Would you believe that even in the urban jungle of one of the world’s oldest cities, you can take photos as if you were in the tropics of Asia or South America? Soon, I will give you the proof in an upcoming article about photographing urban wildlife in Rome. But for now, let’s see what new and interesting things have appeared in the photography world this week.
Recent Announcements
- Hasselblad CFV 100C: The new digital back, which will be sold with the 907X (announced in 2019), has a resolution of 100MP and a medium format BSI CMOS sensor measuring 43.8 x 32.9 millimeters. Shooting at base ISO64 and in 16-bit RAW, the digital back will offer a dynamic range of up to 15 stops. Images can be stored on 1TB of internal memory or on CFexpress type B cards. The entire system weighs only 620 grams. The price of the kit is $8,199.
- Samyang V-AF 100mm T2.3: This is the longest of Samyang’s autofocus V-AF cinema lenses compatible with Sony E-mount cameras. The line currently includes six lenses starting at 20mm. All lenses have a consistent form factor for easier gimbal work or sharing of optional accessories such as the manual focus adapter. All have a common weight of 0.28kg. The 100mm T2.3 is available in March 2024 for $699.
- Zyhongyi Optics Speedmaster 20mm f/0.95 ASPH: A Chinese lens to fill the demand for fast APS-C primes. This manual-focus lens, with an aperture as wide as the caldera of Yellowstone, is designed for Sony E, Nikon Z, Canon RF, and Fujifilm X mounts. Inside the metal barrel are 13 elements in 8 groups (1 ASPH, 1 ED, 4 ultra-high index lenses). The lens accepts 72mm filters and allows focusing to a minimum distance of 0.3m. It is currently available only on Amazon Japan at a price equivalent to about $430.
The Rumor Mill
Fujifilm X100VI will have IBIS
The successor of the very popular Fujifilm X100V, with its 23mm f/2 lens (35mm equivalent), will indeed get image stabilization. Considering that the X100VI will have a sensor with a whopping 40MP resolution, I would see the lack of stabilization as a limiting factor. As a nice bonus, the small size of the camera should not be affected by the addition of stabilization. With this in mind, I would put the Fujifilm X100VI back on my wish list as a camera for everyday use.
Via Fuji Rumors
OM System to upgrade its flagship
For a long time, OM System has managed to keep any information about the upcoming successor of the OM-1 under wraps. This is despite the fact that selected testers of the brand have been using the new product in the field for several months. According to the information that has finally leaked out, it looks like the OM-1 Mark II will not have a built-in grip like the former Olympus E-M1X and will basically keep the external appearance of its predecessor.
So, how is OM System’s new flagship supposed to differ from the old one? The image stabilization performance should be improved to 8.5 stops (0.5 stops difference). The buffer is also likely to be improved, with twice as much depth in the OM-1 II as that of its predecessor. And finally, the AF and ergonomics of the camera should also be improved.
One could almost say that many of these changes are geared toward wildlife photographers. Well, let’s wait until the end of the month, when the Mark II will be officially announced, for a better-informed opinion.
Via 4/3 Rumors
“New” Super-Telephoto Zoom for OM System
Along with the OM-1 Mark II, a new supertelephoto zoom is expected to be announced at the end of the month: a 150-600mm f/5.0-6.3. Taking into account the crop factor, which is 2X for Micro Four Thirds cameras, we get the full-frame equivalent of 300-1200mm! Unfortunately, the narrow maximum aperture of f/5-6.3 will limit this lens to well-lit environments.
The external and optical design shows strong inspiration from the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports lens. Nothing against it. It’s a nice lens, and the small sensor will cut the best (middle) part out of it. So, maybe the only reason to complain is the larger size and weight of a full-frame lens, which somewhat negates the advantages of a MFT camera.
Via 4/3 Rumors
Good Deals and New Sales
Phil Collins sings “I see your true colors, and that’s why I love you” in his version of True Colors. You can sing a similar song about your monitor when you calibrate it. With what? Well, the Datacolor Spyder X2 Elite colorimeter is currently selling for $170 (was $270).
In case you missed it last week, the Nikon Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S lens is not only currently in stock, but can be purchased for a discounted price of $5,997 (was $6,497). You can read our review of this lens here.
Another discounted supertelephoto lens, this time for Fujifilm cameras: the Fujifilm XF 150-600mm f/5.6-8 R LM OIS WR is the longest telephoto lens for the cameras of this brand. If you don’t mind the f/8 aperture, you’ll get a good value for your $1,599 (was $1,999). If you want something faster, I’d recommend waiting. You’ll be able to read more of my thoughts on Fujifilm’s system for wildlife photography soon.
SanDisk’s SSDs took a big hit to their reputation last year when some models suffered data loss. But not all drives from the brand were affected. For example, the durable and super-fast SanDisk Professional 2TB PRO-G40 Thunderbolt 3 Portable SSD remained unaffected. What has changed, however, is its price. It is now a reasonable $250 (was $450). Our review is here.
