Archive for February, 2012

Metabones EF to E-Mount adapter for Sony NEX Review

Wednesday, 29 February, 2012 14:47

Metabones EF-E-Mount

The Metabones / Conurus EOS adapter for Sony NEX is not the first to have seamless electronic aperture control on NEX bodies for Canon EF / EFS lenses but it is the smallest and most affordable.

What is build quality like? I’ve had some Metabones adapters before, namely the ones for Contax G to Micro Four Thirds and NEX. These were far better built and manufacturers than their Chinese equivalents, and made in Japan. The same goes for the new Metabones EF to E-Mount adapter.

Canon 5D Mark II – Mosaic Engineering VAF-5D2 anti-aliasing filter review

Tuesday, 28 February, 2012 20:07

A great many have forgotten what an absolute beast the 5D Mark II is.

A power house of image quality with a massive sensor, Hollywood film sequences and entire episodes of prime time network TV have been shot on it purely for the way it looks. But it does have one big flaw.

This is now much reduced with the VAF-5D2.

Canon 5D Mark 3 features headphone jack? Connection ports decoded

Monday, 27 February, 2012 13:55

5D Mark 3 connection ports

More images of the 5D Mark III have been outed on Canon Rumors ahead of the release date, which is imminent. One of the pictures shows what looks like a headphone jack. Here EOSHD takes a close look at what has changed on the left side of the camera body in terms of ports and connections…

Hacked GF2 – the $300 digital cinema camera

Friday, 24 February, 2012 14:45

Hacked GF2 with Olympus 12mm F2

The Panasonic GF2 may be a small camera but the hack is big news. Now GH2 shooters can get a 2nd body for next to nothing and have a b-cam that shoots at the same bitrate and same format, with the same lens mount and the same sized sensor.

8K at 120fps – forget 4K!

Thursday, 23 February, 2012 20:21

8K sensor

Japan’s national broadcast corporation NHK has developed a large CMOS 8K sensor for Super Hi Vision.

At 21.5mm x 12.1mm it is the size of Super 35mm when cropped to 16:9, and does 120fps at a resolution of 7680 x 4320.

Affordable fast wides for the Canon 5D Mark II

Thursday, 23 February, 2012 01:15

Full frame fast wides

Although the Canon 24mm F1.4L and Samyang 24mm F1.4 are superb lenses, the Canon is $1500 and the Samyang $800. Here EOSHD goes hands-on with 4 more affordable fast wides for the 5D Mark II. They are especially cheap if you pick them up used on eBay.

Canon 5D Mark 3 imminent, along with new Rebel T4i / EOS 650D

Wednesday, 22 February, 2012 20:27

Coming soon

Canon Rumors have confirmed some of the specs and the release date of the long awaited 5D Mark 3. The leak is given their highest CR3 rating.

Further GF2, GH2 and Magic Lantern hack technical developments

Monday, 20 February, 2012 02:44

GF2 hack

With the newly released GH2 1.11 hack, the small GF2 is now also hackable. This camera also does 1080/25p inside a 1080i wrapper, and features a similar image processing chip and encoder to the GH2. Could it be a bargain GH2 alternative? EOSHD takes a look.

Meanwhile Magic Lantern continues to improve. There’s current a brute force testing approach which according to Alex of Magic Lantern may “unlock many things that previously were thought to be impossible or very hard” like anamorphic preview and clean HDMI out.

Panasonic GH2 hack for V1.11 firmware is out!

Saturday, 18 February, 2012 20:12

GH2 hack

Vitaliy Kiselev has just released a new version of the GH2 hack, PTools v3.64d for the new Panasonic V1.11 firmware.

The latest version of PTools also supports the GF2, adds more AVCHD related patches and brings improvements to certain existing GH2 patches.

Samyang 24mm F1.4 ED AS IF – Review

Thursday, 16 February, 2012 14:24

The $850 Samyang 24mm F1.4

As good as Canon’s renowned 24mm F1.4L? From Samyang? Maybe the title of the lens gives us a clue… AS IF.

In turns out those misguided initials aren’t such a bad omen but the lens – at $850 / £550 has some price competition from the much cheaper Sigma 24mm F1.8.

Sony NEX 7 – Review

Wednesday, 15 February, 2012 21:30

Minimum viewing recommendations: 40″ TV. Download the MP4 file.

The NEX 7 is a beautifully designed high end mirrorless camera with probably the most advanced CMOS sensor Sony have ever produced. As a stills camera it is superb (if you don’t mind adapting glass and manually focussing – because the current E-mount lens range is somewhat limited).

But does it topple the Panasonic GH2 and Canon 5D Mark II for video?

New Sony NEX video camera before NAB in April?

Monday, 13 February, 2012 11:45

Sony FS100 - replacement due?

A rumour surfaced today (which was given the 2nd highest rating of plausibility by Sony Alpha Rumors) that Sony have a new NEX video product to come before NAB.

Sony have confirmed they are strengthening the NEX range more than intended this year on the back of very strong sales.

So as well as new lenses on the roadmap will we see a new video camera?

First impressions of the $2999 Nikon D800′s video mode

Tuesday, 07 February, 2012 15:52

Above: Joy Ride shot on the Nikon D800 streams in full 1080p so make sure to view full screen!

The long rumoured and leaked Nikon D800 was officially announced today. This is Nikon’s equivalent of Canon’s upcoming 5D Mark 3 and is a very attractive camera which brings almost all of the Nikon D4′s pro DSLR features down to $2999 (£2399 in the UK) but sacrifices cutting edge low light ability for crazy resolution.

Cosina Voigtlander Nokton 17.5mm F0.95 – official!

Monday, 06 February, 2012 23:17

Nokton 17.5mm F0.95

UPDATE: De-clicked aperture ring is on the lens for video, according to 43Rumors whom I am sure can read the original German better than I can! Good news!

This came out of the blue. Cosina are releasing a sister lens for the 50mm equivalent Micro Four Thirds 25mm Nokton F0.95.

The new lens will be equivalent to 35mm on full frame and features the same incredible aperture of F0.95 for extra depth of field control and low light performance on the GH2 and other Micro Four Third (MFT) cameras.

Experimenting with Hitchcock and the Nikon J1 with 16mm c-mount lenses

Monday, 06 February, 2012 01:08

I have the idea to make a tense but beautiful low light, budget thriller with the Nikon J1. It is ideally suited to it. It has the least amount of rolling shutter for handheld camera movement of all the DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, and the smaller sensor (2.7x crop) makes it far easier to focus at fast apertures like F1.2 for low light. At that aperture on full frame you will have a nose in focus, but eyes off! Not much good.

Sony NEX 7 video mode – first impressions review

Friday, 03 February, 2012 17:35

Thanks mainly to the unexpected success of their NEX line of consumer mirrorless cameras, Sony are probably the only company to realise the truth about mirrorless and its future direction. Namely that it is the future, especially for video.

Nikon may add 4K video to future cameras (J1 sensor already capable)

Wednesday, 01 February, 2012 10:45

Nikon J1 and c-mount lens

Consumer 4K is on the way, it is now as inevitable as the first 1080p stickers were on your TVs and cameras of 5 years ago. In an interview with DPReview, Nikon’s Tetsuya Yamamoto says that the Nikon J1′s (Aptina produced) sensor is already capable of a 4K horizontal resolution in video mode (although he doesn’t reveal the vertical resolution which I suspect would be lower than 2K).