The Yongnuo 560 EX II speedlite wasn’t announced too long ago, as so is a relatively new speedlite flash. The company is known for making excellent flashes at a super affordable price that makes them attractive to various photographers: including Todd Owyoung.
As a proud owner of Canon’s current flashes, this little light intrigued me; so I actually went out and purchased it. And after various shoots with it, it is perhaps the one flash that I can recommend to the both the amateur and experienced group of users: but not the middle ground of strobists.
Around CES 2012, Sigma announced their 19mm f2.8 and 30mm f2.8 EX DN lenses for Micro Four Thirds and Sony NEX. As the first third party company to create autofocus lenses for the mirrorless camera segment, fanboys on both sides were ecstatic about the fact that their systems both grew. On Micro Four Thirds cameras, they both amount to 38mm and 60mm respectively.
I’ve had them for around two hours now as I write this post, but I’ve held off on publishing until I shot the Pillow Fight in NYC recently.
I just got the Sigma 30mm f2.8 EX DN and 19mm f2.8 EX DN in for Micro four thirds mount. So far, I’m pretty impressed. A more thorough first impressions post is coming soon. So look forward to that!
UPDATE: Lens photo samples down below after the jump! Literally shot very quickly and also edited that way too!
Panasonic has just announced the Lumix DMC-GF5, their latest entry-level Micro Four Thirds camera and upgrade to the previous DMC-GF3. We’re glad to see that the trend for further downsizing seems to have come to a halt, with the GF5 maintaining roughly the same proportions of its predecessor. On the contrary — Panasonic have even made it a bit larger, by adding a more pronounced, rubberized grip similar to that on the new GX1.
So, what else is new? The sensor is claimed to be “new”, yet retains a useful pixel count of 12.1 million. The screen’s resolution has gone up, from 460,000 to 920,000 pixels, which seems to be one of the actually useful improvements (besides the grip.) Not so useful, and probably more about marketing than anything else, is the new high-ISO limit of 12,800, as opposed to the previous 6,400. The new Venus Engine VII HD2 processor, however, has a new noise reduction algorithm called 3DNR (“3D noise reduction system”), which sounds great and will surely improve the camera’s high-ISO performance significantly just with its cool name.
The Lumix DMC-GF5 will be available in black, white and red later this year in the following kit options: Body with 14-42mm standard zoom lens will have a suggested retail price (SRP) of $599; body with 14-42mm power zoom lens will have an SRP of $749.
Being a user of both the Micro Four Thirds and Leica M system, it was evident for me to try out my well-proven M-glass also on my Micro Four Thirds bodies. Due to their very short flange-back-distance (i.e. distance between lens mount and sensor), Micro Four Thirds cameras can mount pretty much every lens ever desgined for film and digital—be it minute 16mm cine lenses or huge and chunky 6×9 medium format lenses. With the help of an appropriate adapter, any lens that can be focused manually can be put to work on an MFT body. So, besides getting an adapter to use the lenses of my old Pentax ME film camera, I also got one for my Leica M lenses. Unfortunately, however, the very cheap execution of the model I bought prevents focusing any lens to infinity…so, until I get hold of a proper adapter, all I can do with my M glass at the moment are close-ups. There is one lens in my setup, however, that lends itself exceptionally well at this: the 50mm f/2 Zeiss Planar ZM.
Kenko has just announced a new set of extension tubes for Micro Four Thirds and Sony NEX. While these are not the first extension tubes that Kenko has introduced, these are the first that come with electronic coupling. With these extension tubes, virtually any lens designed for Micro Four Thirds or Sony NEX can be converted into a macro lens. By moving the lens further away from the sensor, the extension tubes allow for much closer focusing and thus much higher magnification ratios. The tubes come in sets of 10 and 16 mm spacers that can be combined to 26 mm, enabling true macro capability.
