Table of contents for November - December 2022 in Camera

INFOCUS When I last visited Leica's smart HQ in Germany - which was a while ago thanks to a certain virus - we were taken on a factory tour at Leitz Park. Along the way, our guide explained that all the tooling from the original Leitz factory in Wetzlar is still in use to make parts for repairing the many mechanical Leica cameras that are also still out in the world. In fact, Leica can still service any film camera that's up to 100 years old. It can also look in its archives and tell you exactly when your camera was built and where it first went after leaving the factory. Whether the idea of resurrecting the M6 was kicking around at the end of 2019 isn't clear, but having…

AS EXPECTED, THE 40.2MP X-Trans CMOS 5 HR sensor from the flagship Fujifilm X-H2 has arrived in a more compact X-T series body. The X-T5 also has the next-gen X Processor 5 engine, the seven-stop IBIS and the three-way tilting monitor screen (which bypassed the X-T4 and so was last seen on the X-T3). On the video side, the X-T5 can record at up to 6.2K internally at 30fps with 10-bit 4:2:2 colour at the 16:9 aspect ratio (but with a 1.23x crop). It has the X-H2's 4K DCI HQ and 4K UHD HQ modes which oversample at the 6.2K res for enhanced image quality. The X-15 inherits the classic dial control layout that has been a feature of the X-T series cameras since the original X-T1. The styling is…

THE EASIFRAME CURVED is a patented Australian-designed system created specifically for photographers and video makers who shoot portraits, people or products. It is a changeable fabric cyclorama backdrop - claimed to be a world first - to create a dedicated shooting space in any environment or workspace, and gives a smooth wall-to-floor transition via an extruded frame. The fabric skins are machine washable and stretch tight, eliminating the need to deal with creases during and after a shoot. It can be used in portrait and people photography or as a green screen for video productions, and it can be completely customised to the required size. Both the Easiframe Curved and the standard Easiframe backdrop are manufactured in Australia by Printaly Pty Ltd based in Castle Hill, Sydney. The Easiframe Curved…

Current to 29 January 2023: Exhibition. Requiem To NewYork - Photographs By Ashley Gilbertson. Images documenting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the people of New York where the Australian-born Gilbertson has lived for 20 years. At Level 2, The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia, Federation Square, Melbourne, Victoria 3000. Exhibition hours are 10.00am to 5.00pm daily. Entry is free. For more information visit www.ngv.vic.gov.au. Current to 5 March 2023: Exhibition. Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2021. Winners and finalists - 100 images in all - displayed on special light panels. At the Australian National Maritime Museum, 2 Murray Street, Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW 2000. The exhibition is included in the museums 'See It All' ticketing. Museum hours are 10.00am to 4.00pm daily (9.30am to 5.00pm during school holidays).…

PROFILE Canon Ambassador Bonnie Cee wears many hats: professional stills shooter, founder of the innovative Colourtone app, and creator of short films and a TV series called Casino Beach for which she recently won a Silver Award in the Drama Series Category for the pilot at the QLD Australian Cinematography Awards. But her journey to commercial and creative success in the photo and film industries has been anything but conventional. Here she discusses how she self-taught, self-propelled and self-funded her way from florist to filmmaker. A Canon Australia and Australian Camera Magazine promotion As is often the case with modern imagemakers, Bonnie Cee's path to becoming a photographer and filmmaker was somewhat winding. Her creative inclinations led her to explore a variety of different avenues, including fioristry and textile design,…

LisTed www.teds.com.au THIS CHECKLIST is designed to allow direct comparisons between different camera models, listed here in price order within each brand. The published prices are mostly supplied by the distributors as recommended retail prices (RRPs). However, some distributors no longer supply RRPs to 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 used. If a feature is…

WHAT'S NEW OF ALL THE Leica 35mm M system rangefinder cameras - with the possible exclusion of the original M3 - the M6 remains the most highly sought-after, keeping secondhand values buoyant. Not surprisingly then, Leica has decided to buy back into a bit of this action, relaunching the camera about 40 years after the original first appeared in 1984. The M6TTL appeared in 1998 - with TTL flash metering added - and it stayed in production until 2002 and the M7, during which time nearly 175,000 units were built in total. Interestingly, the revived camera is the original without TTL flash metering Still, with the convenience of built-in TTL exposure metering, yet resolutely mechanical, the M6 was considered by many to be the best of the Ms for usability…

CANON AUSTRALIA SAYS it is still selling DSLRs, but the split with mirrorless cameras in the company's ILC business is now 80/20, with reflex sales continuing to decline. This is as Canon introduces the first upgraded model since the launch of its EOS R full-frame mirrorless system in October 2018. The EOS R6 Mark II takes over from the R6, which is discontinued despite only being around two-and-a-half years old. Canon obviously thought there was room for improvement because, although the Mark II camera is physically virtually identical to its predecessor, quite a lot has changed on the inside. It starts with the sensor, which is an all-new 24.4MP CMOS made by Canon, but not the same BSI-type stacked imager used in the EOS R3. In comparison, it's pretty conventional…

WHAT'S NEW DIGITAL AUDIO RECORDING specialist Zoom has launched a new series of MicTrak combined microphone and recorder models that employ 32-bit 'float' recording. This is a new recording technology designed to eliminate clipped and distorted audio - which often happens because of sudden jumps (or reductions) in sound levels - thanks to the significantly larger dynamic range inherent in the 32-bit depth. It gives over four billion amplitude values, resulting in a dynamic range louder than anything found on earth. In other words, everything from whispers to explosions is well within its dynamic range. The practical implications are that there's no need for a gain control to set recording levels and it also provides much more flexibility for dealing with audio distortion in post-production because all the data is…

