Before we decided to post this, we did a little bit of research and confirmed it to be true. Sigma’s DP line of point and shoots such as the DP1, DP2 and DP3 Merrill have been hacked by the Chinese to use an M Mount. We first heard about this via Mirrorless Rumors, and it is indeed real. There are some more images of the hack in this Google translated forum and a company is charging to do it for users.
So what does this mean? Well first off, this is one of the most exciting pieces of news that we’ve heard in a while. Sigma’s Foveon sensor is actually quite good if you can think of it as a Hasselblad Medium format camera–which means that you need to use proprietary software to get the best results and that the ISO range isn’t up to par with others. In this way, you could probably call it the closest thing to a Mamiya 7 II in terms of digital formats–but many of us who have used that camera know that nothing could ever touch it.
But the bigger question is why isn’t Sigma doing this themselves? Back at CES, I spoke with the President of the company–and his desk (he doesn’t have an office) is in the same area as the engineers. But I really wonder what he’s thinking, and am confident he’s reading this and looking at it with great curiosity
Picture courtesy of DC Watch
The inventive people over at Cosina never stop working and thinking up new stuff, it seems. At CP+, the big Japanese photo show, the company just unveiled a new superfast lens for Micro Four Thirds, and another fast normal lens for M-mount. As always with Cosina, both lenses come totally unexpected, with no rumors about their future appearance spread through the interwebs beforehand. There also isn’t much information available yet, except for product pictures over at DC Watch. Of course you are curious now what these two new lenses are, right? Well, head past the break to find out!
UPDATE 02/01/13 — Officially announced in Germany, see below.
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After selling my Leica M8 a while ago, there was a huge gap in my camera collection: physically and metaphysically. There was a gap in my shelf, there was a gap in my lineup but there also was a gap in my soul. Because let’s face it, a Leica is not a camera you buy with your head, but with your heart. So I decided to get a replacement for it and bought a CL body — the smallest and cheapest M-mount camera ever made. And what is the cheapest lens you can get for your Leica? Well, the Russian Jupiter-8 of course!
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Picture courtesy of Carl Zeiss AG
And another icon of film photography says goodbye. After recently announcing discontinuance of the SW and silver versions of the Zeiss Ikon 35mm rangefinder film camera, Cosina now allegedly discontinued also the black Zeiss Ikon body. At least that’s what Zeiss Rumors reports, quoting this tweet of a Japanese camera retailer. Cosina has thus far not posted an official disctontinuance note. However, a rangefinderforum.com user reports that the company confirmed the discontinuance of all Zeiss Ikon camera bodies via telephone.
The silver version of the Zeiss Ikon had already been discontinued earlier this year, as well as the viewfinderless SW body. The Zeiss Ikon M-mount rangefinder was introduced in 2006 as an alternative to Leica’s M bodies, and sported an aperture priority exposure system with shutter speeds up to 1/2000 sec. The camera was renowned for its build quality and exceptionally bright viewfinder, and was fully compatible with all M-mount lenses.
Zeiss Ikon camera bodies are still available at B&H Photo.
We are contacting Zeiss to find out more.
Editor’s Note: Confirmed, in a quick call to our Zeiss rep, the company told us that they made an announcement to their dealers this week.
Andrew Chan from SLR Magic at photokina 2012, holding a Fuji X-Pro 1 equipped with their new 35mm T0.95 cine lens.
With much regret, we recently learned of the news that SLR Magic, the company that brought us the 12mm f1.6 HyperPrime for Micro Four Thirds and the 50mm T0.95 HyperPrime for Leica M, will discontinue all development of M-mount lenses. In an official press release, the company states that this decision has been made due to a lot of negative feedback on the 50mm T0.95 HypePrime for Leica M.
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Wait, what? A Ferrari? What does this have to do with photokina? Well, nothing, except that Hasselblad had one at their stand. Yup, a real, proper Ferrari.
First off, let me apologize. This post was meant to be up yesterday. However, since my laptop decided to break down, I couldn’t work on it. So it comes one day late. So without further ado, this is part five of or photokina 2012 report. Featured today: the new Leica M and Leica M-E, the Leica X2 Paul Smith edition and à la carte, the Hasselblad Lunatic Lunar and the Voigtländer 21mm f1.8 lens for Leica M.
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