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The Westcott Strobelite Plus Monolight might just be the right light to complete your kit


For many years, I have relied on my Canon and Yongnuo Speedlites for almost all of my flash needs. Most recently, I purchased the latest Canon Speedlite which is the 470 EX-AI Speedlite. It is an amazing flash, with great features, and the artificial intelligence ability goes a long way to achieving the perfect lighting for portrait, and in some cases even product photography. For macro photography and product photography, I sometimes use my photography Lightbox that works really well, and at other times, I use acrylic backgrounds which obviously are affected by ambient light. I have been looking at adding flexibility to my photography when using backgrounds, or when I am working with clients shooting food photography, and after much research, I have decided to try a good entry level strobe flash with a modeling light.

The Westcott Strobelite Plus Monolight seems like a great strobe to start with. It has a decent flash recycle time of 2 to 2.5 seconds, which will work fine for my in-studio work. Its flash power can be adjusted from 25% to 100%, and it has a built-in 150-watt modeling light that gives you the great ability to preview the light in your shot. It is well constructed, has a Bowens S-Type front accessory mount that supports umbrellas, light modifiers, and softboxes, and a 15-foot removable power cord.

If you would like to purchase the Westcott Strobelite Plus Monolight, you can pick one up at Amazon or B&H Photo Video for approximately $230.

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The Westcott Strobelite Plus Monolight might just be the right light to complete your kit originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 31, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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Ouh Snap Folding Photography Lightbox review

When in the studio, a good photography Lightbox that produces bright and evenly placed white light, works well for macro or product photography and allows the photographer to take very detailed photos. However, not all Lightboxes are created equal. Will this product from Ouh Snap get a passing grade, or will it end up in the unsuccessful pile? Let’s find out!!

What is it?

The Ouh Snap Folding Photography Lightbox is a portable, foldable Lightbox that can be quickly assembled and used to take detailed photographs of relatively small objects.

What’s in the pouch

The Lightbox comes in a compact carrying pouch. In the pouch, you will find the Lightbox, a micro USB cable, and one black and one white background insert.

Design and features

The Lightbox comes folded flat and measures 9″ x 9″ x .5″. Once carefully unfolded, each of the three sections has magnetic tabs on the edges of their triangular sides that clamp to each other to form the Lightbox.


When the Lightbox is properly oriented, there is a LED light strip across the top, with an “exposed” micro USB port on the top-left side.
The LED strip can be powered via a USB power pack or a cell phone type USB wall adapter. The USB power pack that I used to test this Lightbox has one 1A port and one 2.4A port. The Lightbox only works properly on the 2.4A port. The 1A port does not provide enough current and produces a very, very dim light.

For the photography tests, I used a Canon EOS 7D Mark II with a Canon 24-105mm F4L lens. The first two photos were taken using the white insert, and as you can see, the pictures are crisp and clear but there is some bluing in the background. For the purpose of showing the effects of light and shadows and reflection in the box, I set the camera to Auto White Balance, and I did not correct in post.


The second two photographs were taken with the black insert, and were also quite clear, with a bit of reflection. What I really like about the black insert is the nice texture that it provides for the background.


What I like

I really like that the Lightbox is light and portable and that the setup is quick and easy. I also like the bright built-in LED light strip, and that it can be powered by a USB power pack. The two included background inserts fit well and work well for specific desired looks.

What can be improved

• The addition of an enclosure to protect the USB port
• The inclusion of flexible PVC background inserts along with a way to secure them when installed would be a  great addition
• A longer micro USB cable with a wall adapter

Final thoughts

When I need to photograph small objects or products, and the need is not for photographs that will undergo critical scrutiny, the Ouh Snap Photography Lightbox is a nice alternative to setting up my much larger Lightbox. It is quick and easy to setup, and very portable. Only time will tell whether or not it will endure the constant folding and unfolding, and whether or not the exposed micro USB port will succumb to regular use.

