The 70-300mm G SSM sized up

Today I took delivery of a Sony 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G SSM lens. There is no doubt this is the best built Sony SAL lens I’ve handled (the CZ 135mm 1.8, 85mm f1.4 are a class above again). It weighs over 800g with its lens-hood, which is one of the most efficient deep tele hoods I’ve seen. Continue reading »

Alpha 700 JPEG quality revealed

IT IS very difficult to find a good JPEG from the Alpha 700 pre-production model tests shot in Italy, because too few cameras were available for too short a time – and many of the journalists present were not photographers. But we have found one image you will love. Continue reading »

Sony Alpha 700 official press release

D-SLR-α700

TOUGH, RESPONSIVE Alpha 700 DELIVERS STUNNING NEXT-GENERATION PICTURE QUALITY – FROM SHOOTING TO VIEWING

Sep 6, 2007

  • Superb picture quality with newly developed Sony 12.24 effective megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor and brand new high-speed BIONZ processor with RAW noise reduction
  • Ultra-responsive operation with fast, high-accuracy 11-point autofocus and 5fps continuous shooting
  • New Quick Navigation function for instant access to camera settings
  • Rugged magnesium body with dust/moisture resistant seals
  • PhotoTV HD Full HD image display on new BRAVIA televisions
  • 3-inch 921k dot photo-quality LCD screen and bright, high-magnification viewfinder

Continue reading »

How anti-shake aids art exhibit shooting

I SELL digital images through Alamy, the on-line photo library. When an original piece of art is out of copyright, and displayed in public or by an owner permitting photography, the ability to get a good quality reproduction copy on the spot without lights, tripod or flash is valuable. Some 8 per cent of my overall Alamy images sales over the past four years have been of signs, notices and labels – disproportionately high, compared to the actual number of such shots. As someone has commented, editors like pictures which tell their own story, and sometimes have words in the pictures does just that. Continue reading »

Frozen water – at 1/10th of a second?

WE spent a great week shooting mainly in Vaucluse, the district to the east of Avignon in the south of France, with Shirley using the 18-250mm Tamron f/3.5-6.3 lens exclusively. One object of this was to get some more example photos for a short article on the lens in our forthcoming Photoworld magazine. Continue reading »

New Alpha and lens range launch imminent

THE appearance of press-release resolution (14Mb) images of the new Alpha – un-named but thought to be the Alpha 200 or 300 because of the product code earlier assigned to shots of prototypes at PMA – combines with reports on various forums from European Sony executives visiting Japan to suggest that the launch announcement for the new model and a range of full-frame lenses is imminent. Continue reading »

The Lensbaby 3G creative zonal focus tilt-swing lens

THE LENSBABY was a novelty item when first introduced as a low-cost meniscus lens mounted on a flexible concertina tube with an SLR mount-fitting at the other end. Like the Diana or Holga cameras sometimes used by professionals to capture a feel of post-modern grunge, it used aberrations creatively. Continue reading »

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