Inhoudsopgave van May/June 2017 - Camera

THERE WAS A SAYING about London buses that you could wait hours for one to come along and then two would arrive at the same time. We’ve been waiting a while for somebody to think outside the square as far as digital medium format cameras are concerned, and then both the Fujifilm GFX 50S and Hasselblad X1D-50c land on my desk on exactly the same day! Talk about an embarrassment of riches. Mind you, I’m not complaining though because here was the perfect opportunity to compare two very different interpretations of the same brief. And boy, are these two cameras very different. The only thing they have in common – apart from being cameras, of course – is the source of their 44x33 mm CMOS sensors and even these both…

AT THE JAPANESE launch of the Fujifilm GFX digital medium format camera system – in the historic city of Kyoto – the press event was kicked off by the company’s Chairman and CEO, Mr Shigetaka Komori. I’ve sat through a few of these things over the years and mostly all you get from the top man is fluff of little consequence. This is either because he hasn’t really got a clue what’s going on or there are bigger fish to fry than imaging products (often a small part of a much bigger business). Komori-san is different. Yes, Fujifilm has lots of irons in lots of fires and apparently his attendance at the GFX launch was indeed considered a bit of a coup, but the reason became clear as he continued…

Towards the end of the film era there was a little flurry of activity in non-reflex medium format cameras which produced the likes of the Mamiya 6 and 7, the Bronica 645RF and a line of fixed-lens models from Fujifilm, starting with the GA645 and ending with the zoom-equipped GA645Zi. Whether this brief renaissance was more about desperation than innovation is debatable, but the idea was to make medium format photography more accessible via more compact and affordable cameras. Fast forward a couple of decades and we could well be having the desperation-versus-innovation debate again. The digital medium format camera market has been in dire straits – probably even more so than 120/220 rollfilm – as it’s struggled with high development costs and the prospect of comparatively small returns. Additionally,…

The City of Launceston in Tasmania was hosting a three-day conference; an event I felt not to be missed both on a professional level and the considerable potential for photographic opportunities. Coming from Auckland in New Zealand, it was the chance to visit Tasmania for the first time and, curiously, travel south to Australia! Firstly, I should explain what I do for a job. I’m a heritage architect which will explain the content of this ‘Photogenic Places’ feature about older character buildings; their ornate details, landscape settings and, in the case of some, neglected state. Setting the scene – Launceston is located in central northern Tasmania and was first settled in 1806. It is Tasmania’s second-largest city, Australia’s third-oldest city and the twelfth-largest non-capital city. It sits where the North…

When I first started writing about cameras in the early 1980s, Mamiya was one of the powerhouse brands. It had taken on the established European marques in the medium format camera category and quickly become the market leader; now it was flexing its muscles in 35mm SLRs. In 1983 you could buy a Mamiya 6x4.5cm SLR, 6x6cm TLR, 6x7cm SLR, 35mm SLR or 35mm compact. It had been first with interchangeable lenses on a twin lens reflex camera, first with a 6x4.5cm single lens reflex camera, first with a rotating film back on a 6x7cm single lens reflex camera, and first with an innovative ‘crossover’ auto exposure control system on a 35mm single lens reflex camera… designed to override out-of-range user-applied settings. However, the following year disaster struck when the…

The Picture The sand hills and clay pan at Lake Everard in the outback of South Australia have been a regular overnight stop for photographer Trevern Dawes en route from Lake Gairdner to Coober Pedy. Over many visits, a collection of sand scapes have been captured with a few featuring in previous Light Works. The last visit was entirely different because of recent rain, dark skies and the threat of more rain. It all seemed a rather dismal prospect with the main concern being the weather that might lock up the roads for days. As it turned out some dramatic situations prevailed with one in particular emphasising the need to ‘grab it when you can’. The Photographer Trevern Dawes has the rare distinction of being a contributor to the very…

THERE’S CURRENTLY A lot of activity in memory cards and Sony continues to make a bid for a bigger slice of the market, launching a new series of UHS-II speed SD devices. With a claimed writing speed of 299 MB/second, Sony says its new SF-G series of SD cards is the fastest in the business. The maximum read speed is quoted at 300 MB/second when used in a dedicated Sony MRW-S1 card reader. The new SF-G cards are available is 32 GB (SDHC), 64 GB (SDXC) and 128 GB (SDXC) storage capacities. Their faster data transfer rates enable shorter buffer clearing times, making these card suitable for 4K video recording applications and able to support the high-speed continuous shooting capabilities of the latest D-SLRs and mirrorless cameras. Sony’s SF-G cards…

