Photo Accessory Reviews

If you want to correct the color in your photos and videos but don’t want to spend an arm and a leg doing it, Datacolor has just introduced the SpyderCHECKR 24, an affordable priced color calibration tool for your camera.

As the name implies, the Fotodiox LED Studio-in-a-Box is a self-contained tabletop studio that features interior LED lighting that has a daylight color balance of 5600 Kelvin. The CRI, or Color Rendering Index, is 85 (on a scale 0 to 100).

Laowa just introduced a 180mm f/4.5 telephoto macro lens for full-frame cameras that delivers 1.5X image magnification at its closest focus setting. Shutterbug had a chance to exercise an early sample for a few weeks. Here is our review.

I’ve been a dedicated gimbal head user for a long time. If you shoot with seriously long lenses, no other head comes close to offering a gimbal’s stability, articulation, and flexibility. Forget ball heads and anything else designed to attach long telephotos to a tripod. If you’re a big lens user and you photograph things that move, a gimbal is the only way to go.

Remote viewing and shutter release capability opens up a host of picture opportunities, from working high atop camera platforms from ground level to very low-level shooting without muddying your clothes (given your camera lacks an articulating monitor) to placing your camera in spots and being able to view and shoot without your being right behind the viewfinder. Many photographers routinely work with radio triggers for flash, especially in studio environments where the lights are set in position and photographer and model or subject move. The Hähnel Inspire adds to the mix with remote shutter release and viewing in one.

We’re right in the middle of Photokina frenzy, and you’re probably looking for news about groundbreaking new products, not cases or other more mundane accessories. Understood! So file this for later when the clamor from Cologne subsides. This is a lens case shopping guide with dos and don’ts and some personal brand recommendations.

For those who thought that we here at Shutterbug were inalterably attached to our Macs, the chance to work with a PC, albeit a very fast and upper-price range one at that, was something we did not want to pass up, if only to dispel our own notions about crossing the OS Rubicon. The new HP EliteBook 8540w we worked with came with 8GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive, more connection slots than we ever could wish for, a Blu-ray reader/writer, a download card slot for SD memory cards (with adapters available for CF, etc.), microphone, image out slots to a projector, HDMI, and more. As configured the unit runs close to $3100, although we’ve seen lesser-priced units of the same model with more modest attributes. This is close to what you’d pay for a MacBook Pro similarly configured, albeit minus Blu-ray and various slots but plus a larger screen. But our aim was not to put it head to head against the latest MacBook Pro, but to check it out on its own merits. That said, in terms of size and weight it is similar to the 15” Mac in many respects (the HP being 9.9x14.7x1.3” and weighing in at 6.5 lbs with a 15.6” display) so there’s no plus and minus in portability here.