Gariz now offers a full special “Alcantara” product range (sweat proof for photographers)

[shoplink 38169 ebay]A7rII_Gariz_alcantara[/shoplink]

The Korean company Gariz is so far the only one offering cases and straps in Alcantara material. They are quickly expanding the product range and this is a roundup of their actual products. I highly recommend their [shoplink 38169 ebay]Alcantara made products[/shoplink] over the Leather version for the following reasons:
– It doesn’t make you sweat.
– Increased durability and stain resistance over leather.
– It feels like leather but it is not.

1) Gariz A7II and A7rII Alcantara half case
on eBay in [shoplink 39094 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 39095 ebay]Red (Click here)[/shoplink].
on Amazon US (Click here).

2) Gariz Alcantara Hand Strap:
on eBay in [shoplink 39087 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 39088 ebay]Red (Click here)[/shoplink].
on Amazon US (Click here).

3) Gariz Alcantara Neck Strap:
on eBay in [shoplink 39090 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 39089 ebay]Red stitching (Click here)[/shoplink].
on Amazon US (Click here).

4) Gariz Alcantara Super Car Leather Wrist Strap Black/Red Color:
on eBay in [shoplink 39092 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 39093 ebay]Red stitching (Click here)[/shoplink].

Sony finilized the Toshiba’s image sensor business acquisition for 19 billion yen

Toshiba-Sony

Sony’s world sensor domination plan made one step further. They announced the definitive acquisition of Toshibas Semiconductor Fabrication Facilities:

Tokyo, Japan, December 4th, 2015 — Based on the memorandum of understanding entered into between Sony Corporation (“Sony”) and Toshiba Corporation (“Toshiba”) on October 28, 2015, the parties today announced that they have signed definitive agreements to transfer to Sony and to Sony Semiconductor Corporation (“SCK”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony, certain Toshiba-owned semiconductor fabrication facilities, equipment and related assets in its Oita Operations facility, as well as other related equipment and assets owned by Toshiba (the “Transfer”).

Under the agreements, Toshiba will transfer semiconductor fabrication facilities, equipment and related assets of Toshiba’s 300mm wafer production line, mainly located at its Oita Operations facility. The purchase price of the Transfer is 19 billion yen. Sony and Toshiba aim to complete the Transfer within the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, subject to any required regulatory approvals.

Following the Transfer, Sony and SCK plan to operate the semiconductor fabrication facilities as fabrication facilities of SCK, primarily for manufacturing CMOS image sensors.

The parties expect to offer the employees of Toshiba and its affiliates employed at the fabrication facilities to be transferred, as well as certain employees involved in areas such as CMOS image sensor engineering and design (approximately 1,100 employees in total), employment within the Sony Group, upon the completion of the Transfer.

via Engadget

Sony Tidbits…


Sony Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA Product Overview

Sony A7s II & Hitting Things – film riot on Youtube.
Sigma 20mm f/1.4 DG HSM A1 MTF Curves (Lensrentals).
Zeiss Milvus 21/2.8 on a7RII (SonyAlphaForum).

Andrè:This holiday video was shot on the A7S in summer 2015 in Croatia! A beautiful destination! It was a great challenge to try and capture a variety of shots with 50 people! But with a small full frame camera like the A7S it was quite effortless simply because of its portability. Sony really started something special with their A7 range. Something I believe many of their rivals are rushing to imitate! Please share this link with the SAR community to see.
Croatia Holiday Video
http://youtu.be/anfdbSqScvc
More content shot on A7S & Leica M (typ 240)
www.amgv.london

Julio:I work in downtown Manhattan and shoot street almost every day. I’ve been posting to Tumblr for a couple of years, my Sony Rx1 is my go to street camera but I recently got the A7r2 and love it so I thought I would send you a link. http://sloppy96.tumblr.com

Chuck:I wanted to share a video that I made covering the current line of Sony A7 Cameras: https://youtu.be/g4Amfujo6RI

SLR Magic will improve the Cine 50mm f/1.1 FE performance before it ships.