COMPETITION The Camera House group of photo retailers has 55 stores ali around Australia, and in every state and territory. Established in 1983 by a group of independent photographic retailers, Camera House will shortly celebrate its 40th birthday. Those founding members laid the foundation for what has become the largest speciality photographic retail chain in Australia. Each store is individually owned and operated and has shares in the brand that is Camera House nationally. The Camera House stores like to hire sales staff who are keen photography enthusiasts, which means they have lots of background knowledge and a better understanding of the products they're selling. If you've got tricky questions about a piece of equipment that you're thinking about buying, there's a good chance you'll find the answers at a…

It was a big hit when we first judged it in the third round of the 2022 competition - published in the March/April 2022 issue - and we couldn't resist it again when selecting an overall winner for the year. This exceptional example of great wildlife photography is by Jason Freeman, who captured the male Norwegian reindeer in the middle of snow storm. The tight composition helps emphasise the magnificence of the antlers, and the background is blurred enough not to be a distraction but still gives the image context. Jason used a Nikon D600 with a 70-200mm f/4.0 zoom lens set at 135mm. Jason wins a Fujifilm X-T30 II mirrorless camera body with the Fujinon XF 18-55mm f/2.8-4.0 R LM OIS standard zoom lens. This kit is valued at…

THE FIFTH-GENERATION MODEL of Sony's high-res Alpha mirrorless series keeps many of its predecessor's features, but has an all-new autofocusing system that further leverages the benefits of Al-based subject recognition. Sony calls it 'Real-Time Recognition AF' and a new algorithms make it much more powerful than what's been seen in the previous Alpha bodies. In addition to eye, face, head and body detection for people, the system can recognise specific sections of a body (such as limbs) and also poses or postures. Eye, head and body detection is also provided for animals and birds, along with head and body detection for insects, which is a first. There are now also recognition modes for cars, aircraft and trains. Notably, subject recognition and tracking is now also available when shooting video. All…

IF YOU'RE A Canon EOS R system user, there's a lot to like about the recently released RF 135mm f/1.8L IS USM short telephoto prime. It combines the classic 135mm focal length with a fast maximum aperture of f/1.8 and built-in optical stabilisation of up to 5.5 stops of correction for camera shake. This extends to eight stops with the EOS R series camera bodies that have in-body image stabilisation. The optical construction comprises 17 elements in 12 groups with three special types featuring ultra-low dispersion (UD) characteristics to correct for chromatic aberrations. Both Canon's Air Sphere Coating (ASC) and Super Spectra Coasting (SSC) multi-coatings are used to minimise the internal reflections that otherwise cause ghosting and flare. The autofocusing drive employs Canon's Nano USM motor for fast and quiet…

The Picture A ball of cactus bees vying for a mate. Titled The Big Buzz, this image was judged the overall winner of the 2022 Wildlife Photographer Of The Year competition. The location was in southern Texas, USA. Over 38,000 entries from 93 countries were received in the 58th running of the world's biggest competition for wildlife photography. The Photographer Karine Aigner, USA. Karine is a very accomplished wildlife photographer and photography educator based in Washington DC. She's an associate fellow with the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) and a member of Girls Who Click (a non-profit organisation offering free photography workshops to inspire teenage girls to have careers as a wildlife photographer). Karine's work has been featured in National Geographic magazine, GEOLino, GEO, Nature Conservancy magazine, WWF and BBC…

Where the X-H2 could claim to be more of an all-rounder than its sibling is with its extra video capabilities, which arguably make it the more accomplished hybrid camera. The headline act is 8K UHD recording (7680x4320 pixels) at 30fps video in the Apple ProRes codec with 10-bit 4:2:2 colour and using the full width of the sensor. The camera supports three Apple ProRes codecs - ProRes 422 HQ, ProRes 422, and ProRes 422 LT - with the HQ mode delivering a massive bit rate of 3,520Mbps. Additionally, when recording ProRes, the X-H2 also supports proxy recording such as ProRes 422 Proxy. There's a 6.2K mode (6240x3510 pixels) which is oversampled from 8K and in the more useful 16:9 aspect ratio rather than 3:2 (as is the case with the X-H2S).…

ON TRIAL BENQ BENQ DESIGNVUE PD3205U Not so very long ago, buying a photo monitor represented a significant investment, and the choice of models was really quite limited. Now you're spoiled for choice mainly due to the efforts of BenQ, LG and Samsung. BenQ has been particularly targeting photographers with its earlier QHD models and now with various 4K resolution offerings in the popular screen sizes of 27 and 32 inches. The PD3205U delivers 4K and a 32-inch screen at a very affordable price, achieved by paring down the feature set compared to the PD3220U, although it still has quite a lot in common with this model. What's gone isn't likely to overly worry photographers - or even video makers - so the PD3205U is arguably the more tailored model for…

WINNER The new competition kicks off with a winning entry from regular entrant Chris Carter who made clever use of shadows and composition to create this intriguing image, taken in a ruined homestead. A good photograph should always ask questions. Chris used a Hasselblad Lunar fitted with an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS zoom lens. HIGHLY COMMENDED Graham Lockerbie says his aerial shot of a remote salt lake somewhere in Western Australia is proof that a compact camera can deliver great images. The Fujifilm X100V is a bit more than your everyday compact camera, but he makes a good point… and this shot was taken from an airliner on its way to Darwin, so the other point to be made is always book a window seat! Apart from some minor adjustment to…