Steve McCurry is one of the most prolific photographers alive today. His photograph for National Geographic’s June 1985 cover of Sharbat Gula (also know as the “Afghan Girl”) is one of the most recognizable portraits in history, and his imagery has graced NatGeo’s pages many, many times since.

McCurry has repeatedly proven himself an absolute master of the portrait. His street portraiture, especially, carries tremendous impact. He has an uncanny ability to capture his subjects’ essence, distilling it in a split-second into an image that can range from haunting to exciting and everything in-between.

Steve McCurry iPad App

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When we recently received the Olympus OM-D E-M5 (there’s a mouthful for you) in our warehouse, I wasted absolutely no time in snagging one of the bodies and taking it for a whirl. My “whirls” usually last a few weeks so that I can put the camera to use in a variety of different ways, and given the feedback I’d heard from other photographers about this diminutive body, I was eager to put it through its paces.

Two weeks later, I have my conclusion: Olympus has an absolute winner on its hands.

The gear

The Micro-Four-Thirds platform isn’t a closed-loop system. Olympus and Panasonic both make bodies for it, and there’s even an MFT-based version of the enormously popular Blackmagic Cinema Camera on the way. Panasonic, particularly, has two lenses that I decided were going to be my go-to lenses for this test: the 12–35mm f/2.8 and the 35–100mm f/2.8 lenses.

The Gear – OM-D, Panasonic 12–35mm and 35–100mm

Together, these cover the equivalent of the 24–70 and 70–200mm lenses in 35mm terms, giving me the focal lengths used by most photographers. Because the OM-D features a 5-axis, in-body stabilization, that entire focal length is stabilized as well. (more…)

Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more.

• Canon’s new 1D C camera has arrived in our warehouse and is available for reservations. This is one camera you’re going to want to check out folks – have a look at the documentary below and you’ll see why.
   
• Speaking of Canon, DSLRNewsShooter.com has a nice piece about how Reuters turned to the 5D Mark III and a 60D for a documentary on education.
• Steve McCurry is one of the most prolific photographers of our generation – his image of the “Afghan Girl” still ranks as one of the most powerful works of portraiture out there. So when we saw that he had a new app out for the iPad that presented 200 of his portraits in a single collection, well, the $3.99 purchase was a no-brainer.
• German TV network Deutsche Welle has released two documentary videos about Legendary camera company Leica. Check out the first video below, then head over to Leica Rumors for the second one.
  
• And finally, via Chase Jarvis’ blog, comes an amazing look at how some artists see the drones used for military strikes around the world, in an outstanding example of the intersection of war and art.

That’s it for this week’s Cool Stuff. As always, questions and feedback are welcome in the comments below.

Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more.

• In his last post of the year, David Hobby talks about his experience taking part in DigitalRev.com’s Pro Tog, Cheap Camera series. Past participants have included Chase Jarvis and Zack Arias, among others, and the series has always been fun to watch.
  
• Speaking of Chase Jarvis, he’s got a great roundup of the year’s best images on his blog. Our favorite? Barak Obama and McKayla Maroney, not being impressed.
• And speaking of roundups, our friends over at PetaPixel have one of their 10 most popular posts of 2012. We love PetaPixel, and their site is on our must-read list.
• The “Wet Plate” method of photography is experiencing something of a resurgence, and inspired photographer Lauri Laukkenen enough that she put together a tutorial on how to do it in Photoshop.
• And finally, since are total and complete suckers for anything space-related, so when we saw this montage of shots from the ISS put together by Italian filmmaker Giacomo Sardelli, we had to share it.
  

That’s it for this week’s Cool Stuff. As always, questions and feedback are welcome in the comments below. Happy New Year, everyone!

Profoto Softboxes

A while back, we put together an article on how to use softboxes with your light of choice. At that time, I mentioned that we’d be putting together a cheat sheet that would allow you to figure out which softbox could go with which light, and what you’d need to make it work. Well, that cheat sheet is here.

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Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more.

• It’s become kind of rote now, but every time photographer Jay P. Morgan posts a tutorial, we have an automatic knee-jerk reaction to report it. This one’s no exception.
• Landscapes shot in infrared are often surreal and otherworldy. PetaPixel highlights the work of photographer David Keochkerian, who’s got some fantastic examples of this photography.
• Look, we’re going to be honest with you – DON’T DO THIS TO ONE OF OUR LENSES! That said, it’s both terrifying and cool how Canon Pro Services recommended one photographer get a stuck filter off his lens.
• The Canon 6D is out now, and photographer Don Marcotte did some noise tests relevant to high-ISO nighttime photography, then had Planet5D post the results. The results may surprise you.
• Canon fans may have something to rejoice about, as rumors of a 50mm f/1.4 image stabilized lens (along with a possible 85mm f/1.8 stabilized optic) continue to abound.
• And finally, one more for you lighting geeks out there. Jared Wieczorkiewicz of Aurum Light Studio has a great tutorial on mixing light sources of different temperatures.

That’s it for this week’s Cool Stuff. As always, questions and feedback are welcome in the comments below.

Final Update and Winners of the BorrowLenses.com Gift Certificate, Friday, December 7, 2012 11:35 AM

Okay, we found the cause of the D600 bodies’ overexposure. Turns out, it WAS damage, not a defect. In the damaged bodies, the little prong that actually pushes the aperture closed was bent, as you can see in the image below. The top one is of one of the damaged D600′s, while the bottom is of an undamaged D7000.

No idea what caused this, but there you have it.

Winners of the $50 BorrowLenses.com Gift Certificate: K.G. Wuensch, who left the suggestion that led to our discovery of the cause of the overexposure on the D600 bodies is, unfortunately, not based in the U.S., and so is unable to use the certificate I promised him. He has, instead, requested that his prize be entered into the pool for the general drawing. So we now have two gift certificates to give out.

I entered all the commenters’ names into a list randomizer at random.org and the two names at the top are our two winners.

The winners of the gift certificate drawing.

Congratulations to David Johnson and Michael Clark! Please email your contact info to sohail.mamdani at borrowlenses dot com, so I can send them to you.

Once again, thanks to everyone for your fantastic support and feedback. 

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