Tabla de contenidos para V73 Issue 5 en Pro Photo

After a record crop of entries for the 2017 competition, the 2018 Pink Lady® Food Photographer Of The Year awards are now open for entries. There are some new categories and new judges, including Ferran Adria, iconic chef of the oft-voted world’s best restaurant, El Bulli in Spain. The Pink Lady Food Photographer Of The Year awards have had an illustrious and evolving panel since its first year. The range of skills and expertise is extensive, from great photographers, creative directors, food retailers using the finest photography, photography gallery owners, chefs. Past judges have included Antonio Carluccio, Martin Parr, Yotam Ottolenghi, Chris Beetles, Jay Rayner and Donna Hay. This year, for the first time, David Loftus – best known for his photography for Jamie Oliver – will be the chair…

Long serving, Sydney-based professional photo supplier L&P Digital Photographic has closed its doors after 37 years in business. L&P was the Australian distributor for a number of brands including Phase One, Sekonic, Pocket, Induro, Rodenstock and Alpa, but over the decades has represented many others such as Profoto, Tenba and Think Tank Photo. The company has also been very actively involved in industry events, providing both sponsorships and technical support. L&P’s departure had the potential to leave a gap in Sydney’s professional imaging market, but Melbourne-based Specular has announced it will be opening a new showroom in the city. Specular has been closely associated with L&P and will take over the sales and support of some products, most notable the Phase One digital medium format capture systems. Specular’s managing director…

With the choice of f1.4-speed, high-performance 85mm primes hotting up at present, Canon has unveiled its first lens in this configuration… and with the added benefits of optical image stabilisation. Canon already offers f1.2 and f1.8 speed 85mm models. The new Canon EF 85mm f1.4L IS USM features a weather-protected external construction with magnesium alloy barrel tubes and weighs in at 950 grams. The image stabiliser is claimed to give up to four stops of correction for camera shake, while the 14-element optical construction includes a moulded aspherical type to optimise corner-to-corner sharpness and reduce distortion. Canon’s ‘Air-Sphere Coating’ (ASC) multi-coating is employed to help reduce internal reflections. Fluorine coatings are applied to the exposed element surfaces to help repel moisture and minimise the build-up of dust and grease. Autofocusing…

“When you start adding and subtracting colours, shape, form, backgrounds and content, you no longer have a documentary/photojournalism photograph. What you have instead is an illustration.” “I feel sad that our profession has been tainted by award hunters who use lies to get recognition, but in reality are jeopardising the essence of photojournalism.”This quote is from Patrick Baz, AFP’s Middle East chief photographer and a member of the 2015 World Press Photo jury. Altering images has been with us ever since photography was invented. In fact, in 1840, Hippolyte Bayard – who had a rightful claim as one of the inventors of photography – produced the first staged image. Bayard, having been ignored by the French Academy of Sciences in favour of Louis Daguerre, set-up a photograph in which he…

Type: Fully automatic, interchangeable lens digital camera with Micro Four Thirds System bayonet lens mount. Focusing: Automatic hybrid system using contrast-detection and phase-difference detection via imaging sensor with 121 focusing points for each (all cross types). Focus points may be selected manually or automatically by the camera. Group Target area modes with either five- or nine-point clusters. Manual switching between one-shot and continuous AF modes. Face/eye detection and auto tracking. Continuous manual override available with single-shot mode. In-camera AF limiter (three settings). Low light/contrast assist via built-in illuminators. Focus assist via magnified image (3x/5x/7x/10x/14x) and focus peaking display (Red, Yellow, White or Black; High, Normal or Low intensity). Metering: 324-point ‘Digital ESP’ (i.e. multi-zone), centre-weighted average, spot (2.0%) with highlight/shadow bias, and TTL flash. Metering range is EV -2.0 to…

As Sony’s policy with the A7 series has been to have a dedicated video version, it’s not surprising that the A9 isn’t as feature-packed here as, say, Panasonic’s Lumix GH5. Nevertheless, thanks to its sensor and processor, the A9 is still a very capable video camera, starting with its full-pixel read-out for 4K recording with no pixel binning. This means 4K video is recorded at 6000x3376 pixels (i.e. 2.4x oversampling at 6K) and 24 fps, then downsampled to UHD at 3840x2160 pixels, optimising image quality. It also means that no crop factor is involved so lens focal lengths remain as marked on the barrel. As with stills shooting, the rolling shutter effect is minimised. UHD footage can also be recorded at 25 fps (again with no crop factor) and at…

