Three photographs taken by Joseph Nicephore Niépce, a Frenchman born in 1765, will soon be exhibited by the National Media Museum. These particular images, which their creator called 'heliographs', were taken during the 1820s, and are part of a set of 16 image located throughout the world. All three images are said to be amongst the earliest of photographs ever taken. Read more
March 7
March 6
A slight update to the D5300, the Nikon D5500 is a midrange DX-format that sports a 24MP CMOS sensor with no optical low-pass filter (OLPF) and the company's latest Expeed 4 processor. This combination offers an ISO range of 100-25600 and 5 fps burst shooting, while the 39-point AF system can track subjects in '3D'. Other features include a fully articulating 3.2" touchscreen LCD with 1.04M dots and 1080/60p video. We've been using it for a few days - click through to view our gallery of samples
Livestream has introduced its new Broadcaster mini device for live-streaming video directly from a camera. The dongle is compatible with any camera that offers a mini HDMI port, and works wirelessly in conjunction with Android/iOS devices and Livestream's Studio software. The Broadcaster mini will be joined by the Broadcaster Pro next month, which will offer longer battery life, more connectivity options and higher-quality streaming. Read more
March 5
Sony announced three new FE primes yesterday, including a 28 f/2, a 35mm f/1.4 and a 90mm f/2.8 macro. We got our hands on the Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm f/1.4 and shot with it around Seattle. It features a 9-blade circular aperture and a Direct Drive SSM focus system. Check out our samples gallery
Following an investigation into Contemporary Issues winner Giovanni Troilo's photo story 'La Ville Noir - The Dark Heart of Europe,' World Press Photo has stripped the photographer of his prize. The organization found Troilo to be in violation of contest rules - specifically, a photo he submitted that he alleged to have been taken in the Belgian city at the heart of the project turns out to have been taken in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Brussels. Read more
While we were at CP+ 2015 in Japan, we met with Tamron, and the company was kind enough to lend us their newly announced 15-30mm F2.8 Di VC USD. In Nikon mount, no less. It's a wide range for a full-frame zoom, made more impressive by the inclusion of vibration compensation (VC). With a price tag of $1200, Tamron is taking the Nikon 14-24 head-on, and so we decided to do the same: pit the two against one another in a shootout, which you can view here
March 4
At this year's CP+ show in Yokohama Japan we made time to sit down with several senior executives from major manufacturers, including Sigma. In this interview with Kazuto Yamaki, CEO of Sigma, we spoke about the challenges of making lenses for ever-increasing pixel counts, the company's 'small office, big factory' philosophy and why the company is continuing to make cameras. Read more
Italian tripod and accessory manufacturer Manfrotto has announced it is introducing a new heavy-weight head to its XPRO range. The XPRO Geared Head is designed for photographers who use weighty equipment and who like to be able to make precise adjustments to their composition. Read more
Independent Japanese flash manufacturer Nissin has announced a new wireless flash system that uses radio transmission. The first gun to be compatible with the company’s Nissin Air System (NAS) will be an adapted version of the Di700 flash unit. The Di700A will have the same specification as the GN48m/157ft current model, but will also feature a 2.4GHz radio transmitter that will be able to communicate with other NAS guns and the Nissin Commander Air 1 command unit from a distance of up to 30m. Read more
Chinese company Xiaomi, perhaps best known for its smartphones, has introduced a new GoPro competitor called the Yi Action Camera. This new action camera will only be sold inside of China for the equivalent of approximately $64 USD (399 CNY); the company doesn't, as of now, have plans to sell it elsewhere. This still poses a problem for GoPro, however, which has recently been looking to expand into the Chinese market. Read more
Three full-frame prime lenses on Sony's lens roadmap officially arrived today which, including the 24-240, brings the total number of FE lenses to eleven. The least expensive of the trio is the 28mm F2 lens, which also supports ultra-wide and fisheye adapters. Next is the long-awaited Zeiss 35mm F1.4 ZA, which is Sony's fastest FE lens to date. Close-up shooters will be interested in the new 90mm F2.8 Macro G OSS lens, which uses a Direct Drive SSM mechanism for ultra-precise focusing. More details here.
Another full-frame lens from Sony's roadmap that hit the market today is a consumer-friendly super zoom. This 24-240mm F3.5-6.3 FE lens features optical image stabilization, five aspherical elements and one ED element, and is sealed against dust and moisture. The lens will ship this month for around $1000.
