New Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 OS Lens

Sigma has announced the availability of a new lens for APS-C  DSLRs, the Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM. In regular full-frame 35mm terms, this lens is approximately the equivalent of a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens for the APS-C cameras. Since the camera manufacturers don't make a zoom lens in this focal length range with a constant f/2.8 aperture, Sigma provides only option out there. If you aren't doing long range sports like football or soccer or wildlife photography, a lens like this is probably all the telephoto you'll likely to need.

Sigma has included optical stabilization (OS) in this lens, which means you can handhold it at lower than normal shutter speeds. How low depends on the individual user, but you could expect to get decent results down to 1/60 of a second; that is, if your subject isn't moving around too much. It also has close focus down to 31.5 inches, which could make this a very nice portrait lens. Sigma has made some good lenses over the years, especially their macro lenses, so this one should be one to consider. The Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC OS HSM will be available in Canon EF mount next week and in Nikon and Sigma mounts by the end of April. Street price for the lens will be around $1099, according to Sigma.

Odds and Ends

It's been a while since I made a post here, but a lot has been happening. Some good, some so-so, some interesting. I'll try to hit the highlights and see what is what.

"Golden Boy" by Albert Watson

First off, I just turned in my article/profile of Albert Watson to PhotoMedia Magazine and that should be published in around a month or so. Albert Watson is a high-level photographer based in New York City. As far as I can tell, his main career peers were Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, and his talents are even broader than those two masters. Watson is known most widely for his celebrity portraits, his portrait of Steve Jobs was the one that everyone ran when Jobs died a while back, but Watson is equally adept at fashion, still life, architecture, and landscape photography. Watson is a rare photographer in the commercial realm; he insists on keeping his hand in every aspect of the imagemaking that goes on under his studio name. That means that he personally makes all the physical prints and final digital images for every job his studio takes on. There's not many other photographers that ever did that. Watson was a blast to talk to and he was full of surprises. I'll let you know when the article is published and/or when it goes online.

Canon 5D Mark III

Canon finally released the specs on the upcoming 5d Mark III and most people are underwhelmed. Most of the changes are refinements of the 5D Mark II and are not revolutionary. The sensor is roughly the same size, 22 MP, but it does have a new processor (the Digic 5+), better weather and dust sealing, 6 frames per second, and the ISO will go up to 102,400. And the price will be $3500 for the body alone. That's about a thousand more than the 5D Mark II originally sold for. It's hard to get too excited about all this. But perhaps the image quality will be light years ahead of the previous model, since it has a new processor, though I doubt anyone will see much of an improvement in the lower ISO ranges from 100 to 800 over the Mark II. Who knows? Maybe. Also, the price of the 5D Mark II is now on close-out from Canon and is now priced at around $2100. That's a good deal.

Adobe Lightroom 4

Adobe has released Lightroom 4 and they've lowered the price for the full program to $149.95 in the US. Lightroom is a great program and many photographers are using it instead of Photoshop, though they are very different tools. I use both, myself. Lightroom to bring in, catalog, and rough edit the RAW images and Photoshop to finish the images and prep them for printing. Image management is probably one of the biggest challenges for digital photography and Lightroom was created to deal with that task. Hasselblad just announced that all their professional cameras will now ship with Lightroom as the preferred RAW image processor. If you've been thinking about trying out Lightroom, now is the time.

Sigma SD1

Sigma has announced a rebate program of sorts for the people who bought their DSLR, the SD1, when it first came out. When it came out, Sigma priced it at close to $7000. Keep in mind that the SD1 is a APS-C camera with approximately a 15 MP sensor, though Sigma rates it at 46 MP, since it uses three layers of pixels to capture images, or something like that. The latest version of the camera, the SD1 Merrill, is now priced at around $2000. People who bought the camera at the original price can apply to Sigma for the difference between the old and new prices in credit towards Sigma products, not for the cash difference, unfortunately. To check the specifics of the offer go to Sigma's website or contact the Sigma USA Director of Marketing, Christine Moossmann (Cmoossmann@sigmaphoto.com) directly. And good luck with that.

