Towards the end of last year, Tetenal Europe GmbH, one of the largest and possibly oldest manufacturers of photographic chemicals in the world announced that it was entering a restructuring phase to help save the business. Now, according to imaging + foto-contact, Tetenal HQ in Norderstedt, Germany has informed their employees that the company would be closing down, and is expected to shut the doors completely on April 1st once the current production runs have completed....

I’ve had the great privilege of tagging along with Eric Kim for the Gulf Photo Plus (GPP) event in Dubai back in 2014 and 2016. GPP is an annual event: the region’s biggest and only photography festival, bringing the world’s best photographers and instructors to Dubai to share their knowledge and experience with the professional and amateur photography community in the Middle East and Africa. I’ve been humbled to learn bits and pieces from an unbelievable roster of GPP teachers....

Rumours of the Leica SL2 have been out for a while now. We saw photos and a list of specs leaked two months ago. But now, Leica has officially announced the Leica SL2; A 47.3-megapixel full-frame L mount mirrorless camera capable of shooting stills at up to 20fps, 4K video at 60fps, and 1080p HD slow motion at up to 180fps. The Leica SL2 shows some significant upgrades over its predecessor, the original Leica SL....

Carrying your camera around is kind of a staple unless you’re a full-time studio photographer, and still then – what do you do with your camera when you need to raise a light stand or adjust a prop? So unless your camera lives on a tethered tripod, you need something to comfortably transport your camera, ideally in such a way that your camera is shoot-ready in the blink of an eye....

When it comes to vlogging with just your phone, the first thing you should buy is a microphone. The native audio from the iPhone is not stellar, to say the least. And a good microphone is the fastest way to bump the quality of a phone video. While for work we use RODE’s $289 Videomic Pro Plus, we got to test its little vlogging buddy, the $79 RODE ME-L. If you are a TL;DR kind of person, here is the short version, the ME-L is a stellar microphone for $80....

Anamorphic lenses seemed to disappear in popularity for a while but there is no doubt now that they’re back in a big way. And while there are some moderately low-budget options out there from companies like Sirui, Samyang and Great Joy, they’re still above the budgets of many who just want to play around and experiment. And playing around and experimenting happens to be Tito Ferradans’ speciality. Over on his YouTube channel, Anamorphic on a Budget, he’s experimented with a lot of DIY “anamorfake” options and he’s put together a complete guide on how you can do it yourself to pretty much any lens you already own....

On my last visit to China I was invited to review quite an interesting product – a robotic arm. This has nothing to do with photography and everything to do with making. If you are here for the photography tips, move along, there is nothing to see. If you wanna see a kickass robot read on. The arm is called the Dobot M1 and is curently a tad short of 300% funding on kickstarter....

The Epson International Pano Awards share its last contest’s winners in October last year. Time flies, and now it’s time for new submissions. The competition is now open for entries and there are some tempting prizes involved. To inspire you further, The Epson International Pano Awards has also shared some of the last year’s submissions we haven’t seen so far, and they’re stunning as always! Now in its 13th year, the contest has grown to become the world’s largest competition devoted to the craft and art of panoramic photography....

Lomography has announced Fisheye Baby 110 Camera, a cheap toy camera that actually takes photos. The very name is pretty self-explanatory: the camera features a fisheye lens, uses Lomography’s 110 film, and the “Baby” in the name refers to its small size. So, let’s see what this baby can do. As you can probably imagine, a camera this small isn’t particularly powerful nor made for fashion or wedding shoots. But it’s a fun toy you can play with on casual shooting occasions....

Justin Rosenberg is a photographer who loves fog! But that’s not all he shoots, in his own words he says ‘In my images, I aim to convey a sense of that hope in the struggle. Much of my work focuses on a single subject relating to a seemingly harsh/sparse environment. I’m often drawn to the natural world as a setting; particularly cold, foggy, and gloomy scenes. I find there to be a beautiful vulnerability in the loneliness and isolation of a subject in a harsh/sparse spaces....

