SLR

Faithful to its age-old fame, Carl Zeiss shows us a new wide-angle lens aiming at the high-end of the market, at least because of the “widigantic” aperture of f/1.4.

Available in Canon and Nikon mounts at 1385€, from the first quarter of 2011.

At Olympus, the pressure is on micro 4/3 in this second half of 2010. Here come two tele-zooms and some photo cameras.

There was a dire need of a respectable tele-zoom in the Olympus lens range. This is now corrected with nothing less than a 75-300 mm f/4,8-6,7 (equivalent to a 150-600mm). If this was a bit too much for your taste, they also brought a nice 40-150 mm open at f/4,0-5,6 (much more reasonable).

The 75-300mm comes in cloth of black and silver according to your taste, at the price of €899.00/$899.99. Available in December 2010.

The 40-150mm will sell for €329.00/$299.99 as early as October 2010.

Furthermore, you will be able to shoot pictures with an Olympus E-P2 Special Black EVF Edition for €1079.00, and an Olympus E-P2 Special Black Flash Edition at €1049.00/$999.99, from October.

Yes! Adobe loves Sony.

The final releases of DNG Converter 6.2, Adobe Camera Raw 6.2 and Lightroom 3.2 includes RAW file conversion for the Sony Alpha 33, Alpha 55, Alpha 290, Alpha 390, NEX-5 and NEX-3. Those were included in the Release Candidate versions, but they become official/final now.

Of course, other cameras are also taken into account like the all new Canon EOS 60D, the Samsung NX10, the Panasonic Lumix LX5 and the Pentax 645D.

But Sony love is still very visible here.

Download the new Adobe files (updates).

In the “randomly weird” category, here is a bit of information which I would not dare classify as critically interesting.

According to OkCupid (a dating web site willing to be described as more “intelligent” than others), you can draw your own challenging conclusions by cross-checking available data from users profiles. For example, since he users can rate the photos they see, it is possible to link these ratings (and later dates) to the EXIF data present inside the picture files.

More attractive with a 4/3 Panasonic

The SLR cameras (in blue) are improving your dating prospects, especially if they are Panasonic 4/3 cameras. A mobile phone (in red) will nearly get you dumped on the spot, if it is manufactured by Motorola.

From this, if the photo pleased the onlooker, it is easy to understand that this quickly led to “something more”… But with a title containing the word sex, and so bold an conclusion, it was impossible to risk publishing this news on April Fools day. It had to be more urgent than that.

I is often quite difficult to find the user manual of a good SLR camera like the Canon EOS 550D (aka Canon T2i or Kiss X4). This is the reason why I decided to share with you the result of my searches. You will become able to evaluate correctly the features of the this nice SLR camera, the Canon EOS 550D.

• Canon EOS 550D PDF User Manual (Canon Europe)
• Books about the Canon EOS 550D (Amazon.com)
• Canon EOS 550D PDF User Manual (local download)
• Mode d’emploi du Canon EOS 550D (PDF de Canon Europe)

You can download them freely.

The most recent SLR photo cameras from Sony, the Sony Alpha 33 and Sony Alpha 55 are presenting a striking feature: a semi-transparent mirror replacing the usual reflex mirror that we knew up to now. This looks very nice in the press releases, what does that mean and why use such a technology?

Cross-section view of SLR system:
1 – Front-mount lens (4-element Tessar design)
2 – Reflex mirror at 45-degree angle
3 – Focal plane shutter
4 – Film or sensor
5 – Focusing screen or glass
6 – Condenser lens
7 – Optical glass pentaprism (or pentamirror)
8 – Eyepiece

Origin: Wikipedia

The traditional SLR camera

Let’s start with the organization of the most common Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera, as we generally know it. On the cross-section view here, we can see the light trajectory (in yellow) when the mirror is in lower position to direct light (and the image) toward the viewfinder. At exposure time (when you press the shutter release button), the mirror moves up to let the light go straight to the sensor.

Very efficient, this configuration still has some drawbacks which have long been considered minor, but still very real.

First, during exposure, the viewfinder is totally black. It’s not very long, but the inconvenience is very observable by the user.

The mechanical design needed to move the mirror up and down is complex, fragile, but must operate very quickly to maintain a fast shooting cadence. On pro photo cameras, these mechanisms become complex and expensive to reach high frame rates. The technology progresses fast, but this is only in the most recent years that camera manufacturers have been able to provide more than 3 frames per second on standard cameras. Some pro SLRs (like the Nikon D3, for example) reach 8 fps (but the price falls in the financial investment category!)

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Canon EOS 60D

This month of August 2010 is definitely rich in news of importance for the expert photographer. After Nikon and Sony, Canon is ready to present its new offering. Where Sony had 4 new DSLR cameras, Canon has one new Canon EOS 60D and 4 high-quality new lenses.

Canon EOS 60D

This is a very coveted market segment where Canon places its new Digital SLR photo camera, the EOS 60D. It comes right after the Canon EOS 50D and brings a nice set of improvements that will be welcomed by all Canon lovers.

More pixels (as usual) with an 18 mega-pixel APS-C CMOS sensor (borrowed to the Rebel T2i or EOS 550D), continuous shooting at 5.3 frames/s, a sensitivity range of ISO 100-6400 (extendable to ISO 12800) and the Canon EOS 7D metering system. These are systematic improvements to the existing EOS 50D. Canon is used to small increments in this camera range, but they decided to be more consistent than usual.

On the other side, to avoid direct competition with the EOS 7D, the new EOS 60D is actually a smaller, lighter body than the 50D, and it sports a new articulated tilt-and-swivel LCD screen.

In the same direction, we can no longer be surprised to see than the EOS 60D uses SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards.

