Innehållsförteckning för 243 från Pro Photo

The arrival of the Pentax 17 – the first new film camera to bear the brand in over 20 years – is a significant happening for quite a number of reasons. The camera itself is an upmarket point-and-shoot in the half frame 35mm format – more about this in a moment – and it’s not exactly cheap, but it’s been flying of the shelves since it was announced. In Japan, it was out of stock within 48 hours, forcing Ricoh – custodian of the Pentax brand these days – to temporarily suspend orders. The revival of film photography has been bumping a long for a number of years, mostly fuelled by instant print cameras – Fujfilm’s Instax range is an ongoing success story – and ‘plastic fantastics’ such as the…

Described by its maker as a “relentless workhorse”, Profoto’s new Pro-D3 studio flash monobloc is available in two versions with maximum power outputs of 750 or 1250 joules. Both models feature compact physical designs – they share the same dimensions – while the Pro-D3 750 weighs 3.6 kilograms and the Pro-D3 1250 tips the scales at 4.1 kilos. The Pro-D3 monoblocs are mains-powered and have an 11-stop flash power output range, adjustable in 0.1 stop increments. Used at full flash power, the 750 joules model recycles in just half a second while the 1250 joules model is ready to go again in 0.8 seconds. There’s a choice of three flash modes to help balance performance and longevity (principally of the flash tube). The default mode is called ‘Eco’ and is…

Well, actually, the first in a range of hybrid stills/video lenses that the company plans to introduce, but the new RF 35mm f/1.4L VCM wide-angle prime does have a number of ‘firsts’ for Canon. Most notably, it’s the first to use a voice coil motor (VCM) as part of its autofocusing drive and which has more grunt to move the heavy focusing group which is one part of the lens’s ‘floating’ focusing arrangement. The finer adjustments – using a lighter focusing element – are then performed by a ‘Nano USN’ ultrasonic pulsed drive. The RF 35mm f/1.4L VCM is also the first Canon prime lens in the EOS era to have a manual aperture collar (although the RF 24-105mm f/2.8L IS USM Z zoom also has one), but the bad…

If you’ve ever watched any of the mountain stages on the Tour de France or the Giro d’Italia cycling Grand Tours, you’ll likely have wondered why anybody would willingly put themselves through such physical torture. Even the specialist mountain riders struggle, but for the sprinters it looks like pure agony for kilometre after kilometre. Few sports challenge its participants more than competitive road cycling at the top level, but it’s also full of spectacle, colour, action and emotions which has made it a challenge for the photographers of follow these tours. A new book titled The Art Of Suffering: Capturing The Brutal Beauty Of Road Cycling gives an intimate look into the world of professional road cycling through the eyes of Belgian-born procycling photographer Kristof Ramon (a.k.a. Kramon). Kramon’s compelling…

John Marmaras recalls having his portrait taken by Helmut Newton. He was aged around ten at the time, and it could have been a lightbulb moment for the young lad… but it wasn’t. There would be other inspirations to fire up his life-long passion for photography. John grew up in Melbourne and says he was an introverted child who spent most his time constantly reading Popular Photography magazine. His uncle – who was a subscriber – “dumped” around ten years of issues on John and they became his. “It was a treasured access to all things photographic,” he says. John was first published in a surfing magazine called SOL which was published by the owner of the Arab coffee lounge that opened in Lorne, Victoria, in 1956. Its espresso machine…

Stacked sensors are expensive components which is why, so far, they’re limited to high-end mirrorless cameras with high-end price tags. Yet the performance advantages are undeniable, particularly in terms of shooting speeds and faster video frame rates at higher resolutions. Nikon’s solution is an all-new type of “partially stacked” CMOS sensor. It makes its debut in the Nikon Z 6III which, while quite a lot more expensive than its predecessor, is also a lot more capable in a whole lot of areas. And, with quite a few features inherited from the top end Z 8 and Z 9 models, it’s significantly cheaper than either. The 24.5 megapixels sensor has the read-out and analog-to-digital circuitry – along with integrated memory – arranged along its top and bottom edges rather than in…

You can read all about the new Fujifilm GFX100S II camera body in our comprehensive review elsewhere in this issue, but it arrived with another new GF series lens – a 500mm f/5.6 supertelephoto. The Fujinon GF 500mm f/5.6 R LM OIS WR becomes the longest focal length in Fujifilm’s medium format G mount system and has a 35mm-equivalent of close to 400mm (396mm to be precise). The advantages of the mirrorless camera configuration mean that’s it’s not the monster lens that was the case with rollfilm medium format reflexes and weighs in at a manageable 1375 grams. The barrel length is 247 millimetres. The external construction uses magnesium alloy components and is weather sealed along with insulation that enables shooting in subzero temperatures down to -10 degree Celsius. Additionally,…

