Jack Neubart

Every year, New York City's American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) comes to life with a teeming array of mesmerizing and vibrantly colorful butterflies (and some moths) from around the world. The Butterfly Conservatory houses numerous specimens reflecting the rich diversity of insects known collectively as Lepidoptera. In fact, this collection even includes the...

On a recent trip to Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, I had a choice of several of Lowepro's photo backpacks. I would load one up, try it on, and do the same with each in turn. Even though I received the DryZone Rover for the express purpose of testing it, I wasn't about to sacrifice my trip and take a bag ill-suited to the task. Among the bags at my disposal were the...

I prefer to shoot macros and close-ups handheld, so, when I need to augment the existing light or replace it entirely, I look for a compact solution. And for me, that often means a ringlight. It’s a simple and undemanding yet effective tool. For my really tight close-ups at or near life-size, I set focus manually in advance so there’s no worry about the AF sensor trying to lock on...

The most recent speed gains have been in SD format cards, making us wonder about the larger CF card. But that concern has been to an extent dispelled by some of the recent developments in this very fast-changing field. One of the newest developments unveiled at the show was a card that sits between those two sizes, the XQD card. The first camera to accept the new memory card is the Nikon D4, although the D4 also features a CF slot.

XQD has a smaller form factor than CF, so they’re not interchangeable. Sony, the company that introduced the world’s first XQD card, notes that you can record up to 100 Raw image frames from continuous shooting mode using the card and obtain 125MB/sec read/write speed when using a PCIe port; new XQD card readers are available as well. The casing around the card is “robust,” with contact pins inside the casing itself, which Nikon says helps eliminate problems in the field.