CameraSeptember/October 2017的目錄

THE MASTHEAD OF this magazine has always reflected our primary interest – cameras. It’s straight to the point, just like Car, the brilliantly-titled British motoring magazine (and, like us, they pared down a longer title to something more succinct). While it’s true that a camera is nothing without a photographer working it, a photographer is essentially nothing without a camera to work with. It’s often fashionable to downplay the camera, but the reality is that visions can’t be achieved unless the camera has the features and specifications to make them possible. A camera is also nothing without a lens. When I first started in this job, it was definitely the camera tech that interested me the most, but over time I’ve really come to love what lenses can do. In…

THE EOS 6D has lived in the shadow of its 5D siblings despite offering a lot of the same attractions for a lot less money. After five years we were starting to think Canon might have forgotten about it. The good news is that there’s now an EOS 6D Mark II which is again designed to be Canon’s most affordable full-35mm D-SLR, but it boasts a lot of significant improvements, so it’s not quite as pared-back as its predecessor. The weather-sealed GRP-and-alloy bodyshell remains much the same as before in terms of size and styling, but the 7.62 cm LCD monitor screen is now adjustable for tilt and swing (actually a first on a full-35mm format Canon D-SLR). It has a resolution of 1.04 megadots and offers touch controls. The…

JUST IN CASE you thought Canon might be turning mirrorless, it’s been busy refreshing its D-SLR range with four new models announced over the last few months. At the same time as it unveiled the EOS 6D Mark II, Canon also took the opportunity to upgrade another one of its entry-level D-SLRs, replacing the EOS 100D with the 200D. Built around a more compact GRP body-shell to attract first-time users, the 200D has a Like the other recent additions to Canon’s entry-level D-SLR line-up, it has the ‘Guided Display’ user interface, more graphics-based to help beginners understand the effects of changing settings. The sensor incorporates Canon’s ‘Dual Pixel CMOS AF’ design to enable phase-difference detection autofocusing in live view and for shooting video. The optical AF system employs nine measuring…

Ever since Leica ventured down the ‘digital M’ route, the challenge has been balancing the new with the old. The M is Leica. It’s the signature dish and the company has vowed that there will always be an M model in its line-up… which has been the case since 1954. The original M3 wrote the rule book for the 35mm range-finder camera and there was little need to make too many changes until digital capture came along. Since then it’s been a case of trying to work out how much classical RF camera to retain and how much digital imaging technology to adopt. As the series of models since the M8 was introduced in late 2006 attest, it’s not an easy mix to get exactly right. A big issue is…

DIGITAL SLR CAMERAS BUYER’S CHECK LIST SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017 THIS CHECKLIST is designed to allow direct comparisons between different camera models, here listed in price order within each brand. The published prices are mostly supplied by the distributors as recommended retail prices (RRPs). However, some distributors are no longer supplying RRPs to the media so it has become necessary to determine an ‘estimated street price’ derived from the range of prices for a model published by retailers. Where this has been necessary, the letter ‘E’ appears at the start of the entry. A dot appearing in a column indicates that the feature is available on the camera model listed. Where a specification or product detail hasn’t yet been published or confirmed, the letters TBA (to be announced) or TBC (to be…

LEICA’S THIRD-GENERATION ‘APS-C’, L mount mirrorless camera has been given some minor cosmetic treatment on the outside, but a major upgrade on the inside. The new TL2 retains the smart, hewn-from-solid-aluminium one-piece chassis and bodyshell introduced with the first model T, but now with chamfered edges for a slightly smoother look. The most significant change on the outside is the deletion of a built-in flash which, Leica says, consumer feedback indicated was rarely being used. However, the internals include a new sensor, processor and autofocusing system, making the TL2 significantly faster than its predecessors. The CMOS sensor has an imaging area of 23.6x15.7 mm and a total pixel count of 24.96 million (24.24 MP effective) to give a maximum image size of 6000x4000 pixels for JPEGs and 6016x4014 pixels for…

BRITISH COMPANY Lee Filters has launched a new range of high-quality neutral density filters. Two years in development, the ProGlass IRND filters were originally designed for cinematography and, claims Lee, have already been acknowledged as “the best neutral-density filters on the market”. For still photographers, the ProGlass IRND filters are now available in Lee’s Seven5, 100mm and SW150 systems. Advances in coating technology mean that the filters – which are manufactured from 2.0 mm thick optically-flat glass – are available in strengths of two (0.6ND), three (0.9ND), four (1.2ND) and six (1.8ND) stops, plus in ultra-long ten (3ND) and 15-stop (4.5ND) versions. All the filters in the range are designed to be free of colour casts and with accurate stop values to ensure consistency in all shooting conditions and allow…

THE WINNER  Food For God by Shoeb Faruquee (Bangladesh) Winner, Pink Lady® Food Photographer Of The Year 2017. This image also won the Food For Celebration category (sponsored by Champagne Taittinger). Bangladesh-based photographer Shoeb Faruquee is the overall winner of Pink Lady Food Photographer Of The Year for 2017. At an awards ceremony in London Shoeb was presented with a cheque for £5000 by Andy Macdonald, who heads up Pink Lady in the UK. Shoeb won the Food For Celebration category – which is sponsored by Champagne Taittinger – and then went on to scoop the overall crown for his stunning image titled Food For God. “The competition was fiercer than ever,” says Andy Macdonald. “There were over 8400 images entered from over 60 countries and the standard was phenomenal.…

