Final Step:

To straighten the image in Photoshop, click on the Crop tool, move the cursor to a coer of the image until it becomes curved, then drag up or down to rotate. Click the check mark at the top of the screen to apply. To remove extraneous objects, such as the wire at the very top of the image, use the Lasso tool to loosely select the object to be removed. Then go to Edit > Fill, choose Content Aware in Contents field and click OK. Repeat as needed. When finished, save your work.

Many people know SanDisk as the company that makes camera memory cards, but they also make exteal storage and the Extreme 500 and 510 Portable SSD devices are designed to be faster, more versatile, and tougher than a normal exteal hard drive. I put them to the test in a professional wedding photography setting.

What are they?

Both drives look like the unholy child of a thumb drive and a portable hard drive. Inside is up to 480 GB of solid state storage, which means there are no spiing hard drives to get messed up due to impacts.

The Extreme 500 and 510 are exactly the same size, which makes them a similar shape to a coaster, but smaller. I can sit both of them on the face my iPhone 6s Plus and still have room around the edges. They’re also considerably lighter than any other traditional portable hard drive I have ever held.

Performance

I like to back up my memory cards over the course of a wedding, which is how I tested out the Extreme 500 and 510. I didn’t measure the exact time it took in the field, but a 12 GB file from my laptop took less than a minute to transfer to the drive over USB 3.0. That’s pretty quick. Both drives performed almost identically in terms of speed, which is to be expected. I was actually really pleased with how fast they are. That’s one of the benefits of SSD, after all.

The Extreme 510

The main difference between the Extreme 500 and the 510 is that the 510 has been ruggedized. When you pick the drives up, the 510 doesn’t feel decidedly tougher than the 500, with the only real tangible difference being the orange rubber bumper around the 510’s enclosure.

I reluctantly poured a bottle of waver over the Extreme 510 to test its IP55 water and dust resistance and it seemed to survive just fine. It also comes with a metal clip so you can secure it inside your bag, which is a nice addition since I once had a portable hard drive fly out of my bag and onto the subway tracks, which wasn’t fun.

What’s good?

Ultimately, there’s a lot to like about both of these drives. They both run on power from the USB port, so there’s no need for an exteal power supply (which is the kiss of death for portable drives in my opinion), and they’re completely silent. I ran some heavy duty Lightroom editing on files living on the Extreme 510 for several hours and didn’t notice it getting too hot, which I thought might be a conce.

They’re small, light, and seem very durable.

What’s not good?

Right now, you can only go up to 480 GB of storage. The 500 is available in smaller configurations, but the 510 only comes in 480 GB. That’s a lot, but it can also get filled up quickly if you’re shooting a lot of high-res video, another application for which this thing is pretty useful.

All that speed also comes at a price with the 510 checking in at $249. The 480 GB Extreme 500 checks in a full $100 cheaper than its ruggedized cousin, which seems like a pretty big price gap, especially since the devices feel so physically similar when you’re holding them. The security software that comes with the drive seems very thorough and secure, but it’s also a bit cumbersome and a little clunky in the interface department. My data isn’t so sensitive that I feel the need to encrypt it most times on a drive like this, especially if it’s going to require navigating somewhat complex software.

Verdict

I first used an exteal flash memory device back when Samsung introduced their T1, and I’m glad to see that there are more options in the space now. Both the 500 and the 510 performed excellently in our real-world test and I’m looking forward to trying them in the long run. I wish I could get a 1 TB version, or even bigger, but judging by the Samsung offerings in those capacities, it would likely drive up the price beyond practicality.

The $100 price difference between the Extreme 500 and the rugged Extreme 510 is something you’ll have to decide upon yourself depending on your usage. I felt better using the rugged drive while balancing my laptop on my knee and dumping images from wedding cards, but if you’re mostly just going back and forth from the coffee shop, the inherent ruggedness of SSD over hard drives will probably be plenty for your day-to-day work.

Buy the SanDisk Extreme 510 here

Buy the SanDisk Extreme 500 here

Official Site

The Mentor Series trip to Oregon mentored by Tom Bol was an amazing opportunity. This was my first trek, so I didn't know what to expect. I wanted to lea about my camera, maybe make a friend. What I got was an amazing weekend. Tom was so helpful. He made sure we all got the most amazing pictures. We kicked off the weekend getting to know each other and leaing techniques on how to make water soft. Then we headed out on our first afteoon of adventures. We shot at a beautiful Chinese garden, Bridal Veil Falls, Latourell Falls, but the best part of Friday was Vista House. Our group was very lucky, the sunset perfectly lighting up the house a beautiful orange and we even got a rainbow.

