Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

 

Canon 5D Mark II Battery Grips: BG-E6 vs. Third-Party Grips

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Canon 5D Mark II Battery Grip

The Canon BG-E6 battery grip serves a couple of different purposes for the 5D Mark II.  As the name implies, it holds batteries – either two LP-E6 lithium-ion batteries or 6 AA batteries in the included battery holder.  Likewise, the BG-E6 serves as a grip for handling the camera in portrait orientation, featuring controls for the shutter release, scroll wheel, and focus point adjustments, among others.

Canon 5D Mark II Battery Grips

The BG-E6 is a nice accessory to have; however, it runs $250.  For some, that’s a little steep for a battery grip.  Third party grips are much more affordable at less than $100, but are they worth the compromise? This question comes up on forums quite a bit and finds its way in my inbox now and then.

In this little exercise, we are going to take a look at the Canon BG-E6 grip and see how a couple of third party grips from Vivitar and Zeikos stack up against it.

[UPDATE:  I’ve supplemented this review with a review of the Vello BG-C2 and BG-C4 grips for the Canon 5D Mark II and 7D.]

[Read more…]

Pointless Example of Canon 1D Mark IV Shutter Speed at 10 fps

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This video of the Canon 1D Mark IV firing at 10 frames per second is mostly pointless; however, I still find myself watching it over and over thanks to the gadget nut in me.

Looks a little grainy, doesn’t it?  That’s because it was shot at ISO 25600 on a Nikon D3S.  A single overhead tungsten bulb supplied the light.

Stay tuned for more serious content on both of these new work horses.  In the mean time, watch the video again. ;-)

SDXC Cards – What the New Format Means to Photographers

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The SDXC card specification has been announced for more than a year now.  However, it’s only now that we are starting to see products supporting this new specification.  There are a few important things to note about SDXC cards and how they fit into photographers’ gear bags.

The SDXC specification comes from the SD Association, which is an industry standards organization founded by Panasonic, SanDisk and Toshiba in 2000.   If a manufacturer is going to use SD technology in product, they have to license the right to use that technology from the SD Association. Most, if not all, of the major camera manufacturers are members of the SD Association and license the patents and other intellectual property necessary for developing SD-compatible cameras and memory cards.

There are a number of different specifications that the SD Association has developed over the past decade, including SD, miniSD, microSD, SDHC, miniSDHC, microSDHC and SDXC, among others.  Each specification has its own limitations or capabilities.  For instance, the original SD specification offered storage only up to 2GB.  When SDHC came along, it took the capacity up to 32GB.  The latest specification, SDXC, offers storage capacities up to 2TB. [Read more…]

Polaroid PIC 1000

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Polaroid PIC 1000

Polaroid film died a while back, but then was reborn with plans to re-release the old instant film cameras and the famous Color 600 instant film.  We got our first sneak peek at what the new Polaroid film cameras will look like when they hit the storefronts later this year.  It looks like Polaroid will be offering some unique finishes for the new instant shooter, including a wood-grain finish as shown in the mockup above.  The new camera will be called the PIC 1000 and should cost less than $100. [Read more…]

Deal Alert: Canon Rebel XS, 18-55mm Lens at 75-300mm Lens for $509

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B&H Photo currently has a deal on the Rebel XS and two Canon lenses that shows $669 on the product page; however, when you add it to the cart, it drops to $509.

I’m not sure how long it will last, but since the Canon DSLR and lens rebates expire later this week, I wouldn’t expect it to last past that.  If you’re interested, here’s the link.

Zacuto DSLR Gunstock Shooter Gorilla Kits

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Zacuto Tactical Shooter

As you are probably aware, video is a big trend in the professional photography realm right now.  Nikon, Canon and Pentax are all producing DSLRs that can record very high quality video.  Many photographers are taking this convergence of technology as an opportunity to expand their creative horizons.  And, whether you like it or not, video in DSLRs is here to stay.

For those of you wanting to get the most out of your DSLR’s video recording capabilities, you need to treat it a little more like a proper video camera.  That means, you need to keep it stable and be able to obtain critical focus.  Certainly, a tripod or monopod is a good way to do that.  But what if you want to be a little more mobile?  There are plenty of solutions for that as well.

Zacuto was one of the first manufacturers to offer a dedicated mobile video solution for DSLR owners.  Zacuto’s selection of DSLR video kits have grown to include more entry-level kits.  I got a chance to check out some of the more affordable Gunstock Shooter Gorilla Kits at Imaging USA this week and have to say that they are pretty impressive. [Read more…]

Casio EX-FH100 Hands-On Review

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Casio EX-FH100

Casio has updated the popular EX-FC100 (last year’s model) with the EX-FH100, which adds a little more resolution and doubles the zoom magnification from 5x to 10x.  The FH100 also features the popular high frame rate feature found in the FC100.

As usual, Casio had a great setup at CES for testing out the camera’s features.  This year, Casio had a martial arts team throwing kicks and twirling swords to put the high frame rate camera through the paces. Below, you’ll find a couple of videos from the FH100. [Read more…]