Tabla de contenidos para January - February 2020 en Camera

Recently I was back at Leitz Park in Germany for a pre-launch preview of the new SL2 (about which you can read much more elsewhere in this issue). Leitz Park is on the outskirts of Wetzlar – the historic town where the original company was founded back in 1914 – and occupies part of what was once a tank training ground. The €165 million complex includes Leica Camera AG’s main factory, a boutique hotel, a cafeteria, the Leitz Cine lens-making operation, Ernst Leitz Werkstätten which makes bespoke watches, and a special building which houses a number of gallery spaces, Leica Akademie’s HQ, a museum, a studio, a shop (lock up your credit card) and the company’s archives. On my previous visits to Leitz Park, I’ve always stayed outside the complex,…

Standardisation has always been an elusive goal in the camera industry and, with the continued advances in technology, it now seems all but impossible. Take lens mounts, for example. There have been some noble attempts to get everybody sing ing from the same song sheet. Back in the days when all that was required was to attach the lens to the camera body, screwthread fittings did the job. The original 39 mm screwthread mount – often called the Leica Thread Mount – was widely used on early 35mm Leicas and the many copies, particularly from the USSR. The 42 mm screwthread mount was introduced in 1947 by Zeiss on the Contax S and, logically, became Praktica’s fitting after eastern Germany was annexed. It was ambitiously called the Universal Mount and…

FANS OF FUJIFILM’S hybrid viewfinder X-Pro series of RF-style cameras will be pleased to know that the line is continuing with a third-generation model. The X-Pro3 inherits the same ‘X-Trans CMOS 4’ sensor as is used in the X-T3. It uses a backside-illuminated (BSI) design which frees up some space on the front to pack in a few more pixels, enabling an effective resolution to 26.1 million, optimised by the absence of an optical low-pass filter. The sensitivity range is equivalent to ISO 160-12,800, with extensions either side to ISO 80 and 100, or ISO 25,600 and 51,200. The X-Pro3 also has Fujifilm’s latest-gen processor, the ‘X Processor 4’ which employs a total of four CPUs to enable continuous shooting at 11 fps with the focal plane shutter and 20…

s the sponsor A of all manner of high-powered and extreme sports, it’s not surprising that drinks company Red Bull is behind the world’s biggest action and adventure photography competition. The Red Bull Illume Image Quest 2019 is the fifth time the competition has been run which, previously, was every three years. From now on, the Image Quest will be staged every two years. The 2019 competition attracted a record 59,551 images which would have given the judging panel plenty to do. “I was ready to bail when all of a sudden the fog dropped just a tiny bit down into the valley and showed us what was actually going on around us.”Kamil SustiakBest Sports Mountain Image Eventually, it was whittled down to 11 category winners from which the overall…

Let’s kick off with a little lesson about sensor resolution and pixel size. It’s pretty simple really; at any given sensor size, if you keep adding pixels they’re going to be smaller, right? When a photodiode converts photons into electrons, it creates both signal and noise (a.k.a. interference) which is measured by the signal-to-noise ratio. The noise is a constant value irrespective of the photodiode’s size and, having a smaller surface area, smaller photodiodes deliver a smaller signal charge. Consequently, the signal-to-noise ratio is lower and, as a result, the noise reduction processing will have to work harder. NR processing compromises sharpness… so you can see where we’re going with this. It’s feasible – theoretically, at least – that a sensor with a higher pixel count could deliver less image…

Back in 1934, photography as a popular past-time was still in its infancy. There was virtually no Japanese camera industry, 35mm was a relatively new format for stills, and the compact single-lens-reflex design was just starting to appear, but wouldn’t become widely available until after the Second World War. More generally, much of Europe was in the grip of political or economic upheavals, while over here the ‘White Australia’ immigration policy was still in place. In that same year Clement Robertson Kennedy, the descendant of Scottish immigrants from the early 1870s, established a small company in Melbourne to import and distribute optical products and firearms, initially mostly from Germany. Eighty-five years later C.R. Kennedy & Company is Australia’s biggest – and most successful – independent distributor of photography equipment, and…