The Picture The Strzelecki Track in the outback of South Australia photographed in a raging sand storm with the visibility down to about 50 metres and the temperature a very uncomfortable 45 degrees Celsius. These are hardly the conditions for enjoying the journey, but sometimes adverse weather can lead to photo opportunities, provided a suitable subject can be found… and the photographer is willing to brave the elements. The Photographer Writer and photographer Trevern Dawes has the rare distinction of being a contributor to the very first issue of this magazine when it was launched back in June 1979. Over 35 years later, he is still as passionate about photography now as he was back then, and continues to regularly write for both books and magazines. The Equipment Canon EOS…

The earliest lenses were simply a single element of high-quality glass ground and polished into a spherical shape so the curved surfaces bent the light rays which passed through them in order to focus an image. More sophisticated designs added more elements –both concave and convex in shape – to improve the optical quality across the image frame, and allow for focusing. Over time, optical designs have become a lot more complex, involving larger numbers of elements arranged in groups which can be moved independently to facilitate focusing and zooming. The key specification of a camera lens is its focal length which is expressed in millimetres (although you’ll occasionally see vintage lenses with the focal length marked in centimetres). The focal length – or range, in the case of zooms –…

It’s a special milestone when a camera company reaches its centennial anniversary. Leica has already got there and a few others might have too had they remained in the imaging business or, indeed, remained in business at all. Zeiss is another (although it hasn’t built cameras for a long time), so it’s still a rare occasion and Nikon is the first Japanese camera brand to celebrate a century of operations. In July 1917 three Japanese optical companies merged to form a single entity called Nippon Kogaku K.K., which was based in Tokyo. The new company began making optical glass for a wide variety of applications from binoculars and telescopes to microscopes. In the early 1920s, the company started manufacturing camera lenses, initially versions of the famous German Tessar design which…

YOU’LL BEST KNOW Epson for its excellent range of photo printers, but the company has a lot of fingers in a lot of pies (including making EVF screens). One of the more interesting non-printer Epson products is its Moverio high-definition ‘smart glasses’ which are gradually finding a range of applications in industry, science and tourism. The latest generation Moverio BT-300 model has recently been introduced and is more compact, lighter in weight and more sophisticated than previous models. Unlike conventional VR goggles, the Moverio glasses are transparent so you’re still in touch with the real world while displays are being generated on the inside of the lenses. Epson is calling them “augmented reality” smart glasses. Our interest in the Moverio smart glasses is their usefulness for flying a camera drone,…

Current to 8 October: Exhibition. Wildlife Photographer Of TheYear. One hundred images from the finalists and winners in the 2016 edition of the world’s biggest wildlife photography competition. At the Australian National Maritime Museum, 2 Murray Street, Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW 2000. Entry is $20 which includes admission to the museum’s permanent galleries. Museum hours are 9.30am to 5.00pm daily. For more information telephone (02) 9298 3777 or visit www.anmm.gov.au Current to 8 October: Exhibition. Mervyn Bishop. A celebration of a central figure in Australian photography, and his contribution to art and photojournalism over half a century. At Yiribana Gallery, the Art Gallery of NSW, Art Gallery Road, The Domain, NSW 2000. Gallery hours are 10.00am to 5.00pm daily (open to 9.00pm on Wednesdays). Admission is free. For more information…

Fujifilm has been hitting home runs with its X Series camera ever since it stunned us with the original X100 at the 2010 Photokina. However, the first foray into a more affordable entry-level X Mount model, the X-T10 was a bit of a miss… well, not exactly a miss, but not exactly a hit either. There was certainly nothing wrong with the way it looked, but it lacked the usual pizzazz that we’ve come to expect from Fujifilm’s X files. With the X-T20, things are back on track with significant upgrades which make it a pretty attractive proposition while still maintaining a respectful distance from the X-T2. It moves up in pricing too, making it now more mid-range than entry-level, but if you’re in the market for an ‘APS-C’ mirrorless…

Conventional wisdom has it that optical image stabilisation is only incorporated into longer focal length lenses. Well, of course, it’s logical that the greater the magnification the greater the risk of camera shake, but what about shooting in low light situations which require slower shutter speeds? Having image stabilisation available with any lens had been one of the selling points of camera bodies with sensor-shift IS. But now Tamron has installed an optical stabiliser system into the widest-angle zoom in its Di II series of lenses for ‘APS-C’ for D-SLRs. Tamron’s original 10-24mm zoom took the world by storm back in 2008, leveraging full advantage of the smaller sensor size – and a swag of new lens technologies – to push the envelope in terms of what was possible with…

If you’re a regular reader of this magazine, you’ll know that the arrival of not just one, but two mirrorless camera designs utilising a ‘medium format’ size sensor has been causing quite a stir. As has been the case in all the other sensor sizes, the mirrorless design has enabled smaller and lighter hardware – particularly lenses – and it’s perhaps even more significant here where an optical viewfinder and reflex mirror mechanism represent a fair amount of bulk and weight. There are also cost savings to be made once these components have been eliminated so digital medium format photography is destined to become more accessible via improved affordability. But let’s not get too carried away here… both the Fujifilm GFX 50S and the Hasselblad X1D 50c represent considerable investments,…

WINNER Superb technique with framing, composition and a very long exposure time wins the final round of the 2017 competition for Steven Sandner. Converting the image to B&W adds to the visual impact too. Steven used a Panasonic Lumix G10 fitted with a 45-200mm zoom lens. ENTRY GUIDELINES FOR DIGITAL IMAGES You can enter the Fujifilm Showcase by sending your image files on DVD or USB drive. Alternatively files can be sent directly via email to: cameracomp@avhub.com.au The requirements for submitting digital files are as follows: • 300 dpi resolution, and at a file size which enables a reproduction of up to 20x15 cm. Please avoid submitting overly large file sizes, especially when emailing the images. Up to 4.0 MB in file size is more than sufficient. • Digital retouching…