Update: It's been said that the Nokia phone, the 808 PureView, which was mentioned in the previous post won't actually be coming to the US! That's too bad, but the 41 MP chip will make it here in some form or another, I'm sure. Or, as sure as I can be. When I hear something, I'll let you know.

Pixel Binning is Here!

Nokia 808 PureView, photo courtesy of Nokia

With the announcement of Nokia’s new camera/cell phone combo, the 808 PureView with a sensor resolution of 41 MP, the subject of pixel binning is becoming a hot topic. Starting with a physically large sensor—somewhere in size between the usual digital compacts and APS-C sensors—the 808 will offer uncommonly high resolution images, lossless digital 3X zooming, a 5-element Carl Zeiss lens, and exceptional low light performance. It’s this last quality where pixel binning comes into play.

Pixel binning has been used in astro-photography and micro-photography. In pixel binning, adjacent pixels are processed and combined into one large sensor, sometimes called a “super pixel.” The advantage of this is when you combine the light gathering capabilities of four pixels into one, you increase the amount of light you are working with in the image. So, the result is reduced noise in the image. That’s why it is used in astro-photography, where you have very low light subjects and a lot of black in the image. You end up with noise-less, clean images. Turns out, it works in regular photography, too.

Photo taken with Nokia 808 PureView, courtesy of Nokia

Nokia uses the same technology in the 808 PureView, though they are not saying exactly how many pixels are being combined into one super pixel. However, the samples they are showing makes the reduction of noise significant in the 808. But nothing can be gained without some costs, and in this case, the cost is resolution. This makes sense, because when you have to use several pixels to give you, in the end, one pixel of resolution, you will need to start off with a lot of pixels to end up with anything useful. So in the case of the Nokia 808 PureView, though the sensor is 41 MP, with pixel binning you will actually be shooting in resolutions of no more than 8 MP. That’s quite a drop, but what you gain is a very clean image with little or no noise. And this is what most photographers seem to be asking from their cameras, to be able to shoot at lower light levels and still have noise-free images. Pixel binning is the way to achieve this and without a doubt, this technology will be used in more cameras in the near future.

 Example of Pixel Binning, photo courtesy of Fujifilm

Sony is rumored to be using pixel binning in their compact cameras coming out later this year. It makes sense that this will show up in DSLRs, especially for cameras targeting photojournalists. It wouldn’t surprise me that this is why the new full-frame Canon EOS-1D X has a sensor resolution of 18 MP. Maybe it actually has a much higher resolution sensor but uses pixel binning to reduce noise and the pixel count down to that 18 MP. That would make sense, but of course, I have no idea if this is true. It’s just a thought that occurred to me. Anyway, pixel binning is here and it’s a good idea. You will be seeing more of it.

The New Olympus OM-D EM-5

Okay, it's time to eat some crow. Before it came out, I guessed that the new Olympus OM-D camera would feature a full-frame, 35mm-sized sensor. Well, I was wrong. As I wrote before, I saw an image of the camera with a 45mm, f/1.8 lens on it, which is nearly a normal lens for the 35mm format, so I thought this indicated it was full-frame. And like I said, I was wrong about that.

The OM-D is, in fact, a Micro 4/3s camera, like the PEN series Olympus is already making. I have to admit, I am a little disappointed, though I understand it. The OM-D cameras will fit nicely into an already established system, using the same lenses, but will appeal to a different kind of customer. Okay, I get it. But even though it looks like an SLR with a pentaprism hump on top, when you are looking through the camera, you are looking at a small electronic screen and no mirror is involved in the viewing. This is the same as the Panasonic GH2 camera.

Looking at the OM-D EM-5, it appears to be a interesting choice. By the way, that's its full name, though what happened to models 1 through 4, I don't know. Maybe it's a reference to the old days of the OM 35mm cameras, when Olympus only made it up to an OM-4 in their line-up. I guess that was an OM-4T. Anyway, here are some of the main features.

