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Warning: tongue in cheek rant coming your way--but not THAT tongue in cheek.

I don’t know if it’s just that I’m getting old, but it sure seems like there are a bunch of whiners out there lately. Here are five things that I constantly hear from photographers that drive me crazy.

1. My new camera is broken. It back focuses.
   No it most likely doesn’t--YOU back...

Underwater photographer Berkley White has posted a gorgeous video of the massive sinkholes in Mexico, known as cenotes, shot with the new Canon EOS 5D Mark III.

To shoot the video, White had to hack an old Aquatica 5D Mark II underwater housing to fit the new camera. (The new housings weren't available yet.)

Though the modified rig was functional, it only allowed him to...

Just six weeks ago Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, announced its planned purchase one of the best-known smartphone camera apps, Instagram. Today, Facebook makes an interesting move with the debut of its own camera app designed specifically for members of its site.

Rather logically dubbed Facebook Camera, the new app doesn't yet include technology...

If you've ever been to one of the large technology trade shows such as CES for consumer electronics, or PMA, for photography, you've probably seen video bloggers trying to shoot HD of themselves testing out the latest digital goodies. A new prototype product called SmartTripod would turn the cinematography and direction over to a robotic drone that follows you as it shoots...

Olympus Corp. has today made official a lens whose development was first revealed back in February, alongside the announcement of the Olympus E-M5 camera body.

The Olympus M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75mm f1.8 prime lens offers a 35mm-equivalent focal length of 150mm on a Micro Four Thirds camera body, with a bright f/1.8 aperture. It's pretty compact given the specifications, at...

If you've bought a new computer recently, chances are pretty good that you've made the leap to the world of 64-bit computing.

After years of lacklustre sales, 64-bit systems have finally taken off in the consumer world, and in the last couple of years have surpassed sales of 32-bit systems by a wide margin. 64-bit operating systems are now commonplace on both Macintosh...

This iPhone case adds a pretty basic but important feature for anyone who likes to shoot stills or video with their phone: horizontal and vertical tripod mounts.

Called, appropriately, the DiffCase iPhone 4/4S Case with Tripod Mounts, it also has two lids that let you shield the screen from the sun when you're composing photos and videos.

The lids will help to keep...

An American landscape photographer bought an entire French village yesterday for what many people pay for a new house.

Ahae Jeong (shown on the right), who goes by his first name, purchased the village of Courbefy, France, for just $663,000, which was actually some $400,000 over the auction starting price.

Ahae, a South Korean born photographer based in the United...

A tipoff from IR reader 'Home' alerted us to a new firmware update for Sony's recently-announced Alpha SLT-A57 digital camera.

A followup to the A55, the Sony A57 couples the company's Translucent Mirror technology with the same image sensor featured in the NEX-5N compact system camera. While its Continuous Advance Priority AE burst shooting performance is unchanged from...

You heard it here first: Zoom and AF-motor noise in video soundtracks could soon become a thing of the past.

A real limitation of movie recording with digital cameras is that motor noise from zoom and autofocus systems is glaringly obvious in video soundtracks. Dedicated camcorders use special motors and sound-deadening in the camera body to eliminate this problem, but...

"High Ice" was the first of many movies I shot stills for and on my first day on the set I met Marvin Greenberg, the focus puller. Focus pullers are the unsung heroes of movie making. Their job is to sit next to the big 35mm Panavision movie camera and hold onto the lens focusing ring. Then, in a pre-rehearsed dance, they slowly shift the lens' focus as the cameraman keeps...

Though it may look strange and unwieldy, we found this lighting solution created by photographer Ian Spanier to be oddly charming and, potentially, quite effective. Spanier made it by combining a Photoflex OctoDome NXT "extra small" softbox kit ($184) with a Lowepro Scope Porter 200 AW Backpack ($159) designed for birding enthusiasts.

The reason behind this awkward...

The last few months have been a bit lonely for Pentax's flagship K-5 digital SLR. As the company has focused on its second mirrorless product line with the launch of the designer K-01, the K-5 has had to hold fort by itself as the only currently-produced Pentax digital SLR. The entry-level K-x has been discontinued for quite a while now, and although the K-r is still...

Earlier this year, Pentax Ricoh Imaging revealed new lens roadmaps for its K, Q, and 645 lens mounts. On the map for the K-mount--which is used by the company's DSLR models and its mirrorless K-01 compact system camera--was a new portrait prime lens, tentatively named the smc PENTAX-DA 50mm f/1.8.

Today, the name and the lens itself are tentative no more, as Pentax...

I may never drop another camera lens again thanks to a new invention called the Backer Capper Lens Swapping System from the folks at camarush. The device, which is shown in prototype in the image to the right, looks remarkably like a lens cap mounted on a belt but it solves the problem of the “third hand.”

You know what the "third hand" is, right? It's the thing you wish...

Panasonic Corp. has today announced its third Lumix G X branded Micro Four Thirds-mount lens, the Panasonic LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm/F2.8 ASPH./POWER O.I.S. With the addition of this new model, the premium X-series lens lineup now covers focal lengths from a very generous 24mm-equivalent wide angle to a powerful 350mm-equivalent telephoto, with only a very small gap in...

A lot of photographers are glad they took out LensRentals' damage waiver on equipment when accidents happen. While we hate losing equipment, I have to admit we sometimes enjoy reading about exactly how this lens or that camera returned in the shape it did. This weekend, though, we not only got one of the best stories of “how I broke your stuff”, but the photographer, Andrew...

Panasonic announced its new 12-35mm f/2.8 zoom lens for micro four-thirds bodies today, and we just happened to get our hands on a pre-production version. On paper, there is a lot to like - image stabilization, dust- and splash-proof design, and a constant f/2.8 aperture; we've put this version through its paces in our test lab to see if the reality matches up. Click here...

Our own Steve Meltzer offered his provocative take on the Leica Monochrom M last week and now here's a video "review" of this $8K black-and-white shooting digital rangefinder.

But before you take this "first YouTube review of the new Leica Monochrom" too seriously, be advised that it's clearly meant as a joke.

And it does have some funny moments including the strange...