There’s been a big rush from manufacturers lately to let you use their cameras as webcams. Fujifilm recently announced their Fuji X Webcam software that essentially simulates a capture device from your camera’s live view – although, unlike Panasonic’s solution, it actually shows up as a capture device. Well, the big news is on that one is that it’s coming to the Mac next month. But for Fujifilm X-T200 and X-A7 owners, there’s other big news....

Teased last week, Insta360 has today launched the new Insta360 EVO, a 360° camera that also turns into a stereoscopic 3D 180° camera. Like the Insta360 ONE X, the Insta360 EVO shoots 5.7K 360° video, and 18-megapixel 360° still photos. What’s very cool, though, is that the stereo 3D 180° view comes with the same FlowState stabilisation afforded to the Insta360 ONE X camera. From personal experience, I can say that on ONE X footage, you’d swear it was shot from a gimbal....

Insta360 has today announced the new Insta360 ONE RS. It’s the follow-up to the company’s popular and modular Insta360 ONE R, released in 2020. It boasts some fancy new upgrades in both the core module as well as the 4K “Boost” module, but is it any good? I’ve been playing with one for the last couple of weeks, so today we’re going to talk about some of its differences and benefits over its predecessor and take a look at some sample footage from both shot side-by-side to see how it compares....

I really don’t know what to make of this one. It’s either a stroke of genius or absolutely ludicrous. I’m talking about Lenscapt, which is a new type of lenscap for DSLRs, mirrorless and other cameras. It’s being funded through Kickstarter and at first, I thought it seemed pretty daft. The Lenscapt precludes the use of lens hoods and some filter systems, but then I got thinking a little more about who could get some use out of it....

I received a letter from Costco that the location I frequent for my 8lbs of ground beef and jumbo bottle of vodka is closing their photo department. Why? Because in spite of more pictures being taken now than in any time in the history of photography, people are simply not printing their snapshots and, because of this rapid decline in printing volume, it makes no financial sense to keep the photo department open....

On Oct 8, 2015, a completely unknown company announced a new camera which promised to change how we think about photography. The L16 combines breakthrough optics design with never-before-seen imaging technology to bring you the camera of the future. The L16 would use 16 camera modules with varying focal lengths with folded optics instead of 1 single sensor, and use “computational photography” to fuse the individual photos together with depth data, producing results that would be “DSLR quality”....

We learned before that the original lightsaber was made from a flash handle ‘40s Graflex camera. That’s about its looks – but have you wondered how its sound was made? Sound Designer Ben Burtt recently revealed that the sound of the iconic movie weapon was inspired by a film projector motor and a TV set. He shared a story about how he created the sound, and if you’re a Star Wars geek, you’re gonna love this....

This would be absolutely amazing if it turns out to be true. Nikon have filed a couple of patents for hybrid viewfinders in the past, but eagle eyed Flickr user, Anankhepi believes it may be on the way. Two dark circles above the viewfinder in the leaked Nikon D850 photos are the clue. On first glance, one might simply believe them to be screw holes, but they don’t exist in any other camera in Nikon’s lineup....

Well, these are some pretty significant updates to the Nikon Z9. Nikon has today announced the new version 2.0 firmware for the Nikon Z9. It brings with it a host of interesting new features for both photographers and filmmakers including internal 12-Bit ProRes RAW recording at 4.1K up to 60fps and 12-Bit N-RAW recording for 8.3K. 4K footage can now be oversampled from 8K and you also get finer ISO control with 1/6th step increments....

It’s time we put some updated sensibilities’ behind the statements “fix it in post” and “getting it right in the camera”. A few people mentioned these phrases to me recently and honestly, I was surprised to hear how they interpreted the meaning behind them. I was even more surprised and disappointed when I posted the topic on social media today and quite a few people weighed in with very strong opinions and RULES for how things should be done....