In a horrible statement the well-known US wedding magazine Brides.com said that wedding photographers should use  “either Cannon or Nikon, which are the most readily available professional cameras available”

Brides.com now removed that part but still the shitstorm is all over the web. On the video above Jason Lanier explains in crystalline simple way what’s the problem with Brides statement and interest conflict.

Personal note: In my opinion every camera manufacturer nowadays makes excellent gear. Just pick up what suites best for you. And at the end your photography talent is what really matters!

–

via Petapixel

And thanks Jason for this video!

Amazon updated the shipment info on two highly requested Sony items: Both the A99II (Clich here) and the 70-200mm GM (Click here) are set to ship out in 1-2 months if you order them today. And both got reviewed by ThePhoblographer:

A99II review conclusion:

All in all, very little is really terrible about the a99 II. In fact, I’d say nothing is terrible per se. It just still sort of perplexes me. Why? I thought Sony was done with the Alpha system, but if they aren’t this makes me genuinely very excited to know that they’re going to continue with the system. Perhaps that also means both the E mount and A mount systems will receive more love accordingly.

70-200mm GM review conclusion:

The Editor’s Choice award is being given for the fact that Sony cranked this lens out pretty quickly mixed in with the fact that it’s actually a solid lens. But Sony needs to improve their AF with the mirrorless system to truly make this lens rock for photojournalists and wedding photographers.

That’s the bext gear of the year according to Dpreview:

Best compact camera: 2nd pace for the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 V ([shopcountry 54358]).
Best consumer stills/video camera of the year: Winner is the Sony Cyber-shot RX10 III ([shopcountry 54359]).
Best mid-range ILC: 2nd pace for the Sony a6300 ([shopcountry 54360]).
DPReview innovation award: 2nd pace for the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 V

SAR reader Philip sent us this:

Firmware Manual Focus Improvements That Are Easy To Implement – Sony a7II, Sony a7sII and Sony a7rII

I would like to be able to compose the shot and magnify focus at the same time. At the moment, you can only do one of those at any given time.

There are multiple ways to achieve this:

1. Create a small magnified square (like a loupe) around the point the user has selected to focus on and magnify said square when the focus ring is turned
2. Create a small magnified square (like a loupe) in the centre of the frame that magnifies the point the user has selected, this method is similar to the first except the square remains in the centre of the frame at all times
3. Split the screen into two halves and use the left half for composition and the right half for 100% magnification or vice versa

I have a few other ideas to improve the manual focus experience as well:

1. User selectable magnification amount upon the lens being turned i.e. the user no longer has to press a button after turning the focus ring, to magnify the shot further, as it can go straight to 14x magnification when the lens is turned
2. Facial recognition such that the selected focus area goes towards the subjects eye when the manual focus ring is turned and an eye is detected
3. The same focus options available to autofocus should be available to manual focus (where applicable) e.g. if the user wants to have only a few different focus areas to select from, to speed up the process of selecting a focus point, this should be available
4. The manual focus button (usually used for autofocus lenses) should act as a lock and will prevent magnification while the lens ring is turned–this would be particularly useful for video usage when the user simply wants to rely on focus peaking

Also posted on Sony Community

Sony’s Radio Commander and Receiver

Mark Galer posted three new Alpha video tutorials

Sony’s Radio Wireless Radio Flash v2

Sony’s Wireless Radio Flash

Chris and Jordan from TheCameraStoreTV selected the best and worst gear of the year 2016. The only time they did mention Sony was in the best lens category. The 24-70mm GM lens got the second place.

24-70mm GM store links: [shopcountry 47915].

And Hugh Brownstone also made a with with the best and worst gear of the year. Hugh says the Sony 85mm GM is the best lens of 2016.

85mm GM store links: [shopcountry 50835].