Reviews on gear and software

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.

Flying without sound

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Well the title is a bit misleading.
The last few years I’ve been a lot on airplanes and one of the things I like to do is watch a documentary, play a game or watch episodes from sitcoms, actually that’s what I do most because somehow I can’t concentrate for longer than 45 minutes on a plane (I really don’t have a clue why) and sitcoms with their 20-25 minutes running time seem to be perfect.

 

One of the big problems however is the sound, up until the last flight I used a good quality in ear plug system that blocked a lot of sound but I needed to boost the volume and to be honest after 1-2 hours they began to irate me and the earpieces kept falling off, but you accept it because the sound is much better than anything else I tried.

For the coming months we have a lot of flights coming up and after the last debacle with my headphones I decided to look for something else, around ear noise cancelling headphones it had to be.

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