Blog2 at 1001 Noisy Cameras

Lens Review Diary

2009-07-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

One of the new things we are introducing with the rebooting of the Orange blog is the "Lens Review Diary". This will become a reference of the latest lens reviews, presented in reverse chronological order. Add it to your bookmarks with the permalink or add it to your delicious bookmarks.

July 10
On July 3rd, the Sigma 24-70 got some love. Now it is time for the 70-200 f2.8 EX DG HSM II to get some attention. Photo Club Alpha tests it out, and I'll leave it to you to guess which mount they used for the testing :-) Conclusions are at the bottom, but no spoilers here.

July 9
The first review of the Olympus 17mm f2.8 Micro Four Thirds M-Zuiko lens is in the books! LensTip.com posted their findings earlier today. Eleven easy-to-read pages, with the conclusions on the last page! As usual, we won't spoil the fun here!

July 8
Not directly related to lenses per say, but of great interest to fans of different forms of image stabilization, Imaging Resource has posted their testing of the image stabilization system of the Olympus E520 and their (perhaps surprising) findings generated some busy discussions.

Not every photographer is lucky enough to get their hands on the Incredible Hulk. But Imaging Insider points out, Juza Nature Photography got their hands on one, and they have posted their findings. Oh, what's the "Incredible Hulk"? The Sigma 200-500mm f2.8 EX DG! The big green MONSTER which sells for $29,000.

July 7
It's a lens that was needed to be made, but it is not made fast enough! The Nikon 35mm f1.8 DX is hard to find, but Neutral Day has posted their findings after testing out the lens alongside the Nikon D90. Plenty of full-size samples are included!

The Nikon 18-105mm DX VR lens is getting the review treatment at LensTip.com. If you can read Polish, you may have already seen the reviews at the Polish-language version of their website, optyczne.pl. They have been busy translating their reviews to english. For english-speakers, they are new to you :-)

July 5: blast from the past
You may want to read this twice or thrice, but it's still true! SLR Gear has just reviewed the Olympus OM 50mm f1.4 lens. Yes, you heaaaard me as the star of the "House of Payne" often exclaims. They reviewed the classic OM 50mm f1.8 lens! And which camera did they use you ask? Why, the Olympus E-P1! An interesting marriage to say the least!

DigitalReview.ca took the Nikon 10-24mm DX lens for a spin, and shares some of their samples and findings so far.

July 3
PDN Pulse channels PJ Harvey as they ask whether the Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 is an object of desire, especially when considering prices and the similar versions from the camera makers themselves.

July 2: Prime day
Bright and prime and f1.4! That is the Sony 35mm f1.4 lens that got the review translation at Lens Tip. This is a "G thang" lens, or as the more serious people like to call it, "G". But the reviewer is not exactly singing its praises. Why? What's wrong with the lens?

June 29
Brand new review coming from SLRGear! They have given the new Sony 50mm f1.8 SAM DT lens a test and share their findings. This is one of the new SAM (with focus motor) lenses that came with the trio of new Alpha DSLRs in May 2009 (A230, A330, A380).

Hot off the e-presses is a brand new review of the Nikon 50mm f1.4 lens at critically-acclaimed review site PhotoZone.de. The review follows their standard 3-page format, with samples and conclusions on the last page. As usual, we won't reveal their conclusions here!

The Nikon prime was not the only lens reviewed today, Photo Review has posted their take on the Panasonic 14-140mm lens, the M43rds lens that goes hand in hand with the Panasonic GH1. While the lens is not available on its own just yet, it is not exactly an affordable lens either!

But wait, there's more! LensTip.com has posted their findings on the Tamron 10-24mm Di II lens. This is a "digital-only" lens and the Nikon version was tested. Lots of JPEG samples at full-size are available at the last page of the review, which also holds the pros/cons and the conclusions.

June 25
Zoom this, and zoom that is what you get with the Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM lens. Although not the biggest zoom ratio (there is a 18-270mm), this lens offers versatility. But at what price? One answer to that question comes from the Professional Photography magazine review, which is posted online.

The price or the specs alone should not make or break a lens, because there are many other factors involved when deciding first which lens to buy and then which lens to take with you. So keep that in mind as you read the review of the Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 Di LD lens at Alpha Mount World. Guess which mount they reviewed, and win fabulous prizes :-)

Even though the Japanese makers have taken over the market, the Zeiss and Leica are still well-respected around the world, which is why everybody wants to have their seal of approval (aka sticker) on their lenses. In this case, Lens Tip has translated an earlier review from their Polish site of the Zeiss T* 35mm f2 ZF lens. The lens reviewed was the Nikon edition.

June 24
Japanese website DC-Watch has posted a hands-on review of the Sigma 150-500mm f5-6.3 DG OS HSM. This is a big lens, which, when mounted on a DSLR, has the "equivalent" of 225-750mm on most DSLRs, and slightly more for Canon EOS EF-S DSLRs.

June 23
What about that Sigma 18-250mm superzoom with OS and HSM? The non-camera-review arm of Imaging Resource has just posted their take on it. As usual, we won't reveal their findings here!

It is often a good idea to listen to "other voices". No, I'm not talking about going crazy or hallucinating, but reading what other people have to say about lenses, not just the regular reviews. Which is part of the reason why Photography Review is spotlighting a user review of the Tokina 12-24mm f4 ATX lens (Nikon flava).

