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The Moza Air 2S gimbal offers 20 hours of runtime and focus wheel like a fishing reel handle

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Gudsen has announced their new Moza Air 2S gimbal; successor to their popular Moza Air 2. It brings with it a new battery offering up to 20 hours of use, with rapid charging taking you from flat-to-full in a mere 2 hours compared to 16 hours of use and 5 hours charge time of its predecessor as well as an all-new metal construction.

The new Air 2S offers a similar load capacity to the Air 2 and while it might seem like an incremental update, it offers some some nice advantages and improvements. As well as one new feature that seems a little… odd. There’s a little flippy out handle on the focus wheel so you can spin it like a fishing reel.

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Zhiyun’s new Smooth Q3 gimbal features a built-in rotating LED fill light

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If you ever needed more proof that smartphone gimbals were primarily designed for vloggers and social media shooters who want to film themselves or others talking to the camera at short range, then this is probably it. Zhiyun has today announced the new Zhiyun Smooth Q3 smartphone gimbal and this one comes with a built-in LED fill light.

The Smooth Q3 is a 3-axis gimbal, boasting a range of new features over the Smooth Q2, including SmartMode, gesture control, SmartFollow 3.0 Object Tracking, Instant Dolly Zoom, MagicClone Pano and, of course, that built-in LED which can rotate from the front for selfies to the back for filming other people.

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Leica launches their new 24-70mm f/2.8 L and it looks like a rehoused Sigma Art lens

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Leica has now officially unveiled the Leica Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-70mm f/2.8 ASPH lens and, well… it looks like it’s basically the Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 DG DN Art lens in a different housing. The specs of the two lenses are virtually identical, except the one with Leica written on it is more than two and a half times the price at $2,795.

The number of elements, groups, minimum focus distance, magnification factor, everything is basically the same. The only real difference seems to be that the Leica uses a metal housing instead of Sigma’s carbon-composite housing.  What other changes there may be internally are unknown. But it almost certainly seems to be using Sigma’s optics.

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Laowa has now (definitely) officially announced their APS-C Argus 33mm f/0.95 lens

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This whole Laowa Argus lens lineup thing’s been a bit of a ride. The first indication that they were coming was back in January last year. In March, rumours appeared of six new lenses coming, to be expected in 2021. In December, an image of a 35mm f/0.95 was leaked. And in January this year, it looked like the whole lineup might have been announced. Nope, it was just confirmation they were coming.

Now, though, the first Laowa’s Argus line is absolutely, 100% guaranteed, officially announced. The Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95 CF APO is now a real thing, and it’s even on the Laowa website. Hold back your excitement a little, though. This isn’t one of the full-frame Argus lenses many have been anticipating. It’s for APS-C.

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Vivo V21 targets selfie-shooters and vloggers with optically stabilised 44-megapixel selfie camera

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VIVO has announced their new V21 series smartphones, two of which (the V21 and V21 5G) feature probably the best selfie camera out there today. It’s an optically stabilised 44-megapixel front camera with an f/2.0 aperture. OIS isn’t new to selfie cameras on smartphones, but it’s the first time we’ve seen it pop up on a front camera for a long time – if we’re not counting the back-to-front flippy camera of the ASUS ZenFone 6. Which we’re not, really.

The camera resides in a little notch at the top of the screen and has two LEDs embedded to act as a flash in dimmer conditions. Unlike many other front-cameras on smartphones, even flagship smartphones, this selfie camera also has real autofocus.

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New Sony FE 50mm f/1.2 GM lens delayed because of exceeded expectations

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About a month ago, Sony introduced the 50mm f/1.2 G Master lens and got many Sony shooters excited. So excited, in fact, that the company now claims it can’t manage all the demand. So you’ve guessed it right – you’re going to have to wait a little longer to have your 50mm f/1.2 delivered.

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Atomos Ninja V gets H.265 – New Ninja V+ records 4K 120fps and 8K ProRes RAW

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The Atomos Ninja V has been a staple amongst video shooters wishing to work with Apple’s ProRes RAW – which isn’t surprising considering it supports pretty much every mirrorless camera out there capable of providing RAW over HDMI. But now it’s seen a new update to provide it with h.265 recording abilities.

The Ninja lineup also sees a couple of new additions today. The first is the Atomos Ninja V+, capable of shooting both 8K 30fps and 4K 120fps video in ProRes RAW. The other is the socially distanced Ninja Stream, capable of simultaneous ProRes and H.264/5 proxy recording while also beaming your video signal over WiFi, ethernet or live stream without the need for a PC.

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Sigma has now officially launched their new 35mm f/1.4 DG DN Art series lens for L & E mount mirrorless

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Sigma has now officially announced the totally-already-leaked Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN Art series lens for Sigma/Panasonic/Leica L mount and Sony E mount mirrorless cameras. Essentially replacing the 9-year-old Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art, Sigma says that the new lens has been redesigned from the ground up, optimised for today’s mirrorless systems.

Of course, at the moment that’s only two mirrorless systems. L and E mounts. There’s no word on when or if we can expect this lens to come to Z and RF mounts at some point. Sigma says that the new 35mm f/1.4 DG DN offers “exceptional optical performance”, a fast quiet autofocus motor and a “professional feature-set”.

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Samyang’s first wide-angle AF prime for APS-C is the 12mm f/2 for Sony astrophotographers

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Samyang has today announced their first autofocus super-wide-angle prime lens for APS-C. Specifically, for Sony APS-C E mount. It’s the Samyang AF 12mm F2E and offers a field of view equivalent to that of an 18mm lens on full-frame with a wide f/2 maximum aperture, which is fantastic for subjects like astrophotography or interiors where it’s fairly dark when you want a wide angle of view.

It contains 12 elements in 10 groups, with three extra-low dispersion and two aspherical elements to minimise chromatic aberration and distortion, and increase sharpness. Ultra Multi Coating (UMC) has been applied to the elements to minimise ghosting, reflections and flare for what Samyang describes as “more contrast-rich imagery”.

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Tamron announces a fast ultra-wide 11-20mm f/2.8 zoom lens for APS-C Sony E Mount

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Tamron’s doubling down today. As well as the new 150-500mm f/5-6.7 full-frame lens we posted about earlier, Tamron has also announced their new 11-20mm f/2.8 Di III-A RXD ultra-wide zoom lens. It’s designed for Sony APS-C E mount cameras, and proclaims to be the world’s first ultra-wide-angle zoom lens for Sony E mount APS-C cameras with an f/2.8 aperture.

Despite that wide aperture, though, it’s a pretty small and lightweight lens, coming in at a mere 350g – significantly lighter than the 11-16mm f/2.8 APS-C lens that Tokina released last year for Nikon and Canon DSLRs.

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