Pre-Order The Canon EOS R3 Mirrorless Camera NOW

Canon has been on a tear with its mirrorless camera offerings the last year or so. Then we saw a new pro-grade, full-frame body was coming available. The EOS R3. This is the mirrorless option that Canon states will stand between the EOS R5 and the flagship 1DX II, although the 1DX model isn’t mirrorless.

From a tech spec standpoint, expect:

• 30 frames per second high speed shooting

• rugged build with excellent weather sealing

• 4K video recording with Canon Log (c-log) 3

• 6K RAW video capability

• Dual pixel autofocus for animals, bird and human eye detection

• rumored 24 megapixel stacked image sensor

Pretty beefy specs, as expected. Especially considering that at least one photographer was lucky enough to shoot the 2021 Summer Olympics with a pre-production R3. Says a lot about the potential capabilities of this camera.

The shipping date is November 30, 2021. I also know that you can get your pre-order in with the squad at Adorama on this page*. Do you plan on getting one? I can’t say that I plan on it, but it would be nice to play with one. Stay tuned.

*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

Shout Out to Light and Motion

Yo. I just wanted to give a shout out to the squad at Light and Motion. Recently on my show, Hands-On Photography, I had Tosha Gaines as a guest speaker to share a photography tip as well as inspire my audience. It was great to meet her. She's an ambassador for Light and Motion. Certainly deserving of recognition. Anyhow, Light and Motion offered to affiliate with me and send me some kit. Besides sharing L&M information, I also wanted to say thanks to them and share affiliate information.

About Light and Motion

This company specializes in lighting options for a various situations. Not just photography. The product line is professional quality and definitely lives up to that labeling. I’ve had the pleasure of trying out the lights for several weeks now and I’ve been blown away. The Stella Pro CLX10 is an absolute beast of a light with regards to durability and power of light. It’s ridiculous how bright this dadgum LED light is. Not to mention, it’s wireless, so there’s no power cord required. And you can definitely feel the pro-grade build quality in this light.

So yeah, I appreciate Light and Motion setting me up as an affiliate. What does it mean for you? Because I’m an affiliate, I have a 20% off discount code. Just go to this link and apply the code to your order. You’ll get a discount, and I’ll get a small commission of your sale. So go check ‘em out and go Create and DOMINATE, y’all. Be sure to follow the Stella Pro page on Instagram, too.

Photography Today and the Future of Photography

I had the honor and pleasure of being on Tom Merritt’s DTNS “Experiment Week” which for my episode, was hosted by Anthony “Amos” Lemos. With this being “Experiment Week,” the DTNS had me on to talk a bit about photography. The state of photography today as well as my thoughts on the future of photography when it comes to consumers and pro-sumers. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for giving it a listen.

New Photoshop Updates for Desktop and iPad Announced

Adobe has announced new updates to its popular photo editing and manipulation software, Photoshop. The popular app continues grow as more and more tools and options are integrated with each update. Today’s update is great for photographers shooting landscape images or outside in general as the Adobe Sensei AI continues to get better. Here are some of the updates of note for both Photoshop on the desktop computer as well as the iPad.

Sky replacement AI updated

Image: Adobe

We’ve all been there. We’ve snapped a photo outside and the sky just looks. . .blah. Sky replacement AI has gotten more and more popular for this reason. With the latest update to Photoshop's sky replacement feature, you can now choose from more skies in your replacement, import up to 5,000 skies, and control how the newly replaced sky is applied.

Image: Adobe

AI is the big key to the Neural Filters of Photoshop, too. Adobe has included some improvements and updates for this feature set which includes:

• Preset images now included for Style Transfer to provide a starting point

• Use any custom and apply the style of that image to your document

• Superzoom now operates on the entire layer instead fo only a cropped area of the image.

In addition to the sky replacement updates, Adobe announced more control over its Transform Warp tool. this is useful for allowing graphic designers the ability to create complex shapes within their project with the implementation of Bezier handles. For those of you interested in providing feedback for future Photoshop features or suggestions, you can be a part of Photoshop Beta. Just install the beta app via your Creative Cloud app running on your computer.

