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Recently I was rummaging around in a box of old cameras, and I stumbled across a cute little Zeiss lens that I didn’t even know I had.
It was a 5cm (50mm for you youngsters out there) f: 3.5 Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar. I researched its serial number (in the 411,000 range) to discover this little lens was manufactured in 1920, that’s 103 years ago.
Last year, DJI joined the L mount alliance. This ever-growing list is a shared commitment to collaboration and a degree of interoperability between some products from each of the seven brands, with each bringing their unique vision and talents.
DJI’s vision and talent in this band of cohorts appear to be LiDAR autofocus systems. The company, along with Panasonic, has announced a new collaboration to add support for DJI’s LiDAR system in Panasonic mirrorless cameras.
When you look at your lenses, they probably have a switch on them that enables you to flick between M or MF (manual focus) and A or AF (autofocus). In manual focus mode, you do the work to get your subject sharp in the frame. Choose autofocus, and your camera will lock focus on the subject in your shot. Except, your camera offers a lot more than just “autofocus”.
There are, in fact, a range of different focusing modes within autofocus. By choosing the right one for your shooting situation, you can get a whole lot more out of your camera and improve your photography.
Viltrox is planning to release a number of new lenses, according to a post on Weibo. A number of images of one of them, the Viltrox AF 16mm F1.8 for Sony E mount cameras, have also been shared. The lens is designed for full-frame cameras and despite being extremely wide angle, it features a standard 77mm filter thread rather than the usual bulbous front of similar lenses.
As well as the 16mm f/1.8, Viltrox is also said to be releasing a new full-frame AF 28mm f/1.8 for Sony E-Mount and two APS-C lenses. The first is a 75mm f/1.2 for Sony E mount and a 27mm f/1.2 for Fuji X mount – neither of which appear to be autofocus lenses. There’s no word yet on when any of the lenses are coming, but here’s the translated (thanks to Sony Alpha Rumors) report.
In a recent interview at CP+ 2023, the team from DPReview spoke with Canon about a wide range of topics. Two of them stick out in particular. First is that the Canon EOS R3’s Eye Control Autofocus system is coming to more cameras. It’s unlikely it’ll come to existing cameras, as I imagine it requires specific hardware to look at your eye, but it will be coming in the future.
The other is that Canon appears to be relaxing its position a little on third-party lenses. Previously, it appeared that Canon was just cutting all third parties off. Now, it seems that Canon is not only hinting that it will license its mount technology but specifically calls out Cosina as an authorised third-party manufacturer able to make RF mount lenses.
In an interview with Yosuke Yamane, Panasonic’s Imaging and Business division director, Phototrend confirmed that Panasonic plans to implement phase detection autofocus into the Micro Four Thirds product line. According to Yamane, Panasonic now has “all the AF technologies” and will choose “the optimal autofocus method each time”.
This suggests that it may not be available on all future Micro Four Thirds cameras. There’s no word yet on exactly which bodies it will come to, though. PDAF was notably lacking from the Panasonic GH6, but I think it’s probably a safe bet to say that it will almost certainly be coming to the hypothetical Panasonic GH7 and whatever Panasonic eventually releases to replace the Panasonic Lumix G9.
Nikon has announced a new firmware update for the Nikon Z5 full-frame mirrorless camera. The new v1.40 update expands the previous v1.22 update with support for the iOS version of NX MobileAir, the Nikon MC-N10 remote grip, the Nikon ML-L7 remote, as well as adding saved focus position support for a range of telephoto zoom and prime lenses. It also brings some pretty significant changes to Eye autofocus.
For a start, Eye-Detection autofocus is now available on the Nikon Z5 when shooting video. Previously, it was confined to shooting stills. The performance of Eye AF has also been improved when shooting in Auto-area AF mode. The refresh rates of the focus points in live view has also been increased to help you more easily ensure it’s tracking what you want it to.
This is a bit of an interesting one and it potentially explains why we’ve seen a handful of autofocus Z mount lenses over the last few years – but not the flurry we’ve come to expect with other systems like Sony E mount. According to a report on Nikon Rumors, Nikon hasn’t gone full-on Canon when it comes to third-party autofocus lenses, but they are being somewhat restrictive.
It seems that Nikon apparently does officially license third-party manufacturers to create autofocus lenses, but it does so on a lens-by-lens basis. This only seems to be the case for autofocus lenses, though. They will approve them, but only if they don’t directly compete with something already in the Nikkor Z lineup but complement the lineup instead.
Nikon has released the new version 2.4.0 firmware for the Nikon Z50, and it looks like the focus (no pun intended) for this one is eye-detection autofocus. Among other eye-detection AF performance improvements, the big one is eye-detection autofocus being added to the camera’s AF modes while recording video.
The last few updates for the Nikon Z50 have essentially been bug fixes or adding support for various new lenses. This one actually brings a new feature that should make the Nikon Z50 a much more attractive option for activities like vlogging. The notes for the new firmware all list improvements to the Eye-AF system.
In an interview between Gizmomo Freaks and Panasonic during the launch of the recently announced Panasonic Lumix S5 Mark II and S5 Mark IIx, the obvious focus of attention was the addition of Phase Detect Autofocus into the new camera. Sure, PDAF isn’t the only thing the S5 Mark II holds over its predecessor, but this is the first Panasonic interchangeable lens mirrorless camera ever to have PDAF. So, it’s kind of a big deal.
Why did it take so long for Panasonic to implement it, though, while all of the competition had been using it for years? Well, in short, the official answer was that they didn’t want to compromise on image quality, and they felt that the technical limitations of how phase detection autofocus works would do exactly that. Now, though, technology appears to have come to a point where all that’s changed.
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe
Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.
John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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