Canon EOS-1D X Mark II Event in London, UK

Eos-1d X Mark Ii
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Park Cameras together with professional wildlife and aviation photographer Andy Rouse, organised a Canon EOS-1D X Mark II Event to be held in Park Camera’s Burgess Hill store on Thursday 17th March, and at at their store in Central London on Thursday 31st March.

This is a free event and places are limited. More information and registration at Park Cameras.

Andy [Rouse] will explain to you the benefits that the flagship camera in the Canon DSLR range can bring to you in your photography, and the variety of new features available, including a brand new full-frame 20.2MP sensor, improved autofocus capabilities, greater ISO flexibility and higher ISO capabilities (compared to its predecessor), 4K video and a whole lot more!

As a highly talented photographer, Andy has been in the trusted position as a Canon Explorer for a number years, and as such as been able to use his experience and passion for photography to test out the EOS-1D X Mark II, feeding back information, and test shots / videos back to Canon Europe to assist with the development of the product. There is therefore, no-one better to guide you through the camera, and to inspire your photography.

In addition to this, a technical expert from Canon UK will be on-hand to assist Andy with any questions you might have about the camera, or the range of Canon lenses / accessories that are available.

Canon EOS-1D X Mark II: B&H Photo, Adorama, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA [via ephotozine]

Canon Expands imagePROGRAF PRO Series With Four New Models

ImagePROGRAF PRO
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Canon press release:

Canon Expands imagePROGRAF PRO Series With Four New Models For The Fine Art, Photographic And Production Signage Markets

MELVILLE, N.Y. – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, today announced the expansion of the imagePROGRAF PRO Series with four large format inkjet printers. The extension of the Series includes the 11-Color plus Chroma Optimizer 44-inch imagePROGRAF PRO-4000 and 24-inch imagePROGRAF PRO-2000, designed to provide spectacular image quality for the fine art and photographic markets, as well as the eight-color 60-inch imagePROGRAF PRO-6000S and 44-inch imagePROGRAF PRO-4000S, two affordably priced models to economically create eye-catching posters and vivid displays for the production signage industry.

Click here to open the rest of the article

Do you want to contribute to the development of the COSYSPEED Camslinger Outdoor bag? You can!

CAMSLINGER Outdoor
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If you follow my blog you likely know that I am a big fan of COSYSPEED CAMSLINGER bags. I own a CAMSLINGER 160 Street Edition and it always is my choice for run and gun photography with the EOS M3. It’s a smart concept, it looks cool, and it works well for me.

I am happy that my friend Thomas from COSYSPEED wrote me asking to involve you in a new cool project they have: a CAMSLINGER Outdoor bag. A first prototype is already under development, and is being tested by Swiss climber and photographer Stephan Wiesner.

[At COSYSPEED we] are developing a CAMSLINGER bag for outdoor active photographers, like climbers, hikers or bikers. The CAMSLINGERs are especially designed for mirrorless cameras. The first step of a „CAMSLINGER Outdoor“ prototype is currently under a field test by Swiss photographer and climber Stephan Wiesner. It would be really cool, if your readers could support us with their comments, ideas and suggestions. So we could develop the next step of prototypes using your readers comments and share the results. It would be  great if you could share the video Stephan Wiesner made during a mountain tour in the Alps [editors note: the video below, the same video in German can be found at the bottom of the post]. 

Note: the German video is at the end of the post.

You can sound off your suggestion in the comment section, or visit COSYSPEED’s Facebook page. Below is a small gallery with images of the CAMSLINGER Outdoor prototype.

Laowa 105mm F2 STF lens announced

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UK Optics announced the new Laowa 105mm f/2.0 STF lens. Press release:

LAOWA 105MM F2 (T3.2) STF LENS

UK OPTICS (LAOWA UK) is pleased to present the Laowa 105mm F2 STF Lens. STF stands for Smooth Trans Focus, in reference to its special optical system, which is intended to deliver smooth transitions between crisp in-focus areas and creamy defocused background or foreground areas. This unique manual focus only lens has an integrated apodisation filter that provides superior bokeh rendering and crystal sharp images.

Full frame compatible lens featuring 11 elements in 8 groups with a 14 blade aperture* and a minimum focus distance of just 0.9M. All metal alloy construction housing multi-coated glass elements throughout. At a focal length of 105mm and with the inherent softly diffused bokeh, this lens is perfect for portraiture.

The Laowa 105mm F2 STF lens is one of only a few lenses currently offering an apodisation effect. Available later in March with an MSRP of £649.99, in the following mounts: Nikon, Canon, Sony A, Sony E and Pentax.

See us at The Photography Show, NEC 19th to 22nd March Stand B91. For more details visit www.laowalens.co.uk

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Canon interview at CP+ (increasingly important that we do increase development speed)

EOS M3
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DPReview interviewed Mr. Go Tokura, Group Executive ICP Group 2, Image Communications Products Operations, Canon Inc. Some excerpts:

Dual Pixel AF is a technology which has huge potential for mirrorless cameras. A lot of our readers are still very hopeful for future Canon enthusiast mirrorless models. Is there anything that you would like to say to them?

Obviously I can’t be particularly concrete when talking about our future product planning, but this is something that we are looking at. Something that is under consideration. There are some features, such as AF, which have not yet caught up with DSLRs, so given the current state of affairs it would be a little unrealistic to say that we will suddenly start offering a professional mirrorless camera. There’s still a performance gap that needs to be addressed.

If we assume that at some point in the future Canon will create an enthusiast or professional mirrorless camera, what are your benchmarks?

This is just my personal opinion. In my view there are two key features that have to be addressed. The first is autofocus, particularly tracking of moving subjects. The other is the viewfinder. The electronic viewfinder would have to offer a certain standard. If those two functions were to match the performance of EOS DSLR camera performance, we might make the switch. Tremendous progress has been made in electronic systems.  However in terms of AF, pro-level AF functions, and the range of shooting situations that professional photographers can respond to, there’s still a gap between DSLRs and mirrorless systems.

One of the areas where we’ve been pleased to see improvement from Canon is in sensors. What are your priorities in terms of sensor development in the future?

Increasing resolution and increasing sensitivity are ongoing objectives and that’s not going to change, but on top of that, as I’ve mentioned there’s an emphasis on merging stills and movie functions. So two priorities for future sensors are lower power consumption and increasing processing speed.

Read the interview…

There is a part in the interview where Mr. Tokura says ” […] it’s becoming increasingly important that we do increase development speed”. :-)