The Sigzilla was back on show again this year, but with a different support. At PMA 2009 it appeared on a very tight-fitting Wimberley Ver II, so now wildlife photographers know they’ll need no custom mounting if they want the fastest Autofocus 500mm at F2.8 ever built. On the other hand, not that you could afford one, or the behemoth optics were even practical on the field, 5D Mark II owners might have compatibility issues with the earth-green bazooka.
Last year, Sigma unveiled a line of telephoto zoom lenses at PMA 2008 with HSM and OS (mechanical Optical Stabilizer). This year at PMA 2009, Sigma is adding wider angles to its new series of zoom lenses, ranging from 10mm to 250mm.
We met with Craig Strong, the co-founder and brain behind the Lensbaby’s ingenious selective focusing SLR lens at PMA 2009. Craig invited us to test out the composer and the complimentary 0.42x Super Wide lens as part their Optical swap system, and that was hard to refuse. Why not? The show was slow anyway, Yes Sir. Give me an EF mount.
Despite the PMA 2009 is less than a week away, Tamron have not revealed anything new for PMA 2009 yet. But recently, the company has quietly announced the EF-mount for its long-awaited SP AF10-24mm F/3.5-4.5 Di II ultra wide zoom lens in Japan.
Canon may have slowly losing its professional-ground in DSLR camera’s market, but not in optics department. From the last few years, they have redesigned, and in most cases, introduced a variety of premium L-prime from 800mm 5.6L, 200mm F2.0L IS, 85mm II 1.2L , 50mm II 1.2L to a decently pair of 17mm and 24mm tilt-shirt lens.
If you were an architecture or a landscape photographer, you would love that 17mm Tilt-Shirt lens. Pairing it with the cheapest 21mp available — 5D mark II — would result in the world’s widest 35mm format angle of view setup; but as expected, the new L glasses will cost you an arm and a leg as usual. They are up at Amazon for pre-order and are priced at $2,499 and $2199 for the 17mm and 24mm II, respectively.
In today’s image sensor standard, image qualities are nearly identical from one technology to another, availability of glasses is more important, at least to me. The 17mm tilt shift godness really got me thinking about robbing a bank or two. ( smiley )
Architecture and wide landscape photographers take note, Canon has announced a pair of tilt and shift lenses, TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II and an ultra-wide TS-E 17mm f/4L today. These two new lenses features new barrel design, UD glass, specially coated aspherical elements, and Canon’s latest SWC to have better control over the positioning of the focal plane while keeping optics distortion at minimum.
Words got out last week Leica is coming out with an ultra wide Super-Elmar-M 18 mm lens, and today, the announcement of the new Leica along with the SF58 flash unit are official. The new wide-angle lens is a better candidate than the Zeiss 18mm f/4 Distagon and can be used both on Leica M analog camera models, as well as on the digital Leica M8 or M8.2.
Last Month Sigma unveiled an exciting ultra zoom range 18-250mm F3.5-F6.3 DC OS HSM, and revealed its tentative EF-mounted launch date by February 21th. Today, they have postponed the release of the digitally optimized crop sensor lens for three more weeks. Retails of the holdback were not given, nor they have revealed further release dates for the rest of Pentax, Nikon or Sony’s mounted DSLRs.
PMA 2009 is nearly two weeks away, there aren’t any news from Leica front so far; but super wide shooters get your wallet ready, the French has posted a preview of an upcoming Leica M 3.8/18 Super-Elmar. A tap faster than Zeiss 18mm f/4 Distagon, less distortion and better vignetting control, but twice as expensive!
Our thought on Nikon’s lack of interest in much faster primes than the newly announced DX 35mm 1.8G could change this year, and probably around the PMA 2009. In an interview with folks from DPR, the Nikon’s Europe Region lenses product manager, Ludovic Drean, has revealed company’s plan to release more DSLR lenses by this year.
According to Drean, “ this [refer to AF-S DX 35mm F1.8 ] is not the lens announcement we’ll making this year” but details were thin on lenses focus distance and format.
Nikon has recently covered the 35mm digitally optimized DX, and 50mm Nikkor AF-S with field of view equivalent to about 50mm and 75mm lens on a 35mm sensor size camera. Would there be another affordable large aperture DX-format fast prime at wider end, says 20ish? Or they will finally get to fill one of the many holes in FX line-up, or a combination of both ? I’m sure the Nikonians are dreaming on a AF-S F1.2G for a very long time now.
SlashGear Japan
