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DPReview 20th Anniversary: Simon Joinson on the Seattle years

26 Dec

Simon Joinson was DPReview’s second general manager, after founder Phil Askey. During Simon’s years with the site, DPReview underwent enormous changes, not least the relocation of almost the entire team in 2010 from London to Seattle, thousands of miles away on the west coast of America.

How did you first become aware of DPReview?

I don’t remember specifically. It kind of crept onto my radar gradually, because to be honest, back in the late 90’s / early 2000s, few of us in the publishing world were that focused on the internet as a potential competitor. I do remember that the first time I saw it it was still on the askey.net domain, so it must’ve been early. In the very early days there were other sites that popped up more regularly – Steve’s Digicams, DCResource – but by the 2002, 2003 timeframe, DPReview was an unavoidable

What set DPReview apart, in the industry?

You have to remember that 20-ish years ago the difference between the traditional print media and what was starting to be called the ‘new media’ was stark. On the internet content was always free, but it was generally seen as something of a digital ‘wild west’, where anyone with a computer and a modem could publish their opinions and you couldn’t move for unqualified ‘experts’. Websites simply lacked the credibility and trust of camera magazines, which in some cases were household names that had been published for decades.

Most print magazines reviewed cameras using a template that was, give-or-take, about 80% subjective

DPR was different. There were consistent, repeatable tests and metrics and, critically, there was no ‘take my word for it’ with Phil – he presented all his results on the page for you to download and look at yourself. In the early days he was pretty cautious about offering much ‘opinion’ at all (beyond the final rating), preferring to let the data speak for itself. By comparison, most print magazines (including mine) reviewed cameras using a template that was, give-or-take, about 80% subjective. It’s impossible to overstate the impact Phil’s approach to reviewing and objective testing had on the photographic publishing world.

Simon using an early sample of Canon’s PowerShot Pro1, back in 2004. Simon had yet to officially join DPReview, and was credited by Phil in his Pro1 hands-on as ‘editor of the excellent UK magazine Total Digital Photography’.

How did you join the team?

Phil and I had been pretty close friends since we sat together on a 12 hour flight to Tokyo for the 2002 World Cup final – part of a Fujifilm press trip that included meeting senior executives and touring a digital camera factory. We’d often talked about working together, and in 2004, with Phil was struggling to keep up with the increasing rate of new camera launches on his own, we signed a contract with DPReview to produce compact camera reviews and news stories. I already had a team of writers, photographers testers and designers working for my for my company, and so, initially, at least, DPReview was just another client. It didn’t take long, however, for it to totally consume my life.

Can you tell us a bit about those early days?

Phil and I didn’t work in the same place – he worked from home on one side of London and I worked out of my offices in Covent Garden. And we worked incredibly long hours and almost every weekend, but it was incredibly rewarding. I still miss those days when it was just the two of us doing almost everything. We even used to take our wives (the DPReview widows) on weekend city breaks together. Thinking about it now, the fact we took about a dozen cameras and spend most of the time talking work probably made it less enjoyable for the ladies, but they were kind enough not to complain.

I slowly got used to having hundreds of anonymous people publicly accusing me of dishonesty / incompetence / corruption whenever I posted anything – it was a big change from the occasional angry handwritten letter we’d receive about magazine content we’d already forgotten about. But hey, at least it meant people were reading.

Phil had poured his heart and soul into DPReview for over five years, and he wasn’t about to start messing about with a winning formula

Did you make any changes when you arrived?

I pushed for a ton of changes, but there was never any doubt in the early days who was boss, so I wasn’t very successful (it was three years before I was even trusted to review a DSLR!). Phil had poured his heart and soul into DPReview for over five years, and he wasn’t about to start messing about with what was obviously a winning formula.

I think my biggest contribution back then was to implement, to some degree, a few standard practices from the world of publishing – for example using an Editor and Sub Editor to tidy things up before posting. Looking back I’m glad Phil wouldn’t let me change much – I knew a lot less about the internet than I thought I did, and I had plenty of time to develop my understanding – and my ideas for the site – over the years we worked together.

