We got some early hands-on time with the Sony A7S II last night, a full frame, mirrorless camera we have dubbed “the master of the dark arts” for its impressive low light shooting prowess. We shot several images and videos with the A7S II at a dark night club at extraordinarily high ISOs (up to ISO 409,600!) and have included them below in this review at full resolution so you can check them out.
The OM-D E-M10 Mark II (E-M10 II in the following text) is the second generation of the Olympus entry level E-M system line. The first E-M10, introduced in January 2014, was a very small and compact camera with SLR design elements. The E-M10 II has a very similar look with even more “retro style” elements. The on/off switch, for example, looks like the same switch on the analog Olympus OM-1 from the 1970s.
Sony’s A-series cameras have gotten a lot of coverage in the photo press in the last few years with the recently introduced Sony A7R II receiving the kind of the pre-release hype not seen since the launch of the Canon 5D Mark II back in 2008. While this would seem to be good news for Sony, it’s tough to gauge what kind of impact it’s had.
The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) member magazines recently convened for their General Assembly to vote for the best photo and imaging products launched by the industry in the last 12 months. The voting took place during the General Assembly that was held in spring 2015 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The 20.3-megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX8 is the follow-up to the GX7, which was the top model of the viewfinder style G series mirrorless cameras. Like the GX7, the Panasonic GX8 looks like a classic rangefinder camera, but has a tiltable electronic viewfinder that uses a high resolution OLED display with 2.36 million RGB dots.
There are few things that can get a man’s heart pumping like a new camera and a legendary car race to test it out at. Or at least that’s how I felt when I got a chance to take the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G7 for a spin at the Indianapolis 500 in May.
I didn’t realize how much I could appreciate a mirrorless CSC (Compact System Camera) till, after working with the Samsung NX500 for several days, I picked up my Nikon D610 DSLR and realized I was carrying a brick in my hands. Don’t get me wrong, though. I still love my D610 and wouldn’t trade it in for anything (not just yet), but the new NX500 felt like a feather around my neck and in my hands. Even when I added the relatively heavy 50-150mm S-series lens, the combo still left me feeling as if I were working with a lyre, not a harp. Admittedly, like the lyre, it’s not as full-bodied an instrument, but the NX500 still plays a sweet tune.
The 16-megapixel Fujifilm X-T10 mirrorless camera reminds me of the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial (bear with me Millennials) where two strangers—one eating peanut butter and one eating chocolate—bump into each other and somehow smash their food together. After a brief bit of yelling (“you got your peanut butter on my chocolate!” “you got your chocolate in my peanut butter”) they realize that the combination is better than the individual elements.
If you’re looking for a small and portable yet powerful camera that’s a good alternative to heftier digital SLR models, Olympus’ OM-D line of mirrorless compact system cameras are some of the best options out there. These retro-styled shooters recall cameras from the film era, resembling miniaturized SLRs. In short, if you feel all warm and fuzzy at the sight of classic cameras, you just might find Olympus’ OM-D models to be absolutely adorable. But there’s more to them than simple nostalgia.<
We’ve just returned from Sony’s New York City press conference where the company announced a trio of groundbreaking new cameras: the 42.4-megapixel, full frame Sony A7R II mirrorless camera, the 20MP Sony RX100 IV compact camera and the 20MP Sony RX10 II superzoomer.
The Nikon J5 is the newest in Nikon's 1 series mirrorless camera line and is the first in the series to offer 20MP resolution. (Note: the first Nikon 1 cameras had 10MP, while the most recent, the V3, had 18MP resolution). Compared to APS-C sensors with about 23.5 x 15.6 mm and Micro-Four-Third cameras with 17 x 13 mm, the J5 has a smaller sensor at 13.2 x 8.8 mm, Nikon’s CX format. The crop factor is nearly 1:2.7 which means that the “effective” (defined as the 35mm format equivalent) focal length of the kit lens (1 Nikkor 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 VR) is about 27-81 mm. The camera has a very slim and compact design, which allows for easy transport and usage, similar to a compact camera.
Telephotos have always been bread-and-butter lenses for photographers shooting everything from commercial and sports to wildlife and landscapes. The ability to separate a subject against its background or pull in a distant scene has made telephoto lenses a staple in nearly every camera bag around the world.
The Fujifilm X-A2 mirrorless compact system camera, the successor to the X-A1, uses a standard APS-C sized image sensor rather than the X-Trans CMOS II sensor found in other Fujifilm cameras like the X-T1 and X-E1. Nevertheless, the new Fuji X-A2 gets the most out of this sensor technology and showed a very good performance in our tests.
I’ve worked with mirrorless cameras in the past, but never found them quite up to the task. After unpacking the new Samsung NX1 ($1,499, body only) and 16-50mm f/2-2.8 S ED OIS lens ($1,299) and taking a closer look at the two, I thought, this could be the deal changer. I might finally be ready to trade in my digital SLRs for a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.
If you’re going to test a new camera, I can think of few places better suited than the Big Island of Hawaii. And that’s precisely what I, and a number of my colleagues in the photo press, had a chance to do recently with the new 28-megapixel Samsung NX500 camera. We put Samsung’s newest mirrorless compact system camera (CSC) through its paces in diverse settings on the island, each designed to challenge the NX500 and ourselves.