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.

Sorry readers. Just tesing if scheduling and RSS caching works. Ignore this post :)

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”

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.”

As you know Capture One has a “special relation” with Sony. David Grower from Capture One made a special introduction post on our SonyAlphaForum (Click here). Some highlights are:

– New Processing Engine
– New Color Editor Interface with the ability to create masks from Color selections
– LUMA Curves – i.e Luminance adjustment only with the power of the curve tool
– New brushing tools with Flow and Airbrush and easy straight line brushing.
– Curves now included as a Local Adjustments
– Keyword Library Manager and new Keyword tool
– Vastly improved rescaling engine
– Capture One Colors for DNG files

One more thing: User’s can receive a 10% discount using the code “AMBCRAIG” on Capture One Pro 9 Upgrades and on new purchases of Capture One Pro 9. The Voucher Code: AMBCRAIG works on the full purchase price or on upgrades.

Sony FE 24-240mm F3.5-6.3 OSS Product Overview

15 manual lenses that perform well on the a7 series and cost less than $99 (Philip Reeve).
PXW-FS7　Tutorial Videos on Youtube.
Two good cheap lenses – manual and Af – Zeiss and Canon (SonyAlphaForum).
Mitakon 50mm f/0.95 Pro review + Short film (a7s) on Youtube.
Test Sony RX1R II : précision de l’optique (Focus Numerique).
Sony E 30mm f/3.5 Macro Lens Review (ePhotozine).
A7sII test at DC.watch.
The Sony a7S on Set for Latest “Paranormal Activity” Release (AlphaUniverse).
First impressions of Sony A7S II are positive as the low light specialist brings its A-game! (Imaging Resource)
EVFs and short battery life with the Sony RX1R II? (Imaging Resource).

TheClassicCamera: “ZEISS & SONY DEMO DAY
All day Thursday December 3rd, The Classic Camera will be hosting a demonstration day with all the latest products from Zeiss and Sony including the new  RX1R MKII, the A7S and A7R MKII, the Batis 25mm and 85mm plus more from the new Milvus line of SLR lenses and Loxia line of E mount lenses. In addition Zeiss will be offering 10% off all Zeiss lenses purchased in store on the day.
Zeiss and Sony representatives will be in store all day to help answer any questions you may have about their amazing new products. The day will start at 10am and close at 6pm giving customers a whole day to get their hands on products you won’t find on the shelves!
Location:
The Classic Camera,
2 Pied Bull Yard,
London,
WC1A 2JR”

Nikkei Asian Review posted an interesting article about Sony’s mirrorless strategy. It basically says that the A7 series saved Sony’s camera business. Here are some key info:

1) According to one industry group estimate, Germany’s mirrorless camera market is expected to grow about 150% by volume in 2015 compared with 2012, while the U.S. market is seen expanding 80%. Much of this consumer “awakening” to the allure of mirrorless cameras has been attributed to Sony.

2) Sony began developing the Alpha 7 series in 2012 out of fear that the company “could be weeded out,” Executive Vice President Shigeki Ishizuka said (Ishizuka oversees Sony’s imaging products and solutions business)

3) “If we don’t conquer the market for sophisticated amateurs and professionals, we will never become professionals ourselves,” Ishizuka said. He decided to funnel a large chunk of the company’s resources into developing full-frame cameras. “We learned that people won’t buy our products unless we improve our brand,” Ishizuka said.

4) In the two years through October, Sony’s share of the full-frame camera market is estimated to have surged by about 400% in Germany and about 600% in the U.S. Profit margins for Sony’s imaging business are higher than for its TV operations, which only recently returned to the black. The imaging business could become one of the company’s leading electronics operations.

Nikkei also stressed to say that Sony needs to keep improving and gaining market share to keep their business sustainable. It also has to be seen what happens when Nikon and Canon will compete in the FF mirrorless segment. Although I suspect Sony will not have to fear them too much as they Nikon and Canon will need a long time to build up their camera and lens system.