Samyang Lens Station Available on Amazon


The Samyang Lens Station is now available on Amazon after being announced in November. The lens station:

  • Allows you to update Samyang AF lens firmware
  • Compatible with Sony E mount Autofocus Samyang lenses
  • Calibrate focus, aperture and manual focus sensitivity
  • Lens Station, Front and Rear Caps

You can also get the lens manager and user manual below.
[Download Lens Manager]
[Download User Manual]

The lens station works with the following lenses.

Samyang AF 50mm f/1.4 FE: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Samyang AF 35mm f/2.8 FE: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Samyang AF 35mm f/1.4 FE: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Samyang AF 14mm f/2.8 FE: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

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B&H Photo is Processing Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE Orders


Just saw my AMEX get charged for the new Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE at B&H Photo. Hopefully, they have enough for everyone, I should receive mine this week. I can’t wait to see how it performs and I hope that readers are able to secure a lens sooner rather than later. I didn’t order my lens until after the announcement of firmware v2 so maybe, we are getting towards the end of shortages for the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE.

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Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

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Bloomberg: Sony’s New Super-Fast Cameras are Winning Over the Pros


The Sony a9 was a game changer and now Nikon/Canon are being forced to follow in its footsteps. Even the Japanese emperor is endorsing mirrorless during his abdication ceremony as reported by Bloomberg “noisy cameras will be banned from Emperor Akihito’s abdication ceremony in April”, which is a surprising choice since the Sony a9 is really the only camera suited for the job. Fujifilm and m43 cameras have the ability to silent shoot, but their system isn’t perfect.

Further Sony is turning out lots of high-quality lenses and they are constantly improving their pro services while Nikon/Canon will require an adapter, in the beginning, to compete with Sony. The next few years should be competitive ones that will bring us new choices as consumers, but in my estimation, Nikon/Canon will remain safely behind Sony until they build out their glass collection. Yes, Canon and Nikon have built mirrorless cameras before, but neither has taken the task seriously until now so there will be a learning curve too.

The entrance of Canon and Nikon into the mirrorless market has certainly given buyers a reason to hold off on making a purchase until after the cameras are announced, but it doesn’t seem to be slowing Sony down much. It might lead to the end of other niche mirrorless products soon, which will make the Canon/Nikon fanboys happy, but it is far better for consumers if everyone remains competitive. Personally, I hope the switch to mirrorless leads to a more evenly divided market so photographers win, I would love to see Sony, Nikon and Fujifilm grow against Canon going forward, with m43 becoming more specialized. Let’s hope everyone makes it through the transition and that Nikon entering the market leads to additional innovation from Sony.

via Bloomberg

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4 Years of Sony AF Innovation Compared

Dave Dugdale performed an interesting comparison between the Sony a7S and Sony a7RIII’s AF performance while shooting video and you can clearly see how Sony’s AF has improved over time. Mirrorless AF can be tricky and right now Sony has the best AF by far and I personally feel this is what will keep Sony users from going Nikon/Canon mirrorless in the future because good mirrorless AF is difficult to achieve.

“The AF speed has increased, the a7riii has become tenacious it will not let go of a face. AF has become much smoother, before you would get a shimmering If you have turned off face detect, obj tracking and touch spot focus, when you want the camera to continuously [AF-C] auto focus over the entire frame [Wide], basically allowing you to concentrate on other things besides focus, the area is heavily center weighted meaning it places priority on high contrast objects in the center of the frame, if something is around the edge of the frame that is higher contrast and closer, it will still focus on the center items. IF AF-C and Wide then focus only on center items regardless of distance, UNLESS there basically nothing in the center of the frame With af turned on you can press the shutter half way down to snap to the nearest high contrast obj, unless movie w/shutter is turned on Focus on nearest obj, press half way and hold the shutter button If you want to focus on an object (no face) outside the center weighted area then use obj tracking/flexible spot or use Touch spot focus a7s: With face detect turned off, it would only focus on a small portion of the center of the frame regardless if the area set to wide, once an object leaves that small area it focus to the back wall.”

Of course in the world of mirrorless, the lens matters as much as the body for determining peak AF performance, but this is a good example of how mirrorless AF performance used to be considered lacking.

Sony a7RIII: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama
Sony a7S: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

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Net SE The Company Behind Meyer Optik Görlitz is in Bankruptcy


There’s been a pretty big jump in third-party lens releases over the past two years and Meyer Optik Görlitz has been a part of that jump. Unfortunately, Net SE which is the company behind Meyer Optik Görlitz, Ihagee and Schacht has been in bankruptcy since mid-July.

At this time it is unknown what will be the effect of this bankruptcy, but Meyer Optik Görlitz has almost nothing left in stock on their site. The current Indeiegogo and Kickstarters campaigns are further complicated by the lawsuit and the following statement was released as an update.

“we have a rather sad message for you today. A few weeks ago, our founder, CEO and main investor Stefan Immes had a serious traffic accident, which he barely survived. Although we have been able to talk to him and although, for a very short time of the day he has become the astute, humorous and positive entrepreneur we know, it is now clear that due to the severity of the injuries he will not be able to continue running the company in the foreseeable future.

For a company of 15 employees only, this entails a large number of changes. Currently, we are in the process of reorganization and are trying to establish a working system as no successor regulation can yet be found for the Net SE Group. For this reason, we are currently undergoing a restructuring process with an as yet unknown outcome for the individual divisions.

Especially as far as Crowdfunding is concerned, we think that we will need until the end of October to be able to share our conclusions on how to proceed. One of the top priorities of the Oprema Crowdfunding team is, of course, to deliver the orders we receive as promised. However, we ask for your understanding that, for legal reasons alone, we cannot make any faster decisions without having reorganized the company. For technical questions, our support team is of course still available, but we can only make limited forecasts about the development progress of our projects.

We are honestly touched and the shock still sits deep. We are also extremely sorry that we are not able to spread better and more positive news at the moment, but we are working very hard to change this at short notice.

Yours sincerly, team at Oprema Optik”

The following Kickstarter/Indiegogo are likely affected by Net SE’s bankruptcy and could lead to a total loss for backers.

We have always had a good relationship with Meyer Optik Görlitz and we wish them well. Hopefully, backers are made whole in this process so that future backers aren’t reluctant to get involved in future lens projects on Kickstarter/Indiegogo.

via Photorumors, FujiAddict

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Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD Shipments Around August 11th


The Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD has been a hot seller and there are bundles that are easier to get than the lens if you simply must have one. The above bundle says they will have stock on August 11th on Amazon, while B&H Photo says they will have lenses by Mid-August so it is pretty safe to presume that there will be available for at least a short time around August 11th if you’re still trying to purchase a lens. I am currently following this lens closely because I have been waiting for my order to be filled for over a month now through my preferred seller.

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Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD FE: B&H Photo / Amazon / Adorama

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