Sommaire pour July - August 2022 de Camera

FOR THE 40 YEARS THAT I’VE BEEN reviewing camera, it’s only happened on a few occasions. What am I talking about? Well, the magic that happens when everything comes together in a remarkable way to create a camera that is truly special. It’s not just about great design and the clever application of new technologies; there’s a secret ingredient that somehow turns the basic recipe into a masterpiece. What is this secret ingredient? If I knew, I’d probably be the highly paid head of a camera company’s product planning division, but I do recognise it when I encounter it. Thinking back, the real standouts aren’t hard to recall – among them are the Canon T90, Nikon F5, Hasselblad XPan, Nikon D3, Leica Q and, more recently, the Canon EOS-1D X…

When the X-H1 arrived in early 2018, it seemed a bit of out of place in the Fujifilm X-mount system. For starters, it was a lot bigger than anything we’d seen before and the control layout went all contemporary and included an info display on the top panel. And the emphasis was more on video. Consequently, the X-H1 didn’t really hit it off with the X-mount community. However, a lot has changed since then. Advanced video capabilities are now standard on higher-end mirrorless cameras, as exemplified by the X-T4 which, as it happens, is also the largest model in the X-T line so far. And we’ve had the X-S10, which also has a more contemporary control layout. So now the new X-H2S looks very much part of the X-mount family.…

While there’s been plenty of hoopla surrounding Canon’s full-frame mirrorless cameras, the EOS R7 is by far the most important RF-mount model so far. This is the camera tasked with coaxing the millions of current Canon APS-C DSLR users out of their reflexes and into the mirrorless fold. It’s fair to say that Canon’s cropped sensor DSLRs have dominated the interchangeable lens camera (ILC) market for a long time and helped cement the brand in the number one position. Not surprisingly, Canon has been keen to hang on to this business for as long as it could deliver healthy profits, which is probably why the company’s previous APS-C mirrorless efforts have all been a bit half-hearted. The M-series models have probably done reasonably well at the lower end of the…

WINNER A good photograph is one that catches your attention and makes you look a little harder at what’s going on. Chris Carter has doen it here by using the derelict boat to provide the foreground interest and a clever context for the water behind. Great composition and great colour combine to create a striking photograph. Chris used a Hasselblad Lunar fitted with a Hasselblad 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens. Tell us how you did it! When you enter the Fujifilm Showcase, remember to explain any tips and techniques you used to achieve the result. Also, let us know the type of camera and lens. Enter by email (see below). Email to camera@futurenet.com – see above for digital submission details. HIGHLY COMMENDED It’s a classic Australian landscape, but beautifully captured thanks…

NIKON TARGETS NEW Z 30 AT VLOGGERS AS YOU’LL KNOW from the new category in this year’s TIPA World Awards, cameras specifically designed for vlogging applications are now ‘a thing’. In case you don’t know, vlogging is short for video blogging, which usually involves filming yourself making a presentation of some sort that’s designed to go online. These are low-budget productions and some are done with a smartphone, but a vlogging camera, like Nikon’s new Z 30 and the Sony XV-10, offer the flexibility of interchangeable lenses, tilt adjustable monitor screens, more options for controlling focus and exposure, and better sound recording. In fact, Nikon is emphasising that the Z 30’s sensor is 14 times larger than one in most smartphones, providing much more scope for using depth-of-field. Under the…

THE INTERNATIONAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR 2022 The winner of the second International Portrait Photographer Of The Year competition is Jatenipat Ketpradit of Thailand. The competition was open to both amateur and professional photographers who had a chance to share in the prize pool of US$10,000. The first prize was US$3000. Entries were invited in four categories. The top 101 finalist images are included in a downloadable Awards Book. Jatenipat Ketpradit – a.k.a. JKBOY – is a professional photographer and also the CEO of an interior design company in Thailand. His winning photograph is titled The Gun And Flowers and was taken in Ethiopia. It depicts a Suri tribe father with his sons and the AK-47 rifle he uses to protect his family. This image was entered in the…

The first OM System camera body may be a bit on the chubby side compared to its petite Olympus OM-D series cousins, but it’s the lenses that will seal the deal here, especially the telephotos. The new OM System 40-150mm telezoom is perhaps the best illustration yet of why Micro Four Thirds can still serve it up to the bigger sensor formats. It’s effectively an 80-300mm, but it’s compact enough to fit snugly in the palm of your hand, and it weighs just a fraction over 380g. Of course, we’ve already seen a number of very convincing arguments for the smallest of the mainstream sensor sizes under the old Olympus branding – the 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 zoom that’s a 200-800mm in practice and the 300mm f/4.0 that gives you a 600mm…

Along with 35mm and 50mm, 135mm is one of the truly classic prime lens focal lengths. Before zooms became popular, no selfrespecting photographer would be without this trio in the camera bag. After I acquired my first 35mm SLR which, of course, was fitted with the standard 50mm lens, the very next purchase was a 135mm. It was all the telephoto ‘power’ I could afford at the time, but it was also a great all-rounder. After primes started to come back into fashion, it was the classic wide-angles and the 50mm standard that predominated, but now the 135mm has made a return and there are a lot of photographers discovering how versatile this short telephoto focal length really is. Samyang, naturally, has had a manual focus 135mm prime lens in…

The Picture Taylor’s Mistake is a beach near Christchurch in New Zealand. There is little to suggest it might be a prime location for seascape photography but, when the conditions are unusual, a very ordinary viewpoint can become something with impact. The 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. He is still as passionate about photography now as he was then, and continues to write about many areas of image-making and taking pictures for both books and magazine articles. The Equipment Canon EOS 400D with a Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6mm standard zoom lens. The exposure was 1/1000 second at f/6.3 and ISO 200. The Technique Memorable landscape photography is based…

Every cloud… So here we are with a second bite at the OM System M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm f/4.0 PRO, which has worked out well as we can now include our experience of the lens shooting at a real live motor race. For starters, with an event as long as the Bathurst 12 Hour, the weight savings become steadily more appreciated as time goes by. There was a bit of a mix-up somewhere so we didn’t get the M.Zuiko 100-400mm f/5.0-6.3 that we’d requested in time and had to use a full-frame 100-400mm from another system along with a mount adapter. Even so, the whole system was still extremely compact and fitted easily into a small photo backpack. It simply confirmed again that the M43 format really is the best…

Go Medium Format For A Bigger Experience When we last looked at the options for shooting with medium format film cameras back in 2016, there was a bit of a question mark over the continued availability of rollfilm. It certainly tempered any enthusiasm for spending a reasonable amount of money on, say, a classic Hasselblad. While the choice of rollfilm stocks is certainly a lot smaller than it was when medium format was the choice of many professional photographers, the old favourites are still available in B&W, colour negative and colour transparency. And there’ seemingly enough interest to keep this going. For anybody contemplating getting into (or getting back into) film photography, 35mm looks like the obvious choice as there is a huge selection of cameras to choose from, either…

www.teds.com.au DIGITAL SLR CAMERAS BUYER’S CHECK LIST THIS CHECKLIST is designed to allow direct comparisons between different camera models, listed here 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 confirmed)…