Will Sony turn Pro?

Sony set to announce expansion of Alpha DSLR Line

Full Frame Professional and Midrange model expected

Will a Sony Alpha line be able to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of Konica-Minolta...
When Konica Minolta corporation sold off its camera division to Sony last year it was a bittersweet announcement. The loss of both Minolta and Konica was a bit of a blow to long time camera buffs. Both companies had a rich history of innovative cameras and world class in-house optics. Both companies had also struggled to keep pace with innovations and marketing since the beginning of the autofocus era in late 1980's.

Konica
1873-2003
Konica dropped out of the SLR business with the advent of autofocus and focused on a fantastic selection of rangefinder cameras, finishing up with the Hexar RF, an innovative rangefinder that put Leica's flagship M system on notice. The Konica RF took Leica M lenses (as well as its own excellent Hexanon lenses) and had features Leica had neglected to give the M for 20 years. Dante Stella tells the Konica RF story on his website "Hexar RF: The final Frontier?". Sadly it looks like the Hexar RF died with Konica, but who knows, Sony is a chip & sensor powerhouse who supplies all the major digital camera makers, if the new Leica M8 Digital is a success who knows what we may see from Sony.

Minolta
1928-2003
Minolta was a autofocus innovator and brought to market the first autofocus SLR beating competitors Nikon and Canon by several months. Although Minolta had quite a bit of success with its Maxxum AF line it choose never to develop a professional model, however it did create one for Leica, the R system, modeled after a pre-af Minolta camera chassis. With the advent of digital Minolta made a conscious decision to make the transition and to develop a semi-professional digital SLR. The Minolta 5D & 7D was the result, innovative cameras to bring Minolta strongly into the new century. Unfortunately after releasing the 7D it did not look like Minolta would follow soon with a Pro model capable of the robustness and features found in the models from Canon and Nikon. It looked like Minolta was going to repeat the same path it had with autofocus relegating it to a bottom feeder in the SLR world.

Hello Sony....
Est. 1958
In march 2006 Sony Inc. purchased the camera division of the floundering Konica-Minolta Corp. Sony had never made an SLR camera but they had power and money, not to mention momentum that Konica-Minolta sorely lacked. Sony quickly announced they would re-design the Minolta 7D and rename it the Sony Alpha. The same name Minolta used in Japan for its Maxxum cameras.

The Sony Alpha A100 is an updated Minolta MaxxumD with full use of all previous Minolta Maxxum and Rokkor lenses. It is still not robust or feature laden enough to be considered a Professional camera but it is superior to most entry level DSLR's and has a foundation of lenses that are certainly professional quality.

The big question for the moment is where will Sony take things from here?
2 new Alpha models are expected to be released within the next 12 months. As well as several new pro lenses. Speculation has been that Sony will be releasing a full frame sensor Professional Alpha camera. This is big news if it turns out to be true. Hopefully Sony will be able to accomplish what has eluded Konica, Minolta, and many others for a long time....

For the Photographer who has everything...

Destined to become the next "Must Have" Digital Camera Accessory

Without further ado we present the Rakuten Ear Wax Camera w/Cleaner. Although a huge hit at the 2007 PMA show it is still unclear when it will be available outside Japan. It was hinted that versions for Canon, Nikon, and Sony SLR's would be available in the summer with the Leica and Pentax versions available by fall, there just not sure of which year.

Currently the model that is selling in Japan has been hugely successful and is nearly sold out. It is common in Japan for the camera stores to make their own modifications to products to fit customers equipment, so making it adaptable to your specific camera out of the box is not as important in Japan.

The Rakuten Ear Wax Camera w/Cleaner has a camera lens w/light at one end and a viewer at the other end — allowing users to see built-up ear wax. It’s powered by a single 9V battery and is made from anti-bacterial ASB resin/glass/stainless steel. Available now from Rakuten at the price of $87.

Free Lens Hoods...

Printable PDF documents to make your own lens hoods, Calculate your own hood in the field! & Plastic Bottle hoods too!