DPReview gets a redesign
(May 2010)

Tell us a little about the Amazon acquisition

I wasn’t involved in the deal at all – DPReview was still Phil’s site, and he wasn’t allowed to tell anyone he was even talking to Amazon. I guess by the time I heard about the negotiations they were almost over, and the deal was only a few months from closing. Long story short, I got an offer compelling enough to resign as Managing Director of my own company and take a job with Amazon.

How did the acquisition change the way that DPReview operated?

On the one hand it changed everything – we started looking for a dedicated office / studio space, started hiring, had real jobs with a real boss. But in many other ways nothing changed – Amazon made it clear from day one that this was our site, and we should just carry on doing exactly what we were before it changed hands.

Describe how the team grew

As soon as the acquisition was public and we’d found our new offices we started hiring developers and editors, including some (looking at you Richard Butler!) who are still part of the DPReview team. Phil was focused mostly on running the business and being the interface with Amazon, and on managing the engineering / dev side of our work. I managed the editorial side. By the end of 2008 we had a team of 10 people, meaning Phil and I finally got to spend our weekends away from work…

We gathered the staff and told them Phil was leaving and we were relocating the entire business to Seattle. Then we went to the pub.

Describe the buildup to the Seattle move

The catalyst for the move was Phil’s decision to leave the business in late 2009, but in the end the decision was mine. It was clear that moving to the mothership in Seattle would be the best thing for DPR at a time when the global financial downturn and growing weakness in the compact camera market (thanks iPhone!) we’d get more support, more staff and more visibility if we relocated. And to be honest, working as a remote team with its own premises had lots of perks, but it wasn’t all fun and games; it also brought with it a ton of admin overhead, lots of travel and endless late night conference calls between London and Seattle.

We gathered the staff one morning in April 2010 and told them Phil was leaving and we were proposing relocating the entire business to Seattle. Then we went to the pub for the rest of the day.

A new office in a new country called for a new studio scene. One of Simon’s lasting contributions to DPReview was our patented studio scene comparison ‘widget’.

How did the move affect the team?

As you can imagine the news about Phil and the move created a certain amount of worry. We offered the entire team a full relocation package and initiated a month-long consultation period, at the end of which we asked everyone if they wanted to come with us on our new adventure. All but two of the team accepted, and – after a surreal six months or so of preparing to emigrate – most of them moved to Seattle in the late fall of 2010. I was the last to relocate because we had our second child on the way. For about four months I managed the business from 5000 miles away, with an 8 hour time difference.

Inevitably all this had some short-term negative consequences for the site – we couldn’t produce any reviews whilst our equipment made its way across the ocean and our new studio was being fitted out – not to mention the fact that several of the team had to take time off to organize moving their entire lives to another continent. And yeah, we kinda lost lens reviews for a while after the move (our lens reviewer didn’t relocate with us).

DPReview relocates to America
(November 2010)

Describe that transitional period, with half the team in one hemisphere and half in another?

Honestly it worked really well for me – I prefer to work late and I had a newborn baby in the house, so I tended to start work mid afternoon to maximize my overlap with the rest of the team (there were a couple of people still in the UK, but most were already in the US).

What was your ‘mission’ for DPReview?

When I took the reins at DPReview in 2010 camera sales had already been in decline for a couple of years, and I knew I couldn’t just sit there watching the site slowly pulled under by falling demand in the camera market. I wanted to bring more photography and more diverse voices to the site, to revamp our reviews and expand our coverage of accessories and techniques, and to raise the bar in general, editorially. I was also desperate to change the UX and visual design of the site (and offer users an alternative to the black background). DPR was already the place for camera reviews, and I dreamed of a time when it would also be the primary destination for all things photographic, adding photographic art, commentary, education and analysis to our world-class reviews and product launch content. I got some of the way there in the next 8 years…

What are your hopes for the future of DPReview?

I hope DPReview goes from strength to strength and I expect to be still visiting daily after another 20 years! I’m also super excited to see some of the things I was working on before I left finally making their way onto the site, and to see where the new leadership takes DPR in the future.

What are you proudest of from your time at DPReview?