Photoshop on iPad updated

The iPad version of Photoshop has two nice updates that’s currently found in the desktop version. The Healing Brush and Magic Wand. Healing is great for retouching, small spot removal and so forth in photo manipulation. I use it regularly in portraits. The Magic Wand is great for quick selections of objects in your photo.

Image: Adobe

These are nice features to be added to Photoshop on iPad. I still think there’s a little ways to go before I can make it my mobile photo manipulation app, but it’s nice to see the improvement happening for the project.

You can find out more about the latest Photoshop updates (and MORE) via the Adobe blog post right here. And if you’re interested in getting Photoshop and Lightroom for yourself, click here and get it for $9.99 per month. A great value, in my opinion.

*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

New Macro Flash from GODOX and Flashpoint

Godox is a pretty popular brand in the photography space. In particularly, for beginners, hobbyist or flat out budget-minded photographers. Yep, I use quite a few Godox kit in my content creation endeavors. Godox has now announced a new flash designed for macro photography. But wait, there’s more. . . .

Image: GODOX

Not your typical macro flash

Like a typical speed lite or off camera flash you can mount the MF 12 to the top of your camera or on a stand quite easily. But where this differs from any speed lite is not in its size, but in its ability to be mounted to your camera’s lens. With the help of an adapter, of course.

Image: GODOX

The adapter is quite similar to a step-up ring you’d use for larger ND filters, but instead of attaching a filter, you attach the MF 12. If you have more than one MF 12, you can attach them all around the circumference of your lens.

Image: GODOX

Having the MF 12 in this position is ideal for macro photography considering how much closer a macro lens can be towards the image subject, but this can also be used as a nifty ring light for portraits. Ring lights are great for high key images or images where you really want flat light with minimal contrast showing on your subject. Granted, the catch light created in the model’s from a ring light is not something I care for. I prefer a round soft box catch light in the eyes versus the rings show in the image below.

Image: GODOX

You can preorder the MF 12 from Adorama via the Flashpoint branding. It’s still a Godox, just the branding exclusive to Adorama. I think the pricing is quite fair based on the portability and capability. Can get a bit pricey if you order more than two, in my opinion. Let me know what you think. Dig it? Gonna get one? Check out the video preview below.

*Affiliate link used. Affiliate links allow me to earn a small commission as a content creator if you purchase items using the affiliate link. Thank you for your support.

"Ruthless Reviews" Ain't Bad At All, Right?

A little while ago I sat in our Mr Alex Lindsay’s Office Hours again. I love sitting in on that panel to attempt to answer questions from the creative community as well as LEARN more stuff for my own skillset. Periodically, he and the panel conduct “ruthless reviews” of each other. The reviews range audio, to video, to set, and so forth. All about making the online/virtual meeting experience better for the panelist and their audience. I was a part of this ruthless review and it was quite helpful. Click below to watch the first hour of q&a and then watch the second hour of the video as we get into ruthless reviews. Enjoy.

Screenshot via Alex Lindsay and Office Hours

Adobe Continues Performance Boost for M1 Macs

Coming off the heels of WWDC, Adobe announces more updates for its Creative Cloud product line. Specifically, those compatible with the Apple M1 silicon. A lot of the products have been supported for a little while with others still being in beta status, but today some performance updates were announced.

Performance Boosted

Adobe teamed up with Pheiffer Report to take a look at performance of the Creative Cloud apps running on M1 Macs from Apple. The test hardware included the M1 Macbook Pro (16GB RAM), Intel Core i5 Macbook Pro (16GB RAM) where both were connected to an Apple Pro Display XDR. Lots of benchmarking test were completed looking at Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and more focusing on not only the simple use of the user interface (UI), but also some graphic-heavy or CPU-intensive functions of each app. It’s found that on average, the Creative Cloud apps are 80% faster using the M1 systems. Pretty impressive. Adobe and Pheiffer had a bunch of charts and information here showing all the details of the testing.

With that said, the video editor for Adobe, Premiere Pro, is still in beta status. I’ve not heard anything bad about the beta other than a few “quirks,” but it’s believed that the beta runs circles around the Intel version on performance.

