“Ryan, I want a film camera with the size and pocket-ability of a point and shoot, but the exposure control of a real camera. Is the Ricoh GR my only choice?”

No… But you don’t really have a budget choice on something like this. Small film cameras with good lenses and manual control are expensive and there’s no real way around that.

I love the GR just because it looks cool, but another option (possibly a better one?) is the Contax T2. Essentially, it’s a titanium bodied point and shoot that also boasts full manual control. Hell, the tiny little Zeiss lens even has an aperture ring.

I had one years ago… but sold it when the prices took off. You can find them on eBay for around $750 and up these days.

A few years ago, I bought the latest and greatest GoPro, three of them actually, for use on a car shoot I had coming up. I was excited about the project and spent a lot of time figuring out mounts for the cars, story boarding, and just generally preparing for something the GoPro was designed to do.

It didn’t work out… The magnetos in the race cars interfered with the cameras in some way, the build quality was shit, and two of them would freeze or just shut themselves off randomly. Frustrated, I contacted GoPro support. After jumping through far too many hoops, GoPro sent me another two cameras to replace the bad ones. They were dead on arrival.

This narrative continued for weeks and got so bad, that I eventually threw up my hands and considered the cameras a loss. I also promised myself to never buy a GoPro again.

Guess what? I’ve kept that promise.

But yeah… The GoPro Hero 10 is now out. By most reviews, it’s a real banger.

Details here.

Want to turn your iPad Pro into a laptop, but don’t want to spend the $350 Apple wants for the Magic Keyboard? Spend $100 less and get the Combo Touch instead… It’s not as trick looking, but it works better in almost every way.

Details.

I got one of these sent to me blindly – no note, no explanation, no request, no nothing… Hell, at first I didn’t know what it was. A hard drive? A stash pod? Eventually, I figured out it was a tiny power bank for your keychain that provides 1400 mAh of power on the go. It’s also built really well… Pretty rad.

Details.