Epic, monumental life changing events, like a new baby being born, always begs that really big question, “what camera should I bring?”

During the delivery and for the few days while my wife was recovering, I brought along several cameras, but only used a few.

Don’t worry, I’m not sharing any gross newborn baby photos. 🙂

We were lucky. The rivers all around us were on the brink of overflowing and many of the neighbor towns had to evacuate. We live in a giant apartment complex that could probably withstand a tsunami so we didn’t have too much to worry about, but as the rivers all around us started filling up and our phones continued beeping with alerts about evacuations for areas near us, we were still a bit nervous. It never let up from relentless pouring rain.

If you live in a humid climate, you know how quickly mold and fungus can consume everything. The same is true of your lenses and camera gear. 

Humidity is a killer, feeding any mold spores that have made their way into lenses, creating fuzzy spots that will ruin your glass. I’ve even had it happen to one of my lenses when living in Los Angeles and it’s not even that humid there.

Here are some really cool and inexpensive tricks to protect your lenses from humidity.

The 7Artisans 35mm f1.2 is a compact APS-C lens designed for mirrorless cameras. It’s built with an all metal housing and a 9-blade rounded aperture with only 6 elements. I wouldn’t consider this a pancake but it’s very short.

Performance according to specs isn’t great, but the lens has some very beautiful character, especially wide open. So far, this is my favorite 7Artisans lens and it’s a lot of fun to use!

If you haven’t yet heard, the mid year update to AuroraHDR just dropped. Version 1.2.0. What’s it about? Two things really, performance and performance.

If you have no idea what AuroraHDR is, I’ve tossed in a few sample photos I took last night from my bike ride around town. I shot these with the Fujifilm X-T2, Fujinon 14mm and 7Artisans 35mm f1.2. Processed with AuroraHDR + Luminar + Lightroom. This will give you a general idea of some of the looks you can achieve using this combination of software.

With cheap manual lenses from China and Korea growing in popularity, many people are wonder if they are worth it, or which to buy. 

In this test, I compare the 7Artisans 55mm f1.4 to the KamLan 50mm f1.1. I also threw in a more expensive lens, the Rokinon 50mm f1.2, and the even more expensive Fujinon 56mm f1.2 as a control. Since Fujifilm is legend when it comes to lens design, it will be interesting to see how they compare.

I took a break from this blog but now I’m back. 

This wasn’t by choice, but because I was working my day job while packing to move to Japan . . . Yep, I’ll be in Japan for a while.

Here are a few photos and an explanation as to how and why it happened.

This year, Fujifilm has given us a new look called Eterna. Eterna is built for the videographer or cinematographer using Fujifilm cameras that wants a very flat, low saturation look that offers more flexibility for post color work.

With the new Fujifilm X-H1 and eventually after some firmware for the X-T2, we have the option to do both. F-log and a flat film profile called Eterna. Pretty cool, but as a photographer should you care?

The Mitakon Zhongyi Speedmaster 35mm  f0.95 II is a relatively small but incredibly fast APS-C prime lens for mirrorless cameras.

It’s built of an all metal body with a declick aperture and an incredibly fast f0.95 aperture. The lens excels in low light conditions but also functions as a very beautiful art lens for incredible bokeh and shallow depth of field.

Performance is all around good for a lens this fast and it will perform well in most situations.

The Handevision 75mm f2.4 lens is a small lightweight manual lens designed for mirrorless camera systems including the Leica. The lens features 5 elements in 5 groups for incredible contrast and color rendering and a 6 blade rounded aperture for butter smooth bokeh at f2.4.

You might be wondering, who is Handevision? are Handevision lenses good? Is this Handevision IBERIT 75mm worth it?

Today I want to talk a little about this hidden little gem of a lens, the Handevision 75mm f2.4.

Full review coming soon, but since those take forever to build, compile and process, I wanted to share a little bit about why this lens is unique and why it’s totally worth it.

So the big question, since there are so many lenses out there for both Sony and Fujifilm, what’s the point of these Handevision lenses? What makes them special? Especially this 75mm f2.4?

Last week we took a ten-hour bus tour through Hokkaido during a crazy blizzard. I guessing it’s always a blizzard in Hokkaido during the winter months, especially Sapporo which is the second most snowiest place on earth. I lived in the Rockies for several years back when I was in high school and I’ve never seen it snow like it did for the week I was in Hokkaido. The snow was so thick you could sometimes only see twenty to thirty feet ahead of you.