CANON LOOKS TO be getting the hang of this mirrorless camera thing. The latest arrival is the EOS M6 which is essentially an M5 in a new – and very pretty – bodyshell, minus the EVF. No built-in EVF? Before you decide to move off to read something else, let us tell you that there is an all-new clip-on electronic viewfinder, but more importantly, the M6’s configuration tells us Canon is really thinking about its mirrorless camera range. Leaving out the built-in EVF allows for a more compact design and the EOS M6 really fits the bill in terms of attracting users who want something better than a smartphone for taking pictures, but don’t want a D-SLR, no matter how compact. The RF-style body is very neat and features a…

THE WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY Organisation and Zeiss have announced the winners of the 2017 Zeiss Photography Award. The grand prize was won by Belgian photographer Kevin Faingnaert for Føroyar, a series about life on remote and sparsely populated villages on the Faroe Islands. Now in its second year, the theme of the 2017 Zeiss Photography Award was ‘Meaningful Places’ which challenged professional photographers to look past the ordinary and every day with images which captured extraordinary aspects of the world. The winning portfolio was selected from more than 31,000 images submitted by 4677 photographers from 132 countries. Kevin Faingnaert’s prize comprises 12,000 Euros worth of Zeiss lenses and 3000 Euros in travel expenses to complete a photography project. The judges also recognised the work of nine other photographers, including Australia Fabian…

WITH ENTRY-LEVEL D-SLRS facing the biggest challenge from mirrorless cameras, Canon has broadened its range in this category with two new models: the EOS 800D and the EOS 77D. The existing EOS 750D remains available, but the EOS 760D is being discontinued. The EOS 800D and EOS 77D are essentially the same camera in terms of their main features and specifications, but they have different designs externally with the aim of appealing to different users. However, Canon says both models are designed with the main objective of “D-SLR photography made easy”. The EOS 800D has a simple, main dial based control layout with an all-new user interface which uses graphics and illustrations to indicate in visual terms how functions operate… such as the exposure control modes. Curiously, in the now…

Movie-makers have been trying to recreate reality in a convincing way right from the early days of cinematography, first by adding sound, then colour, then the third dimension and even wacky ideas such as Smell-O-Vision (subsequently listed in the ‘Top 100 Worst Ideas of All Time’ compiled by Time magazine). Now we have ‘Virtual Reality’ (VR) which is designed to replicate actual reality without any of the potentially nasty side-effects. A key component of VR is 360-degree video which, up until recently, has required a fairly complicated and expensive multi-camera rig in order to cover all the angles. Now you can create 360-degree footage with a little pocket-sized video actioncam from Nikon called the KeyMission 360. It’s a curious-looking thing with a 180-degree fish-eye lens at the front and one…

Along with the 24-70mm f2.8, the 70-200mm f2.8 is a staple of any serious photographer’s kit. Together they span a focal range that takes in a wide variety of subjects and the constant aperture of f2.8 actually provides plenty of flexibility when it comes to low light situations or reducing depth-of-field. Not surprisingly then, the D-SLR makers pride themselves on their 70-200mm f2.8 zooms and there have been regular upgrades to incorporate new features – such as optical image stabilisation and weather-proofing – and improved optical designs utilising the latest materials and manufacturing techniques. Nikon, for example, has only just recently introduced its third-generation model boasting numerous performance enhancements and a more compact, lighter weight design. The ‘independents’ too have recognised the importance of having a high-performance 70-200mm f2.8 in…

The dynamic range (DR) of a scene extends from the brightest to the darkest areas that still reveal some detail. On scenes with a very high dynamic range, it’s not possible to capture the whole range in a single exposure, because a digital camera’s sensor simply can’t do it. With a scene which contains a bright sky and a dark foreground, you can set the exposure to record details in the brighter highlights but which will throw the shadows into obscurity. Alternatively, you can add more exposure to record the shadow detail, but which will then blow out all the bright areas to pure white. To get the best of both worlds, you can shoot multiple exposures to record detail across the entire tonal range, and then blend them together…