June 22
Canon users may justifiably complain that Canon has fallen behind Nikon in the way they release EF-S/APS-C lenses, but of course we can only use what is made, which is what makes the Canon EF-S 60mm f2.8 an interesting review to read at Lens Tip.

June 19
You may recall a dpreview review of the Nikon 50mm f1.4 last year, but that was the "old" lens. Now they have posted their take on the new DX-friendly G-thang version. The review, as usual by Andy Westlake.

June 18
Japanese site DC.Watch.Impress has posted a comparison between the two EF-S IS kit lenses and the 18-200mm Canon superzoom. More details on this via the main blog.

June 16
A good prime is like a good wine, but a $2 wine may be a good wine too for the price ;-) So with that mind, here is a review of the Sigma 50mm f1.4 lens by Lens Tip, which is the english-speaking version of the critically-acclaimed Polish website optyczne.pl. Conclusions and samples (full-size JPEG) are on the last page of the review. The lens tested was the Canon-mount edition.

June 15
Go wide young photographer! And don't break the bank, look beyond the "boutique" lenses ;-) With that as a preface, here is a review of the Sigma 12-24mm f4.5-5.6 EX DG at SLRGear.com. Being a "DG" lens, it can be used on all types of SLRs and DSLRs, and it can star in its own musical too ;-)

You may have missed this, buried in a sea of press releases, CameraTown occasionaly posts
gear reviews, and one such review was posted of the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 II lens. Unlike a lot of lab-reviews, in this instance, the reviewer used the lens, mounted on his Canon DSLRs (5D Mark II and friends) to shoot actual real-world projects, such as weddings!

Ken Rockwell reviewed (?) the renaissance Vivitar 85mm f1.4 AI lens that was released after the convoluted transaction that got someone else the naming rights of Vivitar. Or something like that.

June 13
An alternative to the major brand lenses, the Sigma 150mm f2.8 EX DG lens offers photographers some macro-versatility. But how does it perform? Let's Go Digital goes and gives us their opinion.

June 10
Everybody loves a good Leica story, so it is with interest that we check the review of the Leica 25mm f1.4 Four Thirds lens. Summary and sample pictures on the last page. The camera used for the review was the Olympus E3, which is the most advanced 43rds and M43rds camera at the moment. Although some E1 fans will make the case that the E1 is more advanced in certain regards than the E3. But that's a story for another place and time!

Also at 25mm and also at Four Thirds, but a totally different lens, LensTip also reviewed the juicy Olympus 25mm pancake using the Olympus E3 as the base unit.

June 9
A new SLRGear.com review is out, this time the Nikon 105mm f2 AF DC. DC is not for digital lens (it's not Sigma), but for "Defocus Control".

June 3
Imaging Resource's lens review arm, SLR Gear, has posted their review of the Micro Four Thirds lens Panasonic 14-140mm. As usual, no spoilers here! Check the review to find out what they found out!

A duo of Nikon DX lens mini-reviews are posted at the website of Professional Photographer - the magazine. The lenses are the hard to find Nikon 35mm f1.8 and the 10-24mm. Both of the DX variety.

May 28
A not-very-well-known lens received a surprise review at dpreview today! Andy Westlake has posted his findings on the Hartblei Superrotator Macro 120mm F4 TS. What is this? Read the review to find out :-)

May 27
Boy, have the gadget blogs grown beyond the unboxing cerenomies. Camera-review sites, you better watch it! The Imaging Insider spotlights a review of the Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM lens (Canon flavor), using the new T1i/500D DSLR at Gimzodo.

May 26
Peter K. Burian is back at it again, this time he has posted a review of the Tamron 10-24mm f3.5-4.5 Di-II at the new Photocrati blog, a promising new collective of photographers blogging together in their various areas of interest and expertise.

May 25: Bigma review!
SLRGear.com has just posted their review of the BIGMA, the Sigma 50-500mm lens, using the Nikon D3X/D200 as their test-DSLR base, which makes it safe to assume this was the Nikon-mount tested :)

Posted today also is an interesting meta-post on lens reviews and reviewers at the blog of the lens rentals service LensRentals.com.

May 24
And now it is time for a $2000+ Club lens review. It is the Olympus 14-35mm f2 SWD lens, of the Four Thirds variety, posted at Photography Blog. And this appears to be the first lens review posted at Photography Blog, as it joins the group of camera-review sites expanding into lens-reviews. There are plenty of pictures and sharpness discussions, but there are no technical graphs and other pixel-peepiential information.

The best price among the reputable retailers we track on a regular basis is $1935, sold and shipped by Amazon itself, not by any of the multiple third-party sellers that congregate there.

May 22
We usually don't post sample pictures here, unless it is from a hot lens or a lens that is not complete dissected yet. Which is the case today with a 40-pack of RAW and JPEG samples of the Panasonic 7-14mm Micro Four Thirds lens posted by Four Thirds User and taken during the European introduction of the Panasonic GH1.

May 21
The brand new Sony 50mm f1.8 SAM DT lens was just recently announced, however, it has a review posted on it already at LensTip.com, which is the english-language version of the Polish website Optyczne.pl.

May 20
Digital Camera Review shows their TimeLord skills by planning their just-published review of the Pentax 15mm f4 DA AL lens to coincide with the announcement of the Pentax K7 DSLR.

