Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Cosina has anounced four new Voigtländer prime lenses for mirrorless shooters. Out of those, three are made for Nikon Z cameras, and one is intended for Fiji X shooters.
The 50mm f/2 and 35mm are made for full-frame Nikon Z cameras. Of course, you can attach them to an APS-C body too and get 75mm or ~52mm equivalent focal length. The 23mm f/1.2 comes in Nikon Z and Fuji X version, and it was made for APS-C cameras, but it can be used in the crop mode of your full-frame camera.
The Nikon Z9 has a bunch of features you may like and some that you may not. But in which of these two categories does the shutter sound fall?
Well, if you’re a cat person, then the sound of the Z9’s electronic shutter might be perfect for you. It’s a cat’s meow in the most literal sense of the expression. Yes, your Z9 can meow at you!
While the in-person event was cancelled again this year, CP+ still went ahead as an online event. As a result, we got a smaller than usual flurry of gear announcements, but there were quite a few good ones – particularly if you’re a Micro Four Thirds or Fuji shooter. As has become usual with events that have gone online, many of the announcements came before CP+ was scheduled to start.
It’s not surprising that some releases come a little early, given that there’s no in-person event, as it allows each company to essentially have its own day to shine without being overshadowed by its competitors. And the first two in this list are a perfect example of that!
First announced last September, Aputure has now officially released its Light Storm 1200D Pro flagship LED light. With 1200 Watts of power, Aputure claimed at the time of its initial announcement that it was the “highest output Bowens Mount light fixture on the market”. While not the only light fixture at 1200W, it’s true that it was the only one at that kind of level with a Bowens mount making it ideally suited to your existing Bowens modifiers.
This daylight-balanced light comes with three reflectors for wide, medium and narrow beams and the whole setup is shipped in two separate cases; One for the light and one for the reflectors. Handy, as you don’t have to cart an oversized case everywhere if you don’t need to use the reflectors and cart them around with you everywhere. It’s been a long wait, but now it’s available to buy!
Well, we knew there was a big announcement coming from Canon today and we were pretty sure we knew what it might be. well, Canon has now made the announcement official, bringing us the Canon RF 800mm f/5.6 L IS USM and Canon RF 1200mm f/8L IS USM super-telephoto lenses. With price tags of $16,999 and $19,999 respectively, these lenses sure ain’t for the faint of heart (or wallet) and are absolute monsters designed for sports and wildlife.
Both lenses feature two focus presets with the ability to instantly swap between memorised focus distances. Very handy if you’re covering sports with a goal or wildlife with a nest. A circular nin-bladed aperture, Canon says, provides “exceptionally beautiful and soft blurred backgrounds and bokeh” and both offer the L series durability and weather sealing you’d expect from lenses at this price point.
Tokina has today announced its new SZ 2x Extender (TA-020), a T-mount 2x teleconverter for the Tokina SZX Super Tele 400mm f/8 Reflex MF lens released in July 2020. The SZ 2x Extender sits in between the lens and the mount adapter for your camera system – Canon EF, Fujifilm X, Micro 4/3, Nikon F, Nikon Z, or Sony E – and while it’s being marketed specifically with Tokina’s 400mm f/8 – they’ve even launched a new kit bundle that includes the two together – it should hypothetically work with just about any T-mount lens.
The Tokina SZ 2x Extender essentially turns your 400mm f/8 Reflex MF lens into an 800mm lens, but at the cost of aperture. You’ll lose two stops of light – as you do with all 2x teleconverters for any camera system. So, instead of metering f/8, it’ll now meter f/16. 2x teleconverters often play hell with autofocus systems that can’t meter lenses with a maximum aperture this small, but as it’s a manual focus lens, that’s not really much of an issue.
Canon has posted a big announcement teaser to its official Weibo account for something coming on February 24th. And a new image leak suggests it might be the upcoming super long RF mount 800mm f/5.6L IS USM and RF 1200mm f/8L IS USM lenses. February 24th would mark the third day of the now-cancelled CP+ event in Japan. With an event as big as CP+, such lenses wouldn’t be unusual, but now it looks like we might see a simple online announcement.
Other reports believe that we may also see a new 8K capable camera during the announcement event. They say that the teaser was posted with the hashtag #canon8K, although I’m not seeing that on the original Weibo post, and that the infinity symbol below the number (which is actually a countdown) is just an 8 flipped around on its side. Personally, I think they might be reaching.
Lighting manufacturer Quasar Science has announced the availability of their newest Rainbow Series RGBX LED lights, the Rainbow 2 and the Double Rainbow. These tubular LED lights create what Quasar Science describes as “intense, realistic lighting with multiple individually controllable pixels” to deliver both high quality white light as well as well saturated colour that can fit into small spaces.
The Rainbow 2 comes in 2′, 4′ or 8′ lengths featuring 10, 24 or 48 pixels respectively. The Double Rainbow is, as the name suggests, a doubled-up Rainbow light with two rows of pixels in 2′ and 4′ lengths for either 20 or 48 individually addressable LEDs. Unless I’m missing something, though, it looks like they were first announced way back in December 2020 but are only just coming to market now – perhaps due to their acquisition by Vitec last year.
Ok, you can stop speculating and guessing now. Panasonic has finally officially announced the new Panasonic Lumix GH6 Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera. Rather than a slight refresh like the Panasonic GH5 Mark II, the GH6 presents a pretty major upgrade over the GH5 for those that need it, with a new 25.2-megapixel sensor, 7.5 stops of IBIS and 5.7K video at up to 60 frames per second.
It comes five years after the release of the Panasonic Lumix GH5 and it represented a significant step up in Panasonic’s video capabilities over its predecessor. The GH6 seem to be doing the same this time around. As well as seeing a resolution boost for both stills and video, we also see 4K video at up to 120 frames per second and 1080p up to a very impressive 300 frames per second.
Sigma has today announced their expansion into another new mount with their first native autofocus lenses for Fujifilm’s X Mount system. They’ve kicked off the range with the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN, 30mm f/1.4 DC DN and 56mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary lenses, a versatile trio for APS-C cameras that covers everything from landscapes to portraits.
With the 1.5x crop of the Fuji X system, these offer a similar field of view to 24mm, 45mm and 84mm focal lengths on full-frame with a wide and bright f/1.4 maximum aperture. Previously, these lenses were only available to Canon EF-M, MFT, Sony E and Leica L mount shooters.
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