I’m incredibly proud of the work I did during the almost 14 years at DPReview, and there’s very little on the site today that I wasn’t directly involved with. Highlights for me include the side-by-side studio comparison feature, the (white background) site redesign and the painful but necessary forums revamp, which introduced scores of new features and fixed the crumbling infrastructure, significantly improving performance and reliability, and which almost none of our users liked.

I’m also very proud of the PIX2015 photography expo, which with hindsight was a stupidly ambitious project for a handful of people with no experience in live events to take on… But honestly the thing that makes me proudest is the amazing talented people I got to work with. Many became friends, and many went on to even bigger and better things after DPReview. But many stayed around, and it’s been a delight watching them grow into the best damned camera review team in the world.

What are you up to these days, post-DPReview?

I’m working for Lab126 (the Amazon subsidiary that designs and builds devices) in California. I still work on cameras, and I’m able to feed my curiosity and love of invention, working on products I can’t talk about that may, or may, not see the light of day in years to come. It’s challenging and demanding and very fast-paced, and I love it.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Gear of the year 2018 – Jeff’s choice: Nikon Coolpix P1000

26 Dec

The evolution of the super zoom camera that resulted in the Nikon Coolpix P1000 reminds me of the development of rollercoasters over the last twenty years. Every year, amusement parks would try to out-do the competition. Bigger drops. More inversions. Faster speeds. Sitting, standing, flying. At some point you just can’t go any further without putting riders in danger.

The Coolpix P1000 won’t put anyone in danger (I hope!), but it does symbolize the culmination of manufacturers trying to make their cameras harder, bigger, faster, stronger (with apologies to Daft Punk). I’ve been in the digital camera business since the beginning and recall when breaking the 10X zoom barrier was a big deal.

Out of camera JPEG | ISO 110 | 1/400 sec | F6.3 | 1700mm equiv.
Photo by Jeff Keller

After manufacturers seemed to pause at 50X zooms, Nikon went for broke with its Coolpix P900, which had an 83X lens that topped out at 2000mm equivalent. When Nikon first told us about the Coolpix P1000, with its 125X, 24-3000mm equiv. lens, I didn’t know how to respond. I do, however, recall thinking “wow… but why?”.

After getting my hands on a P1000, my initial feelings were unchanged: it’s cool, but why does one need so much zoom? The P1000’s lens is so prominent that the camera got attention everywhere it went, whether at a wildlife refuge, the zoo or a random tourist attraction in Vancouver, where a man walked up to me and asked, “is that a P1000?”. (Turns out he was a DPReview fan and knew his stuff.)

The people to whom I showed the camera weren’t asking about sensor size, viewfinder resolution or video. They wanted to see that lens could do. So, I’d have them point it toward an object in the distance or, in the case of the zoo, at a monkey that could barely be seen with the naked eye, to see for themselves. It’s a great party trick.

Out of camera JPEG | ISO 560 | 1/400 sec | F7.1 | 2600mm equiv.
Photo by Jeff Keller

I spent over a month shooting with the Coolpix P1000 while writing its review and grew to really enjoy using it for the same reason as those who asked me about it: the lens, and what it could do. During those weeks I took photos of zoo animals, birds, cruise ships and, of course, the moon. It felt a bit awkward crossing paths with other photographers at a nearby bird refuges who were each carrying two high-end DSLR bodies, with huge telephoto lens attached, while I was holding a ‘Coolpix’ that had a much longer focal range. What I’m getting at here is that the P1000 inspired me to take photos that I never would (or could).

While shooting around with the P1000 was a blast, I usually had to make a decision about whether I wanted to haul it around with me. The camera weighs over 1.4 kg (3 lbs), so if I didn’t think that I needed a lot of zoom (which was most of the time,) the P1000 stayed home. The P1000 also taught me that, despite owning what I thought was a good tripod, I needed something much more robust, since the camera is so front-heavy that my tripod head would slowly tilt downward. My first attempt at moon photos were essentially timed for the moment when the moon entered the frame as the tripod sagged.