Better Collaboration Tools and More Tools for Lightroom

I tend to focus more on the photography side of things when it comes to the Creative Cloud. Yes, I use Premiere, and After Effects, but I open Lightroom and Photoshop more often. Unfortunately, I’m not on an M1 so I don’t see these particular performance boosts. But Adobe has added more ways to collaborate on the photography front with cloud collaboration capability. This allows you to get an extra set of eyes on your photos project and tweak the editing before clicking “post” to Instagram or whatever your platform of choice is.

Image by Adobe

Far as the editing tools, the AI tool found in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) which enabled you to convert an image to a much higher resolution image is now available in Lightroom Classic as well as Lightroom. This Super Resolution feature touts increasing your photog resolution by up to 4X. In my experience, the previous iteration was “ok.” Wasn’t great, but it did make a difference.

Adobe has a lot more information on its blog regarding the updates for Lightroom, Photoshop with its new custom brushes, Illustrator and more. I guess I better get myself ready to install these updates as well as find a way to get my hands on an M1 Mac. Ha!

I Shared My Experience Shooting Photos in China

A few years ago I had the opportunity to cover CES Asia in Shanghai, China. It was my second opportunity to visit another country for my work and my first time in Asia. It was AMAZING and I’ll never forget it. A little while ago, I was approached by my man Steve Brazill to be a guest on his podcast Behind The Shot to discuss a particular photograph I captured while I was in China. No, it’s not the photo below, but if you click on the photo below, you’ll be able to watch the video and see the image I captured. For the record, the show below was actually captured in China. THANKS for checking it out and thanks to Steve Brazill for having me on. And thanks for buying me a beer. 🤜🏾

Images by Ant Pruitt - all rights reserved

Nikon Announces Rebates and Deals on Cameras

As an Adorama affiliate, I’m notified of certain deals regarding photography gear quite regularly. Sometimes, the deals are not all that, but then there’s the deals like this one going on for the Nikon line of photography. At the time of this blog post, Nikon is offering up to $500 in rebates on select camera bodies and camera bundles. Here are a few of note below.

Lenses

Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.6- 5.6. Was $596, now $396.

NIKKOR 35mm f/1.4G AF-S BUNDLE. Was $1696. Now $1546.

NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G AF-S Bundle was $196. Now $166

Cameras

D780 FX-Format DSLR with 24-120mm kit lens bundle was $2796. Now $2496.

Z50 Mirroless with 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 kit lens bundle. Was $996. Now $896.

Those are just a few of the items I thought were worth mentioning. Go to Adorama via my affiliate link to see more of the deals. Thanks for checking it out and supporting my content.

I'm Trying The NFT World

Ok so I FINALLY created something to put into the NFT market. What is NFT, you ask? Well it’s basically a way to create digital art/items for the world of crypto. A better explanation is found here at the 3min45sec mark on the show. Explanation was offered up by Mr Trey Ratcliff, one of my favorite photographers.

Why try NFT?

My answer to this question is a question. Why not? I have a couple crypto wallets with some assets just sitting there. No I’m not rich on crypto, but it was just sitting there. I figured I could use it to invest in myself and see if I could earn a few more dollars with my work.

Creating an NFT wasn’t too difficult for me, but creating an NFT account was a little bit more challenging. At least, I can see why it would be challenging. I had to move crypto assets around into an Ethereum (ETH) currency, figure out an NFT marketplace to utilize, create a profile said marketplace, upload my content, connect a crypto wallet to the NFT market and see what happens.

Over on Twitter, Miss Roxanne has a very nice thread to help walk you through selling NFTs. She did a lot of the leg work for you. You just have to follow the steps. The thread is here. Be sure to give her a follow and thank her for this aide.

View my NFT (UPDATE: The below NFT has sold, but I added more)

You can get a look at my NFT on the official market on this link. Here’s a watermarked screenshot of it. If you can afford to take a look at creating your own NFT work, I say do it. It’s a bet on yourself. I’m listing this initially for just a few days. If it doesn’t sell, I’ll re-list it later for a longer duration. Either way, I’m happy to be trying this out as a digital content creator.