Innholdsfortegnelse for V72 Issue 2 i Pro Photo

I’ve been using laptops pretty much since they became available. I need the portability, while the small footprint on the desktop – the real one, that is – is a bonus when it’s also cluttered up with cameras or lenses or whatever is going through testing at the time. For a least a decade or so back there, the pace of development was frenetic so there was always justification for upgrading on a regular basis, usually every two years. Then things slowed down – along with dramatic price reductions which usually saw you getting twice as much new laptop for what you’d paid previously – so there was less need to change. Consequently, my current laptop was heading towards its fifth birthday and I was just starting to think it…

The Australian category of Sony’s World Photography Awards has been won by photographer Scott Portelli from western Sydney. Sony says its annual Awards are now the world’s biggest photography competition and compromises 60 national awards Scott Portelli’s winning image – titled Cuttlefish Aggregation – was chosen as the single best photograph taken by an Australian photographer entered into any of the awards’ ten Open categories. Portelli is a wildlife and underwater photographer, and his prize is a Sony A7 full-35mm mirrorless camera and an FE 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 lens. His winning image will be part of the 2016 Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House in London from 22 April to 8 May and will be included in the annual Sony World Photography Awards book. The exhibition will also feature…

Lens-maker Tamron is continuing its program of high-end prime lenses, announcing the introduction of a new SP Series 90mm f2.8 true macro model and an 85mm f1.8 fast short telephoto. These lenses join the SP 35mm f1.8 and 45mm f1.8 released towards the end of 2015. The new SP 90mm f2.8 Macro Di VC USD (Model F017) incorporates an upgraded version of Tamron’s ‘VC’ (Vibration Compensation) optical image stabilisation which provides correction in the x-y plane via an accelerometer. This is particularly beneficial when working at very short focusing distances. Tamron says this lens’s image stabilisation provides up to 3.5 stops of correction for camera shake. It also has a redesigned optical construction comprising 14 elements in 11 groups which include one low dispersion (LD) type and two extra-low dispersion…

Today a Web presence is an integral part of magazine and newspaper publishing so you’ll find ProPhoto – or, at least, some of it – at www.avhub.com.au Here you can also visit the other titles in the stable of Next Media AudioVisual Group magazines, including sister publication Camera. Have a look at these because you might find another magazine that you’d like to buy from your newsagent or subscribe to. If you’re interested in hi-fi, video, home theatre, ‘smart home’ technologies or car audio, check out Sound & Image, Australian Hi-Fi or Australian InCar Entertainment (just follow the links from the AVHub home page). The Website carries the latest news plus selected articles from both the current and past issues of ProPhoto, including a selection of test reports. Of course,…

A large logo for a funeral parlour adorns the entrance. A small text on a signboard in the hallway is all that shows that one of the world’s leading manufacturers of professional flashes has its head office here, located at Landsvägen 57 in Sundbyberg. Up until a couple of years ago the company focused mainly on studio photographers, especially within the fashion industry. For 40 years Profoto has supplied fashion photographers with tools that have both facilitated the work and allowed the photographers to move the boundaries of their creativity. More than half of the rental studios in the world use Profoto flashes and light-shaping tools. In New York and Paris that number is higher than 80 percent. Then something happened that fundamentally changed the company. The spacious and bright…

It’s the battle of the big guns at the top-end of the D-SLR market as Canon follows Nikon’s D5 with its own new flagship, the EOS-1D X Mark II. Designed to replace both the EOS-1D X and the more video-orientated EOS-1D C, the EOS-1D X Mark II again pushes the performance envelope for D-SLRs in both still capture and video recording. The all-new bodyshell is similar in styling to that of the previous model, but with a pronounced ‘hump’ atop the pentaprism housing which contains a GPS receiver. Canon says the camera is largely hand-assembled by technicians who have achieved ‘Meister’ status and who are individually responsible for building, inspecting and testing an entire body, rather than just being responsible for one stage or process. The Mark II is built…

After a number of sneak peeks, Ricoh has finally taken the wraps off its long-promised Pentax D-SLR with a full-35mm size sensor. Designated the K-1, this model becomes the fourth sensor format under the Pentax brand which extends from the pocket-sized Q mirrorless cameras to the medium format 645Z. There are already 12 compatible K-mount digital lenses available (two announced with the camera) plus numerous older types from the film-era which will fit the new body. The K-1 has a CMOS sensor with an imaging area of 24.0x35.9 mm and a total pixel count of 36.77 million (36.4 MP effective). The camera automatically switches to ‘APS-C’ crop mode when one of Pentax’s smaller format lenses is fitted, giving a resolution of 15.3 megapixels. As on the Pentax K-3 II ‘APS-C’…

