Canon announces three new RF lenses for the EOS R system
Canon has announced three new lenses for the EOS R system, a high-speed RF 24-105mm F2.8L IS USM Z priced at £3,440 inc VAT, aimed at sports photographers and hybrid operators, an RF 200-800mm F6.3-9 IS USM targeting sports and birders which is not unreasonably priced at £2,299 inc VAT and an RF-S 10-18mm (16-35mm equiv.) F4.5-6.3 IS STM designed for APS-C EOS R cameras at £379, inc VAT. Particularly interesting, to me at least, is the high-speed RF 24-105mm F2.8L IS USM Z, a lens that was once expected with an EF mount but was never put into serial production. It makes much more sense as an RF model.…
Leica updates Summicron-M 28mm F2 ASPH with close focus feature
Leica has continued to add the close-focus feature to the venerable Summicron-M 28mm F2 ASPH, first seen with on the rather incredible (and hard to find) Summicron-M 35mm F2.0 APO. The new lens focuses to 0.4m instead of 0.7m, which is a huge plus when including people in the shot. The close focus feature can only be verified on-screen on a Leica M, with a visoflex (EVF) or the Leica app. It’s also a benefit on the Leica SLs, which seems obvious but is often overlooked. My thoughts are Leica is preparing us for a Leica M with a built-in electronic viewfinder, which will most likely be offered as…
Leica announces the M11-P with new editing protection feature
Leica has announced the long-expected mid-cycle ‘P’ (Professional) update to the popular Leica M11, the Leica M11-P. As expected, the new model features the Leica inscription on the top plate and shares the M11 Monochrom’s increase to 256GB internal memory, up from 64GB on the original M11. In an unexpected move, however, Leica has added a copyright protection feature, ‘Leica Content Credentials,’ not previously seen on a regular production camera. By adopting specialised hardware in the new camera, the Leica M11-P can encrypt the image metadata at the time of capture to provide “reliable provenance” that the image hasn’t been altered during post-processing. This new LCC feature allows photographers and…
Fujifilm Fujinon GF20-35mm F4 R WR lens review
Fujifiilm’s lens division Fujinon has introduced an ultrawide-angle zoom for its medium format GFX mirrorless cameras. Kevin Carter looks closer Fujifilm’s GFX medium format cameras offer the compactness of mirrorless with the benefit of a generous 44x33mm sensor, so thumping great big lenses for full-frame 54x40mm 645 DSLRs is becoming less of a thing. Indeed, as Fujinon used to supply the components for Hasselblad’s now discontinued HC/HCD models for the H series cameras (which were then assembled in Sweden according to my contact at Hasselblad), it’s little surprise that they’re not only filling that void but expanding what’s on offer with their brand of lenses. These GF lenses don’t…
OWC add faster Gen 4 spec to certain Atlas CFexpress Type B cards
Further to the report a couple of weeks ago about ProGrade Digital’s introduction of a new 1.3TB CFexpress Gen 4 spec Type B memory card, US-maker OWC announced late last week that they’ve added the same CFA 4.0 (Gen 4) spec to a range of their Atlas Pro and Atlas Ultra cards. The new Atlas Pro 256GB, Atlas Pro 512GB, Atlas Ultra 1TB, and Atlas Ultra 2TB cards now feature PCIe Gen 4 technology to enable (maximum) 3650MB/s read and 3000MB/s write speeds, a claimed 97% increase from the previous generation cards. With the new Gen 4 Atlas Pro 256GB selling at $169.99 and Atlas Pro 512GB at $199.99 they’re…
Canon reveals new ultra-wide zoom: the RF 10-20mm F4L IS STM
Canon today announced the RF 10-20mm F4L IS STM, their intended replacement of the EF 11-24mm F4L USM and the third L-series RF lens that covers the UWA 14-20mm range. What sets this lens apart from its EF predecessor is its small size (112mm vs 132mm in length) and lighter weight (570g vs 1180g). Besides the inherent portability, the new RF lens has IS and features ‘peripheral coordination control’ when used with supported cameras. Currently, this is limited to the EOS R5, however, when used handheld at slow speeds it’s claimed the algorithm-based ‘peripheral coordination control’ mitigates areas of blur (image deformation) in the periphery. I’m assuming here that the…
Fujifilm details support for CFexpress, SD and SSD media with GFX100 II
Fujifilm has published a list of recording media which is compatible with the new GFX100 II (and X-H2) and it’s an extensive resource. It can be found on their website. Unsurprisingly, it correlates with other camera marques’ recommendations for CFexpress cards and SDXC cards with a high minimum sustained write speed, for cameras like the Nikon Z8/9 and Canon EOS R5. You can read more about my thoughts on the matter, here.
Nikon Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena lens announced
Nikon has announced the Nikkor Z 135mm F1.8 S Plena lens, which is said to be optimised for out-of-focus highlights, after teasing the new model on YouTube. The Plena lens adopts 16 elements in 14 groups and includes one element using a relatively new type of glass from Nikon called an SR (Short-wavelength Refractive) element: “Nikon’s original SR (Short-wavelength Refractive) lens is a high- and specialized-dispersion glass lens featuring characteristics to greatly refract light with wavelengths shorter than that of blue. By controlling short-wavelength light that is difficult to compensate, light of various specific wavelengths can be more effectively collected achieving highly precise chromatic aberration compensation. Because this lens can…
Nikon Plena lens to appeal to cinematographers
Some features are leaking on the internet about the previously mentioned Nikon Plena and the lens apparently is now said not to include Nikon’s defocus image control. Even if the lens doesn’t feature ‘DC’, the Plena’s optical design mitigates polishing rings (aka ‘onion rings’). There’s also a lack of vignetting that typically results in truncated blur disks or “cat’s eyes.” Some effort has also gone into mitigating slight overcorrection of SA usually seen as bright rings at the edges of the blur disks, which is usually achieved via an apodization element, however, the bright rings remain in some of the darker disks. All of the above indicates to me that…
Nikon Plena lens teaser debuts on YouTube
UPDATE: Nikon has announced the Plena lens. Nikon has published a video teaser for a new lens called Plena, which is due to be announced on Wednesday, 27th September. While not much is known about it at this time, the yellow-coloured font is similar to that used by Nikon with the Nikkor Z 58mm F0.95 S Noct and a nod to the Zeiss cine primes. The new Plena lens therefore is almost certainly aimed at the cinematography/filmmaking crowd and targeting the rental houses. While it could feature AF, if it is a cinema lens it is likely manual focus only and expensive (upwards of £3.5K more likely above £5k). Judging…
