Blad bling going for a song

Hasselblad HV

Well, I never really liked what Hasselblad did with the smaller Sony cameras – but what they did with the A99 is pretty cool, with the different body skin and control details. At the original price? A rip-off!

For $3999 including a 24-70m CZ lens and a special case – a bargain. This is still an amazing camera. OK, at the official price of $11,999 it would have been the badge of a wealthy eejit. At $3999 it’s a snap-up deal for anyone wanting the highly capable A99 in a form which will have wedding guests keeping their mouths shut even if they do have a cheap old Canon 5D MkIII round their neck.

B&H have this offer right now.

And for purists, they have an equally extreme reduction on the Sony NEX-7. Make no mistake, this is still a top end classic with excellent controls and it works with the older Sony hot shoe. It is only $498 with the 18-55mm lens, all in black. That’s amazing.

B&H NEX-7 with 18-55mm – reduced from $1248 to $498.

 

 

A77 B&H price goes through the floor

Just got this link from B&H, ideal for our US readers – http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/817858-REG/Sony_SLT_A77V_SLT_A77_Digital_Camera_Body.html

It’s for the original A77, body only, at $549.

This is a ridiculously low price for a body with GPS which, bar a small improvement in high ISO performance stated to be 20% (I think it’s a bit more) is not far from the A77 MkII and if you have older flashguns or triggers like the Pixel King set I’ve bought recently remains ideal for flash work.

owl-sequence-web

That is a single shot at ISO 100 using an iLux Summit 600C flash head set on 10fps strobe, with the 16-80mm CZ lens at f/20 (it’s a powerful flash) and wireless triggering. Owl in our studio, working in complete darkness. The A77 didn’t suddenly stop being a great camera because the A77 MkII arrived! At $549 with (apparently) $77.38 of free accessories this ‘holiday special’ looks like a steal.

– David Kilpatrick

B&H double Zeiss Touit lens deal for NEX

I guess that Zeiss must be working right now on full frame Touit lenses, because this is unprecedented value for those able to buy in dollars without steep shipping charges, duties or taxes – however, the links they emailed out today led to a wrong page on their USED section, and after a lot of digging to get the right URL, the offer is needless to say on back order – and B&H are taking a Jewish holiday from June 3rd to 5th so you’d better jump in quickly before close of biz on June 2nd.

touit2lenses

BOTH the Carl Zeoss Touit 12mm f/2.8 and 32mm f/1.8 lenses for the E-mount for only $919 from B&H with free US expedited shipping (they do not cover full frame and I’ve tested them and found a fairly tight image circle). They are stunningly good for NEX-7, NEX-6, A6000, A3000,  A5000.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/0/Ntt/Zeiss+Touit+Lens

Here are the actual image circles of the three Touit lenses (12mm, 32mm and 50mm f/2.8 macro which is not in this deal) on A7R, without applying any distortion or vignetting correction. All the lenses have an Adobe profile and in the case of the 12mm this enlarges the image circle substantially. Normally, this means the lens is a true 12mm equivalent with the profile applied and the actual focal lenth could be closer to 10.5mm.

touit12mmf2p8-imagecircleonFF

First, the Touit 12mm without lens profile

touit12mmf2p8-imagecircleLensProfiled

Now, the Touit same shot but converted from raw applying the built-in lens profile (conclusion – the profile applies to an APS-C frame and does little good to the outer field on full frame – you are better off using the lens without the profile, including on APS-C, if you want maximum wide-angle coverage)

touit32mmf1p8-imagecircleonFF

Then the 32mm f/1.8 on the A7R (like the shot above, at full aperture – image circles generally do not get larger when you stop down, if the edge is as well-defined as these Zeiss lenses)

touit50mmf2p8-imagecircleonFF

Finally, the 50mm f/2.8 macro to complete the reference. All pictures taken from behind the counter of the Carl Zeiss stand at The Photography Show – hence the great lighting and subject-matter…

– DK

Free software and a cut-price lens

You have until November 3rd to grab a free download of a truly excellent utility for Mac OSX, created by DxO Optics Pro software team – DxO Perspective. It normally costs $19.95 (or local equivalent) as an Apple App store download, but they have made it free for a few days. It’s a fully working, standard version with no time limit.

Download link for DxO Perspective from Apple iTunes, free until November 3rd

Here’s what they say:

“DxO Perspective corrects all kinds of perspective problems, even the most complex. Using its Rectangle tool, when a photo contains two perspective flaws, DxO Perspective’s Rectangle tool immediately reestablishes a full-frontal view of the object — essential when shooting a photo of a poster or painting! In 8-point correction mode, DxO Perspective handles even more complex perspectives: the independent placing of horizontal and vertical guidelines provides highly precise corrections on multiple planes.”

We can vouch for that. Here’s the software window with a straight shot, uncorrected, Sigma 12-24mm zoom on Alpha 99 at 12mm.

perspective-addpoints

Now on this example, you have a choice of adding points to correct both vertical and horizontal perspective (four indexes clicked/moved) which I have done if you examine the faint blue lines, and this will produce an extreme result:

perspective-extreme

However, for this example, you would normally onle correct the verticals and omit the four-square connections. This produces a natural result relative to any other correction method:

perspective-final

This is a 100% correction. DxO Perspective lets you reduce the degree of correction. Here is what they describe as a ‘natural’ look, 75% strength:

perspective-natural75percent

I preferred the result between 90 and 95% correction.

Midi-Pyrenees

You may ask how this differs from Adobe Camera Raw lens correction perspective control, or similar functions within Photoshop (without using special plug-ins). First, DxO Perspective is a stand alone program and does not need Photoshop, it only requires a JPEG to select and work on. Secondly, here’s the result from ACR/LR type correction, kept slightly on the ‘natural’ side of :

Midi-Pyrenees

The greatest difference is that DxO Perspective makes automatic corrections to the vertical aspect and retains the sense of height, at the same time ensuring that the sky is not compressed.

So, enjoy this free download until November 3rd 2013.

At the same time, from 12.00 midnight Eastern Standard Time on October 31st, B&H in New York announced a drop in the price of the Bower (aka Samyang) 8mm f/3.5 fisheye lens for NEX, MicroFourThirds, Samsung NX, Nikon, Canon EOS, Pentax and Alpha mounts – down to as little as $209 for Alpha or NEX:

Bower 8mm fisheye for NEX – but see below!

Bower 8mm f/3.5 lenses from $209

Buy through this link and you support Photoclubalpha in a small way without paying anything extra yourself (indeed, buy any other B&H item after following this link and it will help us).

Here is some advice. The NEX model is basically an Alpha mount optical assembly with a permanently built in extension tube. We advise you to buy the Alpha version, as this is a manual focus manual aperture unchipped lens – use a NEX to Alpha adaptor, doesn’t have to be the expensive official LA-EA1 as this lens uses none of the connections. Then you have a lens which can be used on two systems.

DxO Perspective does not offer a de-fishing function but we’d make a guess that this would be a likely upgrade to the program in the near future and that’s why they are giving it away. DxO Optics Pro software itself is, after all, famous for the inclusion of lens profiles before any of the other programs (or cameras) got this facility.

– David Kilpatrick