The world is full of dreary lenses. Most of the new ones, today, are refreshes of the old. So when Zeiss invited us to try something new, my interest was piqued. We, the Phoblographer members in attendance, were introduced to the New Zeiss Touit 32mm 1.8 and the 12mm f2.8, both rather clever lenses. However these lenses are for Sony NEX 7 and Fujifilm X Pro cameras, which I don’t own. Luckily Zeiss brought LensRentals along to loan me a Fujifilm XPro. While I am not a fan of the X Pro 1 personally, the Zeiss Touit 32mm f1.8 was rather nice.
Let’s see why.
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We’ve seen some weird camera designs before, but this one is taking the cake. It was designed with ergonomics first and foremost and is meant to help prevent camera shake–providing that you use it correctly. From the looks of it, you can probably think of this as a TLR–but not really.
The front lens will swivel to 90 degrees, so that you can go from landscape mode to portrait mode easier–which will then rotate the screen accordingly. Then there are four high-powered flashes for 360-degree coverage. It’s powered by a lithium ion battery-and hopefully it won’t get drained by all that flash power.
Lastly, it has bluetooth integration for you to port your images to your mobile device. Despite the fact that this still hasn’t totally seen the production line yet, it is still an interesting but really ugly design.
Via Yanko Design
Fans of the Nikon 1 series of cameras are now in for a treat–today the company is announcing a 32mm f1.2 lens which equates to an 86.4mm field of view. In other words, 1 series users now have a portrait lens. It features a Nano-crystal coating on the lenses and also has a metal exterior. Nikon’s silent wave motor technology is also present. The manual focusing ring looks a tad small, but we’re not sure many people will be manually focusing with this anyway.
And because Nikon users love their options, it will come in Black and Silver and retail for $896.96.
PS: We’re giving away a Nikon D800
Canon previously announced their 200-400mm f4 L IS USM lens a while back, but it was then delayed for unknown reasons. Today, the company is re-announcing the lens with a 1.4x teleconverter built in–therefore extending its reach to 280–560mm (f/5.6) with what they’re saying is, “A flick of a switch.” They’re also touting that this will help with ensuring that dust doesn’t get into the camera’s electronics.
The EF 200–400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4X incorporates one fluorite and four UD lens elements, a 9-blade circular aperture, features inner focusing, ring USM, a high-speed CPU and optimized AF algorithms. Plus it has a Power Focus mode that makes focus shifts quieter while filming.
Canon is also promising up to four stop of Image stabilization with either standard, panning, and during exposure only.
Want it? Get ready to drop $11,799 for this bad boy when it hits retailers soon.
PS: We’re giving away a Canon 5D Mk III
Together with the Japan-exclusive E-PL6, a slightly modified version of the E-PL5 for the Japanese market only, Olympus yesterday also announced three new colors for the BCL-1580 “body cap lens” that has been available for a couple months now. The new color choices are white, silver and red and fit the color scheme of the E-PL6 camera. While this certainly makes for a very sexy package, it is doubtful that these will be available on overseas markets as well. DC Watch reports that the new color versions of the BCL-1580 will be available from August for a retail price of JPY 6,825.
Apple states that the iPhone is the world’s most popular camera. But for the life of it, it couldn’t really do anything macro related unless you used the Digital Zoom function. But the new LensMag additions from Carson are looking to solve that. It mounts on without the use of glue or anything else but magnets. Plus, they come in different magnifications (10x and 15x) and store away in a small case.
The Lens Mags are available for the iPhone 5, iPad, and iPad Mini and will set you back $19 for what are essentially tele-conversion options for your iOS device. And we encourage you to not pull this thing out on a date.
