February 27
The Compact Conundrum. Michael Johnston over at The Online Photographer and I both in the mid-00's began lobbying for large sensor compacts (here's one variation on the large sensor compact articles I wrote). It took awhile for anything to appear that met our definitions, but eventually such cameras did begin to appear. Strangely, though, it really doesn't seem like any camera company quite got the message that Michael and I were delivering: almost none of the models produced were quite what was being asked for. Article on dslrbodies.com
The Disappointment of CP+. As we expected, early 2017 has been a fairly busy season for cameras. The delays in sensor production and availability due to the quake in early 2016 pretty much impacted everyone's plans in some way, with only Canon being immune in the ILC world (though they were hit in their compact line that uses 1" sensors). Article on dslrbodies.com
February 23
m4/3 Catches Canon and Nikon Lens Catalogs. Four-thirds.org today published a catalog of available lenses for the m4/3 mount, with full specifications for nearly 70 lenses, plus a lot of marketing material and photo eye candy. Article on sansmirror.com
Leica is Healthy, But There's a Surprise. It turns out that Leica's basic financial information is available in some reasonable level of detail with a bit of a delay, even though Leica is a privately held German company. With a little help from a friend in Germany, some dusting off of my college German, and some time in airline clubs with not a lot else to do while waiting for rescheduled flights, I took a look at several of their most recent financial statements to understand what my friend was reporting to me. Article on sansmirror.com
February 22
Fujifilm Surprises. To kick off the CP+ show in Japan Fujifilm managed to still have a couple of surprises, despite their big official announcement earlier. Article on sansmirror.com
Amid all my recent travel hassles (two cancelled plus two delayed flights) and a head cold, I somehow managed to not post pointers to two other sansmirror articles when they appeared:
Canon EOS M5 Gets a Smaller Brother. Canon replaced the EOS M3 today with the EOS M6. This new US$780 camera (body only) is basically the same as the EOS M5 in most ways, except it does not feature a built-in EVF. Instead, you use the rear LCD or add the new optional EVF-DC2 electronic viewfinder via the hot shoe. Article on sansmirror.com. EOS M6 data page
Sensor Cleaning in Mirrorless. I still get significant questions about sensor cleaning with mirrorless cameras, plus a lot of need-for-cleaning denial from Olympus mirrorless shooters. So let’s once again try to come to grips with what’s happening and what you should do about it. Article on sansmirror.com
February 21
Sigma Announces Four New Lenses. In conjunction with the CP+ show in Japan, Sigma announced four new lenses, though pricing and availability details were not disclosed. Article on dslrbodies.com. 14mm f/1.8 data page. 135mm f/1.8 data page. 24-70mm f/2.8 data page. 100-400mm f/5-6.3 data page
February 18
About Nikon's Financials. There's a lot of discussion about Nikon's financials still going on, and it's provoking quite a few comments that are incorrect, as well as some bad speculation about the future of Nikon. Call it Fake Views. So let's do a bit of a drill down for a moment. If you don't understand finance-speak, just skip down to the boldface word summary, below. Article on dslrbodies.com
The Random Nikon Rumors. On top of all the uncertainty that Nikon’s cancellation of the DL produced, now we have rumor mania to deal with, too. Consider this rumor that popped up (again): that the D810 update won’t happen because instead that camera will be replaced by a mirrorless model. That way Nikon would have a Sony A7rII competitor. Article on dslrbodies.com
Two New Canon APS Sensor DSLRs. Canon today updated the mid-range of their consumer DSLR lineup with two new models, the Rebel T7i and EOS 77D. The first camera replaces the T6i, while the second seems to be a replacement for the T6s. Article on dslrbodies.com. 7Ti data page. 77D data page.
Honey, I Shrunk the Company. Here’s the basic premise in the tech business: hook the customer, then keep them; find new customers, repeat. At times all the camera companies have been good at this, at other times all the camera companies seem to have trouble managing to follow this basic prescription. Article on dslrbodies.com
Yongnuo 85mm f/1.8 manual focus lens data page (currently for Canon only, but Nikon mount likely soon).
February 14
The Nikon Q3 Financials. Nikon this week has put out a series of announcements, including the release of their fiscal year Q3 financials. The big news started with a declaration of additional “extraordinary loss,” an accounting term for a loss that is unusual and not caused by operating activities. In other words, a write down of previously declared values. Nikon had already suggested that this write down was coming, but they’ve now not only confirmed it, but increased the amount by 5 billion yen. Article on dslrbodies.com
February 13
DL Turns Out to Mean Dead List. Nikon today announced that the three DL cameras they announced early in 2016, then delayed for a re-engineering, have now been officially cancelled. Article on dslrbodies.com
Nikon Tried Marketing. Oh dear. First reply I got to the Nikon Tries Marketing article after the streams went live was this: “Watched the wedding presentations. Thought the stand looked cheap and tacky. The presenters dressed very scruffy with no thought of image." Article on dslrbodies.com
February 9
Nikon updated ViewNX-i to version 1.2.5 to fix image corruption issues that occurred with macOS Sierra as well as fix a couple of other bugs. Remember, the full page of current Nikon software version information can be found on dslrbodies.com, as well as the link to the main download page.
February 7
Sony introduced two new lenses, the low cost 85mm f/1.8 and the 100mm f/2.8 OSS GM, both FE mount and full frame capable.
Nikon Tries Marketing. The WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) conference is starting in Las Vegas later this week, and Nikon will be on the trade show floor. But lo and behold, Nikon finally realized that sending their Nikon Ambassadors to these trade shows was not a real great one-to-many marketing experience. Article on dslrbodies.com
Tamron introduced two new lenses, the 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 wide angle zoom for APS/DX bodies, and the 70-200mm f/2.8 VC G2 for full frame/FX bodies. Both are remakes of earlier lenses, but pretty extensive remakes. And kudos to Tamron for making a removable tripod collar with an integrated Arca Swiss plate. We've only been asking the Japanese companies to do that for 20+ years now.
Xeen (Samyang/Rokinon) has also introduced a new cinema style lens, the 20mm t/1.9.
February 6
More New Film Choices Show Up. Two new black and white films have shown up. Article on filmbodies.com
Some Irreverant Answers to Serious Questions. Five common questions I get asked a lot. With as much bluntness as I can manage in my answer. I was going to just tweet my answers, but it seems that there's someone else dominating the Twitter hose at the moment. Article on dslrbodies.com
Strangely, these next two articles didn't seem to get posted to this site late last week. My apologies. Still working on tuning my automated mechanisms.
February 2
2016 ILC Shipments. CIPA has posted the final numbers for 2016, and it's one of those good news, bad news things. The good news is that the Japanese companies were very active at the end of the year for a change, probably trying to make up for lost shipments during the sensor shortage caused by the quake earlier in the year. Article on dslrbodies.com
A Plan for Nikon. I mentioned in yesterday's article that Nikon was not firing on very many cylinders (basically one). So what would be my plan be to get the engine re-tuned and providing full power? Here's the short answer (!). Article on dslrbodies.com