-diffused square softbox was used instead. The Modus 600RT is a TTL gun, but if you shoot manually expect to lose about 2 stops of light due to the Lantern diffuser – about the same as when using the softbox with the extra internal diffuser sheet – but a much wider spread of illumination.
This is the coverage of the flash with no modifier
The flash was left in the same position, but with the Hähnel 80cm softbox attached
Here’s the same arrangement but using the Lantern diffuser
And the same again, but with a green gel in the gel holder
What is significant about this little diffuser is that it offers both a diffused and a bounced light effect, so the light is very soft once it reaches the subject. The softness is remarkable considering how small the accessory is and that the flash is still effectively a point source. Shadows are defined but filled at the same time, and lack the hard-edged contrast we get with a bare head.
The Lantern Diffuser avoids that artificial look of a direct burst from an uncovered flash bulb
I found that even when used with the flash mounted on the camera the light is dramatically altered, and still provides a nice softness when used quite close to the subject. It avoids that immediately artificial look of a direct burst from an uncovered bulb, or even that of a light bounced into a kicker reflector.
I tried the Lantern for some single-light still life shots with the flash at a relatively close range and a small subject – things that tend to bring out high contrast when hotshoe flash units are used. You can see though that the Lantern has done very well to produce a soft light that doesn’t display hotspots or reflections on the waxy surface of the avocado skin.
Click or tap-and-drag the arrow to see a soft box and the Lantern Diffuser differ.
The light is as soft as that produced by the 80cm softbox, though the shadow profile is slightly more defined due to the smaller surface area of the source. As the light from the Lantern is thrown around the room we get much more fill in the shadow areas too.
The spread of the light is also very impressive. The Lantern will light a room evenly when we are using a super-wide lens to fit it all in. This means we don’t have to worry about finding a clean white surface to bounce from. Fall off is more dramatic than with a bare bulb or a bounce, so a powerful gun will work best.
To give you an idea of the diffuser’s coverage, this was shot on the full frame Lumix S1R with a 9mm lens – at f/8 and 1/200sec at ISO 400. All the light on the foreground is from the flash. You can see that the post on the right as well as the tree trunk on the left are both lit with the flash. A 9mm lens has an angle of view of 135 degrees.
Conclusion
I’m very impressed with this Hähnel Lantern. It’s small, highly portable and weighs almost nothing, which means you can afford to carry it around in the camera bag even when you don’t actually get to use it without it having been a pain all day. The clamp is simple to fit and the gel holder and diffuser just snap on, so assembly is quick and easy too.
I don’t often use colored gels with single flash set-ups, but they are handy for second and third guns for rim lighting and coloring a background. Background lights with these diffusers on will be very useful, and the lack of hotspots, and their size, means they are ideal for hiding within the shot without the danger of them producing give-away bright blasted areas.
I have a lot of rubbish accessories, and others that are well thought out but the size of studio modifiers so you can’t carry them around on the off-chance that you might need them. This though sits in a side pocket of a bag ready for that moment you want to soften a burst of flash whenever it happens to occur. I would also actively take this with me to light backgrounds, multiple people facing inwards, for filling in on a sunny day and for using as the main light for a portrait or a still life.
The flash was held just off-camera for this shot. The defined shadow is still there but the light on the subject is soft and attractive. The subject was in the shade and exposure was 1/200sec at f/9, so almost all the light on the subject was provided by the flash.
I love using speedlites for ‘proper’ photography especially on location (I used two Hähnel Modus 600RT units with a softbox and a small dish for the male model shots in the Hasselblad 907X sample gallery) and this will definitely be joining the collection of tools I use – and ousting a few that simply don’t do the job so well.
The Hähnel Module Creative Lantern Kit costs £59.99/$ 99.99. For more information see the Hähnel website.
What we like:
Amazingly well diffused soft light
Really wide, even spread of light
Small and easy to carry all the time
Quick to assemble
Nice pouch and accessories
Don’t like:
Dome feels a bit fragile, though it hasn’t dented yet
Gels are strong and for dramatic effects rather than colour correction
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