Jon Sienkiewicz Blog

Benro has reinvented the tabletop tripod. The Benro Tablepod Flex is one of those products that makes you smack yourself on the head and yell, “Why didn’t I think of that?” But there’s more than just sizzle here—there’s a fully flexible leg hidden inside each of the three rigid carbon fiber legs, and man are they useful.

You stumble into your favorite Starbucks half-awake as you do every morning and WHAM! There's Elvis standing at the end of the counter — fringed shirt, sequined guitar strap and all. You do a quick draw from your iPhone holster while The King patiently waits for his venti peanut butter banana flat white with an extra three pumps of funnel cake syrup, but — damn! — the battery is dead. What do you do? You're missing your chance to join the annals of consumer photojournalism and a shot at certain Instagram history. That's about a zillion Likes being blown to tarnation.

It’s that time of year again—the joyous holiday season. Whether your visceral approach is tinsel and glitter or Bah! Humbug! it’s nearly certain that you’ll be involved in some sort of gift giving ritual again this year. Here are some Black Friday photo gift suggestions, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime, and all priced at $25 or less. Cheers!

Boris FX Optics 2021 is a gourmet buffet of creative effects Photoshop plug-ins that span the entire spectrum from caviar to corndogs, from ketchup meatloaf to filet mignon with shaved truffles. In other words, these dynamic, fast-operating filters do the normal mundane operations like color correction—and also do highly imaginative manipulations that will dazzle you. There are 160 plug-in filters and each has dozens of presets—and more importantly, each preset has dozens of adjustable parameters. Additionally, Boris FX Optics 2021 can be used as a standalone special effects editor. All at an amazing price, too.

You read it here first! Snapshot—the talking robot who has all the photo and camera answers—will be unveiled to professional photographers during the Wedding & Portrait Photographer International (WPPI) conference which opens February 24 at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas.

We started looking for DIY skins for cameras and lenses and discovered a literal treasure trove of sticky things that are camera-related, at least remotely. We limited our search to AliExpress, an online merchant with whom we have had sporadic success. We think you’ll like some or all of them, so we’re sharing our findings here.

So that there’s no confusion, this story is about a camera that was introduced in the fall of 2012. Like many of the cameras that I use, it’s not the latest or greatest—but it’s miles above the “good enough” threshold. And it’s very affordable in today’s secondhand marketplace. The Sony NEX 6 is an outstanding performer and it can be purchased at a true bargain price. Sound interesting?