New Stuff From Sony and Sigma!

The rumors have been flying around the Web that Sony was going to introduce a mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera system, similar to their NEX cameras, and that's what they've done. Sony has just announced the A7 and the A7r. The A7 will have a 24 MP sensor and the A7r will sport a 36 MP sensor with no anti-aliasing filter for maximum sharpness. Both models will have a built-in OLED EVF finder. The cameras will feature a tiltable LED screen, focus peaking, and weather-sealing. The cameras will accept current NEX APS-C lenses, though some vignetting will occur, and Sony will also offer an adapter so you can use full frame lenses from their regular full-frame cameras. The A7 body will sell for $1698 and the A7r body will sell for $2198.

Sony will also introduce a handful of new lenses for the cameras: a Zeiss FE 24-70mm f/4 OSS, a Sony G 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS, a Zeiss FE 35mm f/2.8, a Zeiss FE 55mm f/1.8, and a Zeiss FE 70-200mm f/4 OSS. This promises to be an exciting new system for pro photographers. Full frame images with smaller cameras and lenses. What's not to love?

And finally, Sigma is introducing a new lens, the 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art lens. The Sigma Art lenses emphasize image quality and sharpness, so this will probably be a lens to check out. It will have a fairly large filter size of 82mm, which means that they will have more room to play with in refining the optics for maximum effect. The physically smaller the lens, the less room you have to correct for optical problems. This lens will compete directly with the Canon 24-105mm f/4 IS L lens and it will be interesting to see how they compare. No word yet on its price.

Lomography Brings Back the Petzval!

It's kind of funny that as digital photography achieves ever higher resolution and lower noise (grain), photographers feel compelled to resist the inherent sharpness that digital offers. Lensbaby has done well for themselves by making lenses that offers generally poor optical quality. Now don't get me wrong, I own and use Lensbaby products myself and dearly love them, but they are not the pinnacle of lens sharpness and aberration-free designs. But maybe that's why we love them. It's their optical quirkiness that attracts us.

Anyway, in a similar vein, Lomography is introducing a "new" lens that is actually the resurrection of a quite ancient lens, the Petzval portrait lens, which was designed by Joseph Petzval in 1840 while he lived in Vienna, Austria. His lens was quite revolutionary for its time with a fast f/3.6 aperture (the only other rival lens had an aperture of f/15!) and more than adequate sharpness, especially in the center. One of the optical qualities that set it apart from modern lenses is that while modern lenses try to maximize sharpness from corner to corner and make the center of the image as sharp as the edges, Petzval's lens only achieved critical sharpness in the center. This is referred to as flatness of field, which the Petzval didn't have, but it did have a way of separating the center subject from the background that was not matched by any other lens.

So Lomography is working with the Russian optical company Zenit to make a new version of the Petzval  lens, while keeping the brass aesthetics of the original and offering them in current Nikon and Canon mounts. It will be an 85mm f/2.2 manual focus, of course, lens that uses fixed, slide-in Waterhouse stops for its apertures from f/2.2 to f/16, and they are saying that the results it will give are nearly impossible to duplicate by digital means. They are running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the manufacture of these lenses and you can read about their project here. Sounds kind of cool and the image examples they have are really beautiful. I'll follow this project with a great deal of interest.

News From Around the Web

Sigma announced the price of the upcoming APS-C zoom, the 18-35mm f/1.8 HSM Art lens, and it's a bit of a surprise. It will sell for $799, which is something of a steal. I know that $800 is still $800, but considering that Canon's new 35mm f/2 IS USM lens goes for $850, the price of the Sigma zoom looks pretty good. Not much has been seen of this lens, but lens tests are starting to show up and reports are very positive. Sigma is becoming a lens company to watch, that is for sure.

Fuji will announce a new camera in its X-series, called the X-M1. It's a smaller, less expensive model, more of an entry level one, to fit in with their X-E1 and X-Pro1 cameras. This picture shows it with their new lens, a 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS. It won't have a built-in viewfinder, instead, viewing is done through the LCD screen on the back, like other P&S's.

Finally, Samsung is really upsetting the old apple cart these days! Get it? Apple cart? Phones? Oh, well. Anyway, Samsung is announcing a couple of new products that illustrate the merging of medias and technologies. First, the have the Galaxy S4 Zoom, which combines a real 10x zoom lens 16 MP OIS camera with a smartphone. So instead of a smartphone with a built-in camera, you have a camera with a built-in smartphone. We can only hope it works well as a phone when you want to make a call. Still, it would be nice to always have a decent camera with you. I'll be checking this one out.

And then Samsung takes it further, in announcing the Galaxy NX, an interchangeable lens 20.3 MP sensor mirrorless camera with a 4.8-inch touch screen that uses the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean OS and has 3G and 4G WiFi connectivity. While it isn't a smartphone, you will use it like one. Post your pictures to Instagram. And you'll be able to stream and watch movies on your camera. And surf the Web. Wow.

Sigma Lens gets Price and Availability

Sigma announced this lens a while back, the 60mm f/2.8 DN Art Lens, but now we have more info on it. It will carry a very reasonable price tag of $239 and will be available to buy starting in mid-May, which is just around the corner. The new Art series of lenses from Sigma stress sharpness and overall image quality, so that is why they are introducing so many fixed focal length lenses. The recent announcement of the 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art lens was an exception. The 60mm f/2.8 DN is made for mirrorless camera formats like Micro 4/3s and Sony E-mount. like the already available 19mm f/2.8 DN and 30mm f/2.8 DN lenses. For M4/3s, it will be equivalent to a 120mm lens and for the E-mount system, it will function as a 90mm lens. It's compact, sure to have exceptional image quality, and is inexpensive as well. What's not to like?