Out of camera JPEG, cropped to taste | ISO 180 | 1/500 sec | F6.3 | 1800mm equiv.
Photo by Jeff Keller

One downside of a lens as long as the P1000’s is that atmospheric distortion is a problem. You could easily see ‘waves of haze’ in my long telephoto shots, but I reminded myself that even the most expensive telephoto lens would see the same. The camera’s noise reduction system exacerbates the problem, turning distant subjects into an impressionist painting. And, despite having Raw support, the P1000’s small sensor didn’t give me a lot of detail to work with.

Out-of-camera JPEG | ISO 100 | 1/500 sec | F5.6 | 1300mm equiv.
Photo by Jeff Keller

Ultimately, none of that mattered. I wasn’t shooting for National Geographic, I was shooting for me. And these days, that means social media rather than 11″ x 17″ prints on my wall. Would I take it on a trip to Southeast Asia or a night out on the town? Certainly not. But would I go somewhere in the Pacific Northwest to photograph things that I normally wouldn’t? You bet.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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DPReview 20th Anniversary: Founder Phil Askey on the first ten years

26 Dec

As DPReview enters its 20th year of publishing, we spoke to the site’s founder, Phil Askey – DPReview employee #1. In this interview, Phil remembers the first ten years of DPReview’s development from its original conception, through a period of massive growth, to the site’s acquisition by Amazon.

Pre-DPReview, what were you doing?

Before starting DPReview I was the lead developer for a software company based in Singapore, working on a web based business-to-business hospitality marketplace. The “world wide web” was still very new in 1998 but I had already established a sort of tech blog (before they were called that), mostly at that time discussing the Palm Pilot and similar electronic PDAs. The rough design for the PDA site ended up being the foundation for DPReview (including the love / hate black background).

How was the idea for DPReview born?

My passion for photography began with my first proper camera, a gift from my parents, an Olympus OM-10 with a 50mm F1.8. At the end of 1998 digital cameras were just starting to appear. I took an interest immediately, being a bit of a geek, loving my tech toys and being into photography.

I created a new sub-domain on my “blog” called photo.askey.net (props to anyone who can remember that) and began writing news articles about digital cameras, at that time quite a lot of my news leads came from Japanese digital camera sites like dcwatch. My first camera review covered the Canon Pro70 (at that time a groundbreaking product), supplied to me by the marketing department at Canon Singapore and the first proper DPReview review was born.

When you first started DPReview, what did the setup look like?

In the very early days, in our Singapore flat it was a very makeshift setup: a few fixed tables, tape marks on the floor, items arranged in a certain way, home printed charts, etc. Nobody was really trying to test digital cameras in a repeatable way, and that was my aim, to have tests we could apply over and over and get the same results (within a margin of error). When we returned to live in London in early 2000 we had a more permanent setup with a cove for product photography, permanently mounted professionally printed charts, studio lights and so on.

The DPReview homepage complete with its ‘love it or hate it’ black background, in November 1999 – just under a year after the site was launched.

From 1998 to 2008 all of the backend software (i.e., the site code), the testing, news, reviews, forums management was my job. My wife, Joanna, handled the growing load of actually running a business (paperwork, bills, invoicing) as well as being a fantastic photographer and model for the reviews. Many of the better gallery photographs from those days were taken by her. Simon Joinson joined us in mid-2004 contributing news and reviews (click here to check out Simon’s first review). At the beginning of 2008, after the Amazon acquisition, we established a larger office in London and grew the team out.

What was your ‘mission’ for DPReview?

Initially I had no particular expectations but as traffic grew I knew we must have been doing something right, and in hindsight I would pick out these four key values.

First, always be honest. Write a review truthfully as though you’re writing it for a family member. If a product has an issue, talk about it. Manufacturers may not like to hear it but it’s the right thing for the buyer and in the long term for the manufacturer. I also had a strict no-advertorial policy.

Second, try to be first, and most in-depth. Despite the massive amount of work involved in producing a review I always aimed to be the first to publish and to have the most detailed reviews. This became a little easier later as manufacturers provided us with pre-production units before launch.

