New Ulanzi F12 Mini Camera Flash Speedlite for Sony cameras

You can now buy the new Ulanzi F12 flash at Ulanzistore.

Features

  • Take Your Portrait Shooting to Next Level:  Create your desired lighting effects both indoor and outdoor.
  • Pocket Size: Weighing only 108g,this speedlite also offers a storage bag for easy transportation.
  • Standard Hot Shoe Mount: Compatible with mainstream camera brands including: Sony,Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Olympus, etc.
  • Reliable Exposure: High-speed flash to make your picture shine even in dim environment. This speedlite has a GN of 12, a High Speed Sync of 1/250s, and a CCT of 5600K. (*It is recommended to use this speedlite within 4m)
  • Keep Every Moment Stunning: 1-7s recycling time makes continuous flash shooting possible. The lower the flash brightness, the less it takes to recycle back to full power.
  • User-friendly Display: It comes with a display and multi-functional buttons for easy operation.
  • Support Auto & Manual Modes: In Auto mode, the speedlite adjusts its output through a sensor itself; in Manual mode, you can adjust the dimming.
  • Type-C Charging for Convenience: With a built-in 1200mAh battery, it also supports USB-C charging with a power bank. And it takes about 2.5h to be fully charged.
  • Dry and Wet Separation, Organized Storage: Neat and organized small accessory storage, with thoughtful dry and wet separation.

Specifications

  • Material: ABS
  • GN: 12 (ISO 100 in meters)
  • CCT: 5600K
  • High Speed Sync (HSS): 1/250 s
  • Recycle Time: 1-7 s
  • Dimming: 1-100%
  • Charging Port: Type-C
  • Charging Time: about 2.5h
  • Working Voltage: 3.7V
  • Battery Capacity: 1200mAh
  • Net Weight: 108g±5g
  • Dimensions: 72*60*50mm±5mm

Tamron will launch six new lenses in 2024 !!!

Tamron released the full financial results for 2023 and the forecast for 2024. The good news is that Tamron increased both net sales and operating income with particularly strong sales in China and Japan.

Financial key info:

  • In the photography segment Net sales increased from 45.5 billions YEN (2022) to 53 billions YEN (2023)
  • They report high growth in the Chinese market and also strong sales in Japan
  • In the interchangeable lens camera and lens market, the quantity remains flat, but the total amount increases due to the strong performance of high-value-added products YoY.

Forecast with six new lenses:

  • 6 new lenses coming in 2024
  • In future they might release 7 lenses per year

What to expect:
Tamron usually announces 5 lenses per year but in 2024 they will announce 6 new lenses. But don’t expect them to be all E-mount. Some of these lenses will be Z or X mount versions of currently available E-mount lenses. Still, I hope Tamron will release new E-mount lenses that are based on som of their exciting patents. Here is a list of patents I found:

Exciting right? Hope sources can soon tell me more about their E-mount lens roadmap!

Sony Tidbits…


Why is NO ONE talking about this amazing Camera?! Sony ZV-E1

Today deals at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, FotoErhardt DE, FotoKoch DE.
The Sony Saviour… (James Popsys)
Very Good Street Settings For Every Camera (Matti Sulanto).
Few Sony A9III shots by our reader Michael McConville.
Placing the World’s Blackest Material Inside a LENS (Mathieu Stern).
Year in Review 2023: New Wildlife Lenses (Explora).
What is Global Shutter? And How It Works (42West).

Follow our new Youtube channel.
Join our SonyAlphaForum.
I kindly invite you all to follow our Discord channel, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Twitter to not miss news and rumors

We have our own Facebook camera groups you can join to discuss the upcoming new cameras in detail:
Sony Alpha group. Sony A1 group. Sony A9 series group. Sony A7r series group. Sony A7s series group. Sony A7 series group.

Sony Tidbits…


Sony Compact Prime Lenses: Perfect for Sony A7CII and Sony A7CR

Today deals at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, FotoErhardt DE, FotoKoch DE.
Top-Rated Cameras for Portrait and Fashion Photography (Explora).
Adorama’s Favorite Holiday Photo Gifts of 2023 (42West).
New generation snap shooter α7CⅡ (Mapcamera).
Sony FE 28-60mm f/4-5.6 lens review (Christopher Frost)
What do you do if you find your stolen items for sale on Ebay? I get the chance to find out (Mike Lane).
Best fast zoom for Sony APS-C cameras? Detailed tests on Sony 16-55 f2.8 vs Tamron 17-70 f2.8 (Lightpoint).

