Battle of the Bokeh(mon): Sigma 30 f/1.4 vs Sony 35 f/1.8 vs Mitakon ZY 35 f/0.95

Zeiss 18mm Underwater (SonyAlphaForum)
Macro Lens Buying Guide (Explora).
Illustrated Photo Tips with Daniel Norton: Folding a Large Reflector (Adorama Learning Center)
Sigma 30 mm f1.4 DC DN: prueba de campo (Quesabesde).
Sony A7II review at Roamaroo.
To write a guest post on SAR follow the instruction on that page.

Hanna Saba: “My new video on comparing the 85mm f1.4 g master vs batis 85mm f1.8 vs fe90mm f2.8 all outstanding lenses for portraits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H0RA14Owg4”

Drasko: “In my latest blogpost i want to show you my personal latest highlight this summer. End of July i visited beautiful, enchanting Hallstatt in Austria and took a lot of images there with my Sony A7II + Sigma 24mm 1.4, Canon 70-200 F4 L & the Sony FE 50 1.8. Have a look at my results!
http://www.dsphotoblog.com/?p=2313”

Tamron officially announced the SP 150-600mm G2 A-mount lens. The good news is that not only does the lens look better but it has also an improived optical design and performance! The new 150-60mm Tamron A-mount lens can be preordered at Bhphoto (Click here).

And we also got two new teleconverters:

Press text:

Zeiss just announced the new Lightweight Zoom LWZ.3 21-100mm/T2.9-3.9 T*. it has an interchangeable mount system and can be fitted onS ony E-mount cameras too. Zeiss writes:

Calibrated scales, consistent imaging quality across the entire image field, no vignetting and focus shift, the efficient reduction of reflections through the well-known ZEISS T*® anti reflective coating and the color matching with lenses of the Compact Prime CP.2 family complete the overall package.

The ZEISS LWZ.3 will be available from the end of January 2017 at a retail sales price of EUR 9,900 (incl. 19 % VAT), or USD 9,900 (excl. VAT).

More info at Lenspire.

Sony G Master 70-200mm & Canon 70-200mm f2.8 [Focus Breathing]

Sony FE 50mm review by ThePhoBlographer.
Wideangle lenses for the Sony Alpha 7 series (Phillip Reeve)
Sony Introduces the Cutting-Edge HXR-NX5R Camcorder (Explora).
Die Canon 5D Mark IV kommt (vs Sony) – langweilig oder Game-Changer? (Youtube)
Slow-motion video w/ the Sony a6300 & 85mm G-Master lens (Move To Mirrorless).
Was ich zu einem Outdoor Shooting mitnehme (Batis 85mm video)
A7RII + Voigtlander 40mm 1.4 SC – B&W (SonyAlphaForum).

To write a guest post on SAR follow the instruction on that page.

Rarely filter news were that exciting :)

SLR Magic just announced the new Image Enhancer Pro. Unlike IR and ND filters the new SLR Magic solution claims to be able to block all unwanted wavelengths and preserve the full “natural” colors. To read exactly how this works check out the article at Newsshooter  writes:

From the quick tests our Newsshooter team did at the show, the filter certainly seems to work well. If you look closely you can see the difference it makes to getting rid of IR pollution and colour shifts. I look forward to a more thorough evaluation in the coming weeks

Newsshooter at BIRTV 2016: SLR Magic Image Enhancer Pro filter for better colour from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

PRESS RELEASE

NEW: SLR Magic Image Enhancer Pro

Hong Kong, China (August 24, 2016)  – SLR Magic introduces the The SLR Magic Image Enhancer Pro (IE Pro), a unique filter suitable for use in both photography and cinematography to help increase image clarity and restore color shift issues introduced by light contamination beyond the visible spectrum to digital sensors. The filter will be officially introduced during the BIRTV 2016 show in Beijing.

The IE Pro is a unique filter that optimizes the light spectrum from 200nm to 1,200mn to ensure light rays passing through the filter are natural to the human eye. The digital imaging sensors’ greater susceptibility to infrared light contamination leads to colorcasts when shooting subjects at instances where the light source has increased levels of infrared light that is not visible to the human eye.

Traditional UV/IR filters are commonly used to address color shift and infrared contamination. However, hot mirror type UV/IR filters sold as 680nm, 700nm, 715nm, or 750nm rating typically cut out the red spectrum along with infrared spectrum to produce blacker blacks but will create an unnatural skin tone reproduction. At times, traditional UV/IR cut filters produce a green or red color shift when certain lenses wider than 35mm are used.  The SLR Magic IE Pro is designed to work with lenses from wide angle to telephoto.