Price: $22.95
Where to buy: OuhSnap
Source: The sample for this review was provided by OuhSnap

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Ouh Snap Folding Photography Lightbox review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 30, 2018 at 12:00 pm.

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The Sigma 105mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens is the new beast in their lineup!

As the excitement and curiosity continue to build around Sigma’s release of its new Art series lenses, there is another lens in their lineup that catches my attention.

At first glance, the Sigma 105mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens looks like a beast of a lens.
It is a fast f 1.4 Lens that should perform amazingly well in low light, and according to Sigma’s specifications, should allow for great control over the depth of field. Dubbed the “Bokeh Master” by Sigma, this short telephoto prime lens is designed for high-resolution rendering, and along with its Hyper Sonic Motor should produce quick, smooth, and quiet autofocus, while still allowing full-time manual focus override. According to Sigma, “the large 105mm-diameter front contributes to improved peripheral illumination, in order to reduce vignetting.” The lens comes with a removable rotating Arca-Type tripod collar and foot and it is compatible with Sigma USB dock.

If you are interested in the Sigma 105mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens, you can head over the B&H Photo Video and sign up to be notified when it becomes available. The lens will be initially offered in Canon, Nikon and Sigma mounts. The price is yet to be announced.

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The Sigma 105mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens is the new beast in their lineup! originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 30, 2018 at 9:00 am.

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BatchPhoto software review

If you work much with digital photos, sooner or later you’ll probably come across the need to edit a batch of photos, applying some form of edit to all of them. Regardless of whether or not you use something like Photoshop, Lightroom, or another image editor, sometimes the right tool for this job is one specifically designed for batch operations – like BatchPhoto from Bits&Coffee.

What is it?

BatchPhoto is a batch photo editing software program for Windows and Mac that can process multiple photos in an automated or semi-automated manner, applying specified actions to each one. There are 50 edit actions that can be applied. BatchPhoto calls them filters, but they’re more than just an Instagram-like filter. These filters include things like applying text, watermarks, resizing, rotating, image touch-up, and many more. Each filter has settings so that you can customize each filter to do exactly what you want it to.

What’s in the box?

The download for BatchPhoto is 34.5MB for Windows and 56.2MB for Mac. The download includes all available versions and has the ability to unlock the full (paid) version with a product key so there’s no re-downloading and installing the paid version if you decide to buy a license.

The installation was pretty much a standard installation, nothing unusual to mention.

When you first start the program you’re presented with a dialog where you can choose which version to evaluate. There are three versions to choose from, Home, Pro, and EEnterprise.This review covers the enterprise version. For a comparison of features included in each version, see the comparison chart.

BatchPhoto is available in the following languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese.

Design and features

The program uses a simple wizard-like three-step approach:

  • Step 1: Add photos.
  • Step 2: Edit Photos.
  • Step 3: Setup.

Clicking the “Process” button starts the real action of the program, processing each image with the settings you have specified.

Although the program is wizard-like, you can jump between steps at will. You can even skip step one if you’re going to be using a profile to automate the processing of images at a later time (more on profiles later).

Step 1 – Add Photos

BatchPhoto handles just about every image format there is. It can process over 170 image formats, including quite a few RAW formats (including Canon, Sony, Nikon, Olympus, Fuji, Kodak, Pentax) that photographers use. It can also output to almost all of these formats as well. Some formats can’t be output to, like RAW files that are specific to digital cameras.

You can add photos via drag and drop or browsing for specific files, or adding files from a folder or multiple folders. The photos list also includes multiple view modes such as detail list, small icons, medium icons, and large icons (icon meaning thumbnails). A Preview window is also in this step and supports zooming.


Step 2: Edit Photos

In this step, you specify filters and file renaming options. This is the heart of the program. There are 50 filters, each with its own customizable settings. You can do just about anything that you would want to automate.

There are far too many filters here to cover each one individually, but I’ll include screenshots of the filters here, along with a couple of their edit dialogs as well.