Canon EOS 60D

Main features:

• 18 MP CMOS sensor (APS-C)
• Digic 4
• Sensitivity: 100-6400 ISO (Hi: 12800 ISO)
• Exposure Metering: iFCL system (already used in the EOS 7D)
• Continuous shooting: 5.3 frames/s
• Viewfinder: 98% with 0,95x (interchangeable focusing glass)
• Full HD Video mode (from 1080p @ 30 fps) with manual control
• 9-point AF system (new system all Cross-type Sensors, all f/5.6 except for f/2.8 center)
• Improved Autofocus for Video capture and supporting LiveView mode
• LiveView mode
• In-camera RAW image processing: brightness, contrast, white balance or correct distortion or chromatic aberration
• Tilt-and-swivel 3″ LCD screen (1040k pixels)
• Integrated flash GN13 (able to control distant flashes)
• SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card slot
• 800g

This is nice to see Canon able to reposition the elements of its DSLR camera offering after the introduction of the EOS 7D which was temporarily reducing the readability of the whole range. Now, the EOS x0D (with 60D now) is clearly positioned between the 550D and the 7D. And it is a damn-good camera, too.

New lenses

EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM

“Lightweight, compact and versatile”, this is a good description of a zoom lens that is covering an important product range.

A little more than 1000g and a price that should be accessible (let’s see when Canon gives a precise figure).

EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM

Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM

Simultaneously a zoom lens and a fisheye! And it is opening at f/4!

This lens will probably be expensive (the L marking and the red ring is a sure sign), but there is not much competition here.

EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS II USM

Even more expensive, here comes a prime lenses that needed a little refreshing:

EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS II USM

Many a wildlife photographer will be interested by what is often considered as the last reasonable prime lens (wide opening and long focal length). AF speed and price will be a deciding factor (we have to already assume exceptionally good optics, in part due to the 2000 g of glass and metal).

EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM

You still have money and pro needs, here comes the heavy-weight:

EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM

I would even be frightened to ask for the price. The quality will probably be superlative and the weight is not for everybody: 3850 g.

That’s not all!

If you still don’t have enough (I know that the YLovePhoto readers are exceptionally demanding, but I hoped you would already be satisfied…), Canon has other ideas to appeal to you. They announced new focal extenders (EF 1.4x III & EF 2x III).

And they have been showing the first pictures of what will be the new 500mm and 600mm pro L tele-lenses (500mm F/4L IS II USM & 600mm F/4L IS II USM).

Did you notice? Canon will soon have fully renewed its range of white tele-lenses with the same high-level quality of optics, improved AF, and improved image stabilization. It’s time to go and attack a bank (your account will certainly not be enough).

An enormous overhaul of the Canon offering for pro and expert photographers.

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It seems a clear possibility now, seeing the number of comments about it. The replacement of the Nikon D90 that is expected to be announced by Nikon in a few days, before the Photokina fair in Köln, Germany, could be named Nikon D7000 (instead of the previously expected Nikon D95).

We’ll see…

Sony: Alpha & NEX

When they presented the new Sony Alpha 560 and Sony Alpha 580, yesterday, Sony published a family photo for the two Alpha and NEX ranges. Nobody is missing.

But two products are obviously absent:

• The Sony Alpha 700 has been removed completely from the photo.
• There no longer is any 500mm f/8 mirror tele-lens (which was from the Minolta portfolio of AF lenses).

I would predict that this is disclosing what comes next…

Can you find some more absent friends?

Sony’s DSLR A560 Breaks New Ground with Full HD Movie Capture, 3D Sweep Panorama and more…

Canon APS-H 120MP sensor

In a rather unusual move, Canon has announced a surprising sensor the developed: a 120 Mega-pixel APS-H sensor.

APS-H is the size of the photo sensors used in the EOS 1D series (clearly Pro cameras). And this big sensor has a huge amount of pixels (nearly 7.5 times larger than the company’s highest pixel count commercially available sensor), and is able to do HD video capture on 1/6th of its surface or 9.5 fps continuous shooting.

There is no immediate commercial application to expect from this technology demonstrator, but this is an impressive achievement.

Nota bene: The latest Canon demonstrator of this kind had 50 MP in 2007.

This is 10 frame/s continuous shooting.

After some exciting growth of the rumors, finally, we’ve got the real information about the new Sony DSLR cameras:

• Sony Alpha 33
• Sony Alpha 55
• Sony Alpha 560
• Sony Alpha 580

Semi-transparent !

Features and specific comments

The feature set is quite impressive for cameras supposed to be low-end and mid-range only. Some of the competition is going to feel the heat.

Sony Alpha 33

As expected, this is a Pellix camera (a semi-transparent mirror provides fast AF while in LiveView or in video capture mode). It climbs up to 10 frame/s continuous shooting and is 1080i HD video-capable.

The sensor is the 14MP APS-C CMOS sensor that we have been seeing a lot around here in the recent weeks.

Sony Alpha 55

Same as Sony Alpha 33, but with a larger (16MP) CMOS sensor.

Impressive enough to immediately receive a “Gold Award” from DPreview.

The A55v version (for USA only, apparently) will include a GPS for geo-tagging of photos and videos.

Sony Alpha 560

The A560 is definitely bringing 1080i HD video to the Sony SLR line; From a 14.2 MP CMOS photo sensor.

Specific to the Alpha 560: It will not be available before early 2011.

No GPS, contrary to rumours.

Sony Alpha 580

Same as Sony Alpha 560, but with a larger (16MP) CMOS sensor.

Nearly immediately available.

Pre-orders

B & H

• Sony Alpha 33
• Sony Alpha 55
• Sony Alpha 560
• Sony Alpha 580