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Sigma to announce two new 20mm and 24mm f/1.4 full-frame mirrorless lenses on August 8th

Sigma has scheduled a “New Products Presentation” on their YouTube channel for August 8th at 21:00 Japan Standard time – which is 1pm UK time, 8am Eastern and 5am Pacific on the same date. Sigma hasn’t said what they’re expected to announce or how long it’ll take but it’s expected to be two new 20mm f/1.4 DG DN and 24mm f/1.4 DG DN Art series lenses.

We know by the designations in the leaked specs that they’re full-frame lenses, and according to leaked specs, both will be available for full-frame Sony E mount cameras. The leaked specs don’t specify that there’s an L mount version coming, they do list a separate “E-Mount version” for some specs, suggesting that will also come in L mount flavour.

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Canon pulls new v1.2.0 EOS R3 firmware but don’t worry, they already fixed it with v1.2.1

Last week, Canon released a new v1.2.0 firmware update for the Canon EOS R3, as well as updates for the EOS R5 and EOS R6 mirrorless cameras. The new EOS R3 firmware brought a bunch of new features to the camera including the ability to shoot full HD video at 240fps, enhancements to timelapse shooting along with a bunch of other stuff.

A couple of days later, Canon pulled the new EOS R3 firmware as the result of a bug. A DPReview user says that they spoke to CPS UK and that if you were running v1.2.0 and performed a factory reset of the camera then the mode dial no longer worked correctly. Canon has now released a new v1.2.1 firmware update to resolve this issue.

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ProGrade announces fast and tiny PGM0.5 UHS-II SD/microSD card reader for mobile workflows

ProGrade Digital has announced a new memory card reader and this one’s designed for mobile creators to let them quickly copy and shift files two and from their Android and other portable Type-C USB devices. It supports UHS-II microSD and SD cards on the USB 3.2 Gen 1 protocol (which is way more than UHS-II SD cards need), letting you transfer to and from laptops and mobile devices at maximum speed.

ProGrade says that the new ProGrade PGM0.5 reader is in response to the “new wave of content creators [that] has emerged over the last couple of years”, primarily targeting platforms like TikTok and YouTube with many creators working in a mobile environment that doesn’t always afford the luxuries of weight and space that a home desktop solution demands. The PGM0.5 is their way to help support these more mobile creators.

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New YouTube app update lets you convert your long-form videos into shorts on iOS and Android

YouTube has updated its iOS and Android apps with a new feature that lets you convert up to 60 seconds from your existing long-form content YouTube videos into Shorts. The new feature offers all of the usual editing tools you’re used to from the YouTube app including text, timeline editor filters, etc. and will let you bring some of your older content back to the forefront of your feed.

As well as letting you pick pre-existing videos, you can also extend clips shorter than 60 seconds with the Shorts camera or upload more videos from your phone’s gallery to make it fill up to the 60-second Shorts limit. The new Shorts created from your previously-uploaded videos will also link to the original content where viewers can see the full length version.

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This $20 DIY ring light isn’t the kind of ring light you think it is – it’s for light painting

When we hear the term “ring light” in photography, one thing immediately springs to mind and it offers a very distinctive look. But there is also another type, which isn’t meant to wrap around your lens to create that “shadowless” (which isn’t really) beam of fill light coming directly from your camera, and that’s what Pye Jirsa shows us how to make in this video.

It’s an interesting idea, basically wrapping a string of lights around a ring to create a unique look. And sure, while you could potentially try to use it like a traditional ring light, it won’t do much good, as those little LEDs aren’t going to light a subject very well from any kind of distance. But for light painting? Well, that’s where it really shines.

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How to recreate the lighting setups for six scenes in Stranger Things 4

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I don’t know about you, but I find movies and TV shows a great source of inspiration. And I don’t mean the story, but the technical side of things. The blocking, the lighting, the editing, the grade, the music used and more all set the tone for what we’re viewing and it’s fascinating to try to reverse engineer and figure out not only how but why they made the decisions they did.

But here, we’re looking at lighting. And specifically, the lighting for certain scenes from Stranger Things 4. Bangkok-based photographer and filmmaker MIXXPST, along with his friend Gift Lee, decided to have a go at recreating some of the scenes from the popular show as they’re both big fans and I while they’re not pixel-perfect replicas of the originals, they illustrate some of the principles very well.

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This crazy looking DIY camera gives the full frame FOV and DOF equivalent of a 35mm f/0.4

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You can’t beat a good DIY crazy camera and they don’t get much crazier than this. Built by Matt at DIY Perks, this particular camera features a 432mm f/5 episcope lens with an image projection circle of around 500mm in diameter. To give you some idea of scale, your average full-frame lens has an image projection circle with a diameter of at least 43mm. That’s an area of 0.015 square meters. This lens has an image circle of 0.785 square metres (~50x the size).

And with this huge projection also comes a big advantage when it comes to depth of field. Despite being a 432mm f/5 lens, it offers the equivalent field of view and depth of field as a 35mm lens would on a full-frame camera if it had a maximum aperture of f/0.4. The closest lens to this designed for the relatively small full-frame format is the Zeiss 50mm f/0.7, and the last one of those to sell was rumoured to fetch around $200,000.

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Five simple but effective camera moves you can make with a power drill

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A power drill isn’t usually on the list when it comes to packing our camera bags to head out on a shoot, but as this video from Luke Edwin shows, a power drill can be an extremely versatile filmmaking tool! Ok, so, maybe “filmmaking tool” is a bit of an exaggeration, especially if you’re using a heavy camera like a tricked-out mirrorless rig in a cage. But they can let you get some pretty unique shots.

Luke shows off five different shots that were created with the assistance of a power tool and some DIY rigs. Some are designed for smaller cameras like action cameras, 360 cameras or specifically the teeny tiny Insta360 GO 2 (review here), but a couple of these tricks can be used with larger camera systems, too!

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Does cost matter? $130 vs $600 vs $1,750 telescopes for astrophotography compared

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Astrophotography is one of those photographic subjects that can get very expensive, very quickly, especially if you’re planning to look into deep space! So it’s no surprise that many beginners will start off with cheaper equipment. And many of them stick with it for far too long, even if they really enjoy it, simply because they don’t know how much better they’re going to get by throwing more money at it.

In this video, Nico at Nebula Photos walks us through some of the real-world differences between three telescopes at very different price points. All three telescopes are 80mm refractors, but at $130, $600 and $1,750, their quality and benefits are very different from one another, as Nico’s demonstrations show. He puts them through a battery of photographic tests to find the pitfalls and advantages of each.

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Full-Frame Foveon X3 “should be” ready in 2022 but probably not an actual camera

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The full-frame Foveon saga has been going on since 2018 when it was first mentioned at Photokina during the Sigma, Panasonic and Leica L mount alliance. It was originally expected to be released in 2019, but in March 2019, this was revised to 2020. Only a day after rumours of a February 2020 release, Sigma announced that they’re still working on it and the following month its release was delayed until at least 2021, but probably 2022.

At the beginning of 2021, that release date target became 2023 and now it seems that Sigma might be on track. In a recent interview with Sigma CEO Kazuto Yamaki, he reaffirmed that Sigma is still working on prototypes of the full-frame Foveon X3 sensor and that it “should be available sometime this year”. The way it’s worded sounds like the sensor will be available, but perhaps not in a retail-ready camera.

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