Step 3: Setup

This is where you setup the output options. You can specify the output folder, output format, and other miscellaneous options.

The output options are:

  • Folder on your computer
  • Send via E-mail
  • Upload to FTP
  • Upload to Flickr
  • Upload to Facebook

PDF, TIF, and GIF output formats can create multi-page files where all of the images are included in a single file.

There are also settings for setting the output photo’s date and attributes to match the original file, as well as an option to delete the source file after processing.


Processing

One of the key features of BatchPhoto is its ability to process multiple photos at the same time, greatly reducing the time it takes to process photos. For those who are into technical stuff, this means it will use multiple threads to process the photos. There’s also an option to turn this off if you want.

One of the things I really like is that you can save your settings as a profile for easily loading those settings later, and applying them to batch operations using the “watch folder” feature of the included monitor program. For example, you might have one profile for processing “proof” images, and another profile to process “final” images or one for outputting small images and one for outputting large images.

One thing I did note is that you save the profile via the file menu, but you load them via the wizard menu. BatchPhoto includes many pre-defined profiles for your convenience including a “Convert to PDF Album” that will output your photos to a PDF file and a “Send via E-mail” profile.


Automated processing

BatchPhoto includes a utility program called Monitor. It can be launched and will run separately from the main program. It can be configured to watch a local or FTP folder for new files. When the new files are detected, it will process them automatically based on a specified profile.

This is a very powerful feature for users that want to automate the processing of files. An example use would be to automatically process and upload files simply by copying or moving them to a watched folder. As soon as that folder is checked (at an interval that you specify), the new files are automatically processed.



Semi-Automated processing

BatchPhoto also includes the option to integrate into the Windows Explorer shell. You can simply select your images, then right click and choose BatchPhoto then Apply Profile and the program will prompt you to select a profile and the selected images will be processed with that profile.

What I like

  • Very versatile in input and output formats
  • Video tutorials on the BatchPhoto website.
  • Profiles for quickly specifying options
  • Output option for processing the files to a subfolder of the original folder.
  • Configurable file renaming options.
  • Multiple thread output. 7 threads on an 8 CPU (4 Core) system.

What needs to be improved

  • I would like to see a ZIP output format where all the files would be created and then moved into a zip file.
  • I saw errors outputting files using the grunge frame with multiple files while using multi-processing. The error did not occur when the setting was turned off.

Final thoughts

BatchPhoto is an excellent batch photo processing solution. It provides powerful editing features, superb configuration options, as well as great output formats and destinations. Whether you’re an amateur or a professional, you’ll probably find that this program will meet most, if not all, of your needs.

Price: $29.95 – $129.95
Where to buy: BatchPhoto
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Bits&Coffee

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BatchPhoto software review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 29, 2018 at 10:00 am.

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The new Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens may be the best of the best!


I am pretty sure that by now that many of my fellow photographers, and especially macro photographers, are anxiously awaiting the release of the Sigma’s new art lenses. I am referring specifically to the new Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens.

As the first true macro lens in the Sigma Art series, it is designed to prioritize optical performance above all else. This lens is a true 1:1 macro lens, and as a part of the Art series, I am expecting it to be well made, and to provide “crisp” photos with great clarity and sharpness.

The lens is designed with a “focus-by-wire” system that eliminates any direct mechanical contact between the focus ring and the focus drive. According to Sigma, “all of this adds up to a lens capable of razor-sharp, well-delineated focus with beautiful bokeh”.

A new coreless DC motor assists with the task of acquiring focus with minimal noise, while the full-time manual focus remains available during autofocus. The lens is built in a dust and splash proof body, and it is compatible with the Sigma USB Dock that can be purchased separately. The initial release will be for Canon and Sigma mounts, with others to follow.

If you interested in the new Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens, you can preorder one at B&H Photo Video for $569.

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The new Sigma 70mm f/2.8 DG Macro Art Lens may be the best of the best! originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 29, 2018 at 8:00 am.

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