Today, I’m pitting the original lens for the X-Series, the venerable XF 35mm f/1.4 R against the new normal prime, the XF 35mm f/2 R WR, a slightly more compact and weather resistant lens that has just been released for the X-Series of interchangeable lens cameras. The lenses carry the same field of view and…
Category: Shop Talk
Canon EF Lenses on Sony A7 II (Firmware 2.0)
Sony released Firmware 2.0 for the nearly year-old A7 II on November 18, though it was put up a few hours early by several Sony sites in Europe, so those who wanted could do the upgrade a bit early if they so desired. This firmware was billed primarily for bringing uncompressed RAW capability to the A7…
Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 vs. Sony FE 28mm f/2
Today I’m looking at a quick test of two wide-angle lenses for the Sony full-frame E-Mount: the Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 Distagon and the Sony FE 28mm f/2. There’s a $900 price gap between the two lenses, which share a somewhat similar field of view and the same maximum aperture. How do they compare? Let’s…
PhotoPlus Tidbits and Roundup
PhotoPlus Expo 2015 has come to a close, and I’m back home after a nice trip to New York. Here I’m going to discuss a few of the other things I saw at the show as well as round-up the show a bit. There were some nice things at the show, but overall, I have…
Hands-On: DxO One
It’s not a mirrorless camera, nor from one of the big players, but the DxO One, DxO’s first foray into hardware, is an intriguing entry to the photographic market. DxO figures that you bring your smartphone with you everywhere anyway, and sometimes you want better quality than a smartphone can provide, but you also don’t…
PhotoPlus: Olympus and Panasonic Booths
If you’ve been following my PhotoPlus articles so far, you may note that this post doesn’t headline with ‘Hands-On’. I did handle some Olympus and Panasonic gear, and I’ll discuss, but frankly, neither Panasonic nor Olympus had any truly new products to try out this year. A rather hum-drum PhotoPlus from the two Micro 4/3 makers….
Hands-On: Mitakon Booth: 135mm f/1.4, 35mm f/0.95, 25mm f/0.95
I happend upon the Mitakon booth on my way out of PhotoPlus for the day, and saw the newly announced limited edition 135mm f/1.4, and just had to stop. Along the way, I tried out two other new ultra-fast prime lenses for E-mount and Micro 4/3. Mitakon 135mm f/1.4 This lens, the fastest 135mm available,…
Hands-On: Leica Booth: Leica SL and Leica Q
Continuing my coverage from day 1 of PhotoPlus Expo in New York comes the news from Leica. Leica SL The newest mirrorless system is the brand new Leica SL, which was announced just two days ago. The SL bucks the trend of ‘small mirrorless’ and instead simply treats it as any other high-end imaging system…