Canon South-Africa Expo, Investments In Taiwan, And A New Canon Brand Ambassador

Alodia Gosiengfiao, Canon’s new Brand Ambassador – Image credit: infochat.com.ph

A quick round-up of news concerning the brand Canon. Let’s start with Canon’s South-Africa Expo (click here for the whole story):

Canon South Africa has announced that this year’s highly anticipated Canon SA Expo will be held from Friday, 30 November to Sunday, 2 December 2012 at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, Gauteng.

The Canon SA Expo will be open from 10:00 to 18:00 daily and entrance will be free.

As with last year’s incredibly successful Canon SA Expo which attracted in excess of 13 500 visitors over the three-day period, Canon SA has taken it upon themselves to make this year’s show bigger and better.

The Expo will again showcase Canon’s wide range of consumer and selected business solutions. Visitors to this exclusively Canon Expo will also be the first to see and touch some of Canon’s latest technology.

There will also be a photographic competition. Each of the four winners will get an EOS 5D Mark III and an EF 40mm f/2.8 STM lens.

Next, cens.com reports (click here for the whole story) that

Canon Taiwan Inc, a Taiwanese affiliate under Canon of Japan known as a globally-leading digital still camera (DSC) brand, increased investment to NT$ 15 billion (US$ 500 million) in the camera-lens factories in the Taichung Export Processing Zone and Jiayi County, in Southern Taiwan.

[…] Canon Taiwan’s Jiayi plant focuses on producing its popular single-lens digital cameras series EOS-600D and 1100D, and will move all production lines of single-lens digital cameras to the Jiayi plant at the end of this year.

Finally, Alodia Gosiengfiao, a costume playing star, is Canon’s newest brand ambassado (click here for the whole story) for the Image Communications Products (ICP) division.

She considers Canon to be her number one brand of choice for gadgets because of its highly advanced features, superior quality, and numerous offerings, which are not limited to only professional photographers. “It really targets the community, what they want and need,” she declares. “The service is great; anything is accessible with Canon.”

Her plans with Canon include participating in conventions, encouraging people to join the photography community, modelling in monthly photo shoots, and meeting and working with people with the same interests—not too far from what she would do in the cosplaying industry.

[Video] Canon WFT-E6A Wireless Transmitter Shown And Explored

I found a little video on Vimeo (user Texas Media Systems), showing and explaining the functionality of the recently announced WFT-E6A Wireless Transmitter. The following cameras were used: Canon C300, Canon XF305, and EOS 7D. The WFT-E6A can be pre-ordered for $599 at (click on shop name): Adorama, B&H, Amazon.

Canon‘s WFT-E6A Wireless Transmitter is an impressive device that boasts several upgrades over earlier permutations. Designed specifically for use with Canon’s EOS-1D X, this transmitter offers wireless-only LAN functionality for ease when transferring data. It also now supports IEEE 802.11n for safe, fast wireless LAN transfers. Additionally, an internal Bluetooth function (Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR) is included for a secure connection to Bluetooth-compatible GPS devices for high-capacity data transfers.

The WFT-E6A also sports wireless time syncing now, which is a great advantage to those shooting events, allowing you to make adjustments to the device without having a direct connection to a computer. And in another upgrade, the WFT-E6A is also lighter and smaller than earlier models. It still features the same dustproof and waterproof capabilities it’s older siblings have. In addition, the transmitter is able to link up to 10 cameras for numerous points of view on a single subject – but now with improved linkage to a WFT server by allowing it to start simultaneously when the master camera and slave cameras are manually connected.

Click here to open the rest of the article

[Video] Video Modes Compared: T4i/650D vs 5D3 vs 1D-X

Gizmodo compared the video modes of three Canon DSRLs in a price range from $1000 – $7000. It’s Rebel T4i/650D vs EOS 5D Mark III vs EOS-1D X. From entry level to top end.

[…] all three cameras […] shot the same scene with the same lens (Canon 24-105 f/4) and settings (f/9, 1/50, ISO 100). We use a picture style with sharpness at 0, contrast at 0, and saturation at -2. We adjusted the focal length on the crop-sensor t4i to match that of the other two cameras. Obviously this isn’t completely scientific, but we did our best.

The outcome may surprise you. While the EOS 1D-X is obviously the best performing gear here, and the 5D Mark III is second placed, the performance of the Rebel T4i/650D is by far not so much worse as the others cost more (we’re talking about video modes here). See for yourself, and do it by enlarging the video to full screen (otherwise moire artifacts are hard to spot).

EOS 1D-X price check: B&H Photo, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA EOS 5D Mark III price check: B&H Photo, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA Rebel T4i/EOS 650D price check: B&H Photo, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA EF 24-105 f/4L price check: B&H Photo, Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Canon Canada, Canon USA

[via gizmodo]

[Hack] Transform Your Broken Battery Grip In A Computer, Plug It On Your Cam (Update)

Image credit: D. Hunt

Update: click here for a listing of cheap battery grips on eBay.

Ireland based photographer David Hunt had a cool idea: To modify an otherwise unusable battery grip and to fit a computer into it. He bought a Raspberry Pi computer (€35), modified the grip and managed to stuff the Raspberry Pi inside. A broken EOS 5D Mark II battery grip was used. The little computer runs on Linux, has 2 USB ports, a network port, HDMI outoput, and some more amenities. Things you can possibly do with this computers include…:

  • Wireless tethered shooting – attach a Wifi dongle to the USB port, so I can transmit pictures to a PC or tablet PC as I’m shooting.
  • Attach a USB memory key or hard drive so I can back up the images on the camera.
  • Remote control the camera using a PC, tablet PC or smartphone (from anywhere in the world).
  • Intervalometer – take a picture every few seconds for those high-speed sunset sequences, including exposure adjustment as you go.
  • On-the-fly image conversion for faster previews on remote display device (iPad, etc).
  • Add a small LCD display to give status, allow user input via buttons, etc.
  • Trigger camera via shutter release port, also allows waking up of sleeping camera, which cant be done via USB.

Doesn’t that sound cool?? It’s a prototype, no question, and as Dave Hunt states “there’s plenty of work to be done on the software side“. But the prototype is working, and the potential is clearly visible. For the time being, Dave was able to activate tethering. Hope to hear more about this.

Image credit: D. Hunt
[David Hunt, via petapixel]

A Quick Yet Comprehensive Guide To Rokinon Lenses

Our friends over at The Phoblographer published something really useful: a survey covering all Rokinon lenses for DSLR cameras. Among lenses for other mount types, the following lenses with Canon mount are covered: 8mm Ultra Wide Angle f/3.5 Fisheye Lens, 8mm T/3.8 Fisheye Cine Lens, 14mm Ultra Wide-Angle f/2.8 IF ED UMC Lens, 24mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC Wide-Angle Lens, 35mm f/1.4 Wide-Angle US UMC Aspherical Lens, 85mm f/1.4 Aspherical Lens. Don’t miss the survey!

To see all Rokinon lenses for EF mount on B&H click here, to see all Rokinon lenses on Amazon click here.

Shot using the Rokinon 14mm Ultra Wide-Angle f/2.8 IF ED UMC Lens – Image Credit: Chris Gampat/The Phoblographer