LEDE ON
The lede seems to never change now: expect price increases and product shortages for the foreseeable future. Camera company executives are becoming fairly frank about that with dealers, and it’s only a matter of time before we see them have to say the same thing to customers. Meanwhile, multiple card and drive companies are telling me that they see no change in their ability to get more parts and a continued upward pressure on prices.
All of which is going to make for a messy holiday season. I was surprised when one dealer said that not being flooded with inventory this year might actually out better for them. Fewer sales at or near full price without hanging inventory or constant restocking is a side benefit, I guess.
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News
Canon R8 Mark II Arrives
Canon has updated their entry level, full frame, mirrorless camera, though perhaps more modestly than some expected after a three-and-a-half year run for the original. No, it’s not a legacy body design (unless you consider the original R8 legacy ;~). No, it doesn’t have more pixels. A lot of the rumors that popped up as the R8 aged out simply didn’t pan out.
What did show up is sensor-based stabilization (7.5 stops CIPA), a half-second of pre-capture at 20 fps, and an updated autofocus system, all in a more squared up body that now has a thumb stick on the back. Canon also joins Fujifilm, Nikon, and Panasonic in directly downloadable color profiles. Things that will probably get criticized are that Canon stuck with the smaller LP-E17 battery and a single card SD card slot (though the card is now more accessible with a side door). The body-only price is now US$1899.
Overall, Canon has done the same thing with the R8 as Nikon did with the Z5: bring it more in alignment with the rest of their lineup, and making sure that it has a full set of baseline features coupled with a few performance enhancements.
I’m sure the R8 will get a fair amount of press, as it’s only the four mirrorless camera to appear this year (R6V and A7RVI appeared in May, OMDS OM-Pen arrived this past week).
Meanwhile, Canon also showed that Japanese haven’t quite ceded the flash market to the Chinese yet by also introducing the US$380 Speedlite EL-5 (version 2). The new version is mostly a performance upgrade, which improves wireless distance. The trick? Version 2 requires a Canon multi-function hot shoe (the one with the extra pins at the front). The added communication this provides—currently beyond the reverse-engineering of the Chinese—allows for Canon’s Camera Connect app to communicate with the EL-5 (version 2), among other things.
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News
Sony Takes on Nikon
Sony added two lightweight telephoto lenses to their lineup, the 400mm f/4.5GM OSS (see above), and the 600mm f/6.3GM OSS, both of which fairly clearly target Nikon’s lenses with the same focal length and aperture.
These new lenses use dual XD linear motors for fast focusing, get the full array of function ring and buttons, have Nano AR coating, and come in a dust and moisture-resistant body. The 400mm f/4.5GM OSS weighs 35.1 ounces (994g) and only nicks US$2699 from your credit card, while the 600mm f/6.3GM OSS also tips the scales at 35.1 ounces (995g) and requires a one-time US$3699 tithe to Tokyo. Both lenses feature apertures that go to f/20, support continuous autofocus up to 120 fps, and have a built-in, rotating tripod collar. Both lenses focus down to 98 inches (8.2ft, or 2.5m).
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News
The X System Has a Baby
Fujifilm finally tied their two viral trends together—Instax and X-legacy design—into the Instax Pal 2, a compact compact camera that, at least in panda form (silver over black), looks like the progeny of a Fujifilm X100 mating with a Kodak Charmera. The baby is a bit chubby, but still cute:
The base is essentially a 10mp camera with a 28mm (equivalent) f/2.2 lens in something that seems to have a fair number of kitchen sink features added to it. For instance, there’s an offset optical viewfinder if you don’t want to frame using the look-down 1” LCD. On the front is a small mirror should you decide to create selfies and want to see how you’re framed. Up top is a simplified two dial, one lever, four button set of controls that allow you make your image style choices, one of which includes a 10-frame slow burst that’ll be made into a GIF. Also up front is a small, low-powered flash.
While the Instax Pal 2 has a microSD card slot, it’s really designed to slide out the male USB-C connector and plug into your smartphone for simple, direct, and convenient image transfer to Fujifilm’s app. You can also use Bluetooth, but I’m not sure why you’d opt for that complication. The wireless communication on the Instax Pal 2 is best used to communicate to an Instax printer, for that (near) Polaroid type experience.
From a design standpoint I’m impressed with what Fujifilm did here. First, that viral retro look the X series cameras have popularized is in full force here, and even though the controls are doing different things, they look retro. Second, the user experience seems to have been carefully considered, and fairly completely covered with the options that are built in. Third, we still get the direct-to-Instax printer capability, but now we get a very direct plug-into-smartphone capability, as well. This is going to be a popular camera with the young, and probably the party camera of all-time (think about the implications in weddings of passing a few of these around, having a printer available, and allowing people to grab off images to their phone pretty simply).
But more than anything else, this seems like the most complete Instax instantiation yet. Remember that GIF feature? Turns out you can have the printer put a QR on the print, which lets recipients of the print scan and get the full GIF experience. I’s dotted, T’s crossed. Well-done, Fujifilm.
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News
Panasonic 20mm f/2.5
Panasonic announced a new compact prime lens—what I call muffin size, though it’s a small muffin—in the L-mount. At 142g and only sticking out 1.6” (41cm) from the mount, this is a nice little wide-angle full frame option that surprisingly doesn’t exist in the RF, Z, or even FE mounts. Even the Chinese f/2.8 lenses I see at this focal length are bigger, so bravo, Panasonic, for finding a niche and building your nest there first.
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byThom News
Filmbodies is now locked and loaded
The new filmbodies.com site has been available for awhile, though there were still a lot of little odds and ends that needed to be dealt with behind the scenes. I’ve now taken the time to get (most of) that all cleaned up, and the site now should be very consistent in appearance and function across all its pages. I still have two other background tasks to do, but I should get to them soon. Meanwhile, I’m in progress of creating two new reviews for the site (and bringing two older ones back), all centered on scanning your film images. Obviously, Nikon isn’t creating any new film SLR bodies, so I’m trying to refocus on questions that site visitors have been asking me, and one of the big ones is “how do I scan my images?” The answer, my friends, is blowing in the office fan… As Pournelle used to write: Real Soon Now.