The SLR Magic IE Pro is designed for use on digital cameras for both photography and cinematography. The light spectrum curve with IE Pro shows the optimization of light transmission through unique attenuation of light in the light spectrum leading to improved clarity within the image and more tonal depth.  IE Pro can be positioned in front of your lenses with or without electronic ND filter or in front of your ND filter or variable ND filters.  50-layers of multi-coating is used in the IE Pro to minimize reflections and flare, thus achieving a unique level of optimization across the entire light spectrum as well as attenuate UV and Infrared light to minimize chances of colorcasts and ensure cleaner blacks and truer skin tones.

SLR Magic Image Enhancer Pro will be available from authorised SLR Magic resellers by October, 2016.

Andrew Chan
Product Manager

Bror (video above first posted on SonyAlphaForum): “Im a 16 year old from sweden who makes videos that revolve around freestyle scootering, this photo was filmed with an Sony A7, Nikkor-h 85mm 1.8, Nikkor 20mm f4, Nikkor 35mm 1.4.”

Review: Sony A6000 & Switching From a Canon DSLR to a Sony Mirrorless (Photoraces).
Laowa 12mm f/2.8 Hands On (Albert Dros).
Venus Optics LAOWA STF 105 mm f/2 review at Lenstip.
The Sony a6300 camera: Stunning photos and videos in a tiny package (David Pogue).
Batis 18mm vs Loxia 21mm (Mirrorlesscomparison).
To write a guest post on SAR follow the instruction on that page.

Jorge: “Just a heads up. Today I started www.50mil.com a site dedicated to standard format lenses. Typically 50mm.  Please stop by and browse around.”

Volodmyr: “Camera freezes, but the pictures make that the focus of which hangs and screens https://youtu.be/Orn6jkQj3zg“

The following is a Guest Post from Photochirp. To write a guest post on SAR follow the instruction on that page.

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The Sony a7rII is a great camera and I am mostly satisfied with it. There are a few things I would like to be implemented or changed but most of those things exist within a software update and not necessarily a hardware update (of course, I would like dual card slots). I’m not sure how to get the communities support on this, but please let me know what you think of these ideas.

Sony a7rII Specific Firmware Improvements For The Sony a7rII 3.30 Firmware Update

• The battery drains after a while even if the camera is not in use or switched on
• Crop mode should be easier to access, perhaps as part of the quick menu so that it can be quickly enabled for videos
• Video mode crop mode should be separate from photography crop mode, therefore videographers don’t have to continuously change this when taking photographs or making videos ~ This is an extremely important feature for the Sony a7rII
• Lossless compressed raw should be an additional option for the RAW file format ~ Lossy compressed is lossy and uncompressed creates incredibly large files

Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and Sony a7rII General Firmware Improvements

• Better manual focus options ~ manual focus should have the option to go straight to full zoom when you rotate the lens, and there should also be the option to only magnify a portion of the frame e.g. a small, 10x square around the selected focus point or focus area. This would allow you to compose the shot while focusing ~ I believe this is important and would improve the manual focus experience with the Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and the Sony a7rII considerably
• Spot meter should be able to meter the focus point instead of just a point in the centre of the frame, in other words, interlock the focus point with spot focus
• A customizable video menu should allow duplicates of what’s in the stills menu, this would allow people to create their own menu system in an order that did not irritate them
• Facial recognition software should be put to better use for manual focusing, for example, it could automatically move the focus point to the subjects face and when you turn the focus ring, it magnifies around that area ~ This feature is fairly unimportant
• The option to disable electronic first curtain shutter automatically with speeds above 1/1000 of a second. This would help to avoid situations where banding can potentially exist ~ This feature is important as if is annyoing having to disable EFCS (electronic first curtain shutter) with the Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and the Sony a7rII
• Live histogram and zebra stripes should relate to the raw file and not the JPG settings
• Live histogram should be adjustable so that it can display red, green or blue, and not just luminance
• Maximum exposure length should be customizeable like auto ISO, for example, you should be able to have a maximum of 1 minute instead of 30 seconds
• Save settings from the “gear” menu to the custom function settings i.e. “C1” should remember setting-effect has been set to “off” while “C2” remembers setting-effect has been set to “on”
• Customizeable PASM dial, so “P” can become “C3” or whatever you want it to be

Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and Sony a7rII Wi-Fi Firmware Improvements and App Requests

• Send to phone using a network connection already available i.e. connecting to a router, instead of having to create a new network and disconnecting the old network
• An FTP, dropbox and an instagram app, and they should not require you to type in a password each time you use them