News

Nikon’s poorly kept secret of its classicly-lined Df photo-only DSLR is finally out in the open. The Nikon Df, harkening back to Nikon’s flagship “F"-Series” pro SLRs is now available for pre-order, and the specs are head-turning. It isn’t for everyone, but serious street photographers, classic photojournalists, collectors, and hobbyists should take a look.

I wrote up the camera and its features, along with new 50mm lens for Extremetech, so see what you think. If you decide to buy, you can pre-order in either Silver or Black for $2750, or in Silver with the new 50mm lens or Black with the new 50mm lens for $3000 from B&H. 

Tablets are a nearly perfect companion for photographers on the go. They’re a great way to view photos and handle other tasks. Unfortunately the simple act of getting images from your camera to your tablet (or phone) can be a serious hassle. Best case your tablet vendor has a cable-based proprietary system. Worst case, you can’t. Fortunately Kingston has come up with a very clever product that does three things very well – wireless image transfer, additional mobile storage, and emergency battery charging…

Nikon has continued to push the envelope of what’s possible with DSLRs, by relentlessly taking technologies – especially sensors – from its more expensive models and using them in less expensive versions. The Nikon D5300 is a perfect example. Using the excellent, very sharp, 24MP sensor from the Nikon D7100 and an updated EXPEED 4 processing chip, the Nikon D5300 is likely to make those looking for amazing images in a small package very happy.

Polarizing filters are typically thought of as a shooting solution for capturing images containing glare, and perhaps for “darkening skies.” But there is another great use for them that is often neglected – making up for harsh light. Sometimes it is difficult to get to a location when the light is still soft, or sometimes – like with the pictured Aspen grove – the subject just isn’t lit until the Sun is high in the sky. A Polarizer can help…

Congratulations to our good friend David Langford on his beautiful new book, Hillingdon Ranch: Four Seasons, Six Generations, published by Texas A&M as an example of successful, multi-generational land use strategies. It is great to see his amazing photos from a historic piece of Texas. For those intrigued by the area and its history, our May Texas Hill Country Bird & Scenic Photo Safari is actually on a ranch that was a part of the Hillingdon Ranch until our hosts Larry and Sharron Jay purchased it from the family, so we hope you can join us…

When something unexpected happens on a photo shoot it is easy to get carried away in the moment and start firing away. If you've done some action photography your reflexes may take over and you'll instinctively start cropping to maximize the impact of the subject. Sometimes, though, it pays to take a deep breath and think things through first....

After tons of totally-justified flack about trying to force all its users into a rental business model, Adobe has relented somewhat today, hoping to add enough grease to silence the squeaky wheels. Instead of the previous $20/month rental price for Photoshop Creative Cloud, Adobe has introduced a new Photographers' Program that gives the user both Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5 for $10/month.

Nikon has released firmware C-1.01 for the Nikon D600, which addresses an issue with black bars around HDMI output. It also fixes several other issues (including an irksome color change gremlin), adds support for the 800mm lens, and improves subject-tracking autofocus. There is also new firmware for the Nikon D800 and Nikon D800e. 

I am really excited about the Nikon D600 as a new, less-expensive, way to get high-performance full-frame images. Mine is arriving tomorrow, and I'll be writing more hands-on when I get it. But in the meantime, I was blown away by the amazing test results achieved by the D600 by the folks over at DxOMark. In their exhaustive tests the D600 bested not only the Canon 5D Mark III, but Nikon's own D4 for low-light performance and overall image quality...

Yesterday Google announced it is acquiring much loved digital photo filter maker nik Software to get its hands on nik's award-winning Snapseed mobile app. Google desperately needs an edge to help Google+ gain ground on Facebook, and counter FB's acquisition of Instagram. T

Remember when I wrote that I wished Nikon would make a camera with specs similar to the Canon 5D Mark III, but at a lower price? well now they have and it sounds awesome. the Nikon D600 is a 24mp 5.5t fps monster tucked into a package not much bigger than a Nikon D7000. Somehow it also manages to have a 100 percent viewfinder and a pop up flash. All that for $2100 from B&H, shipping next week!