Canon and Sony News for Oct 2017 (Page 6)
From the B&H YouTube Channel:
Hot off the release of the new Nikon D850, B&H got a chance to give four of our photographers some time with the camera. With an incredible new 45.7MP sensor, massively improved auto-focus, 4k video, and even post-friendly features such as focus stacking, we see just what the D850 is capable of.
B&H carries the Nikon D850.
From Photoshelter:
15 new photographers pull back the curtain & share how they got the shot
We partnered with Tether Tools for the third edition of How I Got The Shot. Inside, 15 new photographers breakdown how they arrived at their final vision — sharing work in commercial, fashion, portrait, time-lapse, headshot photography, and more.
Photographers like Scott Kelby, Clay Cook, and Vanessa Joy walk through:
- Lighting setups
- Post-processing workflows
- Logistics and gear
- BTS videos with step-by-step direction
You’ll learn that there is no one formula to ‘getting the shot’ – and that’s okay. Most importantly, you’ll walk away with tons of inspiration for your next project.
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From Adobe:
Being creative with your photos has never been easier.
October 4, 2017 – The Elements team is excited to announce the release of Photoshop Elements 2018 & Premiere Elements 2018.
Before we get into what’s new for this release, we’d like to reassure you that you didn’t miss versions 16 and 17! Moving forward both apps will take on the upcoming year of their release in-lieu of a version number; hence, the transition from version 15 to Photoshop Elements 2018 and Premiere Elements 2018.
With that, let’s get to the good stuff.
Over the years, the Elements products have emphasized easy photo and video organization, editing, creation, and sharing by combining content intelligence with a user-friendly interface and modes for every level of user.
This release focuses on enhancing the experience even further for memory keepers with hassle free organization, automated editing and some fun new Guided Edits that walk you through how to edit and create. As you’ll see, there are a number of exciting new features and enhancements so being creative with your photos and videos has never been easier.
Here’s what’s new and enhanced:
Adobe Elements Organizer 2018
- Auto-Curate – You no longer need to painfully look through a large batch of your photos to select the best ones. The Elements Organizer now automatically curates your photos based on quality, faces, subjects and more.
- Totally reimagined slideshows – Slideshows are a popular and fun way to showcase and share your memories, and now you can turn your curated photos and video clips into stylish and dynamic slideshows with just one click. And of course you can add your own personal touch by choosing a different theme and music, or adding captions.
- New Guided Edits – Guided Edits transform seemingly complex tasks into easy to follow step-by-step instructions that guide you to fantastic results. Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements now offer 67 Guided Edits, including eight brand new ones in this release.
- Swap Backgrounds – Replace backgrounds in seconds by selecting the subject of a photo and placing it on a background that’s more interesting.
- Create Double Exposures – Double exposures continue to grow in popularity, but are difficult and time consuming. No more with this new Guided Edit that brings one photo to life within another to create the surreal effect.
- Add Artistic Overlay Effects – Embellish any photo with a shape overlay and one-click effects that make it a work of art. This Guided Edit is great for scrapbook pages and photo crafts.
- Make Amazing Watercolors – With this Guided Edit, turn any photo into a beautiful, textured watercolor—and even finish it off with text.
- Create fun bounce-back effects – Get step-by-step help making a segment of your video run forward and backward repetitively. Export your bounce-back effect as an animated GIF or short video clip that you can quickly share across social channels with your friends and family.
- Freeze frames with motion titles – Another new Guided Edit that helps you create a freeze frame of your video and add an eye-catching motion title for pro-looking results.
- Fix Action Cam Footage – Eliminate the wide angle fisheye effect of action cams with guidance on how to expertly trim, correct color, and fix lens distortions so it looks its best.
- Create animated social posts – Create a short visual story to share on social media by embellishing a video clip with either static or animated text.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018
- Automatic Selection – Making a perfect selection is always tough, so we’ve simplified the process. With the new Auto Selection, making precise photo selections has never been easier – simply click, drag and it’s done.
- Open closed eyes like magic – This happens all the time. You take several group photos and in every one someone has their eyes closed. Well we’ve got a fix for that. Photoshop Elements can now automatically copy the open eyes from one photo and blend them into another to create the perfect shot.
Adobe Premiere Elements 2018
- Candid Moments – Now you can automatically extract great photos from your raw video footage with ease, and never need to worry about missing that critical photo while shooting your videos.
- Smart Trim – Automatically trim the bad scenes and keep the good ones based on the style of your video. Smart Trim finds and brings together the best scenes based on the style of your video, and you can even customize that automation.