And now an organic lens comparison, at the Camera Work forums, between the hot and hard to find new Nikon 35mm f1.8 DX and the established 35mm f2 full-frame lens. As always, we won't spoil the findings here. It also includes full-res samples available for download, as well as the f1.8 DX on the D700 using the D700 "DX mode".

May 19
The Imaging Insider spotlights a new review of the Sigma 50mm f1.4, the Nikon flavor, posted by Nikon-guru Thom Hogan.

And another superzoom review, this one by Photo Review, taking a look at the Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM lens. Imatest and lots of other technical data are included to please the most demanding pixel-peepeurs out there. The review was for the Canon flavor.

May 18: Panasonic 7-14mm Micro 4/3rds lens
Hot review alert at SLR Gear, the non-camera review arm of Imaging Resource, where they review the new Panasonic 7-14mm Micro 4/3rds lens. We better get out of the habit of calling it "M 4/3rds" because that may cause some confusion with the Leica M series. The conclusions are at the bottom of the page, altough, without a price for the lens, it's hard to frame the conclusions properly :)

More lens reviews! The Online Photographer notices us that subscription-based website Reid Reviews has posted their review of the Zeiss 35mm f2. The review unit was of the Nikon flavor.

May 17
How about them superzoom lenses? Jack Neubart has posted his review of the Nikon 18-200mm DX VR lens at Photocrati, a new multi-photographer collaborative website.

May 16
Ken Rockwell has (I think) posted (what he calls) a review of the Nikon 10-24mm DX lens on his website. There we learn that the serial number on the packaging wrapper matches the serial number on the lens ;-)

May 15
PhotoZone strikes back with a new review! This time they take a trip in EOSLand and review the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 LISUSM. This is a full-frame lens, and it's by no means an "affordable" lens. The price of this at B&H Photo is $1400.

May 13
Apart from the review-site reviews, we will also be featuring photographer-reviews of lenses in this diary. The reason is that by offering a more diverse set of opinions, potential buyers can get a more well-rounded view of a particular lens.

With that as a preface, we present to you a review of the Nikon 105mm f2.5 at the DSLR-Video blog. A number of real-world sample pictures are included in the review.

Photography Review is spotlighting a user-review of the Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 DG lens. The reviewer used the Nikon flavor.

And there's a bite-size review of the Olympus 150mm f2 lens at Shutterbug. Yes, f2! But it is a Four Thirds lens.

May 12
The June 2009 edition of Popular Photography and Imaging has two new lens reviews, the hot Nikon 35mm f1.8 DX, and the Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8 II USM. Both reviews written by Julia Silber. The reviews will eventually find their way to their website, at their lens review page.

May 10
All of a sudden things got quiet in the world of lens reviewing, but Imaging Resource comes to the rescue with a review of the Nikon 50mm f1.8D at SLRGear.com.

May 5
The Digital Picture revisits their review of the Canon 24-70 f2.8L lens, one of the workhorse lenses in EOS-Land.

Time for a Four Thirds lens review, posted at Photo Review, of the Digital Zuiko 14-42mm f3.5-5.6, the kit lens. Real-world sample pictures and Imatest tests are included.

May 4: Nikon 35mm f1.8 DX
Yes, this promising little lens got another major review today, this one at SLRGear.com. We had an impact review update of review at the main blog.

May 3
A lens doesn't have to be a super-star to earn a review! Kit lenses are lenses too and they have feelings! So Alpha Mount World has posted an in-forum review of the old-school Minolta 28-80mm D f3.5-5.6.

April 30: Sony CZ 16-35mm f2.8
Yum for the Sonoltas? There is a new review out, of the Sony CZ 16-35mm f2.8 lens at Alpha Mount World, a website that specializes in all things Sony, Alpha and Minolta. The verdict and explanation, along with a strong opinion can be found on page #2. This of course is not an affordable lens, it goes for around $1900.

April 29: Sony 70-400mm f4-5.6 and Nikon kit lenses
Zoom! Zoom! It's G-thang day at PhotoZone where they review the Sony 70-400mm f4-5.6 lens, an SSM G zoom lens. As you can tell from the specs (lack of "DT") this is a 35mm full frame lens, so you can use it on your A900, film SLRs but also your other Alpha and Minolta APS-C DSLRs. When mounted there, you will get the "equivalent" of 105-600mm. This is not a perfect lens, despite its $1600 price point, so it is up to you to decide whether the plus outweigh the minuses and the price.

How about kit lenses reviews? Photo Review has put the Nikkon 18-55 DX VR and the Nikkor 55-200 DX VR lenses through the paces and posted their findings, which include both real-world sample pictures and Imatest graphs and other pixel-peepiential data.

April 28: Canon 70-200mm f4 LISUSM
It's L week at PhotoZone! This time around they are reviewing the Canon 70-200mm f4, another LISUSM lens. As you can tell from the magic words in the lens name, this is an expensive lens. Is it worth the price of admission? Read the review to find out!

In terms of price, the best price we found as of the time of writing was $1100 at various reputable online retailers, some of which you can see via Amazon.com.