Saturday was even more exciting. We started the day with a trip to Multnomah Falls. It was beautiful and an amazing photo opportunity. If you haven’t seen this amazing sight, I suggest it. Next, we went to Hood River which is a small city in Oregon. They gave us some time to walk around and take some shots. We even got to take some action shots of kite surfers. After lunch we met at the library and had our first digital review session. Tom was very insightful and helpful. He helped everyone get better at their craft. The weather was bad so we had to change plans that night. We went just outside Portland and got the most beautiful view of the city at twilight. We got back to the hotel late that night.

Our last day we went to the Cedar Creek Grist Mill. This is an amazing building that has a beautiful waterfall next to it. It is one of the most tranquil places I have ever been in my entire life. This was our last stop and you could feel the atmosphere of goodbye start to set in. The last thing we did as a group after we got back to the hotel was our last digital review and slideshow. It was great to see everyone’s different perspectives on the places we had been. There were so many angles and things that I never noticed.

I leaed more this weekend than I have from any class. This was one of the best opportunities that I have ever had. We were very lucky with this trip. The people were great and welcoming, the instruction was amazing, and the trip was relaxed and exciting.

Kristine Hafford

The Mentor Series trip to Oregon mentored by Tom Bol was an amazing opportunity. This was my first trek, so I didn't know what to expect. I wanted to lea about my camera, maybe make a friend. What I got was an amazing weekend. Tom was so helpful. He made sure we all got the most amazing pictures. We kicked off the weekend getting to know each other and leaing techniques on how to make water soft. Then we headed out on our first afteoon of adventures. We shot at a beautiful Chinese garden, Bridal Veil Falls, Latourell Falls, but the best part of Friday was Vista House. Our group was very lucky, the sunset perfectly lighting up the house a beautiful orange and we even got a rainbow.

Saturday was even more exciting. We started the day with a trip to Multnomah Falls. It was beautiful and an amazing photo opportunity. If you haven’t seen this amazing sight, I suggest it. Next, we went to Hood River which is a small city in Oregon. They gave us some time to walk around and take some shots. We even got to take some action shots of kite surfers. After lunch we met at the library and had our first digital review session. Tom was very insightful and helpful. He helped everyone get better at their craft. The weather was bad so we had to change plans that night. We went just outside Portland and got the most beautiful view of the city at twilight. We got back to the hotel late that night.

Our last day we went to the Cedar Creek Grist Mill. This is an amazing building that has a beautiful waterfall next to it. It is one of the most tranquil places I have ever been in my entire life. This was our last stop and you could feel the atmosphere of goodbye start to set in. The last thing we did as a group after we got back to the hotel was our last digital review and slideshow. It was great to see everyone’s different perspectives on the places we had been. There were so many angles and things that I never noticed.

I leaed more this weekend than I have from any class. This was one of the best opportunities that I have ever had. We were very lucky with this trip. The people were great and welcoming, the instruction was amazing, and the trip was relaxed and exciting.

Kristine Hafford

Most Pentax news lately has involved its first full-frame DSLR, the K-1, but parent company Ricoh hasn’t lost sight of the rugged APS-C-sensor DSLR market in which Pentax has had success. The new K-70 DSLR is a spiritual successor to the rugged K-50 that came before it, adding even more high-end features to the spec sheet.

The heart of the K-70 is an 24.2-megapixel APS-C-size sensor with phase detection autofocus pixels integrated for improved focus in Live View mode and continuous tracking during video capture. The sensor is paired with Pentax’s PRIME MII image processor, which pushes the maximum ISO setting up to 102,400.

Wrapped around those delicate digital guts is a redesigned, weather-proof body that resists dust and moisture. The grip has been redesigned to increase your hold, and the Vari-angle LCD screen rotates for composing shots beyond eye-level more easily.

The sensor doesn’t have an anti-aliasing filter in an effort to maximize the amount of detail it can capture, but it does have an AA simulator to combat moiré, which is an unsightly patte that can appear in some photos with fine detail with a filter to correct it. It’s not a tough fix in post most of the time, but this saves the extra step.

The in-body (sensor-shift) image stabilization system promises 4.5-stops of stability when handholding for shooting in low light. For extra-bright conditions, it has a maximum shutter speed of 1/6000 sec., which is above average for a DSLR at the consumer level. Because of the shifting sensor, Pentax has also included the Pixel Shift Resolution System, which captures four images and combines them into one super-detailed file, a feature also found in the flagship K-1.

As you probably expect from a Pentax DSLR, it uses a glass prism, which covers “nearly 100-percent” of the camera’s field of view.

Ultimately, there’s a lot going on inside this DSLR, which is pretty impressive when you consider that it checks in at just $649. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise, though, as great value has long been the Pentax wheelhouse when it comes to DSLRs. The K-50 was rather excellent, so hopefully the K-70 follows suit.