Other Pages of Interest
It’s interesting to see which cameras are most popular in the country where most of them are designed, Japan. According to BCN Retail, somewhat surprisingly, only one camera with a full-frame sensor made it into the top ten. Specifically, the Sony a7 IV. The top two spots were taken by Sony’s APS-C cameras, followed by a trio of APS-C Canons. It seems that Japan loves small cameras, as evidenced by the fact that three Olympus models made it into the top ten. Squeezed in between them at number seven was the Nikon Zfc.
It’s interesting that when we talk to someone about colors, we usually agree that grass is green, tomatoes are red, and the sky is blue. But it’s quite possible that each of us perceives the colors a little differently. And we know this to be true about different members of the animal kingdom. Some animals perceive UV light, while others are sensitive to waves in the IR range. In the article in Plos Biology, you will see how animals see the world and how we can translate their perceptions for our senses.
And before our Photo Challenges, a little inspiration from the world of photo contests. Travel and photography go together. The Travel Photographer of the Year 2023 contest has already announced its winners for 2023, so you can enjoy their photos from faraway lands. And now, hold your breath and dive into the best underwater photos from the Ocean Art 2023 competition.
Photo Theme Challenge, Week #34
Last week’s theme was transparent, and you can see the results in this thread. Thank you to everyone for your submissions! This week’s theme is “surprise!” and you can submit your results in this thread by Saturday, February 3.
Week #33 Results
There were so many good photos this week, it was hard to narrow them down! Let’s start with this photo from John Graybosch that shows multiple different types of glass:
Now we have an evocative photo from PRG Lagarde. I love the cinematic look to this image:
Finally, an image from rjbfoto showing the power of windows in photography as an element of composition:
Thank you to everyone who submitted photos for this week’s “transparent” theme! You can submit your photographic surprises to next week’s thread here.
And that flagship has been released! Looks like an iteration on the existing OM-1, and worthy successor to it.
At some point I’ll probably get something in the micro 4/3s system for hiking, trekking, and similar times when size and weight matter more than the absolute tip top image quality.
The built-in adjustable ND grad functionality is fancy as hell and I hope Nikon is paying attention.
I hope so, Ircut. There are many times when a built-in ND filter would come in handy, even when shooting with a telephoto lens. For example, when I need to blur a river with a bird sitting on a rock in the middle. So last week I had to use ISO32 and f/32, which is on the edge (more like way beyond).
Photography Life provides a lot of excellent articles/guides/reviews etc along with a regular News/Rumour Mill etc item and one can learn a lot. Unlike with some sites, which are invariably third party ‘here’s a fantastic/helpful/great video which I came across as I couldn’t be bothered to write a proper article’. Keep up the good work
I love Photography life, I read them regularly since mansurovs.com days and I want them to survive but the way the site is run is so 2000s. Nobody opens a web forum in 2023, but they did, and all the readers patted their back for doing so, but none of them ever posted. Look at the sub forums, there is almost no activity.
I don’t think many people come here to read rumors either. They could use the resources to keep on creating original and helpful content instead.
Loyal readers getting defensive doesn’t help this site, just holding them away from the reality.
I’m happy to have the feedback. I know it’s coming from the perspective of trying to improve PL rather than trying to troll or anything like that. I’d like to respond in full, so apologies that it’s going to be a long comment.
Let me start by saying that I don’t consider it a negative to run the site in a “2000s” way rather than in a 2023-2024 way. Have you heard of “enshittification”? A lot of the best things about the internet are slowly eroding away as platforms get worse and worse, and websites that were once independent get bought by the same handful of media conglomerates. I was amazed the other day when I Googled a tech product and found an independent website in the list (about #8 on Google) rather than only getting links from The Verge (owned by Vox Media), TechCrunch (owned by Yahoo! Inc.) or Engadget (owned by Yahoo! Inc.)
Of course, The Verge, TechCrunch, and Engadget all had results above the independent writer, but the fact that the independent site was shown at all in Google’s top 10 was a real shock to me.
The other way to run a 2024-style website is to pay $5 a day to a bunch of non-photographers in third-world countries to generate piles of SEO-optimized junk… or more recently, pay $0 to ChatGPT to do the same. This is a really lucrative business model (at least when combined with enough ads) because you can generate several dozen or even hundreds of SEO-optimized articles per day.
I think that part of why our readers are so loyal is that they can tell we’re actual photographers who love our craft, and that we don’t run Photography Life how a boardroom would. Hell, we got rid of ads less than a month ago. Anyone would say that was a bad business decision, and they would be right. We were making about $15,000/month from ads. But the ads were annoying, they cheapened our articles, and they fed into the enshittification of the web. The Photography Life Patreon page will probably never earn us the same amount of income, but it is a better alternative that I can feel proud of. At the end of the day, I want all my effort to go into offering things for our readers, rather than making things worse, as ads do.