Canon’s RF-S 3.9mm f/3.5 STM Dual Fisheye is its second interchangeable VR lens and the first for an RF-S ‘APS-C’ format mirrorless camera. Currently, though, only the EOS R7 is compatible. Like the full frame RF 5.2mm f/2.8L model, this dual lens unit is designed to create stereoscopic 180-degree images for virtual reality content using just one camera – and is a component of the EOS VR System which also includes the Canon VR software and the EOS VR Utility plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro… which is required to process the 180-degree VR content. In particular, it allows for the easy conversion of the dual circular fish-eye image to the side-by-side equi-rectangular 180-degree VR format. These can then be exported into various resolutions and codecs for post-production editing and/or final playback…

The film revival has been given a very big boost with the arrival of a brand new 35mm film camera from Ricoh – custodians of the Pentax brand. Sold out in Japan only 48 hours after being announced, the Pentax 17 is a fixed-lens point-and-shoot compact, albeit an upmarket one. Also notable is that it’s in the half frame 35mm format, partially to make it more economical to use, but also because the vertical frame orientation matches that of a smartphone camera. The overall design is distinctly classical as the Pentax 17 retains a manual film advance lever and rewind crank and the other key controls are dial-type selectors. The bodyshell is mostly magnesium alloy and the lens a 25mm f/3.5 prime that’s labelled “Traditional” (probably because it’s a classic…

The first superzooms – essentially lenses with a focal range of around 10x or longer – were very much aimed at amateur photographers who valued the flexibility over absolute optical quality. Made for, firstly, 35mm SLRs and then DSLRs, superzooms were an optical engineering challenge and it was well-nigh impossible to achieve a uniform optical performance across the full focal range. Corner sharpness, in particular, but also brightness suffered at one or other of the extreme ends of the focal range or the other or, often, both. Later came the even-longer range ultrazoom, still with the same performance issues. Providing a more consistent optical performance would have resulted in a lens of substantial dimensions and an ever more substantial price tag. All this has changed with the arrival of mirrorless…

Perhaps the most powerful hybrid photo/video mirrorless camera we’ve seen so far, Panasonic’s Lumix GH7 has the photo capabilities of the G9 II along with significantly extended video features compared to the GH6. The GH7 shares the same bodyshell as the GH6, but gets the 25.5 megapixels BSI CMOS sensor as the G9II which means it also inherits PDAF measurements which work’s alongside the ‘Depth From Defocus’ (DFD) contrast-detection AF. It also has the same faster processor – developed via the ‘L2 Technology’ tie-up with Leica –which enables faster shooting speeds with stills and higher bit rates with video. This sensor also has a furtherimproved version of the dual gain output arrangement – which Panasonic labels ‘Dynamic Range Boost’ – with the high-gain (i.e. low noise) circuit now active from…

The details are still sparse, but Canon has made a “development announcement” for the EOS R1 which will be the RF mount full frame mirrorless system’s pro-level flagship. As can be seen from the supplied image, there’s an integrated vertical grip which presumably houses a couple of high-capacity battery packs and means that the R1 probably won’t be a whole lot smaller than the EOS-1D X Mark III. The camera will have an additional processor called the ‘DiG!C Accelerator” which will work alongside a current-generation DiG!C X main processor. Canon says that these processors – along with a new CMOS sensor that will be stacked for speed and with a dualgain output – “…enables a large volume of data to be processed at high speeds and delivers incredible advancements in…

Responding to the growing demand for accessories to assist vloggers, social media content creators and YouTube producers, Melbourne-based distributor, Maxxum Pty Ltd. has launch its own line of Firefly-branded products. The range comprises most support-related products such as table-top tripods and smartphone holders, but also compact LED light sources. There’s also a Bluetooth remote trigger which is available as a separate purchase, but also comes bundled with a selfie stick which also doubles as a tabletop tripod. There’s an ultra-compact tabletop tripod for smartphones – appropriately called the Firefly Mini Pocket Tripod – which folds up to be just 12 centimetres in length and weighs 75 grams, but can support up to 500 grams of weight. Cleverly, it incorporates a smartphone holder in one of the legs and which can be…

The latest addition to Canon’s Cinema EOS line-up of dedicated video/cinematography cameras is the C400 which is designed to have broader appeal. Firstly, it uses the RF mount which gives access to a system of Canon lenses rapidly approaching 50 models. It is also more compact than the existing C500 II and C300 models and, more conveniently, integrates a full set of interfaces rather than using extension units. Consequently, the C400 is not only suitable for a wide variety of professional video and TV applications – including electronic news gathering (ENG), live broadcasts or documentary-making – it is also suited to video-makers who want to expand their capabilities beyond those of most hybridtype mirrorless cameras. With many of the features and facilities of higher-end cinema cameras, the C400 is also…