fbpx

DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

Search

Submit A Story

Coronavirus outbreak “could affect image sensor and electronics business enormously” says Sony

by 4 Comments

Sony has spoken up on the coronavirus outbreak in China and the effects it may have on its image sensor and other operations. The Nikkei reports that despite initially raising its operating profit and revenue forecasts for the current fiscal year, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said the coronavirus “may negate our revised earnings outlook”.

The issue largely seems to refer to Sony’s smartphone sensors, rather than camera sensors. Despite Sony being based in Japan, smartphones themselves are often assembled in China. That being said, some of Sony’s cameras, including the A7 III, A7R III (the A7R IV is made in Thailand) and RX100 VII, as well as most of their lenses, are also marked as “Made in China”.

[Read More…]

Sony may be preparing to launch their own drone

by 3 Comments

Historically, Sony has jumped onto just about every bit of consumer tech (and even led the way sometimes) as soon as it appeared on the market. Anything that looked like it was going to be wildly popular, they wanted a piece of that pie. So it’s surprised me that they haven’t jumped right into the drone market already.

According to Sony Alpha Rumours, though, it appears that Sony might be getting ready to do just that after they’ve spotted a new patent, dated October 2019. At least, they say there’s a new patent, they haven’t actually linked to the registration so everybody else can have a read. So, it may end up being nonsense. Update: The patent is here!

[Read More…]

Sony’s new Wireless Shooting Grip lets you vlog more easily and control your camera remotely

by 1 Comment

Sony has announced the GP-VPT2BT Wireless Shooting Grip. Don’t get too excited, this isn’t a “grip” in the traditional sense that allows you to more easily shoot portrait orientation without contorting your arms. This is sort of like an advanced mini tripod. It’s not a new concept, and Sony has had the GP-VPT1 out for a while now, but the GP-VPT2BT takes this to the next level with built-in Bluetooth for controlling your camera remotely.

[Read More…]

Data recovery service shows what the inside of a dead Sony XQD memory card looks like

by 2 Comments

Many of us have experienced a memory card failure at some point, and although manufacturers have gotten much better at producing reliable cards, it still occasionally happens. Failure used to be fairly common in the early days of CompactFlash (when their capacity was still measured in MB) and in SD cards, but it’s rare that you hear about it in modern formats like XQD. It does happen, though.

I’ve been following HDD Recovery Services on YouTube for a little while now. I just find it fascinating to see how hard drives and other storage mediums work on the inside, and how they evolve over time. Recently, they received a Sony XQD card that wasn’t reading, and the client needed the data recovered from it. This video shows us what’s inside, and how they get it working again.

[Read More…]

Keeping it small, using rear filters for the Sigma 14-24 f2.8 Art DG DN

by 4 Comments

A while ago Sigma joined the L mount alliance along with Panasonic and Leica.  Although it wasn’t really till recently that we started to see the true results of this collaboration when Sigma released their new fp camera.  They also released several “designed for mirrorless” lenses like the 14-24 f2.8 Art DG DN. Those lenses are both smaller and lighter than their DSLR counterparts.

One of the new features of the 14-24f2.8 Art DG DN lens is the built-in rear filter holder. It allows you to lock in a gel filter, which you can cut using the template provided with the lens.

This is a relatively inexpensive way to reduce the amount of light coming into the camera. I used to cut ND gels to fit into my MC-11 adaptor and while they worked, the gels could easily scratch, bend and crease, while also reducing image quality a little. I don’t know, maybe it was the particular ND gel I used.

What if you wanted something that is more durable with better optical performance, but without needing a huge 150mm filter system to attach onto the front of the lens?

Introducing the Kase rear filter set designed exclusively for the Sigma 14-24 f2.8 Art DG DN.

[Read More…]

Sony appears to have finally fixed most (but not all) of their major issues

by Leave a Comment

With a title like “The Truth about Sony”, I thought this video was just going to be more fanboy hate, but I was convinced to watch it and was quite surprised. Matt Granger is a pretty notorious Nikon die-hard, so you can understand my initial reaction. But in the video, he takes a good look at the issues that Sony has had over the years of its mirrorless camera development and how it’s overcome almost all of them.

[Read More…]

Tearing down the Sony A7R IV to see what makes it tick

by Leave a Comment

2020 is just around the corner, and if there is one thing we can be sure of, it’s that Sony probably isn’t going to be slowing down. While every iteration of the different A7 and a6000 camera lines launch with significant improvements over their predecessors, the most recent A7R took leaps and bounds in both capability and design progress.

We’re at 61 megapixels on a full-frame now. The A7R IV brought us here, past the D850, the 5Ds, and even Fuji’s GFX 50 cameras. With that, it brings a 10fps continuous drive rate and all the top-notch AF and video capability we’ve come to expect from Sony. The body itself is just a little different on the outside. The grip is definitely a little beefier than before.

[Read More…]

Nikon adds limited CFexpress support to the Nikon Z6 & Z7 cameras with 2.20 firmware

by 6 Comments

Along with today’s announcement of raw over HDMI for the Nikon Z6 and Z7, Nikon has also announced a downloadable firmware update for the same cameras to provide limited CFexpress support.

Version 2.20 firmware for the Nikon Z6 and Z7 is available to download free of charge and you don’t need to send off your camera to have it implemented, although that support is somewhat limited. It only works for Type B CFexpress cards manufactured by Sony.

[Read More…]

Recent Posts