Tangents

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review: Impact Quikbox Softbox (24″ x 24″)

May 29, 2012 Neil vN 54 Comments

review: Impact Quikbox Softbox (24 x 24")

My favorite diffuser / modifier for off-camera flash, is the Lastolite Ezybox 24x24 for speed lights (affiliate). The Lastolite Ezybox has featured often on the Tangents blog. (Here is the review). It's easy to use and super-easy to set up. And in its original configuration, folds up to a surprisingly small bundle. The good news for photographers who have been curious about the Lastolite Ezybox, is that Impact now makes a softbox - the Impact Quikbox 24x24 softbox (affiliate), which is virtually identical, at a lower  Read more inside...

review: Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT

May 1, 2012 Neil vN 32 Comments

review: Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT

Summary: Right off the bat, let me say it - this speedlite, the Canon 600EX-RT (B&H / Amazon), is going to change the industry. Nothing is going to be the same again. A speedlite that has radio transmitters built in, has been anticipated for quite some time now. It just makes sense.  So it was just a matter of time before one of the big camera manufacturers did this ... and Canon is the first. And they didn't drop the ball on the rest of the speedlite's features, or with the functionality of this piece of gear. It's easy to use, with  Read more inside...

Using Nikon’s built-in Time-lapse photography feature

April 22, 2012 Neil vN 23 Comments

Using Nikon's built-in Time-lapse photography feature

Among the loads of features of Nikon and Canon's latest cameras, is an item which is of specialized interest - Time-Lapse Photography. At the upper end of the spectrum, time-lapse photography is best done by shooting sequences of RAW files. More on that topic here: Camera settings for Time-lapse photography. However, the built-in Time-Lapse feature makes it really accessible. You can immediately see the footage you shot, in-camera. Wonderful to make adjustments to settings or composition or timing while on location. With  Read more inside...

review: Canon EOS 5D Mark III – high-ISO noise performance

March 29, 2012 Neil vN 56 Comments

review: Canon EOS 5D Mark III - high-ISO noise performance

I have to confess something first - whenever an important camera is announced, I have just a cursory interest in the specification sheet. The difference between 40 AF sensors and 70 AF sensors ... you know, that's just a number on the paper. It never really tells you how the camera performs. And with the announcement of the details of the Canon 5D Mark III (B&H / Amazon), there were a number of websites eager to list the detailed specs. Yay! Well, not really. There might be some interest in the nomenclature,  Read more inside...

Canon wireless e-TTL flash triggers / radio transmitters

October 10, 2011 Neil vN 31 Comments

Canon wireless e-TTL flash triggers / radio transmitters

A bridal portrait (taken during one of the photo sessions arranged by the Hudson Valley Click), where it is easy to see the advantage of using off-camera lighting. The strong back-lighting is used as a way to highlight the background and have the rim-lighting etch our model against the background. Of course, having her turn her back to the sun also helps with not having our model squinting in the bright light. We immediately avoid unflattering hard light on her face. But we then do need to add off-camera lighting of some  Read more inside...

review: Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS II

September 9, 2011 Neil vN 14 Comments

review: Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS II

Canon updated their already highly regarded 300mm lens, with the Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS II  (B&H / Amazon). For a review of the Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS II. I wanted to try something a little different. I wanted to use the wide aperture of the lens, as well as the compression that a 300mm lens offers, to shoot video of a model, Lea Liu. Instead of just photographs, I decided and create a "moving portrait" of her. This will hopefully show some of the magic that you can get with a wide-aperture telephoto lens. The video footage was  Read more inside...

lens review: Nikon 50mm f/1.4G vs Nikon 50mm f/1.8G

September 1, 2011 Neil vN 63 Comments

lens review: Nikon 50mm f/1.4G vs Nikon 50mm f/1.8G

The 50mm lens in general is an interesting optic. Not necessarily for what it does, but how it seems to have fallen out and back in favor over the years. For example, in the 1970's pretty much all 35mm film cameras shipped with a 50mm lens. Zooms weren't something that just came with the camera as a kit lens. It was the 50mm lens that was the "kit lens".  So the first thing the serious amateur would do, is dump the 50mm lens and get a zoom lens to get some variety in their photographs. Then over the years, more compact and slower  Read more inside...

review: Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L fisheye zoom lens

August 6, 2011 Neil vN 10 Comments

review: Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L fisheye zoom (lens review)

Venturing out again after posting a few photos shot with the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L fisheye zoom, I tried for a more diverse range of images to show what this lens is capable of ... and also compare it with the Canon 15mm f2.8 fish-eye lens to see how the brand-new zoom lens stacks up against the older fixed focal length lens. I was brave enough to try this lens at 15mm for some funky urban portraits of a model, Kate. Bendy! The trick here is to keep as even as possible and not tilt the lens up or down, or else you risk making  Read more inside...

Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L fisheye zoom lens

August 2, 2011 Neil vN 6 Comments

Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L fisheye zoom lens

To try out the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L fish-eye zoom (affiliate), I headed to Times Square in Manhattan. What better place to check out a fish-eye lens - there are enough tall buildings and billboards to fill the frame of a lens that gives a 180 degree view! Now, before I continue, I have to admit that even though I have a fish-eye lens in my bag, (the Nikon 16mm f2.8), I only occasionally use it. I feel that a fish-eye lens can be over-used very quickly when it draws too much attention to the distorted view that the lens gives, rather  Read more inside...

review: Fuji X100 camera – photo shoot with a model

June 22, 2011 Neil vN 17 Comments

review: Fuji X100 camera - photo shoot with a model

First of all, for those who haven't heard of the Fuji X100 (affiliate) yet, it is a beautiful retro-looking rangefinder-mimicking 12 megapixel digital point & shoot camera (with a fixed 35mm equivalent f2.0 lens), that gives remarkable image quality. That about sums it up. For all those reasons, quite a buzz developed around this camera. Quite unlike anything since ... oh, the Leica X1. Or the Olympus Pen EP-2. Or the Sony NEX-5. There was greater excitement building up around the Fuji X100 though than other cameras,  Read more inside...

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