April 27: Canon 135mm f2, Sigma and Nikon 50mm f1.4
It's an L-thing in the Canon world, and reputable lens review site PhotoZone.de has just posted their findings on Canon's 135mm f2 LISUSM. LISUSM? Sounds latin? But it is not, it is L + IS + USM. It's faster to type the whole word, although it takes longer to explain it :) As usual we do not reveal the findings of reviews here, but P-Zone makes a definite statement about this lens in their conclusions :)

Prime Wars! Thom Hogan has posted two back-to-back reviews of two 50mm f1.4 lenses, the Nikon and Sigma models. Discussion of these has picked up in the dpreview forums. Is it me or did the Sigma lens get a better grade than the Nikon lens? Oh my!!!

April 24, 2009: Pentax 15mm DA Ltd
We launch the "Lens Review Diary" with a review of the Pentax 15mm DA Limited lens at SLRGear.com, the non-camera review spin-off from Imaging Resource. After putting the lens through the paces, the reviewer discusses six different alternatives as well. Conclusions follow the comparison, and it is interesting to compare them with those of the very recent dpreview review of the same lens.

Starting the Lens Review Diary
Because of the way Blogspot is set up, we will be able to bring the latest updates to this diary at the top of the page, so you won't have to hunt for them. Unfortunately we still can't offer RSS feeds for individual blog post updates because there is no automated way to do this. If you want to add this page to your bookmarks, here is the permalink.

Week in Review (June 29 - July 5)

2009-07-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome to a new edition of the "weekly rewind", where in five minutes or less, we catch up with the week that was!

The Big Story
The Olympus E-P1 was once again the story of the week, with more samples, hands-on reports and even a couple of reviews getting published. And yes, the camera has started shipping in select markets, getting in the hands of real-world photographers. You can follow all the action through the E-P1 mini-blog.

Medium Format grabs some spotlight
Sometimes a good soap opera is what it takes to get people's attention. And medium format has been provided quite a bit of drama the last few days. A divorce between Leica and Phase One on the Leica S2, a German manufacturer closing shop, a new digital back from Hasselblad and more!

New Cameras this week
Pentax has the honor of carrying the flag for the new-cameras with the new waterproof Optio W80 which replaces the W60 which finished an asterisk-second at the dpreview waterproof camera test which blatantly ignored the Panasonic FT1/TS1, even though the camera had received a review 3.5 months ago at another review site! dpreview's explanation was not convincing at all.

Coming up
The rumor carousel saw two Sony Cybershots leaked, while some expect a Samsung announcement around July 7 featuring their first NX-series camera, their next DSLR and superzoom compact.

There have been some CaNiKoN rumors as well, but nothing really concrete just yet.

No Camera Talk Allowed!
We had a special edition of the Photography Soup where we talked about everything, except cameras! Or at least we tried...

Good week for camera shoppers
We had a series of good deals for camera bargain hunters and shoppers, and some of those deals are still going on. We have summarized them at the best of current deals just a couple of hours ago.

Reader Picture Showcase (via Flickr Group)

2009-07-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

Every Saturday we bring to the top of the blog this post that showcases pictures from our Flickr Group and Flickr pool. More details about the Flickr group and how to join. It's real easy, especially for Flickr users. And now the pictures, chosen at random by the Flickr computers:

You can also watch a slideshow of the pictures from the group. This is Flash-based and slow(er) on slow(er) connections. We also added this Flickr badge to the Netvibes page for this blog.

If you are not familiar with flickr, the pictures are submitted by their owners (persons who uploaded them on flickr) to this blog's flickr pool. From there, a standard Flickr widget randomly picks pictures from the pool and displays them here. We do not store the submitted pictures on this blog or anywhere else. The flickr pool was created for this specific purpose.

If you are reading this through an RSS newsreader, the pictures will not be displayed, because RSS readers do not support Javascript widgets. Please visit the blog page or the Flickr group or the slideshow mentioned above.

Any other photo sharing sites to add to this feature? Let us know!

Special Update! We have now surpassed 1000 pictures in the Flickr pool! Thanks to everyone submitting pictures. Here is picture #1000, titled "Rain", a semi-atmospheric b+w picture inside a misty restaurant in Hidden Valley, taken by Paul Perton with a Leica D-Lux 3.

We will have more promotions of the Flickr pool when there is a break in the Photokina action. We are planning to pick a favorite picture from each member who submitted pictures. With 70+ members, it means we'll have to pick 70+ pictures, so we'll do this in upcoming Photography Soup episodes.

Week in review (June 21-28, 2009)

2009-06-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome to a new edition of the week-in-review, a quick summary of the week that was, for those who were too busy or just needs a refresher!

The Big Story: Olympus E-P1
The Olympus E-P1 continues to be the big story, with sample pictures, hands-on reports, and non-stop forum discussions dominating the photo-blogo-sphere. We have captured some of the action this week, and you can check it at the E-P1 mini-blog.

New Cameras
Pentax launched the Optio W80, another waterproof camera replacing the current W60. This feature alone makes it stand out from the other 100+ shiny silvers, although this segment too is starting to get competitive as Canon, Panasonic, Fuji and others have also jumped in.

Outrage of the week
Panasonic's decision to block all 3rd-party batteries because of alleged "risks" to consumers did not fly with consumers. Reactions around the tech-blogs and also in our reader's poll.

Impact Reviews
The Pentax K7 saw its bubble deflate a little bit as non-production reviews and samples made their way to the internet, while some pixel-peepers started raising questions about the samples.

The Panasonic GH1 got another review, adding more to the current "knowledge-base". This one was just posted at Photo Review.

