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Sigma has officially announced the 20mm f/1.4 and 24mm f/1.4 DG DN Art lenses for E and L mount

Sigma has officially announced the two newest lenses in their Global Vision Lenses lineup for Sony E Mount and Leica L mount. As expected, they’re the Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG DN Art and the Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG DN Art series lenses. Both lenses are primarily aimed at astrophotographers, although the 24mm is also targeted towards general photography use.

Both lenses come with some features advantageous to astrophotographers, with the introduction of a manual focus lock and a rear filter holder as well as front filter threads. The 20mm f/1.4 DG DN also comes with a “Lens Heater Retailer” to “keep this useful astrophotography weather accessory firmly in place while in use”. The lenses were announced during today’s Sigma Stage event.

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This company turns discarded fishing nylon into fantastic camera backpacks

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware of the fact that plastic is one of the main marine pollutants. Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) writes that Every day approximately 8 million pieces of plastic end up in our oceans. According to data from 2020, plastics consistently make up 80% of all marine debris.

Because of alarming facts like these, more and more individuals and companies are switching to sustainable and eco-friendly solutions. One of them is NYA-EVO, a Belgium-based company that has just launched a unique camera backpack. What’s so special about it, I hear you ask. Well, it was made entirely from recycled nylon and it combines sustainability, durability, practicality, and great design.

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Images leak of Sigma’s upcoming 20mm f/1.4 and 24mm f/1.4 lenses ahead of today’s announcement

Images of new Sigma lenses leaking ahead of an official announcement are as inevitable as Thanos. Sigma has a new products presentation live stream planned for later today (in about 3 hours from now) where it’s expected that they’ll announce the new Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG DN Art and 24mm f/1.4 DG DN Art series lenses. The basic specs leaked last week and now we’re getting to have a look at them.

As well as the images, there are also a few new bits of information, including expected shipping dates and a Japan price for the 24mm. There’s no word yet on what they’ll cost in the rest of the world, but I’m sure that information will be coming later today during the official announcement. I’ve embedded the upcoming stream here in case you missed it.

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Aputure has announced the MT Pro – Its first full-colour mini LED tube light

Aputure has announced its new Aputure MT Pro light – a compact 11.8″ RGBWW LED tube light designed for small-scale scenes and hiding in small places on set. The light comes in a kit along with a USB-C power cord, a 45° grid and a small mini tripod to which you can attach it inside a semi-hard zip-up case. As well as basic RGBWW operation, it features a bunch of built-in effects and can be remotely controlled from the Sidus Link smartphone app.

The diminutive footlong LED light contains 36 RGBWW “pixels” with 0-100% dimming with near-stepless increments and a colour temperature adjustable from 2000K up to 10,000K with green/magenta adjustments. Aputure says it can reproduce 90% of the colours in the Rec.2020 colour space, with CRI and TLCI of 95 and 98 respectively.

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Peter McKinnon has released a new multitool for photographers and filmmakers

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As photographers or filmmakers, we occasionally find ourselves in need of some kind of tool. Maybe we’re tearing down and rebuilding our video rig or perhaps it’s something as simple as tightening down the screw on a tripod plate. Whatever it is, occasionally (or often), there’s a need.

While there are a number of multitools on the market made specifically for photographers and filmmakers, like this one, this one or this one from SmallRig, Peter McKinnon believes they’re all a bit lacking and has spent the last year and a half designing his own. He also believes his is worth $95.

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These guys tested every video stabilizer so you don’t have to (but you probably still should)

If you shoot video, you know that you’re going to need some kind of stabilisation at some point in the process. Whether it’s a tripod, gimbal, a whole giant rig or simply relying on the camera or lenses built-in stabilisation, there are so many different ways out there. We can even stabilise in post, thanks to things like Adobe’s Warp Stabiliser and DaVinci Resolve’s gyro-stabilisation for Pocket cameras, or Sony’s similar tech.

Picking which one to choose for a given situation can be challenging, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience using all of the different methods out there. So, the team from Syrp Lab decided to give them all a try to see which worked best in which situations, from gimbals and IBIS to software stabilisation like that found in GoPros as well as the aforementioned Warp Stabiliser.

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Godox has announced the Knowled M600Bi – A bi-colour version of its powerful Knowled M600 LED light

Godox has announced the new Godox Knowled M600Bi, a bi-colour version of the Godox Knowled M600D announced last November. Designed for studio, film and TV production, the powerful bi-colour LED light has a temperature range of 2800-6500K, runs of AC or V-Mount battery and features radio, DMX and Bluetooth wireless control. It also has fanless to minimise the impact it has on audio during recording.

It has a CRI of 96 and a TLCI of 97 with 4 dimming curves and 21 (or 7?) lighting effects. On the front is the familiar Bowens mount, so you can use it with all of the Bowens modifiers you already own. When on AC power, it runs on 100-220v AC meaning you can use it just about anywhere in the world.

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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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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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Samyang launches new and improved 85mm f1.4 AF Mk II for Sony FE

Samyang has just announced the new and improved version of its well-known 85mm f/1.4 AF lens. While the previous one exists in Nikon F, Canon EF and RF, and slightly modified in Sony FE, the new Mk II version of the lens is only available for Sony FE. It’s smaller and lighter than its predecessor, the AF has been improved, and there are some other tweaks that might make you love this lens more than its older brother.

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