These are just some of the new and enhanced features in Photoshop Elements 2018 and Premiere Elements 2018. We hope you’re as excited about this release as we are and look forward to your feedback.
– The Elements Team
B&H has Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 and Premiere Elements 2018 available for preorder.
One or more of your camera's custom mode settings is your most-frequently-used mode, right? If not, you will probably find the Custom Shooting Modes and How Bryan Configures "C" Modes article useful.
If you've already read that page, I'll share the reason for my update:
Until recently, I reserved my camera's Custom Mode 3 for use in whatever unique situation I happen to be in. But, I've come to the conclusion that "Wildlife" is the pursuit that my Custom Mode 3 was most-frequently programmed for. In addition, after some experimenting while photographing elk in Rocky Mountain National Park last week, I determined that AF Case 4 (better accommodating erratically moving subjects) produced a better AI Servo AF experience for this type of photography than the case I most often used, Case 1 (optimized for general purpose needs). For the combination of those two reasons, I now reserve Custom Mode 3 for my most-frequently-used wildlife photography settings.
I should note that, because I am most often using a single AF point with the surrounding AF points in assist mode (not using the AF point auto switching feature), AF Case 6 should produce identical results to AF Case 4. And, AF Case 3, with an even slightly higher tracking sensitivity, stands to be another good AF Case option for wildlife photography.
If you are not using custom modes, and your camera has at least one of them available, consider learning to use this most-useful position on the mode dial.
More details here: Custom Shooting Modes and How Bryan Configures "C" Modes
From Nikon:
Changes from Version 1.2.9 to Version 1.2.10
- Fixed an issue with the Map workspace that resulted in maps not displaying correctly.
Download: Nikon ViewNX-i 1.2.10
Every season provides unique benefits for capturing the world through a camera lens, but the fall season is probably my favorite. For those in North America (and the Northeast, especially), fall provides us with a beautiful array of colors in foliage and excellent opportunities to capture family holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween or fast-paced action with high school and college sporting events ready to be frozen in time.
Want to sharpen your photography skills or otherwise enjoy some inspiration before setting out? Check out our Fall Photography Tips and then start planning your next photography outing!
I must admit – I've wanted the ability to rotate the clone stamp tool many times but didn't realize it was possible. That tip alone makes this video worth watching. [Sean]
From the PiXimperfect YouTube Channel:
Two Techniques and Shortcuts to Perform Better Cloning with Clone Stamp Tool in Photoshop. Learn to customize the cloned sample to match with the surroundings, thus giving you a much more accurate replacement for the thing you want to remove or introduce.
In this video, we will learn how to rotate and scale the sample taken in the clone stamp tool to better line up the edges and create more convincing and natural cover-ups! Hope this video helps you. Thank you for watching.
B&H carries Adobe Photography Plan subscriptions.
The M100 is expected to arrive soon and the Canon EOS M100 page now contains expectations for this model, along with many comparisons to other EOS models.
The EOS M100 is not about exciting new features, but the combination of what you get in a tiny package and for a low price pushes boundaries.
The Canon EOS M100 is available for preorder at B&H | Amazon | Adorama | WEX.
B&H will be closing this week for the Succos holiday. If you need something soon, order now to avoid a delayed shipment. See below for more information.
SuperStore & Offices
B&H will be closed starting at 1pm ET Wed Oct 4 through Sat Oct 14. We will reopen at 10am Sun Oct 15.
Online Orders
Online ordering will pause during the following holiday observance periods:
- 6:30pm Wed Oct 4 until 7:45pm Sat Oct 7
- 6:15pm Wed Oct 11 until 7:45pm Sat Oct 14
Regular checkout will resume starting at 7:45pm Sat Oct 14.
Shipping
Any orders placed after 11:59pm Tue Oct 3 will be processed when we reopen on Sun Oct 15.
Most of those who photographed the solar eclipse captured images from the beginning until the end, from C1 through C4.
While every one of those images may be intriguing, showing all of the stages of the solar eclipse in the same image can take the intrigue to a new level.
So, plan on creating at least one solar eclipse composite image.
Fortunately, the process is easy.
Here are the steps necessary:
First, visualize the composite image you want to create.
In this case, I went with a single row, but curves, multi-stacked rows, etc. can also work well.
Consider searching for results others have created, or just let your imagination go wild for a completely new take on this event.
With a design in mind, select the individual images to be included.
You likely want a near-equal time period between the partial eclipse selections and that means breaking out your math skills.
