Good things don’t always come easy. In my old film days, when digital photography still was a wild sci-fi prophecy, I always had a Rollei 35 in the pocket, occasionally a Minox. Beautiful little, sturdy, legendary cameras, absolutely reliable in whatever task and environment. A Rollei was the perfect partner for the early sturm und […]
First you think, wow someone hijacking a good old name of the camera industry! Yashica. Some of you younger readers never heard of the name. Yashica was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, founded in 1949. In December 1965, Yashica introduced the world’s first commercially successful electronically controlled 35mm camera, the Electro 35, a popular rangefinder […]
For ages Canon’s and Nikon’s snobbish pro-DSLR argument has been that mirrorless simply isn’t yet there and likely will never be there. Well, that’s a dinosaur argument since the announcement of the Sony α9, a true challenger to Canon’s and Nikon’s long-held last bastion, the high-end pro market. The announcement of the α9 both marks […]
It must be true. Read it on the Internet. And I quote: “The quickest way to tell an amateur with a fancy DSLR from a pro before they even begin shooting is to watch where they hang their strap (…) Amateurs put it over their necks, like the woman in the photo: Must be the […]
Love it. A digital Leica in a film body. Sure there’s a lot of malice on the Web, ridiculing Leica’s latest $6,000 camera, the all-black digital Leica M-D. With emphasis on digital. What again distinguishes a digital from an analog camera? That’s right, the LCD screen, to give access to what’s on the memory card […]
If you ever toyed with the idea of wanting a Lytro Illum camera, now is probably the time to put this idea into action. With a list price of $1,299, this certainly revolutionary camera now costs $379 on Amazon. It is not only a camera that redefines photography. Lytro turns our conception of photography on […]
In case you’ve missed it, Nikon introduced a gem of a premium compact camera, the DL18-50 F1.8-2.8 with a fast wide zoom, ideal for reporting, street work, family snaps, travel, you name it. Nikon lauds the camera’s lens as the fastest ultra wide Nikkor lens ever. The mirrorless series’ DL name stands for, well, Digital […]
There’s always a better time to buy a digital camera. Something better, faster, technically more advanced is always around the corner. Not so this time. Chapeau Olympus to the Olympus PEN F. What an iconic piece of beautifully crafted and designed precision engineering. A tribute to the original PEN F produced between 1963 to 1966, […]
Another outing with the Nikkor 50mm F1.8G special edition (the one with the silver ring), this time the Vienna Ball Bangkok. It’s a solid no-nonsense performer with buttery smooth bokeh and reasonably fast autofocus. Very light with just 190 grams, it doesn’t feel like a cheap build at all. Knurling used in manual-focus lenses is […]
By BENGT NYMAN Bird photography is one of the most challenging and rewarding kinds of photography. Free range, hand-held, birds-in-flight photography requires long reach, high resolution, fast and accurate autofocus and effective vibration reduction. Today this equals big and heavy equipment, similar to that used for professional sports photography. However, as opposed to sports, BIF […]
Had a bit of a frustrating and at the same time enlightening experience during an assignment in Singapore. The most rewarding part was that while covering a news event, established camera crews were running around with big old camera gear plus sound guy. All I had to shoot a video was the humble Lumia 830 […]
Would you have any idea how to make use of this beautiful lot of 600 Zeiss Ikon, Nikon, Leica, Canon, Rollei and Kodak cameras from the 1880 to 1980 period? Great eBay auction. A 100% positive seller auctioning off a lot of 600 Vintage Cameras — see the auction here. Totally tempted to hit the […]
Right after announcement with a flood of emails arriving I was quite excited. Amazing stuff. Full-frame Canon 5D siblings with an astonishing 50.6MP sensor. On second thought though the enthusiasm vanished. Not because the new Canon 5DS and 5DS R are no astonishing cameras — the latter has a “self-canceling” AA filter. Sounds Nikon D800Eish? […]
We’re not yet at the second Sony Alpha A7 generation, and look what Sony comes up with: the Alpha A7 II, a full-frame mirrorless with 5-axis image stabilization, the first of it’s kind in the full-frame market which is where the hopes of the world’s three leading camera makers lie. The A7 II embodies the […]
God bless the French. This is probably the most extensive, most beautiful and most bizarre collection of cameras you’ll ever lay eyes upon. It’s impossible to find your own favorites from the Collection Appareils, an online vault of the most amazing cameras assembled by a French guy named Sylvain Halgand. It’s an astonishing encyclopedic collection […]
