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The Digital Photography Review Newsletter
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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Welcome to the 672nd Digital Photography Review newsletter.

August is known as 'silly season' across the media, but I suspect that the lull between the release of major imaging products might be over pretty soon... In the meantime, our team here in Seattle has been taking advantage of the relative calm to shoot galleries, and pen some overdue opinion pieces. Links to some recent content are below.

Intro to drones part 2: How to choose your first drone

Not sure how to choose your first drone? In this article, the second of a 3-part series, we discuss what factors you should consider when deciding what drone is right for you.

Read the second part of our introduction to drones

Don't buy another lens, buy a flash instead

The days where you're more or less locked into premium or first-party flash units has gone. They're less than $50 now, so there's one less excuse not to get one. Here's our case for adding one to your kit, and a few pointers to get you going.

Read our article about why you should add a flash (or two) to your kit

Canon EF 35mm F2 IS USM gallery

The Canon EF 35mm F2 IS USM is an understated jewel of a lens, and one that we've enjoyed on a variety of cameras since its release almost five years ago. Its relatively small size and image stabilization make it a versatile tool for a variety of photography - check out our sample gallery.

Check out our gallery of sample images from the Canon EF 35mm F2

Cheap purchases that will help improve your photography

You don't have to empty your savings account to take your photography to the next level. These cheap buys cost around $50 or less, and come with outsized benefits for your photography.

Read our article for inspirational ideas that won't break the bank

Flip to flop: the pocket camcorder flash in the pan

Photoshop. GoPro. Every once in a while a product emerges that defines a category. And sometimes, it vanishes just as quickly as it arrived on the scene. This week's Throwback Thursday remembers the Flip, the pocket camcorder everyone had – until they didn't.

Remember the flip? Read this week's throwback Thursday article

Barney

News updates
Published Tuesday, August 22, 2017 10:13:00 PM GMT

Try your hand at this blind portrait shootout between the Canon 1DX Mark II, Nikon D5 and Sony a9. With all bias removed, you might just rank your favorite camera brand worst.

Published Tuesday, August 22, 2017 7:46:00 PM GMT

Photo sharing site 500px has just added support for wide-gamut color profiles such as AdobeRGB and ProPhotoRGB, even allowing users to filter their searches by color profile.

Published Tuesday, August 22, 2017 6:08:00 PM GMT

DJI just released a mandatory firmware update for the DJI Spark. If you own a Spark and don't update your firmware by September 1st, DJI will remotely ground your drone.

Published Tuesday, August 22, 2017 5:47:00 PM GMT

Affordable flash manufacturer Godox has updated its smartphone app so that it can be used to control all of its wireless X flash units, not just the A1 smartphone flash.

Published Tuesday, August 22, 2017 4:05:00 PM GMT

Western Digital's new My Book Duo external desktop storage system offers up to 20TB of storage capacity, and comes with RAID-optimized WD Red hard drives.

Published Tuesday, August 22, 2017 1:00:00 PM GMT

Not sure how to choose your first drone? In this article, the second of a 3-part series, we discuss what factors you should consider when deciding what drone is right for you.

Published Monday, August 21, 2017 11:34:00 PM GMT

NASA photo editor Joel Kowsky didn't just capture the solar eclipse from his vantage point in Wyoming, he also managed to capture the ISS buzzing across what remained of the sun.

Published Monday, August 21, 2017 10:38:00 PM GMT

In these videos, talented photographer and filmmaker Daniel DeArco breaks down several tips that will help flash photography newbies start experimenting with artificial light.

Published Monday, August 21, 2017 9:38:00 PM GMT

Photographer and master potter Steve Irvine makes incredibly intricate, functional ceramic pinhole cameras that look like robots and monsters.

Published Monday, August 21, 2017 8:56:00 PM GMT

Chinese gimbal manufacturer Gudsen has released a firmware update for its Moza Air that lets you control the direction and angle of the head remotely just by moving a small handlebar-mounted control unit.

Published Monday, August 21, 2017 7:47:00 PM GMT

Curious how the Sony a9 performs underwater? Our friends at Backscatter took the camera diving off the Baja California coast, to find out how it handled shooting great white sharks.

Published Monday, August 21, 2017 7:32:00 PM GMT

While most of the DPReview crew put away our cameras and just watched the celestial event, Rishi decided last-minute to hack together a rig and capture a few shots.

Published Monday, August 21, 2017 5:56:00 PM GMT

Defunct Russian camera maker Zenit is making a comeback, and they're planning to release a full-frame mirrorless camera in 2018.