• 16.1 MP High-Speed Live MOS sensor
• 5-axis image stabilization, in body for stills and movies
• 1.55 million-dot EVF for the internal viewing screen with 100% viewing
• Automatic switching between internal EVF and external, tilting OLED touch screen
• Dust-proof and splash-proof
• ISO up to 25600
• Full HD-Movie recording in MPEG4
• 9 frames per second without AF, 4.2 fps with AF
• Black and Chrome versions of the body

There's also some new lenses announced for the camera. A 75mm f/1.8 and a 60mm f/2.8 Macro. While this doesn't appear to be as revolutionary a development as the original OM cameras, the OM-D EM-5 is still a welcome addition to the Olympus line-up. The features seem solid and the controls are simple and direct, just like the old days. Seems like a winner.

Nikon Debuts New Camera

Nikon has announced the D800, which replaces the popular D700, which was the go-to camera for a lot of pros. The D800 has a 36 MP full-frame sensor, which makes it the current champ in terms of pixel count. It, of course, has full HD video capability, an ISO range from 50 to 25,600, and will do 4 frames per second shooting.

The most interesting fact about this camera is that it will be available in two different models. The difference is that you have the choice of buying the camera with or without an anti-aliasing filter. One of the facts of life with digital cameras is that the small segment nature of the image--that is, the pixels in the sensor break up the images into very small chunks--tends to create visual interference in subjects with small, regular details. These can be subjects like window screening, distant corrugated metal, and/or most kinds of cloth. The patterns of these materials combine and interfere with the pixelated digital image, creating false patterns and wave-like colorations called moire. When this happens, it can be very disturbing.

Well, to eliminate moire in digital cameras, manufacturers came up with anti-aliasing filters, which are placed in front of the sensor. They slightly diffuse the image, which gets rid of the moire. However, the cost is that the image is slightly diffused, that is, it is slightly soft or not sharp, in other words. This usually is not much of a problem, because nearly all 35mm shaped DSLRs use anti-aliasing filters, and most people don't think their Nikon D700's and their Canon 5D Mark II's are anything less that great.. The only exceptions to this are the Leica M8 and M9 cameras and the new Fuji X-Pro 1 camera. Those don't use anti-aliasing filters and that is a big part of the reason why the M9 is capable of recording such amazing amounts of detail. There is nothing in front of the sensor to degrade the image at all.

Now, you will be able to get a D800E, which means that it will not have an anti-aliasing filter. This fact coupled with the 36 MP sensor adds up to one seriously high-resolution camera. Fashion photographers, who deal with cloth all the time, will not want this camera, and photojournalists probably won't care, but advertising, commercial, and fine art photographers should really be interested in this one. This is a bold and smart choice for Nikon!

Kickstarter Project to Watch

Sometimes there are interesting photography related projects that are seeking funding on Kickstarter, everything from equipment manufacturing to photo projects to book projects. Kickstarter is a crowd-sourced solution for funding things people want to create. Since a lot of grants and business loans have dried up since the recession and housing bubble burst, artists and innovators have successfully used Kickstarter to get the funds they need.

I'm sure the preceding is old news for a lot of you, but I ran across a new project there and it's about a guy trying to manufacture a follow-focus device for DSLR HD-capable cameras. He's aiming for it to be simple and reliable and cheap. It's called the 50-Dollar Follow Focus, and that says it all. If you know anything about this field, it seems like all the video accessories are really quite expensive. Even simple looking gadgets end up costing thousands. Go figure.

So if you are in the market for a follow focus device for your camera, you might  want to look his project over. For $60.00, you can get one of these devices as soon as they are available. The extra $10 is to cover shipping and all that stuff. Sounds like a good deal. Read about it and watch his video here. His project will end in 18 days from now.

Photography: Against the Law!

Ever since the events of 9-11, our world has changed in many ways. In the effort of fighting terrorism, individual freedoms and rights have taken a beating, and so have a fair number of photographers. Security personnel, from both the private and government sectors, have acted against working photojournalists and amateur photographers when they have been caught taking photographs in public settings. Cameras have been confiscated, people have been beaten and intimidated, and some have even been arrested. The idea is that terrorists could be taking photos of potential targets for terrorism, as part of their planning, though it is my understanding that no evidence of this picture-taking behavior has ever been found with any terrorists. In the past few years, police personnel here in the States have even been caught harassing citizens who try to photograph or record public police actions. This is a bad trend for any democracy and it seems to be happening all over the world, particularly in England and here in the USA. JPG Magazine has published an article on this topic and you can learn more about it here.