In My Bag: Quick 2018 Edition

I posted this photo on my Instagram Stories and Facebook last week as I was getting on a flight, but I thought I would share it here as well because it sparked good conversation in both places. A lot of people said things such as “good luck carrying that” – which struck me as odd. Yes the bag has a lot of camera gear in, but there’s also 15 litres of additional space for other items too. What you’re seeing here isn’t even nearly the full capacity of the backpack. I’m not going to pretend it’s not heavy, but when …

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Nikon Launches Two New Lenses – AF-S 24-85mm F3.5-4.5 & AF-S 18-300mm F3.5-5.6

Nikon has release a couple of new zoom lenses today, one of which will become the new longest focal range ever for Nikon with a 16.7x zoom ratio!  Truly a ‘one lens does it all’ piece of kit, or at least that’s how it’s intended.  Both the new lenses feature the VR (vibration reduction) technology and should be in stores at the end of June.

Click though to read the full press release information.

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Pre-Orders Being Taken For New Canon Primes – 24mm and 28mm with IS

Launched some months ago, we are now nearing delivery of the new Canon 24mm and 28mm primes with IS.  I had a chance to try out both of these lenses at a Canon event in Vancouver earlier in the year.  Read this write up for my first impressions and some sample images.  I think when these lenses were fist announced the whole community let out a collective huh?  Non-L primes with IS and f2.8 ?  Well that is the way I certainly felt until I got my hands on them.  They are built very nicely, not quite L-quality but close. 

B&H & Adorama Now Taking Pre-Orders For Canon’s Latest Super Telephoto Lenses – 500mm and 600mm

Following this mornings announcement from Canon that the new 500mm and 600mm lenses were now beginning to ship to dealers in Europe, B&H has updated their site to allow pre-orders of these two exciting new lenses.  This usually only happens when items are expected to arrive in stock relatively soon.  There’s a lot of buzz around what look likely to be Canon’s sharpest ever lenses and with people having to have waited more than a year for these to finally come to market I would expect demand to be relatively high initially for such a high priced item.  If you

Canon 24-70 f2.8 L II

10mm shorter and 150g lighter than the previous version, the Canon 24-70 f2.8 L II will be available in April for approximately $2300. Pre-Orders B&H are taking pre-orders for the lens now!!  You will not be charged until it is shipped. Key features   High-speed USM AF Fluorine lens coating front and rear 9-blade circular aperture Three Aspheric lens elements One Super Ultra-low Dispersion lens element Two Ultra-low Dispersion (UD) lens elements Minimum focusing distance: 0.38m at all focal lengths Improved dust and weather resistance Improved durability for daily use Front of lens doesn’t rotate during focusing Manual focus possible

Canon Cinema EOS Cine Lenses In Development

Shortly after the launch of the Canon C300 I interviewed one of Canon’s technical staff about the camera.  At the time he mentioned to me that on top of the announced 3 EOS Cine prime lenses there were also two more in development.  One wider and one longer.  I now have a photo of these two prototype lenses, see below.  It’s rare that unannounced lenses are shown so I thought it well worth a mention.  No focal length is known at the moment, if I had to guess I would say 100mm or 135mm and 18mm? On top of these

Canon Launches New Range Of EOS Cine Lenses With EF Mount

Alongside the launch of the new EOS C 300 video camera, Canon have also addressed peoples concerns with using regular EF lenses on these cameras for shooting video professionally.  EF lenses were not designed with manual focus in mind and they can prove tricky to use when critical focus is necessary.

Those problems have now been addressed though with this new lineup which features a true cine style of long focus throw and detailed lens markings with distances as well as a manual aperture. All resolve to 4K:

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

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. 

Canon Updates Release Date Info For New Lenses

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 delays three of its new lenses until March 2011

Canon has announced today that three of its highly anticipated new lenses have been delayed until March 2011.  The 300mm f2.8 L IS II , the 400mm f2.8 L IS II and the 8-15mm f4 L fisheye zoom. The lenses have been delayed due to changes in the manufacturing process. I’m personally most disappointed with the fisheye zoom as I plan to purchase that lens immediately and arriving in March it will miss most of my winter work where it would have been very useful.

Canon annouces 60D and 4 new lenses – The wrap up

Today is a pretty huge day for Canon shooters with the announcement of the new 60D and 4 new lenses as well as new teleconverters and information on even more lenses to come in the future!  I have posted detailed information and my thoughts on all these announcements but as there were so many I am doing a summary here for those who just want to bare minimum info.  If you want to read the full posts then scroll down or click the links!  Whew!  Big day and also new traffic record for my website so thanks to all those

Out with the old and in with the……..smaller and lighter.

I think over the last 3 years, about 75% of the photos i have shot have been with the Canon 70-200 2.8 L IS. So today I sold it. Wait….what!??! Yep, it’s gone. You see I was thinking about it, when do I ever shoot that thing at 2.8? I’m always outside and 2.8 is quite a narrow DOF to hit a moving target with when you are not using auto focus (I don’t like using AF). The few times i did use it at wide’ish apertures where for portrait type stuff and then that was mostly at between 70mm