Published Monday, August 21, 2017 1:00:00 PM GMT

The days where you're more or less locked into premium or first-party flash units has gone. They're less than $50 now, so there's one less excuse not to get one. Here's our case for adding one to your kit, and a few pointers to get you going.

Published Sunday, August 20, 2017 4:00:00 PM GMT

Photographer Rick Wenner recently captured an odd event called the Race of the Gentlemen with a rather odd camera: The Phase One XF IQ3 Achromatic, the world's only 101MP black-and-white digital back.

Published Sunday, August 20, 2017 1:00:00 PM GMT

Buying used is a good way to save some dough, and with the right precautions you can protect yourself from falling victim to a scam.

Published Saturday, August 19, 2017 4:00:00 PM GMT

This two-part video series takes a deep dive into the world of dynamic symmetry and geometric composition, using iconic photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's brilliant photographs as a guide.

Published Saturday, August 19, 2017 2:00:00 PM GMT

Award-winning photographer Jeremy Cowart tells the moving story behind this drone photograph, captured in the aftermath of the devastating wildfire in Gatlinburg, TN in 2016.

Published Saturday, August 19, 2017 1:00:00 PM GMT

Happy 2017 World Photo Day! We asked everyone on staff at DPReview to share one photo that they took within the last year that makes them jazzed on photography. Here's what we chose.

Published Friday, August 18, 2017 4:47:00 PM GMT

The oldest known portrait of a US president was just discovered after over a century in storage. It's going up for auction in October, where it's expected to fetch between $150,000 and $250,000.

Published Friday, August 18, 2017 3:58:00 PM GMT

If you've heard it once, you've probably heard it a thousand times: never check in your camera gear when flying. This shattered $11,000 lens is what can happen when you do.

Published Friday, August 18, 2017 2:37:00 PM GMT

A team of Google researchers have found that slightly warping watermarks when embedding them into images can help prevent automatic removal.

Published Friday, August 18, 2017 1:00:00 PM GMT

You don't have to empty your savings account to take your photography to the next level. These cheap buys cost about $50 or less, and come with outsized benefits for your photography.

Published Thursday, August 17, 2017 4:07:00 PM GMT

Joey L, Dani Diamond, Brandon Woelfel and Jessica Kobeissi go head-to-head in an episode of "4 photographers shoot the same model."

Published Thursday, August 17, 2017 3:30:00 PM GMT

The company behind popular photo editor Picktorial 3 just released the X-Pack: a preset package that allows you to add Fuji's in-camera film simulation profiles to your RAF files in post.

Published Thursday, August 17, 2017 1:00:00 PM GMT

Photoshop. GoPro. Every once in a while a product emerges that defines a category. And sometimes, it vanishes just as quickly as it arrived on the scene. This week's Throwback Thursday remembers the Flip, the pocket camcorder everyone had – until they didn't.

Published Thursday, August 17, 2017 11:12:00 AM GMT

The Nokia 8's dual-cam combines the image data from a 13MP RGB sensor and a 13 monochrome chip for better detail, improved dynamic range and lower noise levels.

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2017 7:23:00 PM GMT

The company behind retail giant B&H Photo has agreed to pay out $3.2 million in monetary relief and back wages to settle a discrimination and harassment case from 2016.

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2017 6:25:00 PM GMT

After a popular Facebook teaser and some studio portrait samples, Godox has finally officially released the Godox A1 smartphone flash and flash trigger. Cheap, versatile and innovative, color us intrigued.

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2017 4:05:00 PM GMT

Canon’s EOS 5D Mk IV has won the European Imaging and Sound Association’s Professional DSLR of the Year award, making this the third year in a row that the brand has beaten Nikon to the top spot in the professional camera category.

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2017 3:38:00 PM GMT

A photograph and quote tweeted out by former president Barack Obama has officially become the most popular tweet of all time, receiving over 1.3 million retweets and 3.4 million likes.

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2017 3:19:00 PM GMT

Edward Weston was one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, and in this episode of Advancing Your Photography we learn the extreme technique he used to capture one of his most famous still life photos.

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2017 2:21:00 PM GMT

Venus Optics has announced the price and delivery date of the second lens to join its Zero-D line up: the 15mm F2 for Sony’s E mount. A lens they've dubbed, "the world's fastest 15mm rectilinear lens for full-frame."

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2017 1:44:00 PM GMT

Cinnac is a new social network for photographers that will help you separate your good photos from your great ones through a Tinder-like community-based rating system.

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2017 1:00:00 PM GMT

The Canon EF 35mm F2 IS USM is an understated jewel of a lens, and one that we've enjoyed on a variety of cameras since its release almost five years ago. Its relatively small size and image stabilization make it a versatile tool for a variety of photography - check out our sample gallery.