Lets face it many of us go without lens hoods when in fact they are one of the most important ways we can go about improving our photographs. The purpose of a lens hood is to prevent flare, which can seriously degrade the image quality of photographic lenses. This being said it is often the case that we do not get a lens hood when we purchase the lens, or often in my particular case, the size of the lens hood means it often gets left at home rather than on the camera.

Cut along the dotted line...

The folks at www.lenshoods.co.uk have completly and utterly obliterated any more lame excuses why the rest of us don't use a lens hood. First off they offer them for free! You hear that Canon & Nikon, and anyone else who charges upwards of $100 for a piece of round plastic. Second they are made from paper so size is no longer an issue, they will simply fold right up. These guys provide hoods in Adobe PDF files for most major manufactures (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax) and third party lens companies (Sigma, Tamron, Tokina) too. They also provide a service that lets you design your own. These guys even go farther than your manafactur often does, and offer conventional round hoods as well as tulip petal-shaped lens hoods with curved cutout notches. This tulip petal design maximizes the amount of hood coverage for the minimum amount of weight and hood area. Tulip-shaped hoods cannot be used on lenses with rotating ends though, because perfect hoods must be aligned to the sensor frame dimensions.

RegularJen blogged about how she was able to use the PDF lenshoods as templates to cut ones from black art foam: lens hoods on the cheap with bonus conversation.

Don't forget to Recycle...

Another great source for lens hoods is found in every day items around the house, namely plastic bottles.

About all it takes is some time and care and careful, slow going to cut the material appropriately and such that it fits properly. In this instance, the 40.5mm diameter of a typical Russky normal lens did not translate out perfectly to the diameter of the plastic bottle, and thus it was necessary to make the cut such that its slightly concave (as seen in the accompanying photo).

When fitted onto the lens, the plastic flexes slightly and exerts a bit more holding pressure than would naturally occur in a straightforward ‘press on’ fitting.

The now finished hood is painted a flat or matte black, and the job is complete. I consider this the “perfect” lens hood for one main reason: it didn’t cost anything but the few minutes work it took to make it.

To really finish it off you could use your PDF printout of a tulip petal-shaped hood to trim the front of the plastic bottle hood.

You do the math...

Finally thanks to The Great Pyramids, Igor Yefremov, and a little math, we can now easily make our own lens hoods from scratch, on the go and in the field. Read his article How to make a simple lens hood, Recalling ancient pyramids.

One of the most important ways we can go about improving our photographs...

So still not convinced a lens hood is the thing for you? Then you must read Lens Hoods, over at vanwalree.com. It is an expert text on lens flare and the effects of different style hoods to combat it. It is simple to read and has lots of good visuals, don't miss it.

If you are still in the mood for some photographic arts and crafts try these:

The Domokon Cardboard SLR
&
The Dirkon Paper Camera

EF Lenswork III The Eyes of EOS

Canon makes a stunning hardcover book showcasing their full line of lenses called "Lenswork"

If you have a Canon EOS system and want to master your camera & lenses you need a copy of this! It has MTF charts for all the current EF lenses, examples of shoots, element diagrams and detailed sections on all of Canon's lens technology.

It also looks back at the history of Canon cameras & lenses, as well as looking into the future of digital with insight into lens and sensor design and theory.

This is THE book for Canon lenses and their performance.

The latest version is available in a beautiful Hardcover, coffee table book, as well as on line in PDF format:

THE EF LENS CONCEPT

CANON'S CHALLENGES

THE EF LENS WORLD (SINGLE FOCAL-LENGTH LENSES)

THE EF LENS WORLD (ZOOM LENSES)

THE EF LENS WORLD (EF-S LENSES)

EF LENS ACCESSORIES & VARIETY IN THE CANON LENS WORLD

THE BASICS OF LENSES & CORRESPONDENCE TO DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTO TECHNIQUES

EF LENS TECHNOLOGY

OPTICAL TERMINOLOGY & MTF CHARACTERISTICS

DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS & LENS MAPS

An older version covering Canon's FD camera system -Canon Lenswork 1986- is also available on Christian Rollinger's fine website, The Canon FD documentation project