Striking a balance between convenience and innovation, the best new technological advancements in photography don’t just make it easier to capture better pictures, they also push us to expand our creative horizon. Enter FLEX by MIOPS. No strangers to bringing innovation to photography (with three successful Kickstarter campaigns in the last six years), the team at MIOPS is poised to deliver again with possibly their most powerful photography tech yet. We’re super excited about this one! Loaded with several powerful features, FLEX is a smart camera gadget that will enable photographers to level up their time-lapse videos, HDR photos, high-speed actions, extraordinary lightning strikes, and more. You really have to see what it can do to believe it.
Here’s a quick breakdown of 7 ways the new MIOPS FLEX will boost your creative photography:
1. Lightning Strikes
If you’ve ever tried capturing lightning strikes, then you know it’s not easily done, requiring a healthy combination of good luck and experience gained through trial & error. FLEX, on the other hand, simplifies the process of photographing lightning, day or night, as it detects lightning strikes and automatically captures the image. This will allow you to focus more on the creative aspects of capturing awe-inspiring imagery, including dialing in your exposure, composing the shot, and so on. Through the use of its dedicated app, FLEX will also allow you to control the camera remotely from the safety of your vehicle. Plus, after the images have been captured, you can use the app to stitch together multiple frames into a single image with the touch of a button.
2. Smooth Time-lapse Transitions in Complex Lighting Conditions
When creating time-lapse videos, one of the trickiest aspects involves adjusting your exposure to compensate for the transition between day and night. Previously, you’d either need to manually make adjustments during the shoot, which could result in a staccato effect depending on how effectively you adjusted the settings, or you’d need to capture multiple time-lapses using two or more cameras and then blend them in post-production. With FLEX, you don’t need to do any of this. Simply choose a time-lapse mode (FLEX includes “Bulb Ramping,” “HDR,” or “Holy Grail” modes, in addition to regular modes) in the app and activate the time-lapse. You can also use the app to see a preview of the time-lapse while it’s recording.
3. Control Your Camera from Your Smartphone
You’ll notice I regularly mention the app throughout this article as it adds a ton of functionality and creative freedom. It really deserves its own place on the list. FLEX gives you access to your camera’s settings right from your smartphone. You can control your camera remotely and put it in hard-to-reach places, all in an effort to help you get that amazing angle. Setting your aperture, shutter speed and ISO from your smartphone to activate the shutter button without touching the camera also helps to avoid camera shake. And perhaps best of all, the app lets you preview what your camera sees with LiveView.
4. HDR Photography
Modern cameras continue to push their dynamic range with each new release, but techniques like those used for HDR photography allow us to push dynamic range even further. The downside is capturing an HDR shot can prove difficult. You’ll need to understand exposure bracketing and master the art of creating a composite in post to create a solid HDR photo. As you probably have guessed by now, FLEX offers an HDR solution that makes it easier than ever to capture great HDR images. Using the app, you can capture multiple exposures of the same scene and then stitch them together. From there, you can crop the photo, make any final edits, and then share it across social media. You can even add a personal watermark before sharing. Again, this is all done in the app. Easy.
5. High-Speed Photography
Using special smart sensor technology, FLEX makes it possible to create stunning high speed photos. You’ve no doubt seen those images of food falling across a screen or a water balloon exploding after getting pierced with a pin (see the gif above). Now, you can use this unique technology to dream up new high speed action to photograph. You’ll still need to provide the flashes and have enough space to create the action you want to capture, but FLEX takes the stress out of capturing high speed action once it’s set in motion.
6. Long Exposures
On the opposite end of the spectrum from high speed photography, we have long exposures, or shutter drags. You’ll still need a tripod for stability, but FLEX has simplified the task of capturing impressive long exposure photos. Use one of FLEX’s longe exposure modes to capture star trails, steel wool circles, or other light paintings.
7. Live Framing
As someone who balances graphic design and photography for work, I’m very excited about this feature. You can use FLEX’s Live Framing feature to ensure that your photos align with the layout of a pre-designed template, which you can upload to the app. This takes the guesswork out of combining these two mediums to create the perfect image in-camera for things like magazine covers, album covers, flyers, posters, and more.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the ways you can take advantage of FLEX’s capabilities. As I said from the start, this technology is also meant to inspire us and push us to try something new and realize the tech’s true potential. Use FLEX as a springboard rather than a destination, and level up your own creative images.
Here’s a list of these and other features available with FLEX:
- Camera Control
- Lightning Sensor
- Sound Sensor
- Laser Sensor
- HDR Bracketing
- Geo-Tagging
- Liveview Framing
- Holy Grail Time-lapse
- Basic Time-lapse
- Long Exposure Time-lapse
- HDR Timelapse
- Time Warper
- Storm-lapse
- Cable Release
- Press & Hold
- Press & Lock
- Timed Release
- Self Timer
- Timed Release with Self-Timer
It’s also worth noting that FLEX is compatible with Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Fuji cameras. Be sure to visit the MIOPS FLEX Kickstarter page before before it closes (Jan. 7, 2021) to enjoy extra savings. They’ve already met their funding goal, so this product is definitely going to market. Don’t miss out on your opportunity to be part of the future of creative photography.