The Olympus E620 got more review-attention this week, with two impact-reviews posted by DC-Resource and Olympus specialist Wrotniak.net.

You can check more review action at the reviews mini-blog.

Canon 5D Mark II world
In the 5DMk2 world, there were two firmware update discussions, one of course the one from Canon, and another one that is developed by photographers on their own as an open-source project. You can read all about them and more through the 5D Mk2 diary/blog.

More action
You can check all the blog posts at the main blog by visiting the June 2009 archives.

You can follow tidbits, newsbytes, pictures from our flickr pool, status updates and a lot more at our Twitter page.

The Photographer's Four Seasons

2009-06-28T20:30:00.001-07:00

The pictures speak for themselves in this article, even if you do not speak french: The photographer's four seasons is a photo-post at Le Monde de la Photo. And all the pictures taken were with the Fuji S5 Pro, which is perhaps why you may have liked the dynamic range of the photos :-) Be sure to also check page #2, there is a link to it at the bottom of that page.

If you are using a slower internet connection or a loaded browser, it may take a little bit before everything loads!

Happy trails Kodachrome!

2009-06-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is farewell time for Kodakchrome. Fans this film are surely not happy today. You can read and hear more on this at the Imaging Insider where the topic is also discussed in their latest podcast.

Week in review (June 14-20, 2009)

2009-06-20T23:16:00.001-07:00

Welcome to another edition of the weekly rewind, a summary of the week that was. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to guess the big story of the week. It was... the announcement of a new lens cap by Vivitar!

The Big Story: The Olympus Micro Four Thirds Big Bang
Okay, that was a poor attempt at a joke :) The big story was of course the Olympus Micro Four Thirds Big Bang, highlighted by the announcement of the Olympus E-P1 with two lenses and assorted accessories. We've had wall-to-wall coverage, here are some of the highlights:
+ Countdown to the Announcement
+ Roundup of Previews and hands-on reports
+ Roundup of sample pictures and videos.
+ Opinions and reactions by various photo-bloggers in the blogosphere
+ The new Pre-Ordering Center for the E-P1, lenses, and accessories
+ past, present and future E-P1 stories at the E-P1 mini-blog

From the RumorLand
Leica generated a lot of buzz, albeit in the shadow of the E-P1 mania, when the Leica Chieftians made forward-looking statements at the non-internet Leica forum. You can catch up with all that at the Leica mini-blog.

Meanwhile, it what could have been a webisode of "The Office" a video came out showing an alleged brochure of an alleged Nikon D300s.

And speaking of Nikon, Thom Hogan and other Nikonians joined in a forum discussion speculating on what's coming up from Nikon six weeks from now. We couldn't resist the temptation, so we went into a speculation trance as well ;-)

Reviews of Note
As one would have guessed, the first "full review" of the Pentax K7 was a review FAIL. A rushed and poorly conducted review caused an uproar in the Pentax forumsphere that dissected the so-called-review like a frog.

A four-pack of review-clusters were added this week to our review organizers, featuring the Nikon D5000, Canon Digital Rebel T1i (500D, Kiss X3), along with the Panasonic TZ7/ZS3 and Canon SX200is. We hope we can have a couple more review-clusters finished by next week.

The Top Sellers Soap-Opera returns
After an embarrassing 40-day delay, we returned with new updates of the top selling digital camera charts. As you can expect, after 40 days, there were some dramatic movements among cameras that had a change in their stock-status. Surprisingly though, many of the rest of the cameras did not have any dramatic changes in pricing.

Further Reading
You can catch with all the posts we rattled out throughout the week by looking at the June archives and the sticky Blog Headlines.

Our latest updates on Twitter

2009-06-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

We have a new feature at this rebooted Blog2 - we are now posting a feed of our Twitter stream of updates for those who are not using Twitter or not following us on Twitter.

follow me on Twitter

Week in review (June 7-13, 2008)

2009-06-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another edition of the "Weekly Rewind", where we recap the week that was for you, so you don't have to! The rewind only includes some of the top stories in our opinion, it does not include everything that happened during the week. Putting everything in would defeat the purpose of having a rewind, since you can read everything by ...reading everything :)

The Big Story: Waiting for Olympus Micro Four Thirds
The waiting is driving everyone mad, but Olympus has promised the June 16 date (depending on time zone) for their Micro Four Thirds Big Bang. You can catch the Olympus E-P1 action, along with the Panasonic GH1 excitement, at our Micro Four Thirds mini-blog.

Hot Cameras of the week
The Nikon D5000 probably had the best week it is ever going to have, as they have "defeated" the T1i/500D at the DXOMark tests, and received even more reviews, including one from dpreview itself.

Meanwhile the Pentax K7 buzz has finally dropped off, after a surprisingly-sustained non-stop buzz.

Two new cameras announced!
Casio is the latest company to jump in the "fun compact zoom" segment, and they have done it with the very stylish EX-F10. This is not a folded-optics camera, so there is hope it won't be the total disaster their EX-V7 and EX-V8 were (and we are being nice here ;-)

The other new camera is the Fuji Z300fd announced in Japan, their new folded-optics bijou-flagship.

Our regular readers will be thrilled to know that we brought you the news of these two at least 24 hours before the major camera websites picked them up. So it pays to read this blog early and often!

