The Voigtlander Heliar-Hyper Wide 10mm 5.6 Aspherical Review: E or M-Mount That is The Question…

By Louis Ferreira | Published: January 18, 2017


The Voigtlander Heliar-Hyper Wide 10mm 5.6 Aspherical is a unique rectilinear full frame lens that come for E-mount and M-mount. It is the widest of its kind produced and it caught a lot of photographers, attention when it was announced for Sony E-mount and Leica M-mount. At the time of their announcement, I highly doubted the E-mount version would be the one to buy because M-mount is more versatile, but I was wrong. When a lens is this wide it needs to be tailored for the camera, and Voigtlander definitely made the M and E-Mount 10mm versions differently. Read More »

Posted in 3rd Party Lens, Reviews| Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Phottix Odin II Firmware 1.01

By Louis Ferreira | Published: January 17, 2017


New firmware for the Phottix Odin II for Sony is available for download. What does v1.01 do?

Fix the following issue: While pressing the shutter button on Sony cameras, the Odin II is unable to trigger Strato II receiver/Mitros+/Indra500/360 in Strato II RX mode

The v1.01 Firmware can be downloaded at Phottix.com.

A Phottix Mac-compatible firmware upgrade app is now also available.

Phottix Odin II for Sony B&H Photo/Amazon/Adorama

Via Phottix

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Sony Fell From 2nd to 3rd in BCN Awards

By Louis Ferreira | Published: January 16, 2017


Sony fell from 2nd to 3rd place behind Canon in mirrorless sales for 2016 in Japan according to BCNranking. The 7.9% drop was likely due to the the Sony A6300 and A6500 being the only “new” Sony cameras for 2016. Hopefully we will see a new a7R this year along side an a7S and a7. Canon dominated thanks to the new EOS-M5.


Similaly the Sony action camera didn’t do well against the new GoPro Hero 5 Black and Hero 5 Session.

Posted in Sony a6300, Sony a6500, Sony a7 II, Sony a7R II, Sony a7S II| Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Red Helium 8k S35 Pushes The Sony a7RII Down DXO’s List Another Spot

By Louis Ferreira | Published: January 15, 2017


The Red Helium 8k S35 pushed the Sony a7RII further down DXO’s list, by scoring an unbelievably high overall score of 108. DXO might have to rethink their testing methodology soon. It’s also interesting that they included a camera in their rankings that seems to do some denoising, but still refuse to include Fujifilm in their tests.

The RED Helium 8K is the most impressive sensor we’ve ever tested. Rating 10 points above the best of the full-frame DSLRs, it stands alone as our top scorer. Its image quality is even more impressive given its very high maximum frame rates. Our only caveat is that the Helium 8K sensor appears to benefit from some noise reduction to enhance its RAW image quality.

We can likely explain the Helium 8K’s improvement over our previous top scorer, RED’s own Dragon, by a combination of both better sensor technology and temporal noise reduction. The upgrade to 8K video and improved image quality across the board make it a clear upgrade from the RED Dragon – and a clear winner. The Helium 8K is an impressive achievement by RED. For those with the budget, its top-of-the-line image quality, high frame rate, and 16-bit RAW capture capability absolutely make it worth considering as a competitor to high-end DSLRs and medium-format cameras for still image capture.

You can read the full review at DxOMark.

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Sony a5000 Deeply Discounted

By Louis Ferreira | Published: January 13, 2017


Amazon discounted the silver and white a5000 $150, but the black is still full price. There is a chance that the black could be discounted soon so if you must have the black keep an eye on the listing.

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Dave Dugdale Expands on Philip Bloom’s AF Test

By Louis Ferreira | Published: January 11, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOUtRfpqJp8

Dave Dugdale decided to expand on Philip Bloom’s AF test Part 1 and Part 2, with two test of his own using the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II and Sony a6500. His methodology is a little different and uses different lenses, the  Sony Zeiss 55mm F1.8 Sonnar T* FE ZA and Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM, but he has come up with a useful idea for testing tracking that’s a little better than Philip Blooms initial train idea. There isn’t really a clear winner in his rest, but he wasn’t using a great lens on the Canon for AF so we will have to wait and see how his very different tests perform with a lens designed for tracking AF.

Posted in Sony a6500| Tagged , , | 2 Comments