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Category Archives: Photography Gear
A Friendly DSLR – The Olympus E-3
The 10 mp touting E-3 is a friendly little critter.
Most of the shooting options rely on the front and rear dials to control. These control aperture and shutter speed – until you press a modifier button and then they control other shooting options. These are pretty easy to get to grips with without doing the non-blokey thing of actually reading the instructions!
Olympus is continuing to show the worth of the ‘Live-View’ system for those photographers who may not have been convinced by the compact-like ability to compose images on an LCD screen. But then, they would wouldn’t they as they were the pioneering force of this in the DSLR market………..
The E-3′s screen is the smallest manufacturers can get away nowadays at 2.5″ (64mm) but it can get all twisty-turny like that of a camcorder.
The LCD previews depth-of-field, exposure and image stabilisation settings so you know what you see is what you’re going to get.
You can get your sticky mits on the Olympus E-3 for under a grand right now (just the body). Slap a 14-54mm lens on it and add another £500.
Huge Canon Lens – 1200mm F5.6 USM
There is a shop that has a lens that makes the Sigma one that featured on this very site look positively weedy!
It is a Canon 1200mm, F5.6 USM lens. They’ve been around since 1993, but are made to order at the rate of about 2 a year – There is less than 20 out in the wild!
The world’s largest interchangeable SLR AF lens, in terms of both focal length and maximum aperture. Two large fluorite elements eliminate secondary spectrum, resulting in extremely sharp, high-quality images. With Extender EF 1.4x or 2x. a whopping focal length of 1700mm f/8 or 2400mm f/11 can be obtained respectively.
The price? Well run along and snap one up at $99,000 secondhand!
You got the cash (and the muscles) go here – B&H
Or buy new here – but have £70,000 ready but that does include vat.
GPS Tagging Jobo
Those of you that have been into this kinda thing for more than a year will probably recognise this thing.
It was shown off at last year’s PMA and it’s here again.
It’s designed to attach to your camera’s flash hot shoe and record the GPS information as you shoot. It will then shove all that info onto your images’ EXIF metadata (or XML file in the case of RAW images) when you sync it up – pic tagged, job done.
After a year of touting this thing they say that it is going to find its way into stores by the middle of this year.
It’s likely to be going for around the $160 mark.
Check it out at Jobo’s site
Sigma – World’s First! APO 200-500
Cor! Look at that!
Well, that was my reaction.
Say “hello big boy” to Sigma’s new APO 200-500 f2.8 ultra telephoto zoom lens.
Weighing in at 16kg (35-pounds), it’s the world’s first to offer a F2.8 aperture at 500mm focal length.
Four SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glass elements provide excellent correction for all types of aberrations and produce a high level of optical performance throughout the entire zoom range.
It has a dedicated F5.6 attachment that ensures autofocusing at 1000mm while an internal Li-ion battery powers the zooming and AF mechanics.
It will snap on to Sigma and Nikon mounts in June or lucky Canon’s get it in April for ¥2,500,000 or nearly $25,000.
Check out Sigma’s Site
A300 and A350 – Sony’s Latest Snappers
Here’s a couple of new offerings from Sony – the A300 and A350.
The A350 boasts 14.2MP and is able to blast away at 2.5fps in continuous shooting. The A300 can notch up 3fps.
The DSLR-A300 kit with a DT 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 standard zoom lens will ship in April for about $800. The DSLR-A350 camera body will be available in March for about $800, and the DSLR-A350 kit with a DT 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 3.9x zoom lens will be available for about $900 at the same time.
They both offer Sony’s new “Quick AF Live View” technology allowing you to frame photos on the camera’s LCD without sacrificing auto-focusing speed common to other live-view systems.
Sony’s ‘Pentamirror Tilt’ mechanism directs light to a dedicated live view image sensor, enabling fast and responsive TTL phase-detection auto-focusing, even during live view. I’m guessing you guys understand all of that yeah?
With Live View and an adjustable LCD, the cameras don’t need to be in front of your mug. This will allow proud parents to maintain eye-contact when snapping their offspring or for paps to keep an out for security ;0,
These new models are promising tip-top imaging and crediting it to their APS-C CCD image sensors and ‘BIONZ’ processing engine.
To aid shooting in low light, ‘Super SteadyShot’ image stabilization enables shutter speeds 2.5 to 3.5 steps slower than otherwise possible when a compatible Minolta Maxxum or Sony α lens is attached to the camera.
High sensitivity operation at ISO 1600 and 3200 and very low noise are made possible by the user-selectable high-ISO noise reduction features.
Features:
- Lighter, slimmer bodies for easy handling
- Improved user interface
- Automatic pop-up flash
- Anti-dust system to keep the CCD image sensor clean for spot-free pictures
- JPEG and RAW file format support
Both have a slot for CompactFlash™ Type I/II media cards. You can use an adapter to utilise Memory Stick Duos.
Both models will be available at sonystyle.com, Sony Style Stores, Pre-orders begin online today at the Sony Style site.
For more details on the UK site hit: Sony
Pentax K200D – Sub £600 Shooter
If you’re in the market for a DSLR and want to avoid spending silly money why not check out the K200D?
It’s pencilled in to arrive here in Blighty around March-time and will be priced at around 580 notes complete with a 18-55 mm zoom lens.
It’s hub is a 10.2 megapixel CCD, 2.7 inch wide-angle view monitor with 230,000 dot resolution and a 160° viewing angle and the company’s KAF mount.
An ‘Opto-magnetic Shake Reduction’ (SR) system combats camera shake while the camera also boasts an integrated Dust Removal System (DR), and dust alerts, which is a new feature that lens monkies didn’t get with the Pentax K100D Super.
The Autofocus system uses 11 points with 9 cross-sensors, while the sensitivity range is ISO 100–1600.
Shooting tools include a range of picture modes, 8 digital filters, adjustable focus, contrast, white balance and saturation as well as 22 individual custom functions to keep you happy.
The K200D takes SD and SDHC memory cards.
Pentax have tried to keep it small and neat as it measures 133.5(W) x 95(H) x 74(D)mm and weighs a portable 630g (without its battery, memory card, boots or jacket).
Here’s Pentax’s Blurb
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