PhotographyBanzai.com

I heard recently that the owner of my local camera shop is looking to retire. According to this article on Rock River Current he’s soon to be 67 so that makes sense. I wish him well! Camera Craft Tom’s father Bob had purchased Camera Craft in 1966, so for its current run the shop has been in their family for effectively two generations. That’s a lot of built up knowledge and expertise. Here is a statement in the Rockford Current article about the shop’s overall age: “Camera Craft has enjoyed an excellent reputation in our community for nearly 100 years, and it is due to a long list of dedicated team members over the years who are passionate about photography and sharing their expertise with our customers,” he said.Tom Brady Before them it looks like the shop had been around a long time. Impressive longevity! I do personally remember going to their Edge Brook location a few times many years ago. In a local photographer group, Tom made a post about what he would like to get out of the e...

I’m a fan of the 16mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary lens, but it isn’t perfect. In this video I talk about enjoying a beautiful Japanese styled garden while they had a Christmas holiday lighting event while doing photography with the Sigma 16mm and the Canon EOS M6 Mark II. https://youtu.be/garkrYhIqao I’ve photographed this garden for years but always find unique ways to enjoy photography there! This lens is available for multiple mirrorless mounts. There would be slight field of view differences between this Canon EF-M version and the Sony, Fujifilm, and L-mount versions but other than that pretty similar. At the garden. Check out the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary lens through my links: B&H Photo Video , Amazon , Adorama , ebay , Walmart , and used on KEH . Or check out the trio of Sigma DC DN primes on B&H . Make sure you get the correct lens for your mount! As an affiliate of these shops, I earn from qualifying purchases!  You can learn more about the lens on Sigma’s ...

While cameras have overall reached a high level of quality and it’s hard to go wrong in many situations, I see issues that especially damage a potential or new customer’s interest in getting into dedicated cameras. As the market shrinks, I think these issues as exasperating the problem.  Cameras with questionable design aspects. https://youtu.be/7ZYo-13CSMU Maybe it’s largely the fault of marketing, but often I see camera companies release equipment that functionally falls short of how it is targeted toward potential purchasers. This has been very true of what camera companies have been saying are vlogging cameras. Nikon Z30 on B&H The Nikon Z30 could have been a compelling camera for Nikon, but they decided to go cheap and not offer features that made it any more appealing than the Sony Z-VE10 which already existed on the market. Sensor based stabilization? No. A more recent efficient codec like h.265? No. Full sized HDMI port? No. Uses their large EN-EL15 battery? No. Okay, a...

I tested out the AVMATRIX UC1218 HDMI USB capture device with clean HDMI capable cameras. I also compared it to a generic HDMI capture device I had on-hand. Let’s take a look in detail! AVMATRIX UC1218 AVMATRIX sent me this device at no cost to try out and make a video on, so keep that in mind. They had no say or preview of the content I’ve produced about it. https://youtu.be/_UT9u0XVn5U I also have a short version of the video on Instagram Reels and TikTok . Check it out through my affiliate links: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QjDRLQ B&H: https://bhpho.to/3Gt8Noy Adorama: https://adorama.rfvk.net/Jr1Bqv ebay: https://ebay.us/nHsv68 As an affiliate of these shops, I earn from qualifying purchases!  The UC1218 is specified as having YUY2 uncompressed 1080p 60fps output up to 200 MB/s. At least compared to the no-name capture device I have it sounds promising from a quality standpoint. Rails on the side are convenient for mounting. The Canon EOS M6 Mark II, Sony Alpha A6000, and ...

The Panasonic Lumix S5 II (and S5 II X) were announced today. It’s basically the original but with a phase detect sensor and a few extras. The Panasonic S5 II looks solid! For solo videographers I think this system is going to get even more appealing. The only major negative I’ve seen so far as mentioned by  DPReview TV  is that the sensor read-out on this model is a bit slow (which  means   rolling shutter ). See  more information about the camera  through my affiliate  B&H  or  Adorama’s related article .  I’ve put together  a hybrid kit  for the camera as well. Links are potentially affiliated, I earn from qualifying purchases! If you are interested in more specifications and pointing out important details, check out DSLR Video Shooter’s overview . He does a side-by-side autofocus test with the Sony A7IV and talks about aspects like the dual UHS-II SD card slots. Also a mention of the info display with HDMI where the cam...

I purchased a refurbished Canon EOS M6 Mark II back in early August 2022 after selling equipment to KEH (side note, I’m trying to go back through my earlier videos and create at least a simple website article about each. One of which will be about the KEH selling process ) Information from Canon. Here’s how buying the camera and initial unboxing went: https://youtu.be/6qn3ggA_HkM The purchasing experience was good, but the camera had a few issues… The AF point positioning button doesn’t have as much travel as the other buttons. The bottom panel shows a bit of paint gone. The LCD does have a dark spot toward the center of the screen. Technically everything worked, but the one button was especially odd. I ended up keeping it. In retrospect not the smartest idea. I used that camera for photography a number of times, but eventually swapped it out with the black M6ii I had in my indoor video rig. The silver version didn’t seem as robust as the black so it made sense. The button with an issu...