Your Camera Stops Counting at 9,999 Because of a 1998 Filing Standard Written Around MS-DOS
Shoot past frame 9,999, and the camera does not run out of numbers. It closes the folder it has been writing to, opens the next one, and starts again at 0001, which is how two shoots two years apart both end up holding a file called IMG_0473.CR2. The 0001 to 9999 numbering space, the DCIM folder those files live in, and the four-letters-plus-four-digits name itself all come from one short specification a Japanese trade group published in 1998. The rollover is the manufacturer's own choice, made inside the room that specification built.
Think Tank’s Very Practical Sling, The PhotoCross V2, Is a Winner
Think Tank released two new slings earlier in the year that are perfect for street, urban, and travel photographers. Depending on your gear, there are 11L and 14L options to choose from. I got my hands on the 11L in a rather fetching Desert Sage, and have been using it for around four months on the streets…
The 3 Lenses One Pro Would Buy at $300, $750, and $1,500
A lens is usually the biggest purchase you make after the camera itself, and the spread runs from a $300 35mm prime to a Sony G Master zoom that costs well past $2,000. Spending more feels like the safe move, yet a pricier lens only earns its cost when you can name exactly what it's supposed to fix.
Why a Former Velvia Shooter Now Turns His Saturation Down
Camera makers, Fujifilm in particular, treat color science as a reason to buy into their systems, and plenty of people pick a brand on that point alone. If you shoot raw files of landscapes or travel scenes, it's fair to ask how much of that brand color makes it into your finished image before you consider switching.
Why the Sony a7R VI Let a Portrait Photographer Stop Underexposing
Sony's a7R line has carried a large share of high-resolution portrait and wedding work for a decade, yet each model had a weak point somewhere, usually slow sensor readout or video that was merely passable. The Sony a7R VI is the first in the series with a fully stacked sensor, and that change affects how you expose, when you can trust a silent shutter, and whether one $4,500 body can handle both stills and video.
The 3 Camera Modes One Wedding Photographer Uses for Every Portrait
Manual mode has a reputation as the serious way to shoot portraits, and plenty of people switch to it the moment they feel comfortable with their camera. Outdoors, with clouds drifting across the sun and subjects walking in and out of shade, that habit can leave you chasing exposure instead of watching your subject.
Seven Cameras Famous Photographers Actually Used for Their Most Iconic Work
One of the most recognized photographs in the history of National Geographic was made on a camera you can still buy used for a few hundred dollars. Steve McCurry pointed a Nikon FM2 with a 105mm lens at a girl of about 12 in a Pakistani refugee camp in 1984, loaded Kodachrome 64, and came away with "Afghan Girl." No autofocus, no built-in motor drive, no computer in the box. A manual mechanical camera and one prime lens.
7Artisans 40mm f/2.5: Remarkable Performance for The Price
I love small prime lenses and cameras for travel and street photography, so I was curious to test the new 40mm f/2.5 from 7Artisans. It's a tiny full frame lens for Nikon Z cameras, weighing a mere 97 g and measuring just 2 inches long. And at $159, it's also considerably cheaper than Nikon's 170 g NIKKOR Z 40mm f/2, which currently sells for around $277. Sony E and L-Mount versions are also available.
Why New Printer Owners Should Start With Basic Manufacturer Paper
Buy a new photo printer, and the next temptation is a shopping cart full of baryta, cotton rag, and sampler packs of photo paper from every maker you've heard of. Paper shapes how a print looks, but telling which paper suits your images depends on a skill you can only build by printing a lot.
Why Focusing on the Background Makes Photos Feel Dreamy
Nearly everything you learn about focus points in one direction: keep the subject sharp and let the background fall apart. Reversing that, so the person in front of the lens goes soft while the scene behind them stays crisp, is one of the simplest ways to make an image feel dreamy and a little unreal.
4 Affordable Compact Cameras, From a Used Sony ZV-E10 to the Lumix L10
Every small camera between $500 and $1,500 gives something up, whether that's stabilization, battery life, a viewfinder, or a mechanical shutter, and the Sony ZV-E10, Fujifilm X-M5, Lumix S9, and Lumix L10 each make a different sacrifice. Picking the one whose weakness you rarely run into is what separates a camera you carry every day from one you regret buying.
Why a Long-Term Project Makes Photography Feel Less Repetitive
Landscape photography can settle into a loop: scout a spot, wait for light, take the frame, go home, and do it again next weekend. That routine produces some beautiful single images, but a hard drive full of unrelated pictures rarely adds up to a body of work you can show someone.
Why Kodak Film Sensitivity Depended on Cows and Mustard
The working dose Samuel Sheppard wrote into his patent was 2 to 3 grains of thiosinamine per 100 pounds of dry gelatin, which works out to roughly three or four parts per million. Added to a gelatin stripped of its natural sensitizer, that trace could raise the emulsion's sensitivity by a factor of ten or twenty. Nudge it upward and the film fogged.
Wandrd’s Magnetic Camera Straps Are Here and the New Features Just Click
Almost every camera strap on the market from a couple dozen brands right now makes use of links that make it a lot easier to connect the camera to the straps. This smart yet simple solution made straps a lot more efficient, and WANDRD's take on the quick-release camera strap has a few extra features that make it better.
How Using a Team Approach to Camera Purchases Can Be More Effective Than One Size Fits All
Finding the perfect camera that will fit every job is the dream. But sometimes, it’s more effective to build a team than rely on the power of one.
We Review the MacBook Pro With PROLED XDR Display and M5 Max: The Screen Changes Everything
The MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display is the first Mac laptop with a tandem OLED panel, and after two days with the 16-inch M5 Max I keep coming back to the same thought: Apple did not just bolt a nicer screen onto last year's computer. This is a major step forward all around.
The review unit is the 16-inch with the M5 Max, 18-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128 GB of unified memory, and a 4 TB SSD, in Space Black.
Why the Best Forest Photos of the Day Were Steps From the Truck
You drive out to a waterfall the day after a downpour, expecting a torrent, and find the creek almost dry. A blown plan like that tests how quickly you can switch to a backup spot, and how much you can pull out of an ordinary forest scene later with focus stacking in Photoshop and some careful masking in Lightroom.
3 Reasons To Use A Tilt Shift Lens Featuring The Laowa 24mm f/2 Zero-D Tilt-Shift
Today I’m going to examine the benefits of using a tilt-shift lens with the help of the brand-new Laowa 24mm f/2 Zero-D Tilt-Shift.
First, an admission. I’m not an architectural photographer. In most of my work, faces take precedence, and buildings are essentially set dressing. But there is something magical about a well-made tilt-shift lens, so when given the opportunity to try one out, I wanted to have a look and see what it is that makes a tilt-shift lens useful in so many photographers' workflows.
Why Nikon's Z 120-300mm f/2.8 TC Is Like Carrying 4 Fast Primes in One
Nikon's Z 120-300mm f/2.8 TC VR S is up for preorder at $13,996, and for that money, you get a constant f/2.8 zoom with a 1.4x teleconverter built into the barrel. If you shoot sports, wildlife, events, or anything else where you can't simply walk closer, one lens that covers the territory of several fast primes changes what you pack and how quickly you can respond to what's in front of you.
The Budget SG-image AF 55mm f/1.8 Is Sharp Corner to Corner by f/2.8
A standard prime is often the second lens people buy, and on Nikon Z, the inexpensive autofocus options have long trailed what Sony E shooters can pick from. SG-image, a brand mostly known for small pancake lenses, now offers a 55mm f/1.8 autofocus prime with a metal body and a look that suits retro-styled cameras.