Pearstone Duo Battery Charger Review

July 29, 2025March 28, 2012 by Dan Carr

One of the things that I was happy to see at the launch of the Canon 5D MKIII was that they have kept the venerable LP-E6 battery that was first introduced more than three years ago with the MKII. I’ve always been amazed at it’s capacity and in the last few years several third party accessory manufacturers have also adopted it for powering video equipment accessories such as LCD monitors of external video recorders. Of course it’s also been used in the 7D and 60D! In other words, if you are a Canon shooter then the chances are you have …

Hands On With The New Canon 24-70 & 24mm + 28mm IS Primes

October 10, 2023February 14, 2012 by Dan Carr

Recently Canon announced the introduction of three new lenses to their EF lineup. The long awaited 24-70 f2.8 L II finally broke cover as well as two wide prime lenses with IS, the first of their kind. Much has been made about the projected $2300 price point for the new 24-70 though which is about $1200 more than you can currently get the previous version for. In the last couple of years Canon have updated some old lenses and introduced some new ones, all of which I have found to be exemplary so my gut feeling is that for pros, …

Nikon D4 Vs. Canon EOS 1D X

October 10, 2023January 4, 2012 by Dan Carr

Just a few days before CES 2012 and the specs for the Nikon D4 have been accidentally leaked on a website (reported but not named by Nikon Rumors). They also published a photo of the new Nikon D4. Given that we already know all about the Canon 1D X we can now take a proper look at latest and greatest from the big two. While the D4 will be the second of the two to be unveiled, it will in fact be available in stores in February compared to late March for the 1D X. Amazon actually has the D4 …

New Tascam DR-40 and DR-100 MKII FOR DSLR Audio

October 10, 2023January 3, 2012 by Dan Carr

Getting around the deficient audio in DSLR video production is always a tricky problem for one reason or another. There are several ways to do it , depending on which camera you are using but it also depends on whether you want to shoot separate audio tracks and sync in post using Plural Eyes , or whether you want to record straight into the video track on camera. The latter route will never be as high quality but sometimes you just don’t have time for the extra step in post of syncing and managing the audio files. Of course the …

The Search For My Ultimate Tripod Setup – Really Right Stuff TVC-33s

June 20, 2021December 29, 2011 by Dan Carr

Having broken my tripod recently I decided to look at what the high end of the market has to offer. A cheap tripod rarely does you any favors and whilst my previous one wasn’t exactly cheap, I’d often wanted a bit more stability and a generally nicer feel to things. I did a lot of research, read a lot of reviews, blog posts and forum threads and narrowed things quickly down to Gitzo and Really Right Stuff. I’m a big fan of Really Right Stuff products in general and I use their BH-40 ballhead as well as an MH-01 on …

Canon EOS-1D X Tech Note: No AF with f8 Lenses

October 12, 2023October 19, 2011 by Dan Carr

I wanted make a brief post to mention this information that was pointed out to me by my friend Colby Brown. It used to be the case that only Canon 1-series cameras could focus with lenses with a minimum aperture of f8. It was a feature that set them apart and above the rest of the lineup, albeit only the center AF point worked. Now Canon doesn’t manufacture any lenses that have such a small minimum aperture natively but there are plenty of ways to get there by using extenders. The newly announced Canon EOS-1D X (their new flagship!) DOES …

Datacolor SpyderLensCal Review

July 28, 2025September 23, 2011 by Dan Carr

Over on ProPhotoCoalition I’ve just posted a quick review and how-to-use for the Datacolor SpyderLensCal which is a pretty neat little tool for helping you quickly calibrate all your lenses using the AF micro adjust feature in today’s DSLRs. Calibrating Your Lenses With Spyder LensCal From Datacolor

Lowepro Photo Sport 200 AW Review

October 12, 2023September 20, 2011 by Dan Carr

The eternal quest for the perfect camera bag is one that I’m sure you’re all familiar with. I’ve given up looking for “The One” though because the breadth of photography that I enjoy makes such a bag an impossibility. I prefer to narrow things down a little and in this instance I’m on the hunt for the best outdoor adventure photography pack. This year Lowepro launched two bags that fall into this category, the Photo Sport Sling 100 and the Photo Sport 200 AW. Lowepro recently sent me a 200 AW to try out and it’s actually the first Lowepro …

Fuji X10 Vs. X100

October 12, 2023August 30, 2011 by Dan Carr

The Fuji x100 is a phenomenally successful camera, even 6 months after it hit store shelves it’s still in short supply. I reviewed it myself and fell in love with it but the price tag isn’t for everyone, neither is the fixed 24mm prime lens. In September 2011 Fujifilm announced the X10 which addresses both of these considerations so I figured I would write up a comparison to help people choose between the two. At first glance they look fairly similar as both are based around the same rear screen and controls and a similar magnesium chassis but in fact …

Comparing Canon’s MKII and MKIII Extenders

October 12, 2023August 29, 2011 by Dan Carr

In the Fall of 2010 Canon announced the introduction of new MKIII extenders to replace the previous MKII versions. Super Spectra coatings were introduced to help reduce ghosting and flare as well as fluorine coating to make water spots and finer prints easier to remove. I’ve always fond the MKII extenders to be extremely useful when used in the right circumstances so I was eager to try out the MKIII versions to see if there was an improvement. Physical differences Since the introduction of the 800mm f5.6, Canon changed their off-white color of their telephoto lenses. All the new MKII …

Should you be running a UPS in your studio or office?

July 30, 2025August 16, 2011 by Dan Carr

Today I installed a UPS in my office for the first time. UPS stands for uninterpretable power supply and essentially it acts as a battery backup for your computer (or other electronics) should there be a power outage. It had honestly never occurred to me that this is something you should think about, until something went very very wrong. More on that in a bit…. but when I came to do a little research on the most popular UPS’ I was surprised as to how reasonably price they were. Why would you want to have one of these then ? …

Canon 8-15 F4 L USM Fisheye Review

October 12, 2023August 6, 2011 by Dan Carr

The Canon EF 8-15 F4 L fisheye lens is one highly anticipated piece of glass ! First announced back in Autumn 2010 this is not a replacement of any existing lens, but an all new design with unique potential. Canon originally started with the 15mm f2.8 fisheye which was designed before the digital days. This lens provided a full 180 degree field of view on a full frame camera but users of 1.6 or 1.3 crop cameras were left with slightly less fishy look to their images. On the Nikon side of things, Nikkor released a beautiful 10.5mm fisheye for …