Philip Bloom announced and tested the new Metabones “Speed Booster” adapter. And what it does sounds as it would be some kind of magic trick! It makes any lens faster, wider and sharper! Philipp explains how it works:
“In essence, it’s an optical adapter that attaches to the E mount of a Sony NEX camera (Super 35 sensor) and then to a full frame SLR lens. The Metabones ‘Speed Booster’ is a 0.71 x focal reducer, that will effectively turn your full frame 50mm f/1.8 lens into a 35mm f/1.2 lens. Note, doing so (as a guide) will increase the aperture of that lens by one stop. Your Sony NEX Super 35 E-Mount will effectively have near full frame coverage on a full-frame lens. It also serves ‘double-duty’ as a lens mount adapter, from Canon EF lens (but not EF-S) to Sony NEX, with auto-aperture and image stabilisation.“
Amazing or not? It will be available in January 2013 from Metabones’ web site http://www.metabones.com and its worldwide dealer network for US$599 / £372 plus shipping and applicable taxes and duties.
Here is an image that shows you how it works:
The image circle gets reduced and this actually doesn’t decrease the image quality. The only real drawbacks are: 1) the lens has no fast autofocus like the recently announced [shoplink 15341 ebay]EF to NEX Smart Adapter II (they are here on eBay)[/shoplink]. 2) You have to use a Full Frame lens and you can use it on an APS-C camera only (not on FF cameras).
Gariz keeps launching high quality stuff for the Sony RX1! There is a full list on eBay (via Slidoo). In detail:
1) They made a new half leather case in Black and Brown ([shoplink 16437 ebay]Click here to see them on eBay[/shoplink]). 2) The new lens cap ([shoplink 16439 ebay]Click here to see them on eBay[/shoplink]). 3) The new entry is the anti loose button(!) ([shoplink 16438 ebay]Click here to see them on eBay[/shoplink]). Don’t know if that will be really useful for you RX1 owners. Someone has it and call it how it works? Thanks! 4) And this is the really first time I see that. A special Leather skin hood! ([shoplink 16441 ebay]Click here to see them on eBay[/shoplink]).
You can spend over $450 to cover your RX1 with luxury leather all around :)
Sigma Japan just issued a new press release where they do NOT unveil the shipment date for the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 A-mount lens. The release date is “undecided“. Meantime TheDigitalPicture tested the same lens (with Canon mount) and writes that: “the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM Lens is my new favorite Sigma lens.”
At CES 2013 Sony unveiled a 4K camcorder. Sony calls it a consumer model, but it definitely looks more like a prosumer piece of gear. The guys at photographybay had a close look on the 4K handycam, they write:
The 4K concept camera features an XAVC badge, which is Sony’s new codec introduced last year. As Sony puts it, “the primary objective in adopting the XAVC format is to develop a family of professional production tools that can economically handle High-Frame-Rate (HFR) HD and 4K imaging formats.” The maximum capability of the XAVC codec allows for 4K video at 60p and 4:4:4 12-bit at 960Mbps bit rate. Of course, it’s likely a consumer-grade 4K camera would be substantially lower than the max that XAVC can deliver.
We have yet to learn more about this new camcorder, maybe NAB 2013 (in April) will bring some news. Check the post at photographybay for pics of the camcorder and more tidbits.
Leica is having a lot of success and probably earning a lot of money on their exclusive and expensive Leica Monochrome. So le’ts think (or dream) a bit out of the box. Imagine Sony doing a NEX camera with a Black and White sensor. A sensor that allows you the maximum possible per pixel sharpness, no AA filter, bigger pixels for greater dynamic range. And that NEX would cost around 30-50% more than current NEX camera prices.
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Price and specs of the Leica Monochrome at Amazon and Bhphoto.
