Richard & Caroline's Blog

An optical high quality viewfinder is extremely useful in many situations, but the electronic viewfinder also gives photographers aids to getting the shot.

You will never please everyone, so highly customisable cameras are what we need. Someone may want nothing but the scene in their viewfinder; others like in the shot above, where blowing out the highlights was way to easy needs for me a camera with realtime histogram.

Also on the subject of high contrast scenes like above, blinkies, zebra guides etc are available in any mode on Leica and Sony mirrorless cameras. The photo above, I needed to ensure that whilst the window could blow out at all white, none of the highlights on Lilly’s back did so. With highlight warnings this is easy to achieve, but for some unknown reason, neither Canon or Nikon allow them when in photography modes, only video modes. I could take a shot and review it with highlight warnings but not while taking the shot. In a changing light situation this is not good enough. I have to give a shout out to Sony and Leica, as their high end mirrorless models do allow custom highlight warnings, live in the viewfinder in real time.

So what do you want in a viewfinder?

So it is finally here, the stunning new 85mm.

I’ll be giving it a good long hard look, but also looking at the previous version. Its a real statement lens, and I’ll be looking at testing one at the earliest opportunity.

As I have not used it there is little for me to say.

If the 50mm is anything to by its 85mm big brother is going to stunning.

Matt Irwin has already had his hands on it so I’ll leave this video down below for you to check out.

So many people fixate on the sensor in a camera. Or who manufactures it.

It is the lens and the imaging processor that gives you the look. Nikon have often been said to have the best colour science. Leica are acknowledged to have some of the best lens, but when they first stepped into digital they definitely had short comings in many areas. For many years now Leica have partnered Panasonic for their electronic expertise, but Leica have also been forging relationships with universities and Adobe. There image processing and colour science is now up their with the best, and while Panasonic are still helping with the electronics manufacture, its now Leica assisting Panasonic with the image processing side. L² Alliance between the two companies has now been announced where they will take this partnership forward.

The trusty professional standard zoom as gone from 35mm to 70mm to 24mm to 70mm. Canon then made life interesting producing a range of professional zooms, a little slow but more range. The Canon 24-105mm f/4 has long been popular for Canon users.

Nikon finally copied and improved with their recent Nikkor Z 24-120mm f/4 which has been a sellout.

Now Sony are getting in on the act and have just announced a very interesting lens. a 20-70mm f/4 zoom. So for people who generally prefer to go wider but still need that reach into the mid short telephoto range a great lens for them.