By the way, I agree with you that launching a forum in 2023 was an antiquated decision in hindsight, but keep in mind the context. Dpreview had just shut down, and tens of thousands of their forum members had nowhere obvious to go. Given how Dpreview’s fiasco turned out, it looks like it was unnecessary on our part to create an alternative forum. That said, we currently have one of the only ad-free photography forums online, so I can hardly be mad that we put the time into launching it. (Now that it’s published, it doesn’t take any real resources for us to run, so there is no harm in keeping it.)
As for the rumors, I debated for a while about the best way to deal with them. Obviously rumors are some of the biggest drivers of interest in the photography world, but I’ve always been averse to writing articles about them, because it literally is just repeating gossip. I settled on this format instead, where once a week we do a few paragraphs to recap the major rumors going around the photography world. It doesn’t take a lot of resources to write the Rumor Mill section, and it keeps our readers informed. Since Photography Life isn’t generating those rumors ourselves, I feel the need to link to the sites that do, regardless of whether it gives them more traffic.
I think it is your tone that is offending the other readers. It is so 2024. And they are right. Just don’t read what you don’t like to read. It doesn’t mean that other readers don’t like it. Not everybody posts. And lack of posting doesn’t diminish the value of an article. I suspect it takes Libor a lot of work and time to create his weekly news articles. And it probably takes him a lot of time to find content every single week. I personally don’t like them much, so at best I only skim them. But I suspect that the gearheads among us like them a lot. Different strokes, as we used to say. Those articles certainly don’t bring down Photography Life. I think the problem is the ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’. That kind of anonymous thumbs up/thumbs down commentary is destructive to every online venue, in my opinion. While an author may feel good about being liked, who ever wants to know when they are disliked? There is such a thing as too much opinion, especially anonymous opinion, out there.
Better not give you a ‘thumbs up’ then.
It’s just so Facebook.
(Is that right? I’ve never used FB – I just remember reading something about it inventing ‘likes’).
I only read this and Thom Hogan regularly. They seem to me to have a similar ethos.
Your suspicions are confirmed, Elaine. There are indeed hours of work behind my weekly Photography News. It’s perfectly understandable, and fine, that not everyone likes it, or only reads the parts that interest them. I also don’t read a magazine from A to Z. For me personally, it’s beneficial to keep up with what’s going on in the photography industry.
I would like to add one more thing to what Spencer and Jason wrote. Although there are occasionally critical comments in the discussions here, the culture of their speech is usually at a high and I would say friendly level. Personally, I think this is one of the great strengths of our site. In this respect, we are perhaps a few decades further back in time than the 2000s. I like that, and I very much hope that it will continue to be like that in the future. From my insider position, I feel that the world is still in order here at PhotographyLife.
Spencer already gave you a good answer, but I just want to add that of the many unique things about Photography Life, one thing I’ve noticed is that Spencer and Nasim pursue it to be sustainable rather than the most efficiently profitable. Maybe the forum isn’t as popular as some, but it has a community including some who regularly post in the challenges every week. In my mind, that small community is just as valuable as the more massive ecosystems of DPReview. Maybe the rumors aren’t as popular as the most efficient SEO articles, but I personally like them — hey, I like hearing about new gear.
And that’s what I like about this site. It generally strives to be a healthy and sustainable community rather than a ruthelessly profitable one. I think if more communities and organizations were like PL, the world would be a much better place. The world doesn’t always have to be about maximizing short-term profit — if it were, I would be sitting at a trading desk analyzing financial derivatives on Wall Street or writing algorithms for Google. So instead, bring on the 2000s!
I miss the old 2000s websites and I’m glad PL is one of them.
I’m sick of ads everywhere, clickbait everywhere.
Even some good youtube people I’ve been following are starting to go down the clickbait rabbithole and I can’t stand it.
I hope this experiment works for the PhotographyLife staff and they keep doing what they’re doing.
Thank you Rob for the kind feedback. We appreciate it and it motivates us in our work.
Aren’t we tired of rumor sites enough? I am not following the Photography Life website to read rumors.
Many years ago, when I was administering an Internet resource in the content of which I participated with my wallet, I realized that telling the owners / administrators what to do and how to further develop their resource was not the most promising activity. Even if people paid for a subscription. And it’s a particularly bad idea to do it publicly.
Feedback (negative and positive) is good for the owners, it is up to them to change anything or not. I don’t think they need your protection. On the other hand, giving credits to these ‘no-content,all affiliate link’ rumor sites in the articles makes them climb up in google searches which slowly kills the good sites like the Photography Life in the long run.
🤣
Did you know that you can skip reading things, and parts thereof, that do not interest you.
NB “you can”: by which I mean “you are allowed to“; I’m not suggesting for one moment that “you are able to“.
Good sense of humor, or shall I say good sense of rumor?
We are definitely open to feedback and constructive criticism. Those are the things that can move us forward. As for rumors, I feel that if we devote one short chapter a week to them, that is perfectly adequate. I also try to comment on rumors at least briefly, so that it is not just parroting the content of other sites. Of course, you can always skip this section and read only what you are interested in.
No doubt the Fuji X100VI is eagerly awaited.
Thanks a lot for the feature between those two beautiful architectural beauties ;)…