The Apple M1 chip – is it the big computer story of the year? On the computer side, Apple’s new chips could be incredibly significant, by far the big computer story of the year for photographers – if they can replicate their results with low-power chips as they scale up. Apple has never built a high-power chip, and the fact that they have some extremely impressive … [Read more...]
Dan Wells
Dan Wells, "Shuttterbug" on the trail, is a landscape photographer, long-distance hiker and student in the Master of Divinity program at Harvard Divinity School. He lives in Cambridge, MA when not in wild places photographing and contemplating our connection to the natural world. Dan's images try to capture the spirit he finds in places where, in the worlds of the Wilderness Act of 1964, "Man himself is but a visitor". He has hiked 230 miles of Vermont's Long Trail and 450 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail with his cameras, as well as photographing in numerous National Parks, Seashores and Forests over the years - often in the offseason when few people think to be there. In the summer of 2020, Dan plans to hike a stretch of hundreds of miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, focusing on his own and others' spiritual connection to these special places, and making images that document these connections. Over years of personal work and teaching photography, Dan has used a variety of equipment (presently Nikon Z7 and Fujifilm APS-C). He is looking for the perfect combination of light weight, ruggedness and superb image quality.
Year in Review, Year Ahead Part 3 – Lenses and Printing
Diagram of the new Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG DN Art – a typical (and excellent) modern mirrorless lens design We’ve seen a lot of innovation in lenses lately, and I’m looking forward to more this coming year. The full-frame mirrorless mounts are really coming into their own, as Sony fills many of the last holes in their lineup while Canon and Nikon both build theirs. Sigma gets … [Read more...]
Year in Review, Year Ahead Part II – Cameras
Almost certainly the most important camera of 2020 – who’ll release the most important camera of 2021? 2020 was a relatively slow year for cameras, with the (very) notable exception of Canon’s EOS-R5 and R6. We had a couple of small and light cameras for their sensor size, neither perfect, but both pointing in interesting directions. We had a couple of cameras adding … [Read more...]
Year in Review, Year Ahead part 1
Let’s take a long look forward and back – 2020’s Lens of the Year, the Sony 200-600mm f5.6-6.3, has some magnification 2020 has been a strange year for the camera industry – the pandemic has exacerbated trends that were already underway, and there are new trends emerging. We are probably going to lose a camera manufacturer or two (no, not Nikon or anybody else big like … [Read more...]
Wildlife photography on a reasonable budget
Snow Geese over Dead Creek Wildlife Management Area – Sony 200-600mm Many of us who photograph the landscape have always loved the idea of incorporating wildlife into our photographic practice. At the same time, wildlife is an intimidating photographic genre – big lenses that cost as much as a car, exacting focus requirements, incredibly heavy tripods, exotic locations. In … [Read more...]
