Admiring Light

Sony has been making a splash recently with its small camera offerings. While I’ve never previously been a fan of Sony’s compact digital cameras due to their horrible sensors, they’ve done some amazing things with their SLRs and later their excellent NEX line of cameras. Now Sony is finally bringing their class leading sensor technology …

One accessory that is common among most manufacturers is an add-on vertical grip with duplicated controls and space for one or two extra batteries. Fuji didn’t provide one of these vertical grips for any of the rangefinder-styled X-series cameras, but with the SLR-styled X-T1, the vertical grip has followed. I’ve had the VG-XT1 vertical battery …

Up for an in-depth look today is the Olympus 8mm f/1.8 Fisheye.  It’s the first prime lens released under Olympus’ PRO moniker, and features a weathersealed high-grade body and fast aperture, which is unique among fisheye lenses. If you’ve never used a fisheye lens before, it’s worth your while to do so, as the extreme …

It’s been about a year since Sony shook up the mirrorless industry with the release of the full-frame A7 and A7r.  They followed up with a low-light king, the A7s, in the summer, and now the original A7 sees a refresh with the A7II – a camera that is largely about refining the A7 brand, …

Fuji surprised the market by releasing something that is both the first of its kind and something that people have been waiting for since the beginning of mirrorless: Native OEM extension tubes. It’s surprising to me that it took 6 years for the first original equipment manufacturer to create extension tubes for their system.  In November 2014, Fuji …

Fuji has released a rather large number of bodies in 2013, and they conclude the year by issuing their first X-Series upgraded camera, the X-E2.  When the X-E1 (reviewed here) was released only a little more than a year ago, it was the second entry in the X-System.  A scaled down X-Pro 1 without the optical …

Voigtländer has been steadily releasing a rather full complement of lenses for the Sony E-Mount, from their ultra-wide 10mm and 12mm offerings, to the classic rendering 35mm f/1.4 to extremely high-end macro lenses like the 65mm f/2 and the new 110mm f/2.5.  Today we’re looking at one of their newer designs, the Voigtländer 40mm f/1.2 …

Today I’m looking at another lens from Sony’s new G Master series of professional-grade optics, the FE 85mm f/1.4 GM.  This is the only prime currently in the GM series of lenses, and fills a need for many professional shooters, providing a very fast f/1.4 aperture in the classic 85mm focal length.  The FE 24-70mm …