Reviews on gear and software

Tamron 28-300VC my opinion

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During the WordWidePhotowalk in Amsterdam the Dutch Tamron distributor Transcontinenta was so kind to lend us some lenses.
During the day part of the walk I tried out the Tamron 28-300VC, as you already know I’m not a reviewer that will show you 100% crops, shoot brick walls or bombard you with technical mambo mambo that there is a 1.3 pixel chromatic aberration in the extreme corners. What I try to do is give you my opinion for the usefulness of a lens and if it’s interesting for you to buy (or not).


Let me start out by stating that there are two thoughts among street shooters, some will burn me on the stake because I don’t promote the use of primelenses only, and yeah I know you can’t beat a great prime, trust me I LOVE the 50mm 1.4 and it’s awesome in quality and gives me goosebumps when I shoot with, but it also frustrates me sometimes because I just can’t get the shot I want, now some will say “that’s the challenge” but for me that doesn’t fly, I want to tell a story and with that story there needs to be a certain crop/composition and for that I can’t shoot everything with one lens, so I LOVE zooms, and yeah again I know their quality is often less than the primes, although some zooms are awesome and are for me on par with the primes.

 

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Sony Alpha99 preview

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A while ago I was asked to test drive the soon to be released Sony Alpha99.
Seeing the fact that I use a lot of different cameras ranging from the incredibly Fuji cameras to the Canon DSLRs and Leaf/Mamiya/Phase One Medium Format cameras, I was hoping to be surprised by this interesting new camera.


Now as you know, if you’re reading this blog for a while, I’m not the kind of reviewer that talks a lot about the technical stuff, I really don’t care if a camera has half a stop more or less noise in the final image, I find it much more interesting if the noise is easily removed if necessary or if the noise “looks good”, and some noise just looks good, and some don’t.  So today a very quick look at the new Sony Alpha 99.

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Cool backgrounds from Lastolite

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During the Photokina I shot several demos with the new collapsible backgrounds from Lastolite and to be honest I love them a lot, never thought I would.

You all know I love the more “rustic” backgrounds, old walls, iron, rust etc.
In our studio we have several walls with these themes so I’m more than happy there, however on location it’s often a bit of a problem…. not when we really go to a location but it is when I teach workshops for photo clubs, demo on stages etc. Often the rooms are rather small and the walls in the rooms are pretty “boring” to say the least. And when using seamless I often need more distance to the backgrounds than I’m actually given.
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Blackrapid by Annewiek Doorhof

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Today a very special review/guestblog.
My wonderful wife Annewiek Doorhof will share her experience with the BlackRapid products today.

Some background information.
I loved the BlackRapid products but somehow they were never 100% comfortable for me, I’m big and pretty tall and they were always just a BIT too small for my liking, although I know other people with my size are using them, I love my camera a bit lower. Somehow this reached BlackRapid and they contacted me if I would give them the dimensions I would like, as you can imaging I was surprised when not 2 weeks later I got a package in the mail with a custom made BlackRapid strap…. and I LOVE it, I’m wearing it all the time.

Every since every exhibition we’re at I always visit BlackRapid to show them I still use it 🙂 and of course talk about new stuff.
During Photokina they saw Annewiek carrying her videocamera and made her happy with a nice BlackRapid strap, today her review.