In addition to the K-70 camera, Pentax is also aouncing a new HD Pentax-DA 55–300mm f/4.5–6.3ED PLM WR RE zoom lens. As the WR in the name suggests, this is a weather-resistant lens designed to be used with cameras like the K-70. It has a full-frame equivalent field of view of an 84.5–460mm zoom.

While the new lens is has smaller maximum apertures than the 55–300mm f/4–5.8 ED WR that came before it, the new version uses a pulse motor and a rear-focus system to make it nearly 10% lighter and up to 8 times faster in terms of focusing, depending on how far you have it zoomed. The new 55–300mm lens focuses pretty close, too—down to 37.4 inches.

The lens will be available for $399.

At first glance, this seems like a great update for Pentax. By keeping the emphasis on weatherproofing and in-body stabilization, as well as a true DSLR focusing system, the company is emphasizing its advantages over other DSLRs at this level and competing mirrorless cameras.

Once review units become available, we’ll take the K-70 into the Popular Photography test lab. Then we’ll take it to play in the mud.

During our vacation at Emerald Isle, NC I woke up every moing to see a sunrise and to get a good beach photograph. I visited the Bogue Inlet Pier five moings hoping to get good light and a pretty sky. The first four sunrises didn't cooperate with too many clouds and not enough color to make the photograph I had envisioned. During the sunrise of the fifth moing, a huge cloud rolled in, covered up the sun, and I was about to give up when it moved just enough out of the way to allow me to capture this awesome scene. This image is the product of persistence, patience, and a little luck.

Canon 6D, 16-35 F4L lens @ 16mm, RRS Tripod, Hitech ND Filter. F11, 1.6s, ISO 100

Note: This is an editorial and represents the opinion of the author, and not necessarily Popular Photography as a whole.

You don't have to dive very deep into the inteet to find arguments about the issue of camera bans at concerts. Zooey Deschanel's adorable indie rock band, She & HIm, asked that people please stop watching the concert through their phone cameras. Venues, festivals, and even artists are putting restrictions on the kinds of cameras allowed into live music events. And let's not forget about the "three songs and out" rule that's been applied to concert photographers for decades.

The arguments against the camera bans are compelling. Why shouldn't people be able to express themselves artistically? We paid for these tickets, why shouldn't we be allowed to bring our cameras with us? Who is it hurting if we take awesome pictures? Why are all these camera phone schlubs allowed to snap away when people with "real" cameras are subjugated? All valid questions.

But, in the rage of the inteet, there are some subtle points that tend to get lost. They're worth considering, and thinking about them might actually help you out next time you're trying to bring a camera into a venue.

In the early parts of my career, I was working for _Blender _magazine, a general interest music magazine that covered everything from hip hop, to heavy metal, with healthy portions of pop music thrown in. I was working online and shooting a lot of live music galleries for them [of course, the company has changed hands so many times that the old Blender.com content has long been lost, leaving the site as little more than a placeholder now. Sad]. So, I spent a lot of time at concerts with cameras in my hands. I still do it today. Thinking back to those hours spent shooting, there are certainly a few reasons I can imagine wanting to ban some cameras from the show. I'll lay them out for you here. Or, you can just skip these next parts and go right to calling me an idiot in the Idea.

The Artist

One evening, I was shooting at Madison Square Garden for a Matisyahu and O.A.R. concert and I got to talking to one of the bouncers before the show started. He was there to enforce the three-song rule and started telling me where it had come from. According to him, it had started decades before when Sting began seeing photos of himself performing. Shots from the early part of the set looked great, but as the night wore on, he got sweatier and more haggard, giving a less-than-ideal picture of himself. From there, according to this seasoned bouncer, he started giving photos three songs, then throwing them out of the pit. Other performers loved the idea and it caught on.

Agnostic Front in Albany, NY. Roger probably isn't worried about the three song rule.

I don't know how true that actually is, mind you, but it's a totally believable story, and an understandable one in my eyes. For many musicians, image is a big part of their show. Look at what happened with Beyonce at the Super Bowl last year. Some unflattering pictures of her got out and went viral. Some would say they only got so popular because she tried to cover them up, but from my perspective, she only tried to get them taken down once the Photoshop inteet fiesta had begun. For Beyonce, it was bad for business to have unflattering pictures out there.

Part of the issue with the Beyonce photos (from her standpoint) was that they were taken by a hardcore pro on excellent gear. Look bad in a smartphone shot? Blame it on the phone. Most people who see it will. It's an excuse we use all the time. If a top pro gets you looking bad with $13,000 worth of camera gear, you have no one left to blame but yourself and maybe your personal trainer. Same goes for a fan with an expensive camera. Many, many artists build a big part of their image on how they look (for better or for worse) and they're trying to protect it.