Impact Reviews
It is no secret that in the online world, the pixel-peepiential reviews are getting more attention than the real-world-photographer type of reviews. Which is why we try to feature a more balanced mix. And it was thanks to one of our readers that we noticed this LX3 vs G10 article by a bicycling photographer.

The Sigma DP2 action continued, albeit, the promise and premise of Foveon has essentially returned into its typical "sandbox" of "great sensor / sub-par camera implementation" that has been a major deterrent in the mass-appeal of Sigma-Foveon.

Father's Day causing good deals
With Father's day being just seven days away, we saw an increase in good and tempting deals in the world of digital cameras. You can check the latest ones out at the Camera Deals blog, and remember to check beyond the first page, or use the navigation links at the top to find posts by manufacturer.

Further Reading
You can check the latest headlines from all the noisy blogs at the Noisy Headlines page which is fresh with new updates every time you visit it, using the power of Feedburner's magic.

You can also check all the June 2009 posts at the main blog. We don't have a stream of all the posts from all the noisy blogs, we are considering it, but we fear that it would be so long it would be unreadable!

Do you find the weekly rewind useful/helpful?

New podcasts on photography

2009-06-13T15:57:00.000-07:00

The Imaging Insider is spotlightning eight different photography-orbiting podcasts for us all to check out. They include a variety of topics from diverse sources, which make for interesting and entertaining listens. All the featured podcasts in their round-up are available via iTunes.

Week in review (June 1-6, 2009)

2009-06-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

Welcome to a new edition of the "Weekly Rewind", a recap of the week that was!

The Big Story
A couple of camera-body pictures of the upcoming Olympus E-P1 made their way to the internets and finally managed to fire up the Olympus Micro Four Thirds excitement that Olympus was slowly building up by looking at the Pen legacy.

With an alleged June 15/16 announcement, you betcha next week is going to be Olympus heavy!

The "B" Story
There was a lot of Panasonic GH1 action this week, with almost two major reviews posted, along with assorted lens reviews and samples. If it wasn't for the late-breaking Olympus leak, the GH1 would have been the story of the week.

YAB debuts his "HOME 2009" video project
Critically-acclaimed and friend of the Earth photographer Yanns Artus Bertrand released his 93-minute video "HOME" on the YouTubes on Friday.

Impact Reviews
The curiosity review belongs to the Kodak Z980, a camera that comes with a vertical grip that actually has no battery, but just makes the camera thicker/taller and allows for the use of a second (vertical) shutter button which actually resides on the camera body. If anyone tried to predict this before Kodak announced this, they would have gotten their very own virtual straightjacket ;-)

You can check all the recent reviews of note in our Reviews mini-blog.

As the K7 World Turns
The biggest Pentax K7 story this week were the full-size JPEG and RAW samples at Photography Blog.

Sad was the mad dash by third-tier review sites publishing what no one would really call a "review" in their right mind. One of them even had horribly compressed pictures with wiped out EXIF data.

Meanwhile, a duo of Adorama bloggers had the camera in their hands and posted their hands-on first impressions and they were indeed excited about it, calling it a System Changer DSLR.

Shopping Wars
We explained why we don't has Walmart at the NoisyMall.com.

Silly item of the week
Inspired by yet another teenage-lobotomy celebrity promoting Nikon DSLRs, we launched a poll asking people to vote on who they thought would be some good celebrity ideas to promote the K7.

Check all the headlines
You can check all the headlines of all the posts at the main blog in the June 2009 archives and the latest posts from all the noisy blog at the blog headlines page, which is refreshed automatically whenever it is loaded again.

Week in review (May 25-31, 2009)

2009-05-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

Time sure does fly camera fans. Another week is in the books already! So if you have been busy this week or need a refresher, this is a recap of the week that was through the lens of the Noisy blogs!

1001 Noisy Cameras blog on the Kindle!
We start with something blog related! We achieved a major milestone by getting this blog published on the Amazon Kindle. That's right, you can read our latest updates on the Kindle, and Amazon is currently offering this blog for just 99c per month!

The Big Story: Panasonic GH1 vs Pentax K7 Buzz Wars
For yet another week, the Panasonic GH1 and the Pentax K7 dominated the headlines, with the GH1 having new pictures and first impressions, and the Pentax K7, being earlier in its lifecycle, having more samples and hands-on reports and such.

You can catch up all the major stories of these two cameras with the GH1 mini-blog and the K7 mini-blog.

Rumors of Choice
One rumor coming from Japan says that Tokina is developing lenses for the Sony-Alpha-Minolta mount. If so, this would be great news for the Sonoltas since they would have more choices and competition for their mount.

The other rumor that is as close to official as something unofficial can get is that there won't be a Pentax K30D. This according to a Pentax manager posting in the PentaxForums forums.

As the Canon 5DMk2 world turns
The biggest 5dMk2 stories of the week were the addition of manual exposure in video mode with a new firmware release, and the first legitimate discount (!) on the body only. We also had a Fake Chuck update, more on the video aspects of the camera by Phil Bloom, and even a new review. Check it all out through our 5dMk2 diary-blog.

Impact Reviews
Ken's review of the Sigma DP2 at TOP generated some Foveonesque excitement as expected, and unlike the "white glove reviews" of the review factories, this review had teeth.

Forgotten was the Olympus E450, until it got its first review.

And also in Oly-land, a very jam-packed review of the Olympus E620 was posted by Zone10.

