Welcome to The Photo Video Guy. I share training, ideas, opinions and tips to help you make better photographs and videos.
Have questions? Excellent! Please click this link to fill out the simple form to submit a question
Earlier today, Sony announced the a9 camera and the 100-400/4.5-5.6 G Master zoom lens. While the lens definitely looks interesting and fills a needed gap in Sony's own lineup, it is the a9 that has turned the photographic world on its ear. Let's take a look at what we saw for the first time today.
Read MoreThis review is about the GFX 50S. It's the first digital medium format camera from Fujifilm, but certainly not the company's first foray into medium format. For a very long time, Fujifilm delivered some truly marvelous medium format film cameras. The camera was supplied to me with two lenses, the 63mm/2.8 and the 120/4 Macro. For those more accustomed to full frame 35mm focal lengths these behave like a 50mm and a 95mm (approximately) respectively.
Read MoreThe good people at Nikon's agency sent me the press announcement on the day of, but in reading it, I discovered that the camera would not be available until mid-summer. A local retailer is saying end of June on their preorder page. Given that it is only mid April, I wanted to get a virtual look up as an announced but non-shipping product can create stoppage in some user's processes. I have not shot the camera. I have no special insight, so I am sticking to the announcement data for this virtual first look.
Read MoreThe Broncolor Move system is a special case type of studio and field strobe system. It is a power pack based system, but the power pack uses a rechargeable lithium ion battery. It's small and compact, but it uses Broncolor's MobiLED strobe heads, heads designed to be used with much larger AC based systems. Lastly it packs a lot of power, 1200 joules to be used asymmetrically between two heads. There are alternatives in this space, but I thought you might be interested in learning more about the Move 1200L and to see why, if portability, power, consistency and speed are part of your use case, a Move system may be the answer for you.
Read MoreI believe that a photograph that is not printed is incomplete. An image that is not printed is sentenced to death on a hard drive somewhere, or buried in an endless stream of snapshots on a tiny phone screen. Given the alternatives, death is bad. In many cases, a single print, however wonderful, does not tell a complete story. This is where a proper album comes into play, and to solve that problem, we have Fundy Designer.
Read MoreA client contacted me last week. She was finding that her existing telephoto zoom lens did not have the reach that she needed for birding, and had done some initial research and was interested in Sigma's 150-600/5-6.3 Sport telephoto zoom. She wanted to know if I had shot it and tested it before ordering one, because while priced competitively, they are not inexpensive. To learn what I discovered, read on...
Read MoreThe good people at Fujifilm Canada have made an X-T2 available to me for review. It came with the little flash in the box and two lenses, the Fujinon 10-24/4 and the Fujinon 55-200/3.5-4.8. Care to find out how it fared in my testing, and whether I recommend it? Read on my friends...
Read MoreA beauty dish is a wonderful light shaping tool. Using one well takes a fair bit of practice from a positioning perspective, but once you build the skill, there is no other light shaper like a good beauty dish. Some manufacturers such as Profoto refer to these light shapers as soft lights. In this review I look at the absolutely awesome MOLA softlight line
Read MoreI'm attending this and I bought the course! It's Joe Freaking McNally! The Magical Unicorn of Flash. Yes, that +Joe McNally, my favourite instructor, all around cool guy and a top mentor.
Read MoreThe question being posed is whether the EOS-M5 is Canon's best mirrorless ever. The answer is unabashedly, and wholeheartedly, yes. The more relevant question is whether the EOS M5 is a competitive offering, coming as it does, late to the game, and onto a field with other better established and well respected competitors. Join me in this review, and you'll see my answer at the end, but more importantly be able to answer for yourself.
Read MoreThe team at Broncolor Canada have a great event coming up on March 29th in Toronto and on April 1st in Montreal. Come and meet acclaimed Swiss photographer Jessica Keller in a full day lighting seminar. Registration links are below. Cost for the seminar is $150
Read MoreReaders know that I am a fan of fast glass. I love the flexibility it gives me and I tend to shoot fast lenses wide open because of that flexibility. I have no fear of flash, I just like the ability to make an image wherever I might want to. My latest opportunity is the review of Sigma's ART series 20mm f/1.4
Read MoreI was heading to a motorcycle show and wanted a small high quality camera to use, that would not involve me taking anything that would not fit in a pocket. I expected to be on and off bikes all day and wanted nothing swinging on a strap or requiring a bag. Bryan Weiss of Daytripper Photo, knows the high end point and shoot space better than I so I asked his advice. His first reaction matched mine, which was to reach for Sony RX-100 Mark IV. Then he asked if I was willing to try something new and thus began my working day with the Lumix LX10.
Read MoreThe folks at Nikon Canada have sent me a pair of KeyMission products to have a look at. I was initially curious as to why a solid camera company like Nikon would get into action and 360 cameras. To me this seemed a strange decision but I thought it would be worthwhile to have a look.
Read MoreBased on the panic induced drop in stock price following Nikon's recent announcement of financials for the third quarter ending December 31st, 2016, there's an enormous amount of noise that Nikon is done, that the company is over, yadda, yadda, yadda. I don't think so.
Read MoreNikon kills the DL lineup and some general ramblings on the future for Nikon
Read MoreField recording shouldn't be a pain or have to sound lousy. The Tascam DR-70D is an excellent field and in studio recorder. To find out more, read the full article.
Read MoreFolks shooting Sony's full frame E mount bodies want choices in glass and while Sony is dramatically investing in new glass, many buyers are coming from a different system. If you have Sigma Canon EF mount lenses and would like to use them effectively on a Sony E mount full frame body, you might just be in luck with the Sigma MC-11.
Read MoreOne of the most desired and anticipated lenses in Sigma's ART lineup was a replacement for their proven, but showing its age, 85/1.4Sigma announced the ART version and it is now shipping in volume and I thank Gentec International for providing me with a lens to review.
Read MoreThe idea behind Palette is to allow the user of a number of photo and video applications to build a custom control surface for each application. I contacted the manufacturer when the device was first announced, but they were not ready for media review at the time and I forgot about the device for about a year. I recently obtained a Professional version for evaluation. Let's see what we see.
Read More
The site of The Photo Video Guy featuring articles, reviews, tutorials and a podcast for your enjoyment and skills development.
If you get value from here, please support the channel on Patreon. Once there, click Membership
Looking for something in particular? Search all the posts for the content you are seeking!
Have a question on photography or video? Click this link to send us your question.
Subscribe to our articles via RSS by clicking the link below.
Subscribe to the Make Better Photos and Video Podcast via RSS by clicking this link
Regular readers know that I am a big fan of Really Right Stuff products. Their customer service is superb. If you choose to purchase from them at their site, please let them know that I referred you.
The Photo Video Guy is the creation of Ross Chevalier. Please feel free to link to your site, but please don't lift content without attribution.
