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Welcome to Photo Geek News

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27 April 2010

tr_a_mediumWelcome to Photo Geek News, your source for reviews and articles about new and unique photo products. Check out our new Daily News page with information about gear and gadgets of interest to photo geeks everywhere.

Our mission is to seek out and test camera gadgets from small manufacturers far and near. Our scope includes products like lightning triggers, wireless removes, storage, field gear, software, and other new and noteworthy products.

We will focus on products for digital SLRs and high end point-and-shoot digital cameras and our reviews will be aimed at pros and sophisticated amateurs. We are always on the look out for lower cost alternatives to higher priced products. There are some very good (and some very bad) knock-offs coming out of the Far East and we'll let you know how they stack up.geek

We'll also rate the vendors and give you links to their sites. Our Photo Geek Test Lab guys have set-up a Gallery where they display photos taken using the products we review. Check out the recent macro shots.

We will also be blogging about our experiences in purchasing and testing these products and offering advice and insights into their use.

We hope you enjoy the site and will participate by adding your comments to our reviews and recommending products to test. If you purchase any of the items reviewed on this site, we'd appreciate your comments about the product.

Please visit our fourm to post you views on PhotoGeek stuff or join the discussion about a particular product.

CameraTrace Emails You If Your Stolen Camera is Detected On The Internet

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30 December 2011

Looking for a lost camera on the web by searching for its serial number in uploaded photos is nothing new (see Stolen Camera Finder), but GadgetTrak’s new CameraTrace service takes it one step further. For a fee of $10 per camera, the service will actively monitor the Internet for your camera’s serial number. If it ever pops up in a photo uploaded to popular photo sharing services, you’ll get an email notification. Back in August, GadgetTrak’s manual Serial Search helped a photographer recover $9000 in stolen gear.

CameraTrace (via TechCrunch)

Active Image Monitoring & Recovery

CameraTrace utilizes a specialized search technology that looks for images that were taken by a camera. The database currently contains over 11,000,000 cameras and is growing fast.

The company partnered with CPUsage to create a special search "spider" that scans photos on popular photo sharing sites (like Flickr and 500px) and extracts the serial numbers from them if available. This serial number data is stored in Exchangeable Image Format (EXIF) tags in the photo file itself. The process requires considerable computer resources to keep up with the large number of photos uploaded to these sites, they have leveraged a distributed computing model that allows us to spread this workload across hundreds of computer systems, with more being added daily.

Featured Product Reviews

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Featured Product

The LensAlign MkII Focus Calibration System uses the patent pending TPA Sighting System to perfectly align the lens on your camera for very accurate focusing. This MkII is the smaller and lighter version of the PRO model and easily disassembles for storage or transport. A standard 1/4-20 mount allows easy attachment to a tripod.

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GoPro Video Helmet Cam
 

The GoPro HD Motorsports HERO Camcorder records 1080p high definition video from your helmet, your vehicle, or anywhere else you mount it. The camera comes with 2 helmet mounts, 3 vehicle mounts, and a suction cup mount. Other optional mounts can be obtained for even more ways to record. The waterproof (up to 180 ft, 60m) polycarbonate housing also protects the camera from crashes and scratches.

Aside from shooting HD video, the HERO also captures 5MP digital stills. You can record at 2, 5, 10, 30, and 60 second intervals until the battery dies or the SD card fills up. The camera can also take single shots, triple shots, or be used with the self-timer. In addition, the built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery lasts for up 2.5 hours on a single charge and features an integrated heating system for staying warm during cold weather activities.

Motorsports HD Recording
Mount the HD Motosports HERO to any helmet, motorcycle, ATV, car, plane, jet ski, boat, snowmobile or other vehicle using GoPro's specialized Motorsports package
Professional Quality, Full HD Video
1080p, 960p, and 720p in 30 and 60 fps (720p). The HD HERO line of cameras offers three different HD resolutions, giving you three filming modes to capture the best angles for any given activity:
  • 1080p: 1920x1080 True HD featuring a 127° angle of view, 30 fps, and 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio
  • 960p: 1280x960 Ultra Wide and Tall HD featuring a 170° angle of view, 30 fps, and 4:3 aspect ratio. See more of the action above and below than widescreen 16:9 resolutions can show
  • 720p: 1280x720 Ultra Wide HD featuring a 170° angle of view, both 30 and 60 fps, and 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio

Product in the News

Canon 50mm f/1.4 vs. f/1.8

There's a very interesting article on Adorama's Web site about Canon's 50mm f/1.8 lens vs. its f/1.4. It seems the people at DxO labs put both lens through their paces and the f/1.8 came out on top, even though it's a lot less money than the f/1.4 

Here's the article:

Experienced photographers know that the humble, inexpensive 50 is a little powerhouse. But should you get the faster f/1.4 or the less expensive f/1.8? Lab test results reveal interesting surprises and practical advice.

All lab test results courtesy DxOMark.com; used with permission.

50mm lenses get a bum rap. They’re not as versatile as zoom lenses and, because many lower-end cameras are bundled with kit zoom lenses that cover the 50mm focal length, are overlooked. And yet…they’re fast, cheap, and can produce some of the sharpest shots you can get. Hey, Henri Cartier-Bresson used a 50mm lens almost exclusively for over 50 years. That worked out pretty well for him!

In the digital age, a 50mm lens on a DSLR with an APS-sized sensor will deliver 35mm equivalent angle of coverage of a 75mm lens, making it well-suited for portraits. A 50mm fixed focal length (“prime”) lens will deliver better image quality than a zoom lens set at 50mm. A 28-70mm lens set at 50mm, for example, will produce more linear distortion, lower resolution (measured as lines per millimeter), and have more optical anomalies than a 50mm prime.

Read the whole article

If after reading the article you want to purchase a Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens from Adorama, you can click here. Adorama is one of the sponsors of this Web site and we need all the loose change we can get to keep the site going.