Current to 8 May: Exhibition. Family Fragments. Rarely seen photographs by Olive Cotton, rescued from a flood-damaged garage, and from the period of her life after separating from Max Dupain in 1941. From a new book by Olive’s daughter, photographer and writer Sally McInerney. At the Exhibition Galleries, State Library of NSW, Macquarie Street, Sydney, NSW 2000. Exhibition hours are 9.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Wednesday and Friday; 9.00am to 8.00pm on Thursday and 10.00am to 5.00pm on weekends. Admission is free. Call (02) 9273 1414 or visit www.sl.nsw.gov.au for more information. Current to 22 May: Exhibition. Imprint: Photography And The Impressionable Image. Images which explore the association between photography and the sculptural cast, investigating the exchange between an object and its echo. Artists include Ingeborg Tyssen, Lewis Morley, Horst…

Annual photographic festivals face the challenge of keeping it fresh and programming events and exhibitions that will appeal to loyal followers and also attract newcomers. In meeting this challenge, Moshe Rosenzveig – the director of Sydney’s Head On Photo Festival – throws his net wide and considers work that is shown around the globe. Last year Rosenzveig travelled to France to Les Rencontres d’Arles, which was established in 1970 and programs largely new work from established and emerging photographers. He also visited Photoville in New York and tapped into networks formed through the Asia Pacific Photo Forum as well as drawing on his own extensive contacts. Also as Head On’s international reputation has grown, more photographers are submitting work for consideration, providing the Head On team with a large selection…

PERHAPS ONE OF THE MOST notable of the Leica SL’s many surprising aspects is that when its design team first sat down three-and-a-half years ago to create a new professional camera system, they knew it wasn’t going to be an SLR. Yes, even before the arrival of Sony’s Alpha 7s, the Olympus OM-D E-M1 or Fujifilm’s XT-1, Leica was certain the future would be mirrorless. At that stage even the future of mirrorless cameras was by no means certain so Leica’s strategy was courageous to say the least, but the basis of the design brief was a simple one. “Speed, speed, speed,” states Stephan Schulz, who is Head Of Product Management for Leica’s Professional Camera Systems division. “We asked ourselves, ‘What does the perfect system look like?’ And we knew…

Epson has incorporated its latest SureColor inkjet photo printing technologies into its next generation of large-format printers. The new 44-inch SureColor SC-P10070 and 64-inch SC-P20070 models incorporate a new ten-colour UltraChrome PRO pigmented inkset which includes four black inks for enhanced toning and B&W reproduction. Both models are capable of printing at speeds of up to 105 square metres per hour, making them suitable for high-volume, large-format photographic, graphics and fine-art production applications. The maximum resolution is 2400x1200 dpi and the minimum droplet size is 3.5 picolitres. The new models employ Epson’s latest PrecisionCore MicroTFP printhead which has a new structure designed to reduced vibrations and ensure more accurate dot placement. It also incorporates ‘Nozzle Verification Technology’ to automatically detect nozzle blockages without the need to eject ink. There are…

The nearly three-years-old EOS 70D is on the way out, replaced by the new EOS 80D which incorporates quite a number of revisions and updates, starting with a 25.8 megapixels (total) ‘APS-C’ size CMOS sensor which is coupled with Canon’s latest DiG!C 6 image processor. The sensitivity range is equivalent to ISO 100 to 16,000 with an extension to ISO 25,600. The maximum continuous shooting speed remains at 7.0 fps, but with a significantly increased burst length of 110 maximum quality JPEGs or 25 RAW files. As before, the EOS 80D has a single memory card slot for the SD/HC/XC format. With the increase in sensor resolution comes an improved version of Canon’s ‘Dual Pixel CMOS AF’ sensor-based autofocusing for live view and video shooting, and the number of AF…

Ah, Olympus you never disappoint us! Any concerns that the Digital PEN series might be finished as Olympus increasingly concentrated on its highly successful OM-D line-up appear unfounded as the company launches its best compact mirrorless model yet. The new PEN F pays homage to the half-frame 35mm SLR from 1963, arguably the camera which first established the Olympus brand in the minds of enthusiast shooters… especially as a maker of small, but highly-featured models. Like its spiritual ancestor, the PEN F is elegantly styled with a high reliance on traditional dials for control. It features an all-metal bodyshell and is the first Digital Pen model to incorporate a built-in electronic viewfinder… an OLED panel with a resolution of 2.36 million dots. This is supplemented by a tilt/swing adjustable LCD…

“Fine-art photography is big business. We’re talking millions of dollars. Walking around the fair, it isn’t unusual to see price tags of 50,000 Euros or more.” In November 2015 I headed to Paris primarily to cover Paris Photo the world’s most prestigious fine art photography fair. But there was also a host of other photography-related events on in the ‘City Of Light’ during that time and my photography cup runneth over with the number of exhibitions, book launches and signings that were scheduled. Over a week I criss-crossed the city on the Paris Metro numerous times, running from one opening to another. Some of the highlights of my trip included the gala event to announce the winner of the Prix Pictet Award – a 100,000 Euros prize – at which…