Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
Like Canon, Carl Zeiss has been teasing us for a couple of weeks with the presence of a mysterious ZE lens line on its website. Today, Carl Zeiss has unveiled the first two lenses of the ZE line, which are made for the Canon EF mount, with the promise of many more to come. [Read more…]
The Lensbaby 2.0 and 3G are selective focus SLR lenses, which have a flexible “lens barrel” to give you that smooth out of focus effect in portions of your images. Basically, you bend, push and pull the lens to move the “Sweet Spot” where you want it and blur the remaining areas of the image. [Read more…]
DPS and BorrowLenses.com have teamed up to run a contest. The prize is a two-week rental of a DSLR lens — any lens that BorrowLenses.com offers, with the exception of super telephoto lenses.
The contest is open to anyone living in the U.S. (BorrowLenses.com only ships to U.S. addresses and only offers in-person pickups in San Mateo and San Jose, California). All you have to do to enter is post a comment [Ed. on DPS’ website – link] with the lens you want to rent. A list of lenses is available on the BorrowLenses.com website and the selection seems pretty decent. The winner will need to provide BorrowLenses.com with a credit card number, ‘just in case.’
You can enter on DPS’ post announcing the contest.
If you have an iPhone 3G and aren’t satisfied with its photography abilities, there’s now something of a solution on the market. Brando, primarily a company catering to mobile needs, is selling a zoom lens for the iPhone. They’re calling it a phone telescope, saying that it’s capable of 6x zoom, although more precise specifications don’t seem to be available.Brando’s selling the lenses for $19.00. It’s approximately six inches long and is mounted to a crystal case that your iPhone slides into. Despite Brando’s name for the device, it does not appar to telescope.
Despite the fact that other cell phones have the same camera quandries as the iPhone, I don’t think we’ll be seeing lenses for other phones.
The Sony A900 has been officially unveiled. See Photography Bay’s Sony A900 Announcement and Sony A900 Reviews and Resources for more info.
We all know that Sony’s flagship, the A900, will be announced at or around Photokina in August. Other than the announcement time frame, info has been hard to come by. Sony has been short on further details about the A900 since it announced the 24 megapixel sensor at PMA in January of this year. A big question that photographers seem to have surrounding the announcement of new, cutting edge cameras relates to their actual release date. Sometimes it can take quite a while for the camera to actually hit store shelves, which can be quite frustrating.
With that in mind, I recently received some info from a source, who wishes to remain anonymous, regarding the availability of the upcoming A900 and new Zeiss lenses.
First, the A900 will be available for purchase around the end of September or first of October.
In addition to the A900, we can expect at least 2 new Zeiss lenses:
Many Sony Alpha users have been begging for more high quality primes, so the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 should fit the bill just fine. Additionally, it’s nice to see the 16-35mm zoom in Zeiss glass for those wide angles on the new full frame 24 MP sensor. At 24 megapixels, the A900 is going to need some high quality glass to make full use of all those pixels.
Finally, the price should be very competitive compared to the other DSLRs in the range of the A900. This adds a little more credibility to the previous rumors regarding the A900’s sub-$2000 price point.
For more on the Sony A900 flagship DSLR, stay tuned to Photography Bay’s Sony A900 page.
In the above image found on dc.watch.impress.co.jp, the EXIF info in the left panel indicates that the lens used was a Nikon AF-S 50-150mm f/2.8 G lens. That’s all well and good, except there’s no lens with that focal length in Nikon’s current line up.
While I can’t make out all the text, I’m pretty confident on the assessment that this is a Nikon lens, given “G” moniker follow the f/-stop. Although Sigma has a 50-150mm lens, it has a DC moniker, which indicates that it is for cropped-sensor DSLRs only.
The inclusion of a 50-150mm lens in Nikon’s line signals their commitment to the DX sensor format and the alternative to the popular 70-200mm full frame focal length.
Perhaps we’ll see this lens at Nikon’s Photokina 2008 showing. For now, this will remain a rumor.
UPDATE: Apparently, the Sigma lens appears as a “G” lens Nikon’s software EXIF data. Why? I don’t know. But I suppose that a Sigma lens was used for this Nikon ad. [via]
Sigma has announced a new large aperture 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM standard lens for Sigma, Canon, Nikon, Pentax* and Sony* mount cameras.
The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens is an easy-to-use standard zoom lens that can cover a large zoom area ranging from 24mm wide-angle to 105mm portrait-length telephoto, and its Image Stabilizer Technology steadies camera shake up to three stops. Constructed with one Super-UD glass element and three aspherical lenses, this lens minimizes chromatic aberration and distortion. The result is excellent picture quality, even at wide apertures. Canon’s ring-type USM gives silent but quick AF, along with full-time manual focus. Moreover, with dust- and moisture-resistant construction, this is a durable yet sophisticated lens that meets the demands of advanced amateur photographers and professional photographers alike. (Canon) [Read more…]
TAMRON ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH OF SP AF70-200MM F/2.8 Di LD (IF) MACRO
A Lightweight, High-Performance and Fast Tele-Zoom Realizing 37.4” (0.95m) MFD Over The Entire Zoom Range
PMA, January 31, 2008, Las Vegas, NV— Mr. Morio Ono, President of Tamron Co., Ltd., has announced the launch of SP AF70-200mm F/2.8 Di LD (IF) MACRO, a lightweight, high-performance and fast tele-zoom lens designed for DSLR cameras with 35mm full-size image sensors. The Canon mount is scheduled for spring delivery. The shipment schedule for Nikon, Pentax and Sony will be announced at a later date.
The new SP AF70-200mm Di LD (IF) MACRO (Model A001) is an F/2.8 fast tele-zoom designed for DSLRs with 35mm full-size image sensors, inheriting product concept of the existing SP AF28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di (Model A09) that is highly acclaimed as a compact and fast standard zoom lens enabling photographers to enjoy high cost performance characteristics.
While dimensional increases are confined to the absolute minimum, the new SP AF70-200mm F/2.8 Di LD (IF) MACRO zoom lens offers the best-in-class MFD (minimum focusing distance) of 37.4” (0.95m) over the entire zoom range for the maximum macro magnification ratio of 1:3.1 at f=200mm focal length, for stress-free photography, combined with the advantage of an internal focusing (IF) system. [Read more…]
TAMRON DEVELOPS SP AF10-24MM F/3.5-4.5 DI II LD ASPHERICAL (IF) (MODEL AB001)
A New High Performance Zoom Lens Designed for Exclusive Use on Digital SLR Cameras Covering the Ultra Wide-Angle Range
PMA, January 31, 2008, Las Vegas, NV— Mr. Morio Ono, President of Tamron Co., Ltd., announced the development of the SP AF10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) (Model AB001), a new high performance ultra wide-angle zoom lens designed exclusively for digital SLR cameras with APS-C size imagers.
* “Di (Digitally-Integrated design)-II” lenses are designed for exclusive use on digital cameras with smaller-size imagers.
* This lens is not designed for use with 35mm film cameras and digital SLR cameras with image sensors larger than 24mm x 16mm.
The new SP AF10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) is an advanced ultra wide-angle zoom lens that is versatile and offers even higher performance and specifications than the current Tamron SP AF11-18mm F/4.5-5.6 zoom lens. [Read more…]