Use the EXIF information in the images you captured to determine the precise time of totality (or maximum coverage within totality) (or use a reference to find this information).
Then look at the capture time of the first image you want included.
This gives you a timespan that can be divided by the number of partial eclipse images you want included on either side of totality/max.
Select images captured at each of the timespan milestones you selected.
Having equal time periods between images is not a rule and I veered slightly from it in my example (partially to avoid some clouds encountered).
To cleanly merge into a black background, each image being included in the final composite should have a completely black perimeter.
While partial eclipse images most likely already have this attribute, a tightly framed HDR image of totality may not.
An easy way to darken the border of these non-conforming images is to darken the darks.
Adjust levels or curves to make the dark colors darker until they turn pure black along the entire perimeter.
Each image being included in the final composite should be cropped relatively tightly.
This facilitates image position adjustment in the composite image without having frame borders overlaying lower layers.
Next, the images should be loaded into layers in Photoshop (or a similar app).
I use Adobe Bridge for this task, browsing to the folder the files are located in, clicking on the first of the series and shift-clicking on the last to select them all.
Then select the "Tools" menu, "Photoshop", "Load files into Photoshop Layers ..." and a new Photoshop document will open with all of the images stacked in layers.
Once all images are loaded into the PS file, they will likely be stacked directly on top of each other with a canvas size equal to the largest individual image loaded.
So, the next step required is to increase the canvas size (press CTRL-ALT-C) sufficiently to hold the visualized layout.
Don't worry if you get this setting wrong as it is easy to further increase the canvas size or crop the image later.
My preference is to go big and opt for the crop.
The increased canvas size results in insufficient border color with the newly added space likely being transparent.
This is an easy problem to fix.
Create a new layer (click on the new layer button at the bottom of the layers palette).
Select the paint bucket tool (press G, or SHFT-G repeatedly until the paint bucket is the selected tool).
Then change the selected color to black (press D, then X).
Then click anywhere on the canvas with the new layer selected.
That entire layer will turn black.
In the layers palette, drag the new layer to the bottom of your layers stack to make it serve as the background.
Next, move the image on each layer into place using the move tool (press V, or SHFT-V repeatedly until the move tool is selected).
After selecting the layer to be moved (turning off the move tool's auto-select feature might be helpful), drag it into place. Repeat
Consider using a grid (View > Show > Grid) with the grid size adjusted (Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid & Slices...) to something that works for you to help with the alignment process.
Massage the design as desired and then publish it to the world.
Consider creating multiple layout designs as most of the work has been done at this point and new designs require only minimal effort.
Simply drag the layers around as you like, saving a new version of the file each time you create a design you like.
While I had three complete camera setups in operation during the eclipse, it was the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM Lens-based setup that I relied most upon.
When I need the most focal length possible, this lens is my go-to option.
Yes, the 600 f/4 is big and expensive, but the combination of the impressive image quality it delivers and the frequency in which I use it makes the cost a good value to me.
In this case, I relied heavily on the focal length and image quality attributes as a 2x Extender will magnify any aberrations present and there were already enough of them between earth and the extreme-distant subject.
Back to the main point of this article: make the effort to create some composite images and you will be rewarded by the results.
It has been over a month since the 2017 total eclipse event captivated us, and simply looking back into the images captured on this day will bring back great memories, helping you to re-live that rare experience.
A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.
ISO 100
30044 x 5689px
From Tether Tools:
Phoenix, Arizona – September 26, 2017 – Tether Tools, the leader in providing innovative equipment and accessories for tethered photography, announces that the company will be assuming exclusive manufacturing, global sales, and distribution of TetherBlock products.
One of the photography industry’s most reliable cable management tools for tethered photography, the TetherBlock, created by professional photographer David Blattel, is a well-designed solution that helps tethering cables stay connected and secure.
Camera data ports are fragile and expensive to repair. When shooting tethered in-studio or on location, a trip or tug can cause a photographer’s tether cable to become dislodged or cause serious damage to a camera’s data ports. Blattel originally developed TetherBlock to solve this common issue and TetherBlock has become a must-have for photographers shooting tethered both hand held or using a tripod.
The TetherBlock’s patented cable-channeling design prevents accidental removal of a cable from the camera's data ports by routing a USB, FireWire, or HDMI cable through the TetherBlock’s S-channel. From there, a photographer can either shoot hand held or attach the TetherBlock to their camera's tripod mount or with the TetherBlock Arca, directly to an Arca compatible tripod.
B&H carries Tether Tools and TetherBlock products.
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