Time Stood Still – An Extreme Low Light Video – Sony a7SII & SLR Magic 50mm f/1.1
from Johnnie Behiri on Vimeo.

The new SLRmagic 50mm f/1.1 FE lens was actually supposed to ship on December 10 according to BHphoto (Click here). But after some concern raised by early reviewers SLR Magic sent a message to Cinema5D:

From the two weeks of real life testing by several testers, we received 3 main concerns.
– Corner softness at infinity
– Sharpness at f/1.1
– Lens flare
We are currently making some changes within our capability to address the issues. The new changes would improve corner sharpness at infinity by approximately 20% but do not expect perfection after the changes. Sharpness at f/1.1 is not affected. Lens flare would be addressed with an optional lens hood.

So it’s yet unclear when the lens will actually ship.

SLR

Sony Tidbits…


Unboxing the Sony A7SM2 | John Sison

Sony A7S II Sample Images (Photographyblog).
Mastering the Mayhem (Alphauniverse).
Best of 2015: 10 Innovative Photography Accessories (Explora news).
Sony RX100 IV slow motion compilation (CameraLabs on Youtube).
E PZ 16-50mm test at Yodobashi.
A7sII tested by the German Club Sonos on Youtube.

Zeke:I just finished my latest project, a travel tripod for filmmakers. First of its kind. We shot the kickstarter video for it almost entirely with the a7s ii. But we did shoot parts with the RED Dragon and the DJI Phantom 3 Professional. The RED was shot RAW and we used LOG for the Sony and the drone.
I think you’ll be pretty excited to see how well they all cut together. Here’s that link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/461078637/the-international-a-travel-tripod-for-filmmakers

Juan:I picked up an original Voigtlander Nokton 50mm F1.5 Leica thread mount lens at an estate sale 3 weeks ago. I got it professionally cleaned, lubed and calibrated. My intention is to do a complete comparison write-up on this rare lens comparing it to the new Voigtlander version that I have. While shooting pictures for my comparison I decided to film a short video of my daughter playing in the sand at the beach. Please excuse my jittery filming or lack of video skills. The video does show this unique lens look however. The lens has 15  (yes 15!) aperture blades and all was shot wide open at f1.5. Shot on my Sony A7S!
Info about lens found at bottom of this article: https://www.cameraquest.com/voigt_5015_nokton_classic.htm
Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VseDWccz4vY
My website: www.clickkity.com
Me: www.instagram.com/juanny6pac

 

Sony Tidbits…(great FS5 Glas Blowing video)


FS5 In Action: US Glass Blowing

Camslinger Streetomatic Review – for the Mirrorless Heroes (3D-Kraft).
An indispensable travel companion: iUSBport² (Joerghaag).
A Portrait Shoot with the Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8 (ilovehatephoto).
Luana Knipfer introduces the FS5 (Youtube).
A7RII shoots in Iceland’s glacier caves (Photoclubalpha).
slomo sutro | a7sii 120fps | loxia 2/50 by Tim Williams on Vimeo.
New Meikon Starbea A7/7s/7r II housing (Facebook).

Brad:One of my recent goals/challenges as a filmmaker was to shoot a micro documentary with one camera and one prime lens. This is the result: https://vimeo.com/146829121
I filmed this with the Sony a7s II and Loxia 35/2. Other than the super-slow motion footage that was captured in 120 frames/sec, it was shot in 4K then downscaled to 1080p in FCPX.”

Howard:Capture One is great capture software but they do not have any loxia lens profiles. They do have batis profiles, by the way. I have asked them to make the loxia profiles, and they claimed that there is not enough people asking for them. I was hoping that, maybe, if some of your readers queried them, we might get some profiles.
As a professional photographer I really hate to switch to Lightroom, which does not have quite as powerful abilities.