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Stop paying through the nose for OEM batteries – Your camera might support USB power banks

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Do you ever get that feeling that you never have enough batteries for your camera(s)? I do, especially when I’m shooting video. OEM batteries for most mirrorless cameras can be insanely expensive, but many people shy away from third party batteries. But there is another, much less expensive power option available to many mirrorless camera shooters these days, and that’s USB Power Delivery.

I’ve spoken about USB-PD here on DIYP before. I use USB-PD cables that negotiate the voltages for me and let me feed it into a dummy battery inside my camera. But now, most new cameras are coming with USB-PD support natively built right into the camera. And we’re not just talking about charging up the battery here, either. No, you can actually power your camera from a USB-PD power bank (personally, I’m a fan of OnSite 100W PD battery)

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Sony has now officially announced the new 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II lens

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It had to come eventually and now it’s finally here. Sony has announced its new Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II lens to go along with its recently released FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS II announced last October. Like its predecessor, the Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II is designed for full-frame Sony E mount cameras and comes with a number of new improvements that should help the shooting workflow.

Sony says it’s the “world’s lightest f/2.8 standard zoom lens”, but we usually have to take Sony’s “World’s” claims with a pinch of salt and a few caveats. In this case, though, weighing in at only 695g, they might actually have a point. It’s 20% less than the original and significantly less than its Nikon and Canon counterparts.

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Nitecore’s new UFZ100 Sony battery charges through an integrated Type-C USB port

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How many times have you gone to look for a battery charger and it’s just nowhere to be found? I know I sure have. I seem to have about five different chargers at the moment between different Nikon and Panasonic cameras for different batteries and I always seem to be able to find all the chargers except the one I need at that very minute!

Well, Nitecore wants to solve that problem, at least for shooters, with their new Nitecore UFZ100 battery (their alternative to the Sony NPFZ100) which features a built-in Type-C USB socket so you don’t need a dedicated battery charger. You just plug it into your regular USB charger or a power bank and you can go from flat to full with just a Type-C USB cable.

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Sony has now officially launched its new lightweight FE PZ 16-35mm f/4 “hybrid” lens

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While there haven’t been too many rumours about this one, the photos and price leak last week pretty much guaranteed that it was coming. And today, Sony has now officially announced the new Sony FE PZ 16-35mm f/4 lens. It seems to be aimed at filmmakers just as much as it is photographers, is super lightweight at only 353g and has a price tag of $.

Although the weight is substantially lower than the Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 16-35mm f/4 ZA OSS lens, and the price has shrunk a bit, too. B&H was showing $1,399 initially on their listing, but now it just says “New item – Coming soon” with no price. The release I received from Sony, however, claims around the price is around $1,200 US or $1,500 Canadian.

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Price and first photos of upcoming Sony FE PZ 16-35mm F4 G lens leak ahead of official annoumcement

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Sony is expected to announce the new Sony FE PZ 16-35mm F4 G lens on Tuesday, March 22nd but as often seems to happen, information has leaked ahead of the official announcement. There isn’t a lot of information but there is a price – a UK price – as well as several images of the upcoming lens.

There’s the product image above, but there are also a couple of photos showing the lens in use on what appears to possibly be a Sony A7S III mirrorless camera with a Sony ECM-B1M microphone perched on top and a Sony FX6 cinema camera. This suggests that the new lens will be geared as much towards video shooters as it will photographers.

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Nine new Canon, Nikon and Fuji camera codes registered with certification body (and a Sony lens)

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Well, it looks like there’s a flood of new cameras about to come in from Canon, Nikon and Fuji, along with a number of lenses from Canon and Sony, a new speedlight and a Nikon memory card – which I’m guessing is going to be CFexpress. According to Digicame-Info, a screenshot posted to “a huge bulletin board” lists a number of products from the four manufacturers.

Canon lists six digital cameras, 2 photography lenses, 2 cinema lenses (technically one lens in two mount options) and a speedlight. Nikon adds two digital cameras (one with wifi and apparently one without) as well as a memory card. Sony is apparently gearing up to announce an FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II and Fuji also has a new camera listed.

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Comparing the DJI Mavic 3 against the $12,000 Sony AirPeak drone

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Although the Sony AirPeak is no longer a big secret, there still isn’t really a massive amount of information out there on how it actually performs in the real world. This isn’t really all that surprising, as $12,000 drones (plus camera and lens) aren’t exactly all that popular or common amongst most drone pilots. But in this video, Jeven Dovey gets together with Sony creator Craig Coker to talk about the Sony AirPeak drone’s capabilities.

But just talking about things like this doesn’t really do much good unless you can compare it to the types of drones that mere mortals like most of us might use. So, he puts it up against the DJI Mavic 3, which by many people’s standards is a pretty advanced and expensive drone, to see how the two compare. Looking at it side-by-side with the AirPeak, though, it’s kind of a toy. An impressive toy, but a toy nonetheless.

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Sony Japan finally dumps all A-mount lenses from its online inventory

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If Sony hadn’t already made it crystal clear that the A-mount was dead last May when they removed all of their A-mount cameras from their website. Minolta’s legacy has now been pretty much thrown into the abyss.

It’s not too terribly surprising, really. The A-mount was created by Minolta way back in 1985. It was inherited by Sony during their acquisition of Minolta in 2006 and they haven’t released an A-mount body since 2016. E mount is most definitely the future of Sony – especially now Sony finally has an E mount flagship body in the form of the Sony A1.

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The Sony A7 IV’s hidden “divider frame” is a fantastic feature for timelapse and macro shooters

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I’m not sure if this is a new feature that’s been added in a recent firmware update or if it’s just remained a well kept hidden secret, but the Sony A7 IV has a pretty cool feature that will be very valuable for anybody who shoots timelapses, macro or landscape stacks, or anything else that requires you to shoot a bunch of images at a time in sequence.

It was spotted by the folks at LensVid and it’s called the Divider Frame”. Essentially, it places a new image on your memory card that is simply a black frame with a big bright arrow on it. Its purpose is as the name sounds, to act as a visual divider between one set of images and another – very handy when you need to quickly and easily split different sequences of images once they’re all on the computer.

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Downhill Camera-Throw apparently becomes new Winter Olympics sport

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We’ve all heard of the Highland Fling, but have you heard about the Downhill Camera Fling? One unlucky photographer at the Beijing Winter Olympics decided to try their hand at creating a new competitive event when their Sony A1 somehow freed itself from their grip and went off-piste down the snowy ski slopes to what looks like an untimely death.

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