Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Well, this is kinda cool. It appears that Fujifilm isn’t doing everything they can to forget film exists, after all. It was mentioned last July that Fuji might be planning to bring back some black & white film, and now they’ve just gone and made it official.
They’re starting with Neopan ACROS 100II. Technically, this isn’t a reintroduction. It’s a new formula, which Fuji says gets around the issue of raw material availability in the old ACROS 100 formula.
When you’re taking travel photos, you might want to carry as little gear as possible. It’s great to grab just your camera and one lens so you can walk around the destination without too much baggage. But when limiting yourself to a single lens, which lens should it be? For Julia Trotti, it’s a 35mm f/1.4. In this video, she gives you five reasons why this can be the only travel lens you’ll need.
I recently shot a wedding with just one lens, a Rokinon 35mm t/1.5 on a Sony A7sII body. This was completely unplanned and wasn’t done to prove any point. I also carried multiple lenses and bodies in my bag that cover all the focal lengths I normally use: 24-70mm f/2.8, 55mm f/1.8, 85mm f/1.8, 70-200 f/2.8. Between these lenses, I’m covered for all the distances and lighting conditions I encounter while shooting weddings. I just didn’t have to use any of them on this occasion.
Well, this is an interesting turn up for the books. It turns out that while many photographers are trying to adapt their old film cameras to their shiny new Sony cameras, one photographer, Alexander Gee, was doing the opposite. He wanted a film camera that would work with his modern Sony E-Mount lenses.
LEX, as the camera is called, is a one-man operation, and it seems to have come quite far already. Gee plans to make LEX fully open source, once complete, with much of the camera being easily 3D printable and easy to modify. Don’t have Sony lenses? No problem, just modify it for another camera mount and print that out instead.
Lensbaby has announced a new creative lens today: Burnside 35. It’s a 35mm f/2.8 wide angle adaptation of the Petzval lens design. Burnside 35 adds swirling bokeh and vignette around your subject, with an effect slider that operates as a second internal iris. This slider lets you can change the shape and amount of swirl in the bokeh; all while adding or removing vignette and center brightness. Something like Instagram filters in real life.
Every few months it seems like Fujifilm are going a bit less “film”. To the point where they should probably get ready to just drop the latter half of their name altogether. In the latest round of culls, Fujifilm have announced a few more film stocks and formats that are going to be disappearing in 2018.
Fujifilm seem hell bent on killing off their film products entirely. Well, if that’s their plan, they’re certainly doing a good job. Many film photographers have already made the switch to Kodak & Ilford films due to the doubt over Fuji’s future. Kodak’s decision to bring back Ektachrome has also aided a few choices.
After the 35mm f/2.8 lens announced in June, Samyang is expanding their line for another 35mm lens. This time, they are announcing a fast 35mm f/1.4 lens for Sony E-mount. Samyang 35mm f/1.4FE is another autofocus lens in their line-up, intended for Sony full frame cameras.
Samyang 35mm f/1.4FE competes Zeiss, and it’s almost half the price of the Sony Distagon T* FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA. It comes with a price tag of £599, which is around $790.
If you’ve ever wanted to bring together the quality of the DSLR and the spontaneity of an instant camera, C.P. Goerz joins them in Citograph 35mm f/8 lens. The lens is always in focus, and it’s aimed to “put the ‘Insta’ back into Instagram.” and “bring the spontaneity back to photography while maintaining the highest standards of photo creation.”
Zeiss has expanded their Milvus line of lenses, and they have officially launched their new 35mm lens. Zeiss Milvus 35mm f/1.4 ZF is a faster lens than the previous one of the same length from this line, which featured the f/2 aperture. Because of its speed, it’s especially suitable for portrait photography, according to the Zeiss press release. Of course, it’s also useful for shooting in difficult lighting conditions, and for different types of photography, like landscape, architecture, and interior.
Samyang have added another lens to their slowly growing autofocus lineup. They’ve announced a new 35mm f/2.8 FE lens for full frame Sony mirrorless cameras. And, on paper, it looks like it might be able to compete with the Zeiss 35mm f/2.8, but at well under half the price.
Adding to the 14mm f/2.8 FE and 50mm f/1.4 FE, this brings the Samyang autofocus range up to three lenses. Samyang’s range of manual focus lenses has been rather impressive. So, it’s not much of a surprise that they seem to be putting the effort into their autofocus lenses. They’re playing it smart, too. Slowly building up the autofocus lineup, rather than trying to rush a complete range out of the door all at once.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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