This same idea carries over to video as well, where it actually expands a little. Not every performance on every given night is going to be perfect. In the live music settings, strings break, wrong notes are played, sound gets wonky, and a whole assortment of other things tends to happen. That's the nature of the beast. When people start recording video of every show on their nice cameras, those mistakes get preserved and broadcast. Not only that, but they're presented out of context for others to watch online. Maybe the drummer breaks a snare drum head in the middle of a song, or the guitarist gets the neck of his guitar w, throwing things out of tune. That might not come across in a Youtube video presented on its own, and that makes the artist look bad.

Not to mention the fact that your recording might look great, but the sound will definitely not be that great. It's like if someone were posting your pictures online, but instead of sharing the actual files, they were using their camera to take a picture of your camera's LCD screen and then sharing it that way with your name plastered all over it. Not flattering, right?

The venue

Ruing a live music venue is a tough gig. Sure, it's one that's associated with a wide variety of unsavory characters, but it's not an easy job. It becomes more difficult as your customers increasingly bring in delicate equipment that costs thousands of dollars.

If you're trying to get a shot of the band for your Facebook page, and someone crowd surfs onto you, busting up your gear, are you just going to accept the fact that it was your fault? You might. But, you might also go after the venue. It's happened, probably more times than you'd expect.

The Bouncing Souls at Warped Tour 2006

Past that, what if a waitress carrying drinks spills booze on your camera? What if you set it on a bar and a venue employee accidentally knocks it to the ground? Sure, they can post signs and make you sign waivers, but if a patron decides to try and recoup some of that loss at the cost of the venue, it's a process that requires a time and monetary commitment.

Then there are the bouncers. I've long understood why the bouncers can sometimes have contentious relationships with the photographers, even the ones in the pit. Not only are they trying to protect the people in front of the barrier, but they also have to maneuver around you behind the barrier. I've had bouncers save me from a clobbering on several occasions. We're not making their lives easier, and their job can be a dangerous one.

The other people at the concert

Of all the arguments in favor of camera bans, this is the most well-represented. Chances are, most of the other people at the concert don't care about photography. They don't care about DSLRs. And they _definitely _don't care if you get that perfect shot of the Lumineers for your Facebook page.

We're photographers and we understand that when we get behind that viewfinder, the shot becomes the most important thing. And for every courteous photographer who picks a spot and makes the most of what they have, there will be another shooter who's totally fine with getting in the way, pushing to the front, or worst of all, blasting a flash at the band or the fans while they're trying to partake in a show.

If you're using Live View, your screen is bothering everyone, just like all those smartphone users out there. If you're using your eye-level finder, you're making yourself oblivious to the world. That might be fine if you're watching James Taylor, but if you're at a rock or even a pop concert and a crowd surfer drops on your head, you're going to have a bad time.

And worst-case unlikely scenario, you could easily bash someone's head open with a big camera and lens. There are very few people out there who would ever consider doing so, but crazy things happen at concerts.

So what's the answer?

At this point, I should make it clear that while I understand the camera bans put in place, I don't necessarily agree with them. I think there is a balance that can be struck. Maybe it makes sense for larger venues to set aside an area for people who want to take photos. That way, you won't get the best spot, but you also won't be much of a liability or a distraction for everyone else. I don't even think it would be out of the question for a venue to sell photo passes, as long as they don't make a rights grab for the photos. After all, they are spending their resources to help protect and accommodate you.

At small venues, this usually isn't even a problem. Some folks just need to realize that bringing your camera into the Taylor Swift concert and getting good stuff is probably pretty unrealistic. But, head to the local coffee shop and you'll likely have no one hassling you. Hell, if your stuff is good, you might end up selling some photos to the venue or the talent.

Press passes, for the most part, aren't that difficult to get if you're willing to put in the work and accept the fact that you can't start at the top. If you have a decent portfolio of live band stuff you've built around smaller acts in more lax clubs, you can often reach out to media folks at labels and request a pass. You'll still have to pay to get into the show, so don't expect to get in for free, but they may just let you shoot. That's what you were after anyway.

I know I've made some of you very mad, and that's fine. But, the fact of the matter is that you're going to a concert with your camera, the band isn't playing your photo shoot. The rules still don't make much sense and need to be standardized a bit, but I would honestly never expect to be able to just walk freely into a giant concert with all my gear and walk out with stuff worth keeping unless I had press access.

As gear evolves, the rules will have to go with it. Does a Fujifilm X100s fit in the same category as a camera with interchangeable lenses? Probably. What about as phones get better cameras? It's something that'll have to be addressed. But for now, the vast majority of non-enthusiasts put DSLRs and mirrorless cameras in the same category.

So, while I think the right to photograph should be cherished and protected, we have to realize that we're not on our own turf at a live music venue. There are rules, and getting angry and indignant about them won't fix things. Trying to be sneaky and get around the rules won't fix things either. Reasonable discussion and hard work are the best paths forward. As they usually are.