NOT ENTIRELY SURPRISINGLY Fujifilm has decided to venture into making a range of lower-priced cinematography lenses for Sony’s E Mount which is used by both the latter’s mirrorless cameras and a range of semi-pro video camcorders. Designed for the ‘APS-C’ and ‘Super 35’ formats, the new Fujinon MK lens line starts with an 18-55mm T2.9 standard zoom which will be followed by a 50-135mm T2.9 telezoom later in the year. Sensibly too, the MK cinematography lenses will also be available in Fujifilm’s own X Mount for use on mirrorless cameras such as the X-T2. They’re primarily designed as a more compact, lighter weight and affordable alternative to pro-grade cinema lenses, but without compromising durability or optical performance, including edge-to-edge sharpness and low distortion. Additionally, the MK zooms have optical and…

 AT PRECISELY 8.19 AM ON “DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS? WELL, HOW ABOUT ALSO HAVING A MOUTHWATERING SELECTION OF SIGMA LENSES TO TRY OUT DURING THE FLIGHT?” Sunday 5 February 2017, Qantas Boeing 747-438ER, VH-OEE, lifted off from Sydney Airport’s Runway 34L and headed south. Twelve hours and 49 minutes later it would return, landing on the same runway after taking its passengers on the trip of a lifetime. A few hours before the departure, you could have been forgiven for being a bit perplexed when reading the departures board in Qantas’s domestic terminal, because the destination for flight QF2908 was listed as Sydney. And you don’t often see a 747 parked on a domestic terminal departure gate, dwarfing all the regular 737s and 717s sitting around it.…

We had a great response to our inaugural Australian Teenage Photographer Of The Year competition so we’re doing it all again. This is a great opportunity for young photographers to show off their talents behind the camera and possibly get into print. It’s not hard to put your images online… getting into a magazine is more of a challenge, but a published spread of images could be the toe-in-the-door to a possible career in photography. Over the next six issues of Camera, we’re giving you the chance to have a portfolio of your images published over a double-page spread in Australia’s leading photography magazine. At the end of the competition, we’ll judge all six successful portfolios and crown somebody the Australian Teenage Photographer Of The Year for 2017-18. The overall…

Translated from Greek, the word photography means ‘drawing with light’ and the essence of creating a photographic image lies with controlling exactly how much light reaches the recording medium, whether it’s a digital imaging sensor or a frame of film. Logically, this is called an ‘exposure’ (i.e. the recording medium is exposed to light) and in any camera, it’s essentially regulated by two controls – apertures and shutter speeds. As explained in the previous article about depth-of-field (see our January/ February 2017 issue), the aperture mechanism – also known as the diaphragm – is located within a lens and comprises a set of blades which move to create openings of different sizes. This allows more, or less, light to pass through to the image sensor, and their sizes (in other…

WINNER Sometimes everything just comes together in a photograph and here Graham Scheer was in the right place at the right time… along with a very co-operative pelican. Graham made the most of the situation with his careful exposure, the framing and a composition which balances the foreground and background beautifully. He used a Pentax K5 D-SLR with a Tamron 17-50mm zoom lens. DO YOU WANT TO WIN? Fujifilm Australia generously supplies the prizes for each issue’s successful entrants to the Showcase. The winner of a round wins a Fujifilm 32 GB SDHC memory card, the author of the Highly Commended image receives a Fujifilm 16 GB SDHC memory card and the Commended image wins its creator a Fujifilm 8.0 GB SD memory card. The grand prize for the 2017…

WHEN FUJIFILM AUSTRALIA told us that the X70 high-end compact – last year’s Fujifilm Showcase grand prize – was being discontinued, we asked what might be a suitable replacement for this year. “Well,” they said, “Do you think somebody might like to win an X-Pro2?” After we’d picked ourselves up off the floor, they added. “And how about we fit it with the much-acclaimed XF 35mm f1.4 prime lens?” Yes, Fujifilm Showcasers, this year’s grand prize is an X-Pro2, one of the finest mirrorless cameras you can buy right now… except if you win this year’s comp, you won’t have to, will you? There’s just two rounds left (so those of you who have already won a round this year are sitting pretty) so get those creative juices going and…