Photo Accessory Reviews

The app-controlled Lume Cube XL Mini COB LED packs exceptional power and high-end features into an amazingly compact package. It's targeted toward content creators, studio professionals, and enthusiasts who want to up their game. It's also genuinely fun to use, and opens new avenues of creativity.

Our Choosing Wisely series aims to deliver concise, summarized information about products we think you'll like. Read what Choosing Wisely wrote about the Lume Cube XL.

The Tamron 20-40mm f/2.8 is extra-compact (3.4 inches long) and super-sharp. It focuses to 6.7 inches and covers the focal lengths street photographers, travelers, video content creators and landscape shooters want most. It’s a new kind of “everyday zoom” that exemplifies versatility and speed.

Camera lens filters and adapters are among the least expensive accessories that can make a big difference in your images, especially when shooting outdoors. In fact, many experienced landscape photographers never leave home without a selection of these tools.

A few years back, while waiting for a beautiful but thoroughly flakey model in the parking lot of a restaurant near Liberty State Park, my boredom was interrupted by a black Lincoln Town Car that slipped suspiciously past me and parked a few spaces away. After several minutes, two men exited the sedan. They were wearing tuxedos and looked rather serious. The trunk lid popped open. Ignoring me completely, they rummaged through the trunk. One of the men removed his tux jacket and strapped on a large black holster. A moment later, the other did the same. I slid down in my seat, wondering if I was about to witness some weird reenactment of High Noon, right there in Jersey City.

One of the most common complaints about digital imaging is the lack of consistency when going from one device to another—most commonly screen to print. Dark prints are the typical complaint, but color shifts are also a contributor to choice language and lack of hair. Yes, we tweak the image until the sky is that perfect hue of blue, or the skin tones have just the right amount of warmth and vibrancy. When it’s all done, the image is posted online or printed and it looks nothing like what we expected. The image is too dark, skin tones are too red, any number of problems. Where did it go wrong?

In almost all cases, the culprit is an uncalibrated display. Back when CRT displays were the common screen type, color could be wildly different and it was usually pretty easy to detect when the display was at fault. With modern LCD displays that isn’t necessarily the case—color is often close to correct in hue, but luminance, or brightness, is where the problem usually lies.

“The Spyder3Express is the latest incarnation of Datacolor’s monitor calibration hardware. It does one thing—calibrate your display—and does it well.”...