US Commerce Department expects sensor shortage to last til end 2022

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Engadget reports:

Don’t expect the worldwide chip shortage to end any time soon. Bloomberg and The Washington Post note the US Commerce Department has published a semiconductor supply chain report estimating that the global shortage will last until at least the second half of 2022. “We aren’t even close to being out of the woods” with supply problems, Department Secretary Gina Raimondo said.

Many companies are particularly sensitive to problems, too. The median chip inventory for a client company plunged from 40 days in 2019 to under five days in 2021. Even a relatively short (weeks-long) disruption overseas could shut down an American factory, the Department said.

Officials concluded the government couldn’t directly end the shortage. Private companies were “best positioned” to overcome challenges by increasing production, optimizing their designs and limiting the impact on their supply chains.

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Triple Brigthin Star review: 50mm F0.95, 55mm F1.8 and 23mm F5.6

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Brigthtin Star seems to be a rebranded version of the Mitakon lenses. You can find these lenses on Amazon US, Amazon DE, Amazon UK.

Marc Alhadeff from SonyAlphaBlog reviewed three of them:

Brightin Star 50mm F0.95:

The Brightin Star 50mm F0.95 (389$) is a typical F0.95 lens the provide super smooth bokeh, decent sharpness wide open and excellent as of F4 with a very good color, rendition and very good build quality
The Brightin Star provides very poetic and nice pictures for portraits or for object details with lot of background blur
The key difference with the other F0.95 lenses is the price: it is 2 times cheaper that other F0.95 while providing very similar performance !
The lens has some weaknesses : not circular bokeh balls with aperture closed down , more vignetting and situation than competition and lower resistance to flare
But for 389$ it is a bargain

Brightin Star 55mm F1.8:

The Brightin Star 55mm F1.8 (116$) provide globally very good portraits with very good bokeh balls, good background blur, very good color rendition. Sharpness could be a bit better wide open but for 116$ is does as good as the Sony 50mm F1.8 while having a better rendering for portraits

Brigthin Star 23mm F5.6:

The Brightin Star 23mm f5.6 (100$) is a very nice , light and compact pancake lens. Sharpness is very good to excellent on most of the fields but with only average corners. The color Rendition is very good
The main drawback is the bad resistance to flare , the average corners , the slow aperture of F5.6 (if you like small depth of field effect) and of course no AF

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Competition news: Sigma has tremendous difficulty making a Foveon sensor

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Today Sigma laid out the plan to make a Full frame Foveon sensor. But they admitted they are not even sure if that’s a feasible project: “based on the evaluation results, and then make a final decision on whether or not to mass-produce the image sensor.”

In the past years I found some Sony patents about 3 layer sensor, but I wonder if such sensors will ever make it into a Full Frame mirrorless camera…

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Curiosity: Sony long pause…four months without a new product announcement!

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Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FocusCamera. Fotokoch Germany. Calumet Germany, Foto Erhardt. ParkCameras UK. Jessops.

Last year on October 21 we got the last Sony announcement (A7IV). Today we officially mark four months of long pause with no new camera and no new lens. This is rather unusual for Sony. By comparison, last year Sony made two announcements in January (Sony A1 and 35mm GM).

The worldwide chip shortage may lead Sony to make a short “break” and postpone the announcement. But I am certain that pause will be over soon. Last year we got the 50mm f/1.2 GM lens in March. And 12 months after it would be nice to get the new 85mm f/1.2 GM ;)

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Sony Tidbits…

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Best Sony A7S III Picture Profile?

Did I jump the gun buying into the Sony ecosystem? Canon seemed much much much easier (SonyAlphaForum).
Viltrox 50mm F1.8 review at SonyAlpha.blog.
Review: Laowa 45mm 0.95 (Phillip Reeve)
JOBY Releases New Tech for Multimedia Creatives (Explora).
7 Features to Look for in a Compact Digital Camera (42West).
CIPA Data: In 2021 system camera sales were 4% lower than in 2020

Personal photos and tests from SAR Admin Andrea on Instagram, Facebook, Flickr and 500px.

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