Brighten up your lighting skills

While the Auckland Festival Photography brings to the city more exhibitions than you can shake a monopod at, it’s not all just looking – there’s plenty of opportunities for doing too, such as a series of workshops to enhance your lighting skills.

Apix Photographic Supplies and Topic Rentals are teaming up for the Festival to provide an extensive programme of lighting workshops throughout June.

Covering Canon and Nikon speedlights as well as Elinchrom studio lights on individual days, the curriculum should have something for everyone wanting to get a bit more proactive with their lighting skills.

The hands-on workshops well be held at Topic Rentals in Newton in small groups to maximise their value, and cost $50 per person per workshop – spaces are limited so email sales@apix.co.nz or call 09 307 3177 to secure a space quickly.

On the day attendees will utilise the selected lighting set-up to photograph live performances; you are advised to bring a memory stick (or buy one there) and can bring your own camera or borrow one from ‘the armory’. Read the rest of this entry »

Hähnel Tuff TTL Wireless Flash Trigger (for Canon)

The Hähnel Tuffs are, well, tough! Made up of two complementary units: a transmitter that sits on the camera’s hot shoe and a receiver with a hot shoe for the remote flash to sit in. Plug them in, turn them on and the camera is shooting in full Canon TTL mode without even consulting the manual.

They are light but made out of a strong plastic material and covered with a protective and removable silicone rubber cover, giving them a go-anywhere take-anything-you-can-throw-at-them feel. The receiver also acts as a foot for the flash, which means you can sit on a table, shelf or any level surface without extra clamps or accessories.

The buttons and controls are oversize, easily accessed but discrete, which means they are easy to use and don’t get in the way — very well thought through design and details. Read the rest of this entry »

Eyes on Cinema EOS

This week Canon invited local professional filmmakers, videographers and photographers in both Auckland and Wellington to an evening showcase of the company’s rapidly growing line of Cinema EOS products – D-Photo came along to the Auckland event.

Settling in with a few drinks and nibbles at Grey Lynn’s Kingsize Studios, attendees were treated to screenings of two short films shot on different cameras in the Cinema EOS range, as well as some behind-the-scenes featurettes, before delving into product overviews.

The first short was Man & Beast, a stylish short biopic about scientist and conservation activist Dr Alan Rabinowitz, PhD. The film is a warm, fuzzy story of a young boy who turned to animals for shelter from the teasing of others due to his debilitating stutter, later growing up to become one of the world’s most effective defenders of imperilled wild cat species.

The very engaging short was shot entirely on the C500, Canon’s new headliner in the EOS Cinema range. Putting the powerful camera’s ability to shoot10-bit 4K RAW footage at up to 60fps in the hands of legendary cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth (Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) makes for an undeniably sumptuous visual treat. Don’t take my word for it, check out the film below (be sure to switch HD on). Read the rest of this entry »

Canon Powershot SX500 IS Compact Camera – 51

Canon’s PowerShot SX500 IS joins the company’s range of cameras with a fixed zoom, sized larger than the very slim, fit-in-the-back-pocket–style compact, yet smaller and lighter than an SLR.

The SX500 IS has a 30x optical zoom lens, 24mm to 720mm range (35mm equivalent) and weighs 318 grams, the lightest in this series. Comparatively, the Canon SX50H has 50x optical zoom but weighs over 200 grams more and the SX 40HS has 35x optical zoom but is also over 200 grams heavier than the SX500.

Although it is very light the camera’s protruding lens and hand grip make it too bulky to fit in a trouser pocket, though its form is fine for a large jacket pocket.  It has five scene modes, seven autofocus options and captures 16-megapixel images and HD movies. Read the rest of this entry »

Canon EF 40MM F/2.8 STM Lens – 50

Canon’s new standard fixed 40mm lens is so slim and light (just under 3cm protruding from camera body to lens cap edge and weighing 130g) it can slip into a gear bag or pocket with little bother.

The company already has a healthy stack of 50mm lenses on their books, each with wide apertures, like f/1.8, f/1.4 and f/1.2, which might leave one wondering why introduce a 40mm f/2.8 STM lens — what’s its point of difference? The STM signifies it has ‘stepping motor’ technology, designed to smoothly and silently autofocus with cameras constructed with the Movie Servo AF feature, like Canon’s new entry-level EOS 650D, to eliminate ugly whirring sounds generated by autofocus. Canon has also recently produced another STM lens, the 18–135mm f/3.5–5.6 IS. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo 5 briefs revealed

The mystery assignments for Australasia’s most intriguing photography competition have now been revealed, putting Canon’s EOS Photo5 event in full swing.

The annual creative photography competition tasks all comers with interpreting five distinct briefs in fresh and original ways so as to wow a judging panel of prominent photographers and score some impressive prizes.

Each brief consists of a photographic style or element paired with a random item that must be used in the creation of the image, this year’s briefs are:

Portraiture: Spaghetti

Strong colour: Tissue paper

Scale: Little People

Black and white: Fishing wire

Open brief: Wind Read the rest of this entry »

Canon bumps up cinema line

Canon New Zealand has just announced a swathe of new entries into its Cinema EOS System line for digital cinematographers, including new bodies and lenses.

Joining the previously released EOS C300 interchangeable lens video camera are two new camera bodies, one entry-level and one flagship, and six new EF Cinema lenses.

The EOS C100 is the entry point to the Cinema EOS range, built around the same Super 35mm CMOS sensor as its bigger brother, the C300, in a compact, lightweight form for single-user use.

Canon envisions the new model to be taken up by film students, independent filmmakers, wedding videographers or corporate television productions.

No local pricing has been announced for the entry-level model, though it is expected to be available from December through dealers Protel and Audio 2 Vizual.

At the other end of the line Canon also announced a new flagship model for its digital filmmaking range, the 4K-resolution EOS C500/EOS C500 PL.

Also built around the same Super 35mm sensor as the C300, the new top tier model features additional shooting modes, dual 3G-SDI ports and a bigger, permanent grip.

Designed for high-end industry productions, the C500 offers two full RAW outputting modes optimised for both motion picture shooting and 4K television footage.

The flagship is expected to pop up in November with pricing set at dealers’ (same as above) discretion.

The company is also bolstering its EF Cinema Lens array for 4K cameras with four new zooms and two new fixed lenses.

New zoom models include the CN-E30–105mm T2.8 L S for EF mount and CN-E30–105mm T2.8 L SP for PL mount due in October and the CN-E15.5–47mm T2.8 L S for EF mount and CN-E15.5–47mm T2.8 L SP for PL mount due in December.

The new prime lenses, which are still in development, are a 14mm T3.1 wide-angle lens and a 135mm T2.2 telephoto lens – Canon is aiming to have them ready within the first half of 2013.