Sony is releasing a pair of firmware updates this month that will reduce startup times when FE lenses are attached to both full-frame and APS-C bodies. The first update, available now, will make your E-mount camera get ready to shoot in less time when using five currently available FE lenses. The second update, due later this month, will do the same for Sony's a7 series, this time for the four new lenses announced today. Read more
Sony has officially announced four new conversion lenses - two for full-frame and two for APS-C - that can be screwed onto a select group of lenses. On the full-frame side there are ultra-wide and fisheye adapters for the new FE 28mm F2, which drop the focal range to 21mm and 16mm, respectively. The adapters for APS-C lenses - the 20mm F2.8 and 16mm F2.8 specifically - and reduce the focal lengths by 0.75X for the ultra-wide adapter and 0.6X for the fisheye. More details.
Japanese optical manufacturer Kowa has released pricing for the three Micro Four Thirds lenses it first announced a year ago. The trio, Kowa Prominar MFT 12mm f/1.8, Prominar MFT 8.5mm f/2.8 and Prominar MFT 25mm f/1.8 are available now and will come in a choice of black, silver or green finishes. The lenses are all manual focus, and do not feature electrical contacts for communicating aperture or focus distance data to the camera. The company had them on show at the Broadcast Video Expo in London. Read more
March 3
Despite a successful round of funding through Kickstarter, Triggertrap has run into difficulties developing its Ada prototype and has announced that it will not be continuing with the project. As of November last year the company had raised nearly £300,000 in crowdfunding for its latest innovation, Ada - a high-speed shutter and flash trigger. Triggertrap CEO Haje Jan Kamps spoke with us about the response he's heard from disappointed project backers. Read more
March 2
Lowepro has announced a line of new photography bags with a high-end design. The Echelon series includes a roller, laptop brief and attache with premium touches like leather handles and each piece includes a removable All Weather cover. We took the attache model for a spin - find out our first impressions of it. Read more
The Sony Alpha 7S is a full-frame interchangeable lens camera sporting a 12.2MP CMOS sensor. It is identical in body design to the Sony a7 and Sony a7R, but don't let that fool you. Unlike the other two, the a7S is specially geared toward video and low-light shooters. It's capable of 1080/60p video with full-sensor readout and can turn out uncompressed 4K footage to an external recorder over HDMI. Read review
Nikon's D7200 has some big shoes to fill. The D7100 was one of our favorite midrange DSLRs of the past few years, and though it's by no means a radical upgrade, the D7200 presents some notable new features. It has a 24.2MP CMOS sensor with no optical low-pass filter, an updated 51-point AF system sensitive to -3EV, a much larger buffer that can take up to 27 Raw images at 6 fps, and Wi-Fi with NFC. Read more
Nikon's new D7200 is an evolutionary upgrade to the D7100, and fixes one of the few major complaints about that model with an increased buffer depth. Other improvements are more subtle, but the addition of -3EV sensitivity to the D7200's 51-point AF array will please low-light photographers. There's also Wi-Fi with NFC, 1080/60p video, and improved battery life. Click through for some hands-on images
The Nikon Coolpix P900 has the longest zoom of any camera by a large margin. Whether you're a nature photographer or just spying on your neighbors (not that we'd recommend that), the camera's 24-2000mm should cover any situation. We got our hands on this monster zoom and will run through its most notable features right here.