As usual, there are have been plenty of reviews out there, and you can check out the ones we spotlighted through the review mini-blog.

RAWsumer World
In addition to the DP2 review mentioned above, we had the annie of new LX3 firmware (but no update on availability issues), more on the DP2, PC-control added to the Casio Ex-F1 via firmware update, and the Sony R1 getting some love from an author. Check it all out at the RAWsumer blog.

Fun times
It's not just bookstores anymore! We have a blog cat!

Coming up
The excitement over the upcoming Olympus will undoubtedly continue, with more speculation and likely legitimate non-wishlist type of leaks too!

We'll have more K7 and GH1 action as well.

And more...

Do you find the weekly rewind useful/helpful?

New HDMI 1.4 to be more digital camera picture friendly

2009-05-28T12:26:00.001-07:00

The new HDMI 1.4 was unveiled in Japan. Engadget has a general summary, but you can go to digitalcamera.jp (5/28 entry, computer-translated) where we also learn of improved support for color spaces that would make showing digital camera pictures via HDMI more color-accurate.

Podcast time: Datacolor, Spyder, color management and more

2009-05-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

The Imaging Insider has now posted the complete podcast, a total of 18 minutes, with David Tobie of DataColor, discussing colour management, their products, and other related topics from the world of digital imaging. The podcast is also available as an mp3 file, so you can download it to your computer or mobile device, and listen to it at your convenience!

Week in review (May 18-24, 2009)

2009-05-24T18:01:00.001-07:00

Welcome to another edition of the weekly rewind, a recap of the week that was! Let's see what happened! But first, you can also catch up with the previous week.

The Big Story: Pentax K-7 is revealed officially
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what the story of this week was. Why of course the launch of the Pentax K7, which we captured in this 26-hour countdown marathon, and unlike our previous "Dubai Countdown", this resulted in a dramatic product announcement :) For more of our K7 coverage, be sure to check the K7 mini-blog.

This also came with two new WR (weather-resistant) kit lenses, which reminds us we have to write our usual announcement summaries for the "record books". Coming up before Tuesday :)

And already, the K7 is available for preordering at Amazon for $1300 as body-only.

The B-story: New Sony Alpha gear geared towards the average consumer
Sony had its mini big-bang very early this week, on what feels like a month ago, but it's actually just a week ago. Sony revealed a trio of new DSLRs that run in parallel to their current trio of sub-$1000 DSLRs, and their main goal is to make DSLR photography more approachable to the average photographer and the average consumer.

To go with these, they also introduced four new lenses with a focus-motor built-in, the SAM lenses. Two of them are the standard kit lenses and two of them are primes. All four are "DT" lenses.

You can catch up with it at our Sony page.

Panasonic GH1 excitement
If it wasn't for the new Sony and Pentax camera announcements, the Panasonic GH1 would have been the star of the week, with more samples, reviews and action, including two new Lumix-branded adapters for the Leica M-series and R-series lenses. Also, samples from the GH1, and 14-140 and 7-14mm M43 lenses, and a GH1 review at CNet by Lori G. You can catch up with it all at our GH1 mini-blog.

Nikon D5000 vs Canon Digital Rebel T1i
While the buzz was focused on the K7 and GH1, among the currently-shipping cameras, the Nikon D5000 and Canon T1i/500D dueled for reviews and discounts, as both of them had some action this week and dropped about $50 for the one-lens kits at some retailers. You can follow all their stories via the D5000 and T1i/500D mini-blogs.

Other New Products
In addition to the Pentax K7 and WR kit lenses, we had the Voigtlander 50mm f1.1 lens announcement, and the European annie of the Kodak M420, a typical P&S camera, but with a lens that starts at 28mm wide.

Impact Review
Lost in-between the Pentax and Sony shuffle was the first full-size Sigma DP2 review by a camera-review site. The Sigma DP2 was analyzed by Photo Review. Check our coverage of the review.

Catch up with everything
You can catch up with all the updates at our main blog by checking all the May 2009 posts. We are also working on coming up with an all-inclusive stream that includes all the smaller blogs. We'll post an update when that one is ready.

Next week
We hope to launch two blogs products with the secret code word "K-projects", and if things are quiet, we will catch up with some infrastructure and reference materials, and bring back some of our regular weekly blog features.

Quick warning on free magazine downloads

2009-05-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

If you are surfing around the net, you may see some websites or forums offer free full-issue magazine downloads. However, please keep in mind, that just because they are scanning the whole magazines with the ads, it still doesn't mean that republishing them in this fashion is ethical, fair or legal. It is still illegal and they do not have the right to do so.

Imagine if someone scanned your whole photography portfolio and claimed that because they included a scan of your business card with each picture, it's okay for them to do so.

Authorized magazine downloads are typically available from two sources:
+ the magazine's or publisher's own website
+ authorized and legitimate digital content websites and services that have the appropriate agreements with the publishers to sell or offer free issues of magazines

Sixty ways to build your client case revisited

2009-05-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

David Ziser revisits a timeless post from last year, where he rounded up his special series of posts that totals to sixty ways to build your client base! These are parts of a multi-post blog series, and when you add them up, voila, sixty handy tips!

Blog Status update (now back to normal)

2009-05-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

The outage lasted for about 30 minutes but now everything is back to normal! All apologies for the inconvenience. The original post follows: TypePad is currently having a wide outage. The main blog and our other TypePad blogs are currently either down or very slow to load! This should be fixed in the next few minutes.

