I 'm always looking for new solutions to light small things. Change that. I'm always looking for easier and faster solutions to light small things. Let's face it: lighting tabletops is never easy, although you'd think it should be. And sometimes, formulaic lighting is exactly what's needed. Then along comes the Gem eBox, from MK Digital Direct.

Many moons ago I was granted a few test rolls of the then-new Fujichrome Velvia 50. I happened to be in Las Vegas at the time, and curious just how saturated this touted high-saturation film might be I hiked around red rock country and exposed a few rolls. Having been a dedicated slide shooter and film tester for another photo mag I was pretty familiar with slide films and how...

Epson has been a very active company over the last few years, offering an abundance of new printer models that I am sure has been both confusing and a welcome support for photographers doing digital darkroom work. One of the great benefits for many has been the introduction and refinement of pigment inks, which provided much greater print longevity than dye inks. This was...

Now doesn't it seem ironic that just as we're in the midst of the digital revolution that slide films are at the peak of performance and quality? While all sounds like doom and gloom when it comes to silver-based products, around my circle of friends I find that most are still shooting film at a rate close to or even sometimes more than they were shooting before. Sure...

The Chinese-built, American-designed Fotoman 617 justifies itself as soon as you see the first transparencies on the light table. The huge format is a knockout. It's gorgeous. That vast slab of film is 21/4x62/3". That's 56x168mm, or over 11 times the area of 35mm.

It's ideal for scanning, too. Even a very modest flat-bed film scanner giving...

For quite a few years now digital photography enthusiasts have looked to flat-bed scanners as a way to serve all of their scanning needs in one device. Technology improvements and the "natural" drop in cost relative to performance has resulted in substantial consumer enthusiasm, which fuels ever more research and development. The latest result of that progress is...

When Nikon announced the D2X last year at photokina there was a good deal of anticipation about it, and a good wait that followed until it finally arrived. In the meantime, Canon countered with their EOS-1Ds Mark II, which in many ways shaped the competitive landscape. With a street price of $4999.95, Nikon's flagship digital SLR is $3000 less than the $8000 (body only) Mark...