By BENGT NYMAN High resolution or long lens? This might seem like an odd question. However, it’s really not. For many purposes an 8MP image is enough resolution to convey the image. For magazine prints, 16MP can often do the job. For most applications 24MP are enough. Consequently, many photographers still label high resolution like […]
Quite a beauty, the Olympus flagship OM-D E-M1 in silver. Available as body only for $1,399 (Amazon / B&H Photo / Adorama / Olympus U.S.) and $1,499 for the new 40-150mm F2.8 Pro lens (Amazon / B&H Photo / Adorama). That’s a serious price for some seriously fast long-range zoom with constant F2.8 aperture. I’d […]
Still too early to write off the DSLR world, isn’t it, especially the DSLR full-frame or FX world or whatever you want to call the digital equivalent to film’s 35mm standard. Who would have thought a few years ago, when smaller mirrorless Micro Four Thirds and APS-C formats were making serious inroads, who would have […]
It is no coincidence that Henri Cartier-Bresson preferred a 50mm lens on his Leica 35mm rangefinder camera. His special ability was to use a 50mm lens but allow the photo to “breathe” almost as if shot with a 35mm. HCB just seemed to know how to frame so that it looks wider than it should. […]
Hard to miss the Sony A7S doxology currently running rampant in websites and online fora. The camera that can see in the dark. All of a sudden 12MP are king. I’ve been saying all along that less is more and that too many megapixels are more of a burden than a blessing. Now everybody seems […]
With Sony announcing its new APS-C flagship, the Sony A77 Mark II with an improved 24.3MP CMOS sensor and maximum ISO 51,200 sensitivity, we’re told three things. First, Sony’s translucent mirror technology SLT is not dead. You might say the problem with SLT is that the mirror isn’t actually translucent but only semi-translucent, meaning part […]
Specs aside — it’s a “typical” Leica with relatively noisy upper ISO levels and unsurprisingly moderate AF speed — the new Leica T is quite a stunner. Well the ISO and AF judgment I got from people who shot preproduction models, so it can only get better. But as with any Leica, you don’t buy […]
This is Lytro 2.0, it has little in common with the first squarish light field camera introduced two years ago: here’s a well kept, totally unexpected camera development secret just unveiled, the high-end Illum light fielder with a large 1-inch sensor, an 8x zoom with 30-250mm reach and constant F2 aperture. It’s the “shoot now, […]
Sony’s new high ISO king A7S — and the Nikon D4s for that — bring us the most revolutionary innovation in photography for some time: ISO sensitivity in the hundreds of thousands. An expandable, mind-boggling ISO 409,600 to be exact, meaning up to ISO 25,600 these cameras will churn out absolutely noise-free, clean images. Plain […]
Bottom line: hear hear, competition, Sony does it again, betting the market does need a 12MP full-frame camera with fewer, but larger pixels that see in the dark. Sony is once again pushing the envelope with the A7S, a high sensitivity monster delivering ISO 50 to 409,600 with probably “unprecedented dynamic range,” as Sony promises, […]
Interesting find making the rounds on the Net: Sony officially talking up their curved sensor technology. Forget microlenses, forget flange focal distance issues. A curved sensor has no light loss at corners, no soft corners, no aberration. Light rays would hit the sensor perfectly straight. Well this is no longer science fiction. Photofiles, rejoice. Today, […]
If you were waiting like me for an update of Sigma’s outstanding DP Merrill compact cameras with Foveon sensor and fixed focal length equivalents of 28mm, 45mm and 75mm, then the wait is either over. Or you’re unspeakably disappointed. Not because the new dp1, dp2 and dp3 Quattro cameras will disappoint in performance. Used in […]
It boasts hints of the OM-D and has the distinct flavor of Nikon’s Df. This rugged piece of machinery resists water, dust and temperature, sports an impressive 2.36 million dot OLED viewfinder (claiming to possess world’s highest magnification for a digital camera), the shutter time lag of 0.05 seconds is absolutely negligible and a whole […]
Sigma’s stellar 35mm F1.4 DG HSM prime lens of the “Art” series set a new 35mm standard for a lens below the $1k price point. Now the Japanese camera and lens maker announces the all-new 50mm F1.4 DG HSM “Art” lens, a prime that’s well built and rather large with a strong resemblance to the […]
The other day I posted Watching Life Through a Viewfinder — Are Photos Ruining the Experience? on the difficulty of making photographs while enjoying the moment. The article didn’t attract any attention, so I thought I’m talking about something that’s of no interest to anyone. Until I saw The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013). […]