You can also catch up with everything we wrote about the K7 by subscribing to the RSS feed, which caches everything independently of the blog server.

And one breaking news item about the K7, you can pre-order it right now at Amazon for $1300 for the body-only!

A dozen Firefox add-ons for photographers

2009-05-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

Through the wonderful world of Twitter, we found this very practical post at Yanik's Photo School, spotlighting 12 Firefox add-ons that are likely to be very helpful to photographers out there!

If you are not familiar with every single Firefox plug-in out there, be sure to check Yanik's blog post!

Firefox is the official browser of this blog, with Opera the officially alternative browser of this blog :)

Week in review (May 10-17, 2009)

2009-05-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome to another weekly review. If you missed the big stories of the week that was, fear not, we got you covered here!

New Cameras this week
Among the heavy duty rumors, Pentax managed to sneak-in a new P&S Optio in Europe, meet the Pentax E75, going for 120 euro. Yawn is included in the camera box ;-)

The Big Rumors
Rumors heated up this week, with more Pentax K7 excitement, but still no concrete specifications. The official revelations are coming on Wednesday at around 9am eastern time, give or take.

SonyStyle however, once again, led the leakolution, this time it was Germany's turn to temporarily leak the main specs of the Alpha A230, A330 and A380 DSLRs. It looks like there is no DSLR-Video, and the cameras may be sequential updates to the predecessors, all moving in lock-step. But we'll find out when the official Sony announcement comes out.

Not wanting to be left out, Olympus Japan officially declared June 15 to be their Micro Four Thirds Big Bang date.

Reviews, Sample Pictures, and ISO shootouts
The biggest review story of the week was the Panasonic superzooms winning the dpreview "fun-zoom" group-test, beating Canon, Sony, Samsung and Olympus.

Phil Bloom is becoming the "Chase Jarvis" of the D90, as he continues to provide samples from the GH1. See it all in this GH1 roundup.

We even had a medium-format review, and not just any MF, but the 65-megapixel Phase One Plus at PDN Pulse.

You can check all the posts of this week, including the impact reviews and interesting ISO shootouts by checking the May archives.

Lens Reviews
The Lens Review Diary continues to keep ticking here at this blog, updated with new lens reviews as they come out.

The Canon Rebates
It took us about a week, but we finally finished the detailed Canon rebates round-up. Enjoy! Although some of the stores may be out of some of the more interesting lenses. We are also hoping to post another rebate update this week, but we won't promise anything this time until it is ready to go :)

Other interesting topics
The Grand Prix awards were awarded in Japan with four cameras getting the four major awards. One Canon, one Nikon, and *gasp* a Panasonic and a Casio! Oh my!

If you are, or if you know a "real" journalist, they are qualified to get a free "TypePad Pro" blog, which for everybody else costs $15 per month.

Past Episodes
You can catch up with previous episodes of the Weekly Rewind. There is a gap of a few months in-between the updates, so don't be surprised if you see the dates jump :)

Next Week
+ Sony Alpha DSLR official announcement
+ Pentax K7 official announcement (Wedn 9am NYC time)

Distilled tips for photographer-bloggers by New Media Photographer

2009-05-15T21:23:00.001-07:00

The New Media Photographer has just posted a few good distilled tips on photography and blogging. No frill, no fluff, straight to the point and food for thought for all! Be sure to check them out!

You can also follow New Media Photographer on Twitter.

And speaking of Twitter, you can also follow the Noisy blogs on Twitter!

Twitter icon provided for free courtesy of Randa Clay Design.

Live blogging the New York Photo Festival

2009-05-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

The website What's the Jackanory is doing an unofficial but busy live-blogging of the New York Photo Festival that is running until Sunday night. There's plenty of coverage there already, and a lot more coming up, both in video and in text! You can also get bite-size updates by following Andrew Hetherington's twitter updates.

The official website of the show is www.nyphotofestival.com. Please note that this focuses on the photography-side of photography, so please don't expect this to be a gadgetlogy announcement paradise like PMA, CES, or Photokina.

Blind photographers revisited

2009-05-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

CNet Asia spotlights a new feature of blind photographers in the mainstream media, featuring a slide-show posted at the Time website, showing 18 new pictures. This only goes to show that photography is not a one-dimensional art form, there's more than just what we see through the viewfinder.

There was a feature at CNN a few months ago, but that page is not coming at the moment :( This is the (not currently working) CNN video link. If it gets fixed, we'll update this post. Thanks to the Israel Sun photographic agency in Tel Aviv for the CNN tip. One of their photographers, Kfir Sivan, is featured in the CNN story.

Formatting problems with some of the older posts

2009-05-13T09:00:00.001-07:00

If you have read some of the older posts at this blog after we switched to this new template, you may have noticed some formatting problems. This is because of the way this new template treats incomplete "li". We should be slapped for using incomplete "li" in the first place! The previous template auto-fixed the issue, but this one does not. Please bear with us, until we find a way to fix this!

Curiosity poll: Favorite camera bags

2009-05-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

Did you ever wonder what other people's favorite camera bags but you didn't want to sound too nosy and ask every single one of them? :) Well, you can sort of get some answers by checking out the camera bag poll at the Pro Photo Show blog.

It looks like we may have more camera bag brands than camera manufacturer brands :-)