The Photon Collective

Capture the experience. Photography and Cinematography Gear Reviews, Tutorials, Tools + Inspiration


In this review, Ian takes a look at Voigtländer’s strangest manual focus 40mm lens for full-frame Sony E mount cameras: The Voigtländer 40mm f/2.8 Heliar. Its retro design is tiny and collapsible. Is it the perfect manual focus standard prime for travel? We take it across Europe to find out.

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Tutorial: Simple Sunset Portraits


Posted By on Jun 30, 2015

“The result is a portrait that can’t be replicated in a studio and often times the memory captured is, for me, the apogee of emotion and excitement for the day. ” In this short post, Ian Norman walks us through his favorite methods for shooting simple sunset portraits.

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Sony a7II: A Real World Review


Posted By on Jun 18, 2015

The Sony a7II is the most technologically advanced camera I have personally used. The camera has been with me almost every single day for four months now while touring through Costa Rica, Mexico, and road tripping across America. In this post, I share my experiences with the Sony a7II. I’ll review some of my favorite features and some of the quirks of this high performing camera.

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In this review I try one of the most unusual lenses I have ever used: the new Voigtländer 15mm/4.5 Heliar III. It’s an ultra compact, relatively slow, manual focus, super wide angle lens. It’s made for Leica M mount rangefinder cameras but can fit a wide range of mirrorless cameras with the use of an adapter.  It’s one of the few truly excellent ultra wide angle lenses available for the full frame Sony a7 series of cameras. I put it through the paces on a road trip across the American Southwest, capturing ultra wide angle vistas in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Read more to hear about my experience shooting desert landscapes with this interesting lens.

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It’s been a little quiet on The Photon Collective lately. I’ve been working on a new project and online class called Levitation Photography: Exploring Magic and Portraiture. When we launched The Photon Collective, the response to my Levitation Photography Tutorial was overwhelming! I had a lot of fun with the photos and really enjoyed the processing so I decided that I wanted to make a more in-depth online class that explores everything from planning to equipment, shooting, post processing and especially how to make the large flocks of levitation objects found in my levitation portraits.  It’s a complete online course that’s free for Photon Collective readers. Read more to learn about the creation of the class.

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“The first time I made a photograph of a moonlit landscape, I literally said “wow” out loud. I couldn’t believe how much detail the moonlight brought out of the photograph.” In this tutorial, Tyler Sichelski walks through his process for shooting and processing surreal long exposure landscapes under the light of the Moon.

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