Asian love for Leica gear continues unabated. A Hong Kong businessman paid the equivalent of nearly 667,000 US-dollars for a golden Leica special edition at a recent auction in Bangkok, Thailand. For another green version of the special edition combo the businessman forked out further 133’000 dollars, for the total sum of 30 million Thai […]
If you’re interested in the golden Thai Leica M-10 special edition, you’ll have to take part in a Christie’s auction in… Bangkok, Thailand. Altogether 30 kits were manufactured. 10 kits with a gold-plated camera body and yellow crocodile leather, along with each a gold-plated APO Summicron 50/2 ASPH and Summilux 35/1.4 ASPH. And 20 kits […]
This is not the first royal Thai Leica M special edition. In 2016, a golden Leica M6 commemorated the 50th coronation anniversary of Thailand’s late King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Now, in collaboration with Thai Beverage, one of Southeast Asia’s largest distilleries, a Leica M10-P limited edition honors the coronation of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn. With probably the […]
I have the feeling it’s been years that we have been talking about the paradigm change in serious photography, with the change from the good old pentaprism and its reflex mirror to fully electronic mirrorless systems. World’s two biggest camera makers (apart from Apple of course), Canon and Nikon, for years tried to avoid the […]
This is The End, as announced by the man himself. Which gear nerd doesn’t know him: Kai Man Wong, simply known as Kai, the face of DigitalRev TV, that is: the former face of DigitalRev TV which with 1.7 million subscribers is the most popular photography channel on YouTube. Now entertaining Kai, known for his […]
Hitachi announced announced a camera technology that can capture video images without using a lens and adjust focus after image capture. It does this by using a film imprinted with a concentric-circle pattern instead of a lens. And do we really need Snapchat’s camera sunglasses? Plus U.S. president-elect Donald Trump promises to make America better […]
Here’s an interesting article by the Economist on where mirrorless camera technology has come from, where it is and where it’s heading to. There’s however a factual error. The gem made by Epson, the iconic RD1 rangefinder introduced in 2004, a joint development by Seiko Epson and Cosina using Leica M mount lenses, wasn’t the […]
It’s not yet the product release that will make not only Hasselblad loyalists feel over the moon (no sarcastic Lunar reference intended). Hasselblad is posed to release its first product this week, before a Berlin event on April 15, 2016. Let’s call this release a “no surprise.” Rumors have it they announce a new H6D […]
Analog Efex Pro, Color Efex Pro, Silver Efex Pro, Viveza, HDR Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Dfine — do those ring a bell? They’re the Nik Collection, and now Google is making these seven desktop plugins available to everyone, for free. Silver Efex Pro is certainly among the class-leading editing applications to master the art […]
It’s the next big thing in the photography world: dual camera smartphones, giving users the power of a wider and a longer lens built in to the phone, each with own imaging sensor. It’s like having a traditional camera with a wide angle lens and a telephoto lens mounted simultaneously. By circumventing the physical requirements […]
Hipsters beware, you’ll soon be able to call a Leica smartphone your own. Or at least a Huawei smartphone fitted with Leica camera and optical technology. Or a Huawei phone with a red dot. The two are teaming up. It also didn’t escape Leica that smartphone sales eat into the boutique luxury segment the venerable […]
He catapulted himself onto the Olympus of media with a fake fake — presenter Jan Böhmermann of German television broadcaster ZDF made history with the faking of a fake video. You’ll say what’s the news, everything can be manipulated these days. We don’t trust the authenticity of photos any longer, but don’t we trust TV […]
Before I dive into today’s topic, in the course of the past weeks I’ve received several alerts from readers that THEME was down in their area. Once it was in Germany, then in the U.K… The question was always: have you given up on the site Dan? Maybe was a server hiccup. Boy I’m not […]
This is to follow up on our previous post on the most popular camera brands used, a.k.a. Apple followed by Canon and Nikon, with both the previous market leaders offering a huge range of individual cameras, so the overall popularity of individual models is likely lost in the diversity. Reference site Flickr has just released […]
If Flickr be trusted, the Yahoo-owned social photography site, then Canon is no longer world’s most popular camera brand. It is, I’m afraid, Apple. Have a look at the Flickr Camera Finder page, with graphs showing the number of Flickr members who have uploaded at least one photo or video with a particular camera on […]
By BENGT NYMAN If you stay within your choice of camera brand there is little reason to pay much attention to a small detail called a lens mount. It is a handy little feature that lets you easily and quickly change the lens, should you want to. Most manufacturers have their own designs, maybe several, […]
This rather strong On Sony statement by respected camera reviewer Lloyd Chambers caught my attention: I’ll continue to objectively review Sony cameras and lenses because they are in the market and a major player. As for myself, I have firmed up my previous reluctance to invest my money in Sony products. Along with a revolting […]
Two years after Hasselblad opened with all the fanfare its Italian Design Center to create such widely mocked cameras as the Lunar and Stellar, two years after a futile attempt to fool photographers into buying a former generation of pimped up Sony cameras, two years on it looks like Hasselblad has quietly closed down its […]
We’re living in a world of abundance. Choices, choices everywhere — at least if your house is not repossessed, if the growth of the unregulated informal sector doesn’t jeopardize your job or if quantative easing and the silent destruction of capital don’t annihilate your hard earned savings. Increasingly powerful and affordable technology, this world’s great […]
How many of us would really know Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara if it wasn’t for that one iconic portrait image made by Swiss Magnum photographer René Burri who passed away on October 20, 2014, in his hometown of Zurich after a battle with cancer. René Burri, who leaves an enormous legacy, was 81. May […]
This is not only a videographer’s dream come true. Aside from its rather daunting price — $729 for the new SanDisk 512GB Extreme PRO® SDHC/SDXC™ UHS-I — this new highest capacity card offers 90MB/s write speeds for ultimate boost-mode performance, it also has near infinite capacity for uninterrupted video capture at super fast UHS Speed […]
Am in the market for an upgrade to my trusty old iPhone 3GS — right, not the latest piece of hardware, but still does what it’s expected to do. Android and Microsoft smartphone hardware is pretty amazing these days, just to mention the PureView technology the latter got from Nokia and the more innovative Google […]
The not so glamorous life, it should say, of a National Geographic photographer. Looking closely at things most people don’t see can be a hazardous job. Being deeply passionate about photography can be a dangerous thing. You might know from own experience what it took to get that shot you’ll always remember. Maybe you had […]
Ever had the feeling that being busy capturing life’s most beautiful moments one is doing the opposite, namely missing life’s most beautiful moments? Right, a photograph keeps a moment for eternity. Or so my wife always says when snapping every bit of food in a restaurant. Just don’t tag me again! Too late… Obviously camera-shy […]
Who doesn’t want to own a Leica. Their optics are unmatched, yet the technology, well, you can’t shoot ISO 25,800 with a Leica, can you. They just don’t have the sensors for that. Now here’s an anecdote I got from a reliable source; an anecdote that makes complete sense without knowing whether it’s true or […]
What would we do without the Web. It teaches us many helpful things, such as how to not clean your camera. Now, this being planet earth with various forms of life that have no say in how the human species treat them, it is about time to set a fundamental universal law straight: don’t you […]
It’s a plot for a Hollywood movie. You remember the recent ferry accident in South Korea. Almost 300 people died, many of them schoolchildren. But you didn’t know that a pastor-turned-photographer is the chief suspect in the Sewol tragedy. His name is Yoo Byung-eun — and he’s hard to pin down. Posters flashed across television […]
You’ve probably heard it, Microsoft and Canon signed a patent cross-licensing agreement. According to the Microsoft presser the deal furthers collaboration on research and development. Teaming up gives each company access to the other’s patents portfolios, which include a range of products and services such as certain digital imaging and mobile consumer products. So are […]
The Wall Street Journal blames Nikon’s poor overall performance on missing the mirrorless boat. “Nikon needs to start breaking some mirrors,” the paper says. “That isn’t usually seen as a way to good fortune, but mirrors — specifically, the ones that add bulk to its high-end SLR cameras — are one of Nikon’s biggest problems […]
It could be one of the most famous photographs ever, The Falling Man by Richard Drew, a longtime Associated Press photog who was one of four press photographers present at the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Drews famous 9/11 photo depicts a man falling from the World Trade Center towers following the September […]