IT WOULDN’T BE a Camera news section these days without a Leica limited edition, would it? This time it’s one for fans of the CL ‘APS-C’ format mirror-less camera and it’s been worked on by the famous British fashion designer, Paul Smith, who is best known for his use of bold colours in stripes. So the Leica CL ‘Edition Paul Smith’ gets a bright blue top plate with a band of coloured stripes around the base. Nice. You also get a pretty nifty multicoloured ‘Neon Rope’ strap. Leica is making just 900 examples of the Paul Smith CL which is packaged with Elmarit-TL 18mm f2.8 ASPH lens (which is equivalent to 27mm). This being a limited edition, of course there’s a special presentation box – created especially for the set…

BOTH A STYLING makeover and a significant performance upgrade have gone into Leica’s second-generation full-35mm L mount mirror-less camera. The SL2 looks a whole lot softer than its overtly ‘Germanic’ predecessor and, consequently, seems smaller although the two cameras are roughly the same size. The new model is, however, lighter (by nearly 100 grams) and has significantly improved ergonomics based around a reshaped handgrip and a new GUI. The top and bottom covers are machined aluminium components (rather than diecast) for added strength, covering a magnesium alloy chassis and with upgraded weather sealing (now up to IP54 standard). The material inserts are genuine leather… well, it is a Leica. The SL2 is built in Germany at Leica’s Wetzlar camera factory which also makes the Q, S, M, TL and CL…

USING THE SAME Z mount as the full-35mm Z and Z 7 bodies, Nikon’s new ‘APS-C’ mirrorless camera system kicks off with the Z 50 body and two zooms. The Z 50 will, of course, accept all Nikon’s ‘DX’ format D-SLR lenses via the existing FTZ mount adaptor. The arrival of the Nikon ‘APS-C’ mirrorless system provides some extra competition for Canon, Fujifilm, Leica and Sony which are all active in this category. Similar in styling to its full-35mm cousins but both smaller and lighter, the Z 50 – yes, the space between prefix and model number is retained – has a weather-sealed magnesium alloy bodyshell with a tilt-adjustable 8.1 cm LCD monitor screen, an OLED-type EVF and a built-in flash. The monitor has a resolution of 1.04 megadots –…

THE WORLD’S LEADING awards for food photography and film are back for 2020. The Pink Lady Food Photographer Of The Year attracted more entries than ever this year and from no fewer than 77 countries. The Pink Lady Food Photographer Of The Year competition’s categories seek to find stunning shots of cooking, harvesting, farming, eating and celebrating food in its every setting from cultures across the world. The 2020 global judging panel – again chaired by legendary food photographer David Loftus – includes new names such as Chris Dee who is the Food and Home Director for Harrods; Tori Katherman, the Director Of Photography at Food&Wine; NYC; Anthea Loucas Bosha, CEO of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival; and Joshua Lustig, Deputy Picture Editor at the Financial Times Weekend Magazine.…

There is no better example of form follows function in the camera world than Leica’s M3. Nothing is superfluous on that camera and it is all purely about the function, but consequently, the form is absolutely right as well. Tellingly, the basic configuration is still in use today, having survived all manner of upheavals over the last 65 years, including, miraculously, the transition from film to digital. Leica did it again a few years ago with the T – now evolved into the TL2 – which exploits 21st century technologies to achieve the same end. The Leica traditionalists may not approve, but no other camera exploits the benefits of the touch screen more effectively or avoids the compromise of mixing it with buttons. Consequently, the Leica Ts are refreshingly minimalist,…

The Picture If there is one location in New Zealand that can offer dramatic seascape photography, it is surely Curio Bay on the relatively isolated Catlins Coast of the far south-east corner of the South Island. Several high vantage points are easy to access; in fact only a few minutes’ walk from the basic camping area. This wonderful spot has provided many memorable seascapes. The Photographer Long-term contributor Trevern Dawes has been involved since the first issue of Camera which was published, 40 years ago, in June 1979 (then titled Camera Craft). An avid landscape photographer (and also our digital printing guru), Trevern still travels extensively through Australia and New Zealand, taking pictures for magazines, books and his many own imaging projects. The Equipment A Canon EOS 400D ‘APS-C’ D-SLR…

