Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

Archives for 2012

 

Canon’s Rebel T4i Pixel-Level AF Sensors; Mirrorless Next?

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Rebel T4i

The Rebel T4i is the first Canon DSLR to feature full-time AF in video mode.  The past Canon DSLRs have featured the ability to force an AF confirmation using a slow and clunky contrast-detect method, which was simply unusable during video capture.  Another AF confirmation option has been to use the cameras’ phase detection sensors; however, this caused a blackout during live view thanks to the mirror flipping down in front of the image sensor.

The folks over at Chipworks [via Image Sensors World] tore down a Rebel T4i to get a look at the image sensor and reveal phase detection sensors mixed among the pixels.  This is something that Canon has been cooking on for a while. (Note this patent application that I discussed back in 2010.)

Chipworks Cano Rebel 4i pixel-array-ir

And while we’ve seen this concept implemented in prior cameras (notably the Fuji F300EXR point and shoot camera and Nikon 1 Series), Canon has gone about it in a technically different way to make it effective for DSLRs. [Read more…]

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Delayed Until September

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Canon 24-70mm

Canon has been on a roll lately in the delay of lenses.  So it should come as no surprise that the highly anticipated Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens has been delayed until mid-September 2012.

The new 24-70mm f/2.8L lens was announced back in February (and was slated for availability in April 2012) alongside the Canon 24mm and 28mm prime lenses (both of which were slated for a June launch and are now readily available). This delay will put the refreshed 24-70mm lens availability at 7+ months after announcement (assuming Canon doesn’t delay it again).

[via Rob Galbraith]

5 Killer Canon Lenses for Video

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SMAPP put together the above video that highlights 5 Canon lenses that are great for shooting video on Canon HDSLRs.  While I haven’t used all of these, I found their insight to be particularly compelling for uses of the 14mm and 135mm.  And, while I use the 24-105mm regularly, I hadn’t considered the 135mm + 1.4x extender as an alternative to the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens in my kit.

The full list of “killer” lenses is as follows.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM

Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM

Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM

Canon 1.4x EF Extender III

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM

[via FStoppers]

New Nikon AF-S 800mm f/5.6 VR Lens Coming Soon?

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Nikon 600mm

Nikon Rumors picked up word that a new AF-S 800mm f/5.6 VR Lens should arrive in September around the time of Photokina 2012.  The longest current lens in Nikon’s line up is the 600mm f/4G ED VR AF lens.  Given that this lens is priced at $9800, I would expect to see the 800mm lens in the same $14k ballpark as Canon’s 800mm f/5.6L.