That’s an interesting news! The Nikon D5200 doesn’t actually use the same Sony 24MPX sensor but as discovered by Chipworks it has a new Toshiba sensor! This may be one more sign how Nikon wants to move away from a complete Sony supply dependency. That’s just my pure speculation but this may be an indirect good news for us Sony users too. We may don’t see Sony sensors being exclusively sold to Nikon while Sony itself will have to wait 6 or 12 months before using it on their own cameras.
Update: you can own this modified camera by taking part in a black and white photography challenge. Read all details here. Good luck!
Wouldn’t it be great if you could shot RAW and get wonderful looking black and white pics just by desaturating and with almost no post-processing work? Photographer Ming Thein did an amazing hacking project on a [shoplink 3003]Sony NEX 5 (price & specs)[/shoplink]. Before we get into details it is best to read Ming Thein’s motivation for the modification of the NEX-5:
I’ve been paying a lot of attention to black and white tonality both in the past, and of late in conjunction with my serious re-exploration of film; there’s something about the way film responds that gives it wonderful quarter and three-quarter tones. The look is achievable in digital, but it requires a lot of post processing simply because sensors do not natively respond to light in that fashion.
From a more technical point of view, the issue is that digital sensors are optimized to accurately reproduce the colors of the visible spectrum. That’s perfectly fine if you want to take color shots: you want a reliable reproduction of colors. Things, on the other hand, change with B&W photography. Not only it is, as Ming Thein states, a widely subjective aesthetic matter. Moreover, often, if not always, the artistic outcome lies within the tones. Hence, the matter is how to get a film like tone rendering without having to do heavy and time consuming post processing on the computer. A possible way to obtain such a result is to remove all filters from the sensor. Let’s go back to Ming Thein (emphasis partly mine):
Infrared, and to a lesser extent, ultraviolet, photography have been done for some time. There are companies out there which offer (not cheap!) conversions to either or both; there are even companies which offer services removing the anti-aliasing filter – though oddly, not both. But to create what I envisioned as the ultimate black and white camera*, all of this would have to go: no UV or IR filters, no AA filter. Just bare naked sensor. After several days of monkeying around with dozens of tiny ribbon connectors, and breaking one (caveat: the camera of course still works, but that connector will never be able to be opened/ released again) and nerve-wracking moments with various sharp implements, I’m pleased to report that this particular Sony NEX-5 has no filtration at all in front of the sensor, except for the Bayer filter, which is part of the sensor itself and thus cannot be removed. It’s about as close as you’re going to get to bare silicon […].
This is obviously more than a weekend’s DIY task. Ming Thein spent a lot of time to do the hack, and not everything worked at first glance. Opening such a tiny and densely packed camera isn’t for the faint of heart. But results are spectacular (don’t miss the awesome samples). Back to Ming Thein:
I’m going to be blunt here: the camera doesn’t hit full marks across the board. From a tonal viewpoint, the results are fantastic – just shoot raw and desaturate, and that’s all you have to do for almost every situation. All of the images in this post have had almost no work done on them at all – just desaturate. They came out of the camera 99% there, with this wonderfully filmic quality – even at high ISO. Is the more dynamic range? Not really. Skin tones are smooth yet delicately textured; deep shadows have that glow thanks to IR reflectance; and the detail is definitely better than a standard camera
There are also some drawbacks. Resolution isn’t at best, not because of the sensor but because of the lens (he used the 18-55mm kit lens). The lens resolves good in the center of the frame but isn’t apochromatic enough in the borders to be able to cope with the IR and UV rays reflected by the subject and caught by the sensor. An issue that is normally cut of by the filters that have been removed. The result is a sort of smearing in the corners. Quoting:
The smearing is caused by UV and IR spectrum image forming rays from the subject – cut out by the filter pack, normally – being registered on the sensor at a different physical location to visible light. There is still more visible light, of course, which means that focus is mostly where autofocus puts it, but not for all subjects – warm subjects in low ambient light – people indoors, for instance – tend to be a little back-focused because of this. Outdoors, things are fine (visible light > IR again)
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