canon

Canon Increases Prices On Lenses That Aren’t Even Available Yet

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Somewhat disappointing to report today that Canon has indicated the recommended list prices of all these lenses are to be increased to the following new prices.  All the lenses apart from the 800mm are not even out yet.  The price of these new Canon super tele lenses is HUGELY increased over the price of the old MKI versions so they’d better be incredible pieces of glass!  Whilst this probably indicates we are getting closer to a release date, I was told today that as of yesterday at least, Canon Canada still has absolutely no timeline for the Canon 8-15mm lens. 

Rumor Silly Season Is Nearly Upon Us

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Around this time of year he rumor mills really start to turn the greasy wheels.  July, August and September are often months that see the key players in the industry announce new products either for immediate delivery, or increasingly in recent years , for deliver before Christmas.  In the last few years a wealth of websites have cropped up to deal with rumors for specific camera brands.  A few of these sites have good track records in tracking down new information long before anything official is released by the manufacturers.  Some of the other sites……. well they don’t have the best of luck.  Often there are snippets of correct information but it’s muddled in amongst bogus specs and rarely are things correct many months out.  Once things get close to an official announcement the rumors start to get a closer to the real deal.

I’m sure we are going to see weekly updates on these sites with supposed specs on new gear, one thing for certain though is that Sony, Nikon and Canon can be expected to make some major announcement in this time frame.

Sony looks set to bring an A77 to the market in July featuring their pellicule mirror technology to an APS-C camera with some decent specs to sit above their A55.

Nikon will be replacing the D3 and the D700 at some point.  It seems likely that at least one of these will be in August.  Before the Pixiq tradeshow was cancelled, Nikon and Canon were probably planning on releasing things at that show.

You guys know that for me it’s the Canon gear that I’m most interested in.  The website Canon Rumors has had so many conflicting reports over the months it’s hard to make sense of it.  We will certainly see an official release of the 200-400 f4 L IS which was announced as in development some months ago.  We have also been waiting for an eternity for a 24-70 f2.8 replacement.  Its been reported that there are several patents and test versions out there, some with IS and some without.  I’d say this one will finally come alongside some sort of 1dsMKIII replacement.  There has also been some reports that the 1d and 1ds line will be merged.  Not sure about that one!  And of course it’s about time for a 5dMKIII too.  On top of that there has been rumors of a 35mm f1.4 II and the much needed 50mm f1.4 II.  My bet would be on the 35mm to come first.

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Canon EF 500mm f4 L IS Review

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You might be wandering why I’m going to talk about this lens when Canon has already announced it’s replacement, due to hit store shelves in December 2011.  Whilst it’s true that the new EF 500mm f4 L IS II is 17% lighter than this version, the optical improvements will be fairly minor.  It’s tough to improve on the quality of any of Canon’s super telephotos.  The list price of the upcoming MKII 500mm is $10,000 but the current version is selling for “only” $6900.  When version 2 hits the second hand market there is sure to be an explosion of

Canon Updates Release Date Info For New Lenses

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Canon has released information today on when they now expect the previously announced EF lenses to be released.

Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens is scheduled to be available in late July 2011
Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens is scheduled to be available in late August 2011
Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens is scheduled to be available in late August 2011
Canon EF 500mm F4L IS II USM lens is scheduled to be available in December 2011
Canon EF 600mm F4L IS II USM lens is also scheduled to be available in December 2011

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Canon 8-15 f4 L Fisheye Image Samples

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If you aren’t familiar with this upcoming lens from Canon then check out my previous post with all the details.  We still don’t know when this lens is going to become available and Canon is currently tight lipped about how badly production schedules are being affected by the situation in Japan.  Last week though, the Canadian camera store Henry’s hosted a show in Toronto and the 8-15 f4 L was on show for all to see.  What made it a little different this time is that people were allowed to use them and shoot photos of them to their own memory card.  Friend of the site Chris Tanouye contacted me and showed me some sample images that he shot at the show.  Obviously lighting conditions on tradeshow floors are terribly low so it’s a difficult test but he posted some full resolution images up on his Flickr account.  You can view the whole set HERE yourself.  The images were shot on both a 50d and a 5dMKII at varying focal lengths.  They were all shot wide open (f4) and some of them at pretty slow shutter speeds so bear this in mind.

Now we have no real way of knowing what stage the sample lens was in.  i.e. how close to the production model it will be. Things may change and probably will so this is just a bit of fun to look at these really as we haven’t heard or seen anything new about this lens since September and I for one am getting impatient 🙂

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Canon’s New Super Tele Lens Size Comparison

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I use the 300mm f2.8 a lot for my work and on a 1.3 crop 1dMKIV it’s often just right. I can see Canon moving to full frame 1-series cameras next year and it got me wandering whether I would need to switch to a bigger lens. 300mm is 390mm equivalent on the MKIV so I might need to start thinking of saving up for a 400mm! I was curious to see how all the new Canon Super Tele Lenses compared, and in particular where the new Canon 200-400 f4 fitted into things so I grabbed the press images and

Hands On With Canon’s XA10

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This little camera was announced a few months back and is now shipping.  I was initially surprised to see so many of these floating around the show, they were everywhere!  People were using them to report on the show and many exhibitors had them on their stands demonstrating their gear such as head, LED lights and pretty much any other excuse they could find to have one on their stand.  So what gives ?!  I had to have a play….. The XA10 is TINY !  Even next to the relatively small x100 or x105 and it weights just over 1lb. 

NAB Show Report Index

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Right now I’m sitting in Vancouver airport on my way to Las Vegas to check out the NAB trade show.  I’ll be posting regular updates on some of the cool new gear that I find out there and I’m sure there will be a ton if it.  I’m mainly interested in the HDSLR movie making gear but I’m also going to check out a lot of the newer Cine lenses and the RED Epic and Scarlet among other things that RED are set to announce tomorrow morning. The show kicks off at 9am tomorrow morning with a keynote speech from

New Canon lenses delayed due to Japanese earthquake disaster

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Whilst this story pails in comparison to the severity of many of the other problems Japan is facing right now, those of you waiting for some of the newer Canon lenses are going to have to wait a little longer.  The 8-15mm fisheye zoom lens and the 300mm f2.8 MKII and 40mm f2.8 MKII were already delayed earlier on in the year and now face unknown delays due to the tragic disaster that hit the Eastern seaboard of Japan a few weeks ago.  The factory that manufacturers many of Canon’s lenses is located in Utsunomiya, if you have a lens