Category: Photography

Today was the annual Lincoln Photography Show run by London Camera Exchange. The major players were all there, Nikon, Canon, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, Fuji, as well as some of the bigger accessory companies.

Fuji had their Medium Format camera which I like, I also played with latest version of the Fuji X100, I camera I really want to like but I don’t know if its my imagination but the current version seems to have a very poor optical viewfinder and I would not pay the kind of money they are asking for it.

Sony keep charging forward, and while they have many good cameras there always seems to be either an issue or a replacement coming along.

Olympus and Panasonic both have strong lineups and Olympus have really rounded out their professional lens now.

A fun event and I enjoyed the seminars.

The most impressive camera was the new Nikon D850. My D800 is a real high end heavy hitter and when the D810 came out I could not see enough of an improvement but the D850 feels like a small Nikon D5, its a real top of the line pro model.

The price of the D850 is an issue for that kind of money its now worth considering a mirrorless system, you could get an Olympus and all the pro lens for the price of a D850 and a few pro Nikon lens.

We have the TL without a viewfinder, and I was disappointed when its replacement the TL2 also lacked a viewfinder.

The Leica Q shows what Leica can do in a small body and a L mount version of that is what people want.

Well from photographs leaked on the web this week it looks like we finally have what we want coming.

The Sony A7R Mark III has finally been released.

I have tried several Sony mirrorless cameras.  Starting with the Sony NEX 7, a very good camera but one that I just could not get along with, then I tried the first A7, now this was a fantastic camera but the shutter was terrible and you could easily suffer with camera shake.  The menus were also terrible.  Sony fixed the shutter in subsequent models and also stole the menu system from the Sony SLR series so correcting that.

From the Mark II onwards the Sony has been a hard act to follow, the downside has always been the shortage of really good lens and the fact that paired with good glass, the mirrorless Sony really did not offer any advantages over other systems.  Good glass at 35mm full frame that can autofocus is never going to be small.  In that regard I feel Leica made the better decision with the mirrorless SL and making it larger.  If your after small I think its hard to fault the Olympus MicroFourThirds cameras.

There are still rumours flying that Leica are to release a new camera with the L mount and a new lens.

The camera is rumoured to be a DX format camera to partner the TL2, hopefully with an EVF this time, the lens a will also be a DX crop format to go with it but no news as to its focal length.

 

I see the special edition Leica 50mm Summicron is now for sale.  I have the Summilux which as you can see above produces a lovely image.  There are two versions of the Summicron, the standard none APO which is very affordable for a Leica lens and the APO version which if you have £6000 will leave you change for a few nice coffees.

This special edition wraps the lens in the old metal classic design with red trim and costs over £8000.  A lot to pay for a 50mm lens no matter how good.

We have had the Summaron and now Leica have released their second classic lens, the Leica Thambar.  Similar to the Nikon 135mm DC this lens has a distinctive softness which useful for portraits.  I am quite tempted by the Summaron a 28mm with a strong vignette, but I would find it hard to justify the cost of the Thumbar.