Nikon's prosumer line gets an update today in the form of the D7200. With a 24.2MP APS-C CMOS sensor it offers a very slight resolution increase over its 24.1MP D7100 predecessor, and like that model it lacks an optical low-pass filter. But the D7200's primary enhancements include a next-generation 51-point AF module with increased low-light sensitivity, built-in Wi-Fi with NFC and an improved 100-shot buffer depth when shooting JPEGs or Raw files at 6 fps. Read more
Nikon has extended its superzoom range to include the Coolpix P900, offering a 16MP sensor and world's longest zoom lens, which is equivalent to a mind-boggling 24-2000mm. It features built-in Wi-Fi with NFC, 7 fps burst shooting, built-in EVF and a fully articulated 3" 921k-dot LCD. The P900 uses a new Dual Detect optical image stabilization system, claiming up to 5 stops of shake compensation. Read more
February 28
We recently returned from the CP+ show in Yokohama, Japan. When we were there we sat down with executives from most of the major camera and lens manufacturers to get their insights and opinions on the challenges facing their companies and the market as a whole. One of them was Toshihisa Iida, Senior Manager Sales & Marketing at Fujifilm's Optical Device & Electronic Imaging products division. Click through for the full interview
February 26
The United Kingdom is hoping to retain an album containing photographs by Oscar Rejlander, and as such it has instituted a temporary export ban on the relic. The ban will prevent the album from being sold to a foreigner and leaving the country (for now), and will possibly provide enough time to study the collection and its origins. Read more
Japanese optical manufacturer Tokina is showing a hydrophilic filter coating that forces water droplets to spread into a thin film so that they become invisible to the camera. The coating will allow photographers to carry on shooting when rain or spray on the lens would otherwise obstruct the optical path. Read more
The National Press Photographers Association and World Press Photo plan to hold a symposium later in 2015 to talk about ethics in photography, following news that 20% of the photos entered in the World Press Photo contest were disqualified after reaching the penultimate round, due to digital manipulations of some sort being discovered. Meanwhile, the NPPA has called on the photographers disqualified from the contest to release their photos to the public. Read more
Lytro CEO Jason Rosenthal has announced that the company has raised an additional $50M in funding, but plans to use it to make a strategic shift into video and virtual reality, while shedding some jobs. Although the exact number of layoffs has yet to be decided, website re/code is reporting that between 25-50 of Lytro's 130-strong workforce may be made redundant as the company seeks to hire new employees with video and virtual reality experience. Click through to read more
February 25
After handling a prototype at Photokina, we brought a final shipping sample of Tamron's new 15-30mm wideangle zoom back from CP+. The stabilized ultra-wideangle lens covers a full-frame sensor, offers a unique double lens hood design for added strength and boasts a very competitive $1200 price tag. We're impressed so far - check out our samples gallery
February 24
The Sony Xperia Z3 is the successor to the Xperia Z2, and in terms of both camera specification and design it's more of an evolutionary update than a major overhaul. In terms of camera specs the new model comes with the same 20.7 MP resolution on a 1/2.3 sensor as its predecessor but the new G-lens offers a wider equivalent focal length of 25mm. Click through to read our full review on connect.dpreview.com
An American start-up company is promising to bring a 20MP full frame digital rangefinder camera to market for early 2016. The Konost FF will be a 20-million-pixel metal bodied M-mount camera equipped with a 4" LCD. The company has said that the rangefinder system will operate not with mirrors and prisms, as most rangefinders do, but with twin imaging sensors that overlay their images to produce the same dual image effect in the viewfinder. Read more
William Henry Fox Talbot prints from as early as 1844 are part of a collection of over 200 photographs that are due to go to auction in London next month. All of the pictures in the sale come from a single private collection which includes a many well-known and important works, and many of the prints were made at the time the original pictures were taken. See gallery
We don't normally write about thirty-thousand-dollar cinema cameras, but the ARRI ALEXA Mini caught our eye. This digital motion picture camera packs a whole lot of firepower into a super compact, carbon-fiber body. The specs also foreshadow what me might expect in future consumer-level cameras, in terms of video capabilities. Read more
February 23
Starting today, the folks at CreativeLive are hosting a week of educational programs designed to help photographers and designers get the most out of Adobe Photoshop. Classes range from tips for beginners to more specialized sessions in landscape, architecture and portrait photography, to name a few. All classes are streaming live for free over the next six days, and will be available for purchase after the event. Read more
Panasonic has announced two new additions to its Micro Four Thirds lens lineup, a 30mm F2.8 macro and 42.5mm F1.7 portrait lens. The company had previously hinted that the 30mm was in the works, and as promised it offers Mega O.I.S stabilization along with 240 fps drive AF. The 42.5mm F1.7 isn't quite as fast (or presumably as expensive) as the existing Leica Nocticron 42.5mm F1.2. Both lenses will be available in May. Read more