Follow our new Youtube channel.
Join our SonyAlphaForum.
I kindly invite you all to follow our Discord channel, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Twitter to not miss news and rumors

We have our own Facebook camera groups you can join to discuss the upcoming new cameras in detail:
Sony Alpha group. Sony A1 group. Sony A9 series group. Sony A7r series group. Sony A7s series group. Sony A7 series group.

Sony A9III officially shipping out today from US stores

A couple of readers told me that their reorder shipped out today from BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama.

Thanks BS8 for the screenshot!

Reminder: Sony dropped the price of their TOUGH CFexpress Type A cards series sold by Amazon (Click here) and BHphoto.

Topaz Photo AI v2.3.0 released…and a new teaser for the next launch

There is a new v2.3.0 update for Topaz Photo Ai (get it here). At the same time Topaz CEO Eric Young launched a teaser for the upcoming new version:

Hi, and thanks so much for trusting our products with your work over the past few years.

In 2024, our photo and video products will experience the most significant evolution since our first AI product six years ago. I wanted to share what you can expect out of our products in the next few years.

We believe that generative AI should improve your work rather than replace it, so our product development philosophy focuses on three principles:

  1. Enhancement vs replacement: for improving your work without altering its core essence.
  2. Natural and photorealistic results, vs fantastical: for your photos and videos where preserving reality matters.
  3. On-device processing, vs cloud: for a faster workflow, more editing options, and private processing.

We think that these principles are essential for professional use cases, but currently undervalued in AI research. As such, we’re accelerating this direction with our three core products:

Photo AI
Photo AI is designed for photographers, and solves many photo quality problems like noise reduction and sharpening better than anything else. In 2024, we will use generative AI to greatly improve the quality and experience of other photo editing tasks.

Video AI
Video AI delivers you sharp, steady, and smooth footage without motion artifacts. In 2024, you will see improved AI model quality, a better app experience, and more integrations for professional editing workflows.

Gigapixel
Built for everyone, Gigapixel 7 brings improved upscaling model quality and better usability. Later this year, we’ll release fundamental improvements to our upscaling models that unlock another level of quality, better than anything else you’ve seen yet. Afterwards, we will bring Gigapixel to more platforms than just desktop.

We’re incredibly excited about this direction, and you’ll soon see some of these improvements in the next few months.

We’d also love your feedback as we’re filling our roadmap for the rest of the year. What would you love to be able to do with your images and videos that you can’t currently? Is there anything you wish our current products would do better? We will read and consider every comment.

Thank you again for trusting our products, and we will do everything possible to continue earning that trust!

Thanks,
Eric Yang
CEO, Topaz Labs

—-

 v2.3.0 Press release:

This week we have several new additions to the app and updates to existing tools as well. There are 2 new upscaling models – Standard v2 and High Fidelity v2, as well as update to the Remove model for Windows machines. Please see the notes below for more information about these models. Additionally, the Object Selection Brush is now available for use in the Remove tool. Finally, the Adobe Lightroom Classic plug-in will now add images back to their original Collections once exporting is done.

Standard v2 and High Fidelity v2:

  • For Standard we’ve improved the deblur consistency (blurry patch issue)
  • For High Fidelity we’ve improved the grain preserving consistency for low denoise/remove jpeg sliders
    • For use cases requiring keeping original noise/grain, select this model and tune down the two sliders.
  • For High Fidelity we’ve fixed the tile blending artifacts
  • For both models we’ve fixed the tile artifacts on Apple Silicon Mac’s Neural Engine
    • There is an option to turn off Neural Engine but it will slow down processing
  • For quality in general, the models should be more generative

Remove Model:

  1. Improved the speed of the tool via steps distillation
  2. Solved some quality issues via larger data augmentation

Note: If you are experiencing issues with the Remove tool on macOS Sonoma a potential fix is updating to the latest version of Sonoma