Category: Sigma

Sigma SD1

SD1: Sigma wants to fail

There is no other possible explanation to today’s announcement by Sigma Corp. The published two critical bits of information about the Sigma SD1: Its availability date: early June Its MSRP price: $9,700 or 7,000€ or £6,199.99 (inc VAT) Even thinking that the SD1 is competing with medium format photo cameras, the 46 MP DSLR will…

Sigma and the Japan earthquake

Sigma is one photo company which did not tell us much about the damages from the March 11 earthquake. Apparently (according to talks with people who where actually working in the plant at quake time), their Fukushima Yamagun/Aizu factory is mostly undamaged (and nearly 100 km from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant). It is…

Sony opens the NEX lens specification

Sony has announced officially and publicly that they are going to completely share the specifications for NEX series lenses. It will become possible for third-party lens manufacturers to create optical products for the Sony NEX hybrid mirror-less photo cameras. Here is very good news for the Sony customers. But it’s even better when we read…

Photokina, it’s started! (continuous update)

Of course, when the doors of the Photokina opened in Köln, Germany this morning, we found the recently announced new products, including: Canon EOS 60D Nikon D3100 Nikon D7000 Olympus E-5 Pentax K-5 Pentax K-r Sony SLT-A33 Sony SLT-A55 Sony Alpha 560 Sony Alpha 580 But, let’s also see what the camera and accessories manufacturers…

Photography, so many failures!

photo credit: davidgsteadman When buying a photo camera, we often research in order to decide if this is the best camera, if its features will be goo enough, but will it be robust enough? Will it be useful or necessary to purchase a warranty contract extension? Will it fail very soon? When somebody asks me…

Sigma Photo Pro up to SD15

Sigma just delivered the updated version of its photo edition software Photo Pro. The major changes are: Compatibility with 64-bit Windows (important for all photographers who moved to 64-bit Seven because of the lifted memory constraints); Compatibility with the new Sigma SD15 D-SLR camera It is immediately available for download: Click here to download the…

A fish-eye lens at rock-bottom price

When you use an expensive SLR camera you are often tempted to purchase a specialty lens like a ultra-wide angle (fish eye) lens. But, apart from the rare occasions when you really need it, it’s too expensive for you and me. Why not build it yourself? Instructables does the demonstration with a Nikon D90, but…

Focal length and photo lenses

Tamron rewrote its web site. This was the occasion to move the Lens Comparison Tool but it is still useful to compare a 400mm with a 500mm (or a 35mm with a 50mm). But you can also find a similar tool at Olympus (and it takes into account the specificities of 4/3 sensor format, of…

All lens tests are wrong

I recommend reading a nice little post titled “All lens tests are wrong” that concludes that the only good test for a lens is to use it during a full year. Not wrong, but I still recommend to also check my list of web sites with photo lens reviews.