Now in Stock:
The new Rokinon 85mm f/1.8 APS-C E-mount lens is in Stock for the first time via Adorama.
The Sony A7III is now in Stock at Amazon, BHphoto, Buydig, FocusCamera,
The Tamron 28-75mm FE is in Stock at Buydig.
Shooting photos using an ice lens was my dream for almost 2 years. After some research I saw that almost no one ever tried this crazy idea, mainly because it’s hard as hell to find pure ice, and even harder to get a clear image.
So I had the choice to give up on my idea because it was too hard, or to just level up in the craziness. If it’s hard to find pure ice in my city, maybe I should go where I could find some 10 000 year old pure ice : Iceland’s famous ” iceberg beach”.
The night before the experiment, there was a huge storm, all the icebergs were dragged away from the beach, so we had no choice but to wait some days.
Three days later, we arrived on the beach at 5AM and had the chance to see some huge icebergs all over the beach.
We stayed there for almost 6 hours in the cold to create… only one true working ice lens.
Now the facts : – First of all the life-span of a lens made of ice is very short, so you can’t move very far from where you create the lens. – Focusing is extremely hard because of the water melting on the lens itslef. – Shaping one ” lens” takes 45 min because of the ambiant cold. – If your lens breaks in the mold, you have to start all over again – I hacked a Japanese cocktail ice ball maker to create half spheres. – The housing of the lens was made using a home made 3D print model. – All photos where shot during the 1 minute of the last ice lens. – The video at the beginning of the video was shot in the last usable seconds of the last ice lens. – No I didn’t ruined my camera with water damages, even if it was pretty dangerous, I managed to keep the inside dry. SonyAlphaRumors.com Now if people asks me “Are you happy with the result ? it’s a bunch of blurry photos !?”, my response would be : “this project is a scientific, artistic and poetic project, I never imagined the result would look like the photos that comes from an ultra modern lens, but I was amazed by the strange beauty of the images I made with the first ever 10 000 year old lens.”
This is not a project for everyday photography, it was an adventure and a bet that when you have a crazy hypothesis, you should do everything to experiment it in the field.
Wang Hao, the head of Sigma China has been interviewed by a member of the biggest photography gear rental company irentals.cn. A reader sent me this translation:
Q: So there are four big players in the FF mirrorless market now, what’s Sigma’s strategy?
A: Our distribution of R&D resource really depends on the sale of the bodies. But we also have our own prediction, what I can say is that FF mirrorless is definitely the future.
Q: Since Sigma already has a well-established F1.4 ART prime line, what are you going to do next? Maybe even larger aperture?
A: Actually we’ve noticed that mirrorless users values compactness over shear sharpness, so we are thinking about going that direction.
Q: We noticed that there is no compact 35mm equivalent lens for Sony E-mount right now, not from any manufacturer. The rumor says Sony has some restriction to protect the RX1 series, is that true?
A: As far as I know there is no such thing. Sony E-mount is the most open lens mount we’ve ever worked with.
Q: Nikon & Canon hasn’t opened their new lens mount protocol, so what’s Sigma’s plan about R/Z mount?
A: At the moment there is no official partnership between Canon-Nikon and Sigma. We have to get the camera bodies first to see what we can do.
The Sigma 105mm F1.4 DG HSM Art (1500 euros) is an outstanding optics for portrait and well deserve its nickname of Bokeh Master
Background blur is exceptional with superb 3D effects
Sharpness is incredible
AF is fast and very efficient including for eye AF
Color rendition is very good
Distorsion / Lens fall off / CA are close to zero
Bokeh balls are very good but not perfect when close down to F2.8/F4 (nor perfectly circular)à
Reasonable price considering performances
A min of 1/250s shutter speed will be required
Built in tripod collar is a very nice idea to support the weight of 1.85 kg
One of the only flaw is the resistance to flare which is just ok as you can get some loss of contrast in direct sun
Huge (difficult to put in a standard photo bag), heavy (1,85 kg!) , filter size is uncommon (105mm = expensive)
Before testing the lens, I was convinced , I would not be able stand the weight of it and that this 105mm was a pure technical demonstration of Sigma capability, but when I saw the results, I was astonished and really started to love the lens ! It is a real “Bokeh” machine to produce wonderful portraits ! Its signature is unique. After a second look at the photos made I finally decided to order the lens for myself
Is the Sony A7 system still worth buying into? | Amateur Photographer
Brand (dis)loyalty, mirrorless and why it’s good for everybody (Ming Thein). Gary Vee signing an a7
The Nissin i400 Flash is Perfect for Beginners (Explora).
New study reveals insights of first-time interchangeable lens camera owners (Dpreview).
Two more Photokina videos about the new 40mm f/0,85 II Ibelux and Alpa 4k 100 Megapixel camera! (Mirrorlessrumors.com).
7Artisans 50mm F1.8 review (Sonyalpha.blog).
Now in Stock:
The new Rokinon 85mm f/1.8 APS-C E-mount lens is in Stock for the first time via Adorama.
The Sony A7III is now in Stock at Amazon, BHphoto, Buydig, FocusCamera,
The Tamron 28-75mm FE is in Stock at Buydig.
One trusted source gave us a posisble timeline of the next Sony announcement. He heard the new Sony High End APS-C camera will be announced within weeks. It’s unclear yet if that means it’s coming at PhotoPlus next week or if it will be announced sometimes in November. UPDATE: Seems like the source confused an official announcement with a in house Sony demonstration prio to the announcement. The camera will be released in every early 2019!
The following info is coming via reliable sources:
This is not an A6500 successor
This is a new kind of APS-C camera
The EVF is in the center
It’s a sort of “mini-A9”
It matches and in some aspects (like AF and IBIS) exceed the Fuji X-T3 performance
For potential SOURCES:
If you know “something” and want to share it anonymously please use the anonymous contact form on the top right of the sidebar. Please use a nickname so that I can recognize you in future messages. You can also contact me directly at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com. Use remailer.paranoici.org to send me an anonymous message if you prefer to do so.
