Thursday 21 July 2016

News and Rumours: Canon, Nikon, Samyang, Sony, Affinity Photo, Aputure, Paul C.Buff and PetaPixel

In this weeks summary:
  • Canon's 5D Mark IV is registered with an Indonesian authority;
  • Nikon has a 70-200mm f/2.8 replacement in the pipelines;
  • Samyang has released the first of 5 new lenses;
  • Sony's new 50mm f/1.4 is compared the 55mm f/1.8;
  • Affinity Photo announces new features;
  • Aputure announced a new mini constant light;
  • Paul C. Buff have a new monolight series available; and
  • PetaPixel is copying my weekly rumour summary?
 PetaPixel are "pretty sure (this) will make it into many (many many) photographer gear bags".


Canon

The Canon 5D Mark IV has been registered with a certification authority in Indonesia, confirming it will have Wi-Fi and GPS.

Bravo Canon - I think any high-end all purpose camera should come with both of these as standard.

Nikon

Nikon Rumors is reporting that a new 70-200mm f2.8 lens already has prototypes out in the field being tested. They expect it to be out before the end of the year.

If you were considering the purchase of the existing 70-200mm f2.8, it might be prudent to wait. It will be interesting to see how the price and features compare to the recent Sony FE 70-200 f2.8 GM release.

Meanwhile, the delay plagued Nikon DL cameras are expected to start shipping in October.

Samyang

Samyang announced a 'Summer Blockbuster' of lens releases, one new lens release every week for 5 weeks. Then the first lens was released to a mostly universal meh. The XEEN 135mm t1.5 Cine lens - a likely expensive lens (other XEEN lenses cost ~2,500USD) and of little to no interest to photographers (it's relatively cheap for a Cine lens however). This has some commentators speculating that the Summer Blockbuster refers to the fact all 5 new lenses will be Cine lenses.

I'm going to stake my reputation (luckily, the stakes aren't high) that only the first lens will be a XEEN lens. By looking at the teased silhouettes of the upcoming lenses, only one seems to have that Cine look.


In other news, Samyang have announced their autofocus 50mm f1.4 for Sony FE mount will ship in August for $699USD. However, commentators have pointed out the optically excellent Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8 can be had for that price on the grey market. For the educated purchaser, I'm not sure who the Samyang 50mm f1.4 will appeal to.

Sony

Last week the Sony Zeiss 50mm f1.4 FE was announced, and since then there have been two, slightly contradictory, comparisons to the 55mm f1.8 by two respected sources.

The 55mm f1.8 is about a 1/3 of the weight of its big brother.
Lens Rentals put 10 copies through their optical test bench, and reported higher sharpness than the Zeiss Otus!
The Sony is phenomenally good in the center; just absolutely superb. From a resolution standpoint it is clearly better than the Otus in the center, and just as good as the Otus away from the center as well. 
The Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Sonnar is a really good lens, but even giving up a half stop of aperture, the 50mm f/1.4 is better in the center and generally nearly as good away from center.
However, when DPReview compared their single copy of the 50mm f1.4 to the existing 55mm f1.8, they found:
Our results show the 55/1.8 to slightly pull ahead wide open both centrally and peripherally, with the 50/1.4 pulling ahead in central sharpness by F2.8.
If you're interested in this lens, both articles are worth reading. The Lens Rental review had me reaching for my credit card, and the DPReview comparison had me appreciating just how good the 55mm is.

One interesting complaint DPReview had about the Sony system is:
The FE 50mm F1.4 ZA, like most recent Sony lenses, focuses stopped down at your selected aperture. This means that autofocus performance steadily drops as you stop down, since smaller apertures mean less light, and more depth-of-field (less phase difference) for the autofocus system to work with. By F9, phase-detect fails altogether, and you'll experience significant hunting in AF-C.
They put this down to wanting to reduce shutter lag. However, as mentioned before, I'd think this is far more likely to improve focus accuracy.
As the lens is stopped down, the focus point moves closer to it. Peak sharpness is achieved at f.2,8 through f/4. The total focus shift from f/1.8 to f/8 is about 110 mm, or a bit over four inches in 10 feet. Focusing wide open is definitely not the plan here. - Kasson
So, if lens stopping down shifts focus, how do DSLRs with their autofocus systems work? I would guess they most likely use a lookup table to determine how far to adjust for a set aperture. At any rate, regardless of method, they do work.

It seems almost every week there is an issue with Sony versus a traditional DSLR alternative, which isn't related the technology they are using. Sony, you have some amazing technology, and you're killing it on the quality lens front, but please address these issues!

As a side, Sony have also at least released new firmware to address manual focus reliability for both of their 35mm prime lenses.

Affinity Photo

The most talked about Photoshop competitor, Affinity Photo, has announced a new version 1.5 that will add HDR, Focus stack, actions and batch processing. The beta for Mac will be coming soon, and a PC version is still in the works.

Aputure

Aputure have released their new Amaran AL-M9, a pocket sized LED light with a rechargeable battery. The PetaPixel post is so effusive some thought it might be an advertisement. There was no trace of a review in their post. There was an official video linked that some complained it was so obnoxious as to turn them off the product.

Sillier comments were that their phone could do that. However, back in May there was a review of it, which shows how surprisingly powerful it can be (for its size).


This does look like a pretty handy tool to have at your disposal, and I've gone ahead and ordered one for myself. Some core features:
  • 9 SMD lights, TLCI 95+,CRI 95+ 
  • Built-in Lithium Battery - charged via USB 
  • Ultra Thin - 140g Weight 
  • Adjustable brightness in 9 steps
  • Battery expected to last for 90mins at full power

Paul C. Buff

Very popular in USA, but with limited sales and support internationally, Paul C. Buff have announced a new series of monolights, called the DigiBee. FStoppers have put them through their paces, if you're interested.

PetaPixel

I find it hard to believe there isn't someone else doing a weekly update of camera news and rumours, and even harder to believe that PetaPixel is aware of my little blog, but it does seem odd they suddenly posted a weekly rumour summary with a title and style similar to mine.

There are some differences - they exclude news and post on a Wednesday instead of Thursday...


No comments:

Post a Comment