Despite the massive amount of work involved in producing a review I always aimed to be the first to publish and to have the most detailed reviews

Third, always listen to your community – I spent hours and hours analyzing logs and trying to understand how people used the site. I scrapped many an idea when it didn’t work, and added lots of features based on user requests. We always had an open “feedback” system which I believe to be invaluable.

Finally, build a strong relationship with the manufacturers through mutual respect. This might seem slightly counterintuitive for an independent review site but as long as your testing is rigorous and your writing is honest you will earn respect on all sides.

What were the biggest challenges, running DPReview in the early days?

The single biggest issue back in those days was simply technical; scaling the servers to cope with the massive growth in visitors. A good 30% of my time was developing, optimizing and maintaining the site code and the servers. There weren’t many “small businesses” running servers out of hosting facilities dealing with the amount of traffic we had, and cloud services had yet to be invented.

Also as a small business there is also a lot of pressure to keep the site up. My phone would always be with me and there were many instances of early morning panic getting the servers back up and running.

Phil (left) and his son Kai.

Has anything surprised you about how the digital photography industry has evolved over DPR’s lifespan?

I was pleasantly surprised by how receptive the camera manufacturers were / are to our often critical feedback, this I believe has had a direct influence on the development of certain models. I can think of a few cameras that I can say “it’s that way because we pointed out X, Y and Z on the previous version” or “that’s the camera we always talked about”.

I remember one factory tour trip in particular to Tokyo where we labelled “VIP” which took me by surprise

When did you realize that DPReview had the potential to be very influential?

When we moved back to London in early 2000 and begun working full time on the site, we had already surpassed any other digital camera site in terms of visitor numbers and were being taken seriously by the manufacturers, I remember one factory tour trip in particular to Tokyo where we labelled “VIP” which took me by surprise as we were sharing the trip with many industry veterans. It was I think at that time I realized we had earned enough respect to be taken seriously.

What were those first years of growth like?

Crazy is probably the correct adjective. We went from around 40,000 visitors per month in January 1999 to 600,000 by January 2000, to over 3 million per month by January 2002. By January 2006 we were seeing almost 20 million visitors per month. All this though simply drove us to keep doing more and building the site out.

How did Amazon approach you and how did the acquisition affect DPReview?

Amazon simply emailed me and a long, long conversation began, it wasn’t the first M&A approach we’d had but it was the most attractive, in terms of Amazon’s track record of helping sites at that tipping point (and we were definitely there) to grow without spoiling them. Amazon was by far the best fit for DPReview and we knew their assurances about editorial neutrality and supportive site development were invaluable to growing the site.

After the acquisition we opened an office in London and grew out the staff, creating a whole new studio space and introducing a host of new site and review features.

Announcement of Amazon acquisition (May 2007)

What are you most proud of from those early years?

This question took me the longest to answer, I guess I’m proud that we built up such a loyal and strong community, I put a lot of effort into the forums and I still believe it’s the backbone of the site (remember, back then discussion “boards” were far less feature-rich). I guess today I’m still very proud that we made the right choices at the right time and that Amazon are giving the site everything it needs to continue to be the leading voice for everything photography related.

What are you up to these days, post-DPReview?

These days I’m likely to be found at the side of a race track somewhere in Europe (mostly Italy) supporting my son’s racing career.

Keep an eye on the site tomorrow, when Simon Joinson, DPReview’s general manager during the period when the team moved from London, UK, to Seattle, USA, will share his memories.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Darktable 2.6.0 update brings new retouch, color balance modules and much more

25 Dec

Darktable, an open source Lightroom alternative, has released a major update with a number of new modules, features and updates.

Darktable version 2.6.0 is the result of more than 6 months of work, consisting of more than 1600 commits, 260 pull requests and 250 issues that have been resolved. The resulting updates include a new retouch module, a filmic module, a redesign of the color balance module and more.

The updated retouch module is essentially an updated version of the spot removal tool that includes a whole new collection of tools to get unwanted artifacts out of images. Cloning has been drastically improved and a built-in split frequency module makes it easy to remove blemishes without losing texture.

A subsection of the retouch module new to darktable 2.6.0

The new filmic module in darktable ