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Canon just killed off a lot more EF & EF-S mount DSLR lenses with more going soon

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Canon’s cull of DSLR lenses continues. According to a report from Canon Rumors, no fewer than nine more Canon EF and EF-S lenses have been added to the discontinued list, with four more Canon EF primes (including some sports and wildlife big guns) slated to be discontinued at some point during 2021.

With a couple of notable exceptions, like the Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM and Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L USM, the lenses aren’t particularly high end, although there are a lot of consumer models on the list, suggesting Canon might be either getting ready to push more towards EOS M for entry-level or maybe they’re about to give us an APS-C RF mount body.

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TTArtisan’s 21mm f/1.5 is now available in (much cheaper) Sony E and Nikon Z mounts

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Initially launched at the end of 2019 for Leica M mount, TTArtisan has now released two new mount versions of its 21mm f/1.5 full-frame wide-angle lens. No longer do you need to use adapters to fit the Leica M mount lens onto your Sony or Nikon mirrorless camera. It’s now available in both Sony E and Nikon Z mount variety.

Like its Leica M version, the two new Sony E and Nikon Z versions are both full-frame manual focus lenses, containing 13 elements in 11 groups and a 10-blade diaphragm offering a wide f/1.5 aperture. Unlike the Leica M version, though, these both come in at a little under $250, whereas the Leica version is still $429.

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Samyang’s new AF 24mm F1.8 FE astrophotography lens features a “go to Infinity focus” button

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Samyang has officially announced the new Samyang AF 24mm F1.8 FE lens for Sony E mount full-frame mirrorless. It’s the latest addition to their “Tiny Series” lens lineup and as the name suggests, it offers a 24mm field of view with a wide f/1.8 aperture. It weights only 230g and measures only 71mm from front to back, but this is an autofocus lens, not manual.

The lens features a new “Custom Mode” with an LED indicator designed for photography. The “Custom Mode” can be activated through a new Focus Hold button, which allows you to directly focus the lens straight to infinity – and you can tune it to make sure it hits that mark consistently, every time.

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Rumour: Samsung teaming up with Olympus for future smartphone cameras

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Well, if this ain’t just the weirdest thing I’ve heard this year. Apparently, Samsung is teaming up with Olympus (?!?) to collaborate on the smartphone modules for future Samsung smartphone, possibly including the Fold 3. At least, according to “tipster” heyitsyogesh on Twitter and “confirmed” by Ice Universe on Weibo.

The general idea doesn’t seem that crazy. After all, we’ve seen smartphone manufacturers team up with Leica, Hasselblad and Zeiss. But Olympus? When Olympus doesn’t technically even make cameras anymore? Responding to that query, heyitsyogesh confirmed to DIYP that it is indeed OM Digital that the collaboration is with, but that it will use Olympus branding – which sounds even stranger.

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Are Moment lenses still worth it over today’s built-in stock smartphone lenses?

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There was a time when third-party smartphone lenses were the go-to for smartphone filmmakers who wanted to take their footage to the next level. And when it comes to third-party smartphone lenses, the biggest name amongst them is undoubtedly Moment, which offers a range of lenses to use with smartphones offering more capabilities than your standard built-in camera modules. Or do they?

That’s the question Brandon Lee attempts to answer in this video from Linus Tech Tips and the short answer is… “It’s complicated”. For the longer answer, you’ll have to watch the video, but it seems they aren’t always as beneficial as they once were – unless, perhaps, you’re shooting video.

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This photographer is using video games to teach photo composition

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Game screenshots are common and popular on social media, and have been a thing ever since streamers started streaming. I’ve never been a big fan of calling “video game photography” photography (they’re still just screenshots), but they can still be a valuable teaching aid when it comes to things like composition and lighting (depending on the game).

And that’s exactly what Texas-based pro car photographer Mir-or-Image has been doing in his new series on YouTube. With as popular as in-game screenshots have become, many games now come with a “photo” mode that allows you to freeze the game and move the camera to get yourself that perfect competition. Mir has been utilising this feature to help teach other photographers.

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Sony quietly upgrades the A7R III and A7R IV with higher resolution LCD

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Well, this is a little strange. Sony has updated both the Sony A7R IV and the older Sony A7R III (which I didn’t realise they were still even making) with a new, higher-resolution LCD, bumping it up from 1.44 million dots to 2,359,296 dots. Both models also see a slight change in model name, adding an “A” to their previous ILCE designation.

Both cameras now also now say they support USB 3.2, although this is a little bit misleading because nothing’s really changed in the USB department besides the name. The specs say USB 3.2 “SuperSpeed” at 5Gbps. That means USB 3.2 Gen 1, which is the same as USB 3.1 Gen 1 or USB 3.0. It also means the same as the original A7R III and A7R IV.

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Nikon turns to space, investing $91,000,000 in aerospace 3D printing manufacturer Morf3D

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I was wondering what Nikon was going to do to keep itself alive with an ever-shrinking camera market that seems to be slowly but surely turning its back on the 103-year-old company in favour of Sony and Canon. Well, it turns out they’re investing in space. To be more specific, they’ve invested as the major shareholder in US startup Morf3D.

Morf3D is an additive manufacturing company supplying the aerospace industry, supplying companies like Boeing, and according to Nikkei Asia, the deal sees Nikon investing 10 billion yen (~$91 million) in the company, becoming a majority stakeholder. This puts Nikon in the supply change for small satellites, a growing market in the aerospace industry.

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Does Adobe’s Super Resolution eliminate the need for high resolution cameras?

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Adobe’s new Super Resolution feature is certainly rather good. It allows you to breathe new life into those lower resolution images from older DSLRs as well as smartphone images to an impressive level of quality. But does it really eliminate the need for today’s high-resolution cameras like the Canon EOS R5, Nikon Z7 II and Sony A7R IV?

Well, photographer Dan Watson seems to think so, as he demonstrates in this video where he puts the 12MP Sony A7S III and 20MP Canon EOS R6 + Super Resolution up against the 60.2MP Sony A7R IV and 45MP Canon EOS R5 for stills to see just how well they stand up to the task.

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Sennheiser’s 2nd Gen MKE 400 comes with auto-power, headphone monitoring and Type-C digital output

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Sennheiser has launched the second generation of its MKE 400 on-camera microphone, bringing with it some significant improvements over its predecessor and a stylish new design that looks a lot more like last year’s MKE 200 than the previous model MKE 400. Those features bring it in line with some of the models we’ve seen from the competition recently.

The two stand-out features for me are auto-power that turns the microphone on and off when it detects that you’ve turned the camera on and off as well as the Type-C USB audio connection, turning it into a digital audio device when plugged into a smartphone or computer, bypassing low-quality preamps. It also has more gain settings, headphone monitoring and more.

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