Pro Photo V71 #4

Phase One’s new XF digital medium format camera system is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s all new… something many of us didn’t expect to see again. Phase One’s previous DMF platform was derived from a Mamiya which traces its origins back to 1999 and the 645AF. Hasselblad’s current H5D system goes back to the 6x4.5cm format H1 which was launched in 2002. Of a more recent vintage is the Franke & Heidecke-designed Hy6, originally badged as a Sinar and then returned to the Rolleiflex fold, but you could hardly call this camera a commercial success. So a brand new digital medium format camera in 2015 is cause for both wonderment and celebration. Better still, Phase One has gone back to basics so the XF has interchangeable viewfinders…

Digital medium format appears to have turned a corner and this is partially reflected in the introduction by Phase One of an all-new camera system… a not inconsiderable investment in the future given it even includes a new autofocusing system. Designed ‘in-house’ by Phase One, the XF body is new from the ground up and a complete departure from the previous Mamiya-based models (with the exception of the lens mount, of course) and, perhaps most significantly, it has interchangeable viewfinders. This allows the 90-degree prism finder to be replaced by a waist-level finder and gives the Phase One XF a level of modularity comparable to that of the Hasselblad HD cameras. Using the AF system’s sensor, exposure metering (as well as autofocusing) is still available with the waistlevel finder. The…

Photo hosting and e-commerce Website service, Zenfolio is now offering a mobile shopping service. Photographers’ clients can browse, share and buy products on their Websites directly via mobile phones, potentially increasing sales. Supported products include prints, canvas wraps, acrylic prints, ‘Vivid Metals’, posters, digital downloads, packages and more (template products not yet supported, but different paper types and framing are supported). With the release of mobile shopping, Zenfolio has also made improvements to the functionality on mobile, so that clients can more easily pick their favourites and buy select galleries, sets and photos on the spot. Clients can conveniently press the ‘buy’ button for their favourite photo or set of photos, choose the products from the price list and then customise their purchase by changing the cropping and colour treatment.…

Current to 23 August: Exhibition. Crowd Source. Over 50 rare snapshots of Sydneysiders and Sydney’s bustling streets secretly taken with the world’s first hand-held camera – branded the ‘Detective Camera’ – by amateur local photographer Arthur Syer. At the State Library of NSW, Macquarie Street, Sydney, NSW 2000. Exhibition hours are 9.00am to 8.00pm Monday to Thursday, 9.00am to 5.00pm on Friday, and 10.00am to 5.00pm on weekends. Entry is free of charge. For more information call (02) 9273 1414 or visit www.sl.nsw.gov.au for more information. Current to 23 August: Exhibition. The View From Here: The Photographic World Of Alfred Elliott 1890-1940. Historic images of Brisbane reproduced from a hoard of negatives discovered under a house in the suburb of Red Hill. At the Museum Of Brisbane, Level 3, Brisbane…

Following the introduction of the first SureColor series photo printer – the A3+ format SC-P600 – earlier in the year, Epson has launched its A2+ sibling. Similarly styled, the SureColor SC-P800 A2+ replaces the popular Stylus Pro 3880 in Epson’s line-up of pro-level pigmented-ink printers and uses the same MicroPiezo print head and advanced LUT technology for high resolution imaging at up to 2880x1140 dpi. The P800 uses Epson’s latest Ultrachrome HD inkset – introduced with the SC-P600 – with nine colours, but in larger, 80 millilitre cartridges. The new inks provide a large colour gamut with, Epson claims, the highest Dmax in the market, enabling improved results with both colour and black and white printing. The new inks also provide improved lightfastness. Like the SC-P600, the P800 has a…

Sony’s A7 Series mirrorless cameras have been suggestive of where the future might lie in the high-end market, but it’s probably confirmed with the arrival of the new A7R II (a.k.a. the ILCE-7RM2). The new A7 flagship retains the compact dimensions and lightweight of the preceding models, but steps up to a 43.6 megapixels ‘back-illuminated’ CMOS sensor with a sensitivity range equivalent to ISO 100 to 102,400. The A7R II has a five-axis sensor-shift image stabiliser and can record 4K video in multiple formats including ‘Super 35’ (without pixel binning) and full-35mm (i.e. using the full width of the sensor). The new sensor doesn’t have an optical low-pass filter and is claimed to have a data read-out speed that’s 3.5 times faster than that of the previous model. It incorporates…