SENSOR: Sigma returns to a conventional Bayer-pattern CMOS for its first L Mount camera (so, no Foveon imager). Imaging area is 23.1x35.9 mm and the total pixel count is 25.3 million, yielding an effective count of 24.6 million. Backside-illuminated (BSI) design with no optical low-pass filter in order to optimise the resolution. PROCESSOR: No details available. CAPTURE SETTINGS: Maximum image size is 6000x4000 pixels with RAW files captured in the Adobe DNG format with the choice of 12- or 14-bit RGB colour and lossless compression. RAWs can also be captured at a smaller size of 3008x2000 pixels. JPEGs captured at one of three image sizes in a choice of aspect ratios – 3:2, 4:3, 16:9, 21:9, √2:1, 7:6 and 1:1. RAW+JPEG capture. Continuous shooting at up to 18 fps (although…

Canon Australia has introduced a five-year warranty to back its mirrorless cameras, D-SLRs, video cameras and lens ranges. Canon says the new extended warranty demonstrates confidence in the quality of its products and cites a recent survey which found that 87 percent of Australian respondents believed a longer manufacturer warranty indicated a higher product quality. Eighty-seven percent also agreed that a longer manufacturer warranty provided certainty that what they buy represents good value.…

OLYMPUS IS AGAIN emphasising the size advantages of its OM-D Micro Four Thirds mirror-less camera system with the launch of the third-generation E-M5 mid-range model. The E-M5 Mark III also channels the original OM-1 35mm SLR with its styling, particularly in the more accentuated “delta shape” of the EVF’s housing, but also in a reduction of its overall body size. The result is arguably the prettiest looking mirror-less camera currently on the market. Despite being smaller than its predecessor, the E-M5 III is also more capable, inheriting many features of the higher-end E-M1 II, including the 20.4 megapixels (effective) ‘Live MOS’ sensor, faster ‘TruePic VIII’ processor and hybrid 121-points autofocusing with on-sensor phase-detection AF pixels which uses all cross-type arrays. Olympus says the AF has a revised control algorithm with…

Some people just love horses. It’s in their blood, part of their DNA. Photographer Nicole Emanuel is one of those people. Since her youngest years she’s been drawn to these majestic animals, first sketching and later photographing them. Today she is one of Australia’s most accomplished equestrian photographers, her deep love of horses, and animals in general, fuelling her passion. Growing up in Tumut in regional NSW, at the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, Nicole had plenty of opportunities to get up close and personal with her equine mates. As a young girl, she would draw horses… not the wobbly, child-like pictures you might imagine, but highly advanced illustrations that could pass for photographs. It wasn’t until Year 10 that she discovered the magic of photography. “When I went into…

If you visit Melbourne-based photographer Ewen Bell’s Website (the address is at the end of this article), you’ll find it’s a very busy place indeed. There’s travel photography, bird photography, a bunch of photo essays, pictures from recent shoots, articles about many varied aspects of photography, information about his bespoke photo tours and workshops, and details about a new book titled ReIMAGINE. It doesn’t take long to get the impression that Ewen is somebody who lives and breathes photography, and isn’t really happy unless he’s behind a camera. His slogan is, ‘It’s never just black and white’, and he says his guiding principle is, ‘Go slow. Get closer. Look for the light’. Not just sound advice for travel photography, but for approaching photography in general. Given the huge amount of…

DIGITAL SLR CAMERAS BUYER’S CHECK LIST JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 THIS CHECKLIST is designed to allow direct comparisons between different camera models, here listed in price order within each brand. The published prices are mostly supplied the distributors as recommended retail prices (RRPs). However, some distributors are no longer supplying RRPs the media so it has become necessary to determine an ‘estimated street price’ derived from the range of prices for a model published by retailers. Where this has been necessary, the letter ‘E’ appears at the start of the entry. A dot appearing in a column indicates that the feature is available on the camera model listed. Where a specification or product detail hasn’t yet been published or confirmed, the letters TBA (to be announced) or TBC (to be confirmed) are…