The big question is… when? Nikon has all but confirmed it will launch a new mirrorless camera system and it’s almost certainly going to be based on a full-35mm format sensor. So far, most of what’s known has been released indirectly, but there’s now enough information to suggest the project is real and it will be here soonish. The most recent report quotes a senior Nikon engineer suggesting the camera will be full-35mm… which was never really in any doubt. In fact, he starts the quote with, “If Nikon will go mirrorless…”, but this seems to be typical Japanese coyness about an unannounced product. Our sniffing of the wind suggests that the new system is largely ready and may well be launched at the 2018 CES in Las Vegas, to…

Portrait photographer Keren Dobia has been judged Australia’s top professional photographer for 2017. Keren – who also works as a creative director for theatrical productions, designing, creating and sourcing both costumes and sets – is the 2017 AIPP Australian Professional Photographer Of The Year. This year, over 500 professional photographers submitted a collection of 2000 images to be judged in the annual Australian Professional Photography Awards (APPAs). APPA is the largest awards for professional print photography in Australia and one of the largest in the world. It is the only professional photography awards in the country that requires physical prints to be submitted for judging. Olympus Australia, Aon and Panasonic Australia were the Platinum sponsors of this year’s APPA competition. Keren Dobia is a graduate of NMIT Diploma of Photo-imaging,…

Type: Professional interchangeable lens mirrorless digital camera with Sony E bayonet lens mount (FE mount). Focusing: Automatic via hybrid contrast-detection and phase-difference detection systems. 693 points with phase-difference detection, 25 points with contrast-detection. Focus points may be selected manually or automatically by the camera with Wide, Zone, Centre, Flexible Spot (small, medium or large) and Expanded Flexible Spot area modes. Lock-On AF available with all five area modes. Focus area registration and recall. Single-shot and continuous modes with auto or manual switching, ‘Direct Manual Focus’ override, auto tracking, face detection/ recognition and eye detection. Adjustable tracking sensitivity (five levels from Locked On to Responsive). Sensitivity range is EV -3.0 to 20 (ISO 100/f2.0). Low-light AF assist provided by built-in LED illuminator. Manual focus assist via magnification (up to 9.4x) and…

Not entirely surprisingly, the rights to the Lexar branding – put up for sale a few months ago by American owner Micron Technology – have been purchased by a Chinese manufacturer of flash memory products. Longsys will begin marketing Lexar-branded products immediately and is expected to significantly expand its presence and activities around the world. Longsys comments “Lexar has built a great brand name and our vision is to make it even greater. Existing customers can rest assured that the innovative solutions and excellent support that they have experienced from Lexar will continue”. Panasonic has delivered its promised upgrade (Version 2.0) for the Lumix GH5 which enables 4K or Full HD video recording with 10-bit 4:2:2 colour and All-Intra compression. The upgrade also allows for tethered shooting via USB using…

There’s nothing like a dip into the archives to reveal just how much things have changed in the imaging industry, especially over the last couple of decades. In the late 1970s colour film had finally been accepted and the makers of 35mm SLR cameras were trying to break into the commercial photography market. Here’s a selection of what was on the pages of this magazine 40 years ago when it was called Professional Photography In Australia. This is a snapshot of the September/ October 1977 issue. COVER PHOTOGRAPH / Alex Bataljaku, Melbourne TEST REPORTS / Sekonic exposure meters / Verde bellows for 35mm SLRs / Leica R3 35mm SLR / Bronica ETR 6x4.5cm SLR PEOPLE AND PLACES / Alex Bataljaku, portrait photographer, Brunswick, Melbourne THE ISSUES / First Merit Awards…

As the Olympus Micro Four Thirds flagship, the E-M1 Mark II has the unenviable task of taking on Panasonic’s Lumix GH5 in the video arena and, like its predecessor, this latter camera is seriously orientated towards pro cinematographers. In fact, if you want a mirrorless camera solely for making videos, the GH5 essentially offers everything you’d find on a pro-level camcorder. That said, the E-M5 II has been popular in the video world, Olympus has followed on, equipping the E-M1 II with an impressive suite of high-end features and capabilities. For starters it records 4K video in either the pro-orientated Cinema 4K resolution of 4096x2160 pixels at 24 fps – giving a massive bit rate of 237 Mbps – or in the Ultra HD resolution of 3840x2160 pixels at either…

THERE’S BEEN A LONG line of challengers to the dominance of Canon and Nikon in the pro camera market, among them many illustrious names, such as Contax, Leica, Minolta, Olympus and Pentax. However, that was when the name of the game was reflex cameras. Now there’s an increasingly powerful collective – which includes Leica and Olympus – launching a new assault armed with increasingly more potent mirrorless weaponry. To Leica’s SL and Olympus’s OM-D E-M1 II can be added Fujifilm’s X-T2 (and the GFX 50S for anybody thinking bigger), Panasonic’s GH5 and the Sony A7R II. All are making mirrorless converts, but undoubtedly it’s Sony’s next-gen A9 that’s going to tip the scales for many working photographers. The A9’s crosshairs are firmly locked on the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II…