February 22
Based in the UK, nature photographer Will Burrard-Lucas is highly dedicated to wildlife photography. He's even developed his own remote-controlled camera system for getting as close as you can with dangerous animals like rhinos, lions and… meerkats. The photographer spent an entire year living in Zambia where he used new technologies like drones, camera traps and remote-control devices to capture nature from tricky perspectives. See gallery
February 21
Winners of the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition have been announced, the top prize has gone to Magdalena Wasiczek. She won the overall prize in 2012, and has taken the top prize again with a dramatic rendering of a red Hydrangea petiolaris against a heavily defocused background. See winners
February 20
The FAA's plan to regulate drone usage has been a long running cause of concern among enthusiasts and those hoping to use UAVs for commercial purposes. Thus far speculation has pegged the budding regulations as unnecessarily restrictive, but the new officially revealed FAA proposal shows those concerns to largely be unfounded. Read more
Our first impressions review of the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II covered the cameras updates, physical features and (of course) our first impressions on using it. Now that we've had some more time with the camera, we've put together some more thoughts on shooting with the E-M5 II - from grey Seattle to the bright sunshine of Bermuda. Read more
We were recently lucky enough to visit Sigma's factory in Aizu, Japan, where Sigma allowed us to shoot with a pre-production sample of the recently-announced 24mm F1.4 DG HSM Art lens. The wintry landscape of the Fukushima prefecture was a nice contrast to the CP+ convention center where we last gathered some samples with this lens, and our recent samples are more representative of lens performance on a native mount body (Canon 6D). Have a look
February 19
We thought we'd try something a bit different for our video overview of the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II. Given that two of the major changes are improvements in its video features and stabilization, we thought we'd use the camera to shoot its own video and see how it behaves handheld. And, since the camera is environmentally sealed, we thought we'd venture beyond the office for a bit. See video
Sony has announced that it will be branching off its audio and video departments into a separate subsidiary. Sony previously spun off its VAIO PC business one year ago, and the creation of new departments aims to make the company into a profitable entity. Read more
Photoshop turns 25 today, and Adobe is marking the occasion with a look back at the software's humble roots, along with a chance for users under the age of 25 to take control of the company's Instagram handle for two weeks. Short of supplying its subscribers with complimentary birthday cake, the company has put together some entertaining graphics comparing Photoshop's icons, toolbars and splash screens for a short trip down the digital memory lane. Read more
February 18
Japanese filter brand Marumi has introduced a collection of neutral density filters for its DHG (Digital High Grade) range including fixed density strengths of ND 8, 16, 32 and 64 as well as a variable ND filter with a range of ND 2.5-500. The company has also announced a ND filter for shooting solar eclipses. Read more
Two former Apple engineers have just launched Astropad, an app for Apple's iPad and Mac computer that turns the former into a drawing tablet for the latter. It works with most styluses, and allows use of applications like Photoshop for image retouching and editing with more precision. Read more
February 17
Chris Burkard is a well-established adventure and surf photographer. His landscapes and cold weather surf photos have earned worldwide attention and plenty of high-profile clients. Chris joined us recently in California to take Sony's a6000 for a spin to try out its hybrid AF system on - what else? - sun, sand and surf. See how the a6000 keeps up in our latest real-world test. See video
Fujifilm's XF 16-55mm F2.8 is a weather-sealed zoom covering a 24-83mm equivalent range. With a fast F2.8 constant aperture, manual aperture control and a new Nano-GI coating to reduce flare, it's a high-end lens to be sure. Take a look at how it performs in the real world. See gallery
A photograph that highlights the difficulties facing sexual minorities in Russia has won the World Press Photo contest's top prize. 'Jon and Alex', from a project called 'Homophobia in Russia', shows an 'intimate moment' between a gay couple from St. Petersburg and won Danish photographer Mads Nissen the Contempory Issues category of the competition, as well as the first prize for a single image, netting him 11,500 Euro and Canon DSLR equipment. See winners
February 16
Swedish medium format camera manufacturer Hasselblad has launched its 2016 Hasselblad Masters competition, and will be giving away a total of ten cameras as prizes to winners. Open to 'active professionals' using film or digital cameras that have at least 16MP, the competition features 10 categories including a new street/urban section that seems angled at more positive images of city life. A category called Project//21 is open to all photographers under the age of 21. Learn more
In the new EOS Digital Rebel T6s and T6i (EOS 760D and EOS 750D in Europe) Canon has produced beginner and enthusiast versions of what is essentially the same camera. Is this really necessary, why has the company done it and who will notice the difference? Damien Demolder gives his opinion. Read more
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