Five must-have gadgets for photographers and videographers

The American company Lowepro has been sewing high-quality and practical backpacks for photo and video equipment for over 50 years. A fresh addition to the brand's portfolio is the second coming of the popular model Lowepro Flipside 300 .

The main compartment for photographic equipment is located closer to the back of the backpack and can only be accessed from the back. The space in the compartment is divided into separate niches by removable Hook-and-loop partitions. The compartment will fit a reportage SLR with a 70-200 mm lens, a couple of spare "glasses", an external flash, a charger. Small accessories like filters or lens caps can be stored in the top zip pocket.

The anatomical back of the product has breathable properties, which prevents the backpack from sticking to the back of the "carrier". The comfort of the “landing” of the Lowepro Flipside 300 AW II is provided by padded shoulder harnesses in combination with a waist belt. In addition, a large number of small pockets for all sorts of small things are dispersed around the perimeter of the model.

The front pocket of the backpack holds a 10" tablet and a few personal items. Many of them will not fit there, but there is always room in the backpack for a couple of spare T-shirts. At the same time, the tripod can be hung from the outside - the latch for its fastening is placed on the front panel of the product. To protect the contents from adverse weather conditions, the model is equipped with a rain cover. The backpack will be appreciated by the inhabitants of megacities, who often have to wander around the city between different shooting locations. Well, for travel it is better to look for a model with a roomier compartment for personal items.

There are not so many memory cards that can meet the requirements of professional photographers and videographers. One of them is the SanDisk Extreme Pro 2000x SDHC UHS-II SD card, designed with an eye on turning huge amounts of data in seconds.

The “two-story” arrangement of contacts clearly hints at the belonging of the model to the category of “racing” flash drives. This is found on board memory cards with support for the high-speed UHS-II bus. Data on the card "fly" at speeds up to 260 MB / s and read from the memory cells of the drive at speeds up to 300 MB / s. The flash drive records streaming video in 4K with a high bitrate quickly, with high quality and without dropping frames due to lack of performance.

The memory card is optimized to work with cameras that support the UHS-II standard. The possibility of operating with large data arrays without speed drops below 30 MB / s is reported by the V30 video recording class assigned to the flash drive. In the top configuration, the drive holds 128 GB of information.

SanDisk Extreme Pro 2000x SDHC UHS-II 128GB boasts a shock-resistant and waterproof design, full performance in a wide temperature range (from -25 ° C to +85 ° C), no fear of X-rays. A nice bonus from the manufacturer of the flash drive is the provision of a free subscription to the RescuePRO Deluxe utility for recovering lost data.

To store large volumes of footage, whether it be RAW images or 4K video sequences, there is not much space in the memory of a computer or laptop. A miniature NAS server, such as the Synology DS218+, can offer a way out of the situation.

Inside the network drive, a dual-core Intel Celeron J3355 processor with peak overclocking up to 2.5 GHz and a 2 GB DDR3L RAM stick work. If necessary, the amount of RAM can be upgraded up to 6 GB. The compartments for installing two hard drives are hidden behind an easy-to-remove decorative panel on the front end of the device case. SSDs in these slots can operate in coherent RAID 0 or RAID 1.

To connect to a local network , the model has a gigabit LAN port. External devices connect to the NAS server through one of the trio of USB 3.0 ports or an eSATA interface. You can copy data from any drive connected to the device by pressing a single button, which is located under a slender row of indicator lamps for operating modes on the front panel. During read / write operations, the speed is confidently kept at over 100 MB / s.

The main drive management option is through a web interface on a substrate from the proprietary Synology DSM operating system. It is one of the most flexible in the class, providing the ability to customize in your own way on the organization of disk volumes. Both ordinary users and advanced “users” who prefer to customize everything and everything to their own size will be able to communicate with the software on “you”. From here emerges a slightly immodest price tag for the product. However, it will more than pay off in the not so distant future.

DJI Ronin-S Standard Kit is the undisputed leader in the one-handed stabilizer arena. An alternative to him is "sibling" with the prefix "Compact" at the end of the name. As you might guess, it focuses on reducing size and weight without sacrificing functionality. But first things first.

The manual gimbal weighs a good third less than the “purebred” Ronin-S (1.1 kg versus 1.8 kg). At the same time, the carrying capacity of the model is 2 kg - the steadicam does not infringe on the rights of even the owners of "adult" DSLRs in the manner Nikon D850 body Price from 67 635 up to 120 414 ₴. Although his element is mirrorless cameras with an eye on professional video shooting. Almost all representatives of the genus mirrorless fit under the 2 kg limit. Only systems with long-focus optics do not fit on the gimbal platform due to the limitation of the "seat" in size.

The gimbal's operating modes (pan, tilt, and roll) are configured through DJI's proprietary mobile app. The controls on the “carcass” of the gimbal are represented by buttons and a functional joystick for turning the “head”. When paired with a smartphone mounted above the camera, the steadicam is able to track selected objects in the frame thanks to ActiveTrack 3.0. Another feature tied to the interaction with the handset is called Force Mobile. This is the name of the function of controlling the movement of the stabilizer by tilting the mobile device (it will be useful when operators work in pairs).

In terms of autonomy, the stabilizer is equipped with a non-removable battery (in the handle) with a declared duration of operation without recharging of about 11 hours. Despite the similarity to the classic Ronin-S handle, there is no backward compatibility between the systems. The model is offered on store shelves in the basic version and the extended configuration DJI Ronin-SC Pro Combo Price from 21 462 up to 22 340 ₴, which includes an external drive and a special focus wheel.

The range of Lenovo monitors has grown significantly in recent years. So, in 2019, the portfolio of the Chinese brand was replenished with the P27u-10 model with a pronounced focus on photoshoppers and graphic designers.

The monitor is notable for its wide coverage of common color spaces: 146% of the "triangle" sRGB and 100% of the Adobe RGB space. The IPS-matrix of the model is successfully calibrated at the factory, although reviews about the uneven color temperature around the screen sometimes still slip through. The Lenovo P27u-10 display is based on a pseudo-ten-bit IPS-matrix of 27-inch diagonal with a high resolution of 4K (3840x2160 pixels).

The screen of the model is sharpened into a frame of thin side frames, which simplifies the deployment of multi-monitor configurations. In addition, its position is flexibly adjusted in height and angle of inclination (up to turning the display into portrait orientation). Small claims are made only regarding the large size of the standard stand, which is why the monitor cannot be placed close to the wall. The way out of the situation may be to hang the structure on a VESA bracket with a dimension between the "landing" holes of 100x100 mm.

The monitor is connected to video signal sources via Display Port, HDMI (2 pcs.) and USB-C port. The latter is used for data, video, audio and power supply. Also on board the Lenovo P27u-10 is a four-port USB 3.0 hub. The monitor does not have built-in acoustics; instead, a 3.5mm audio output is offered, which allows you to output sound directly. The model will serve as an excellent acquisition for those users who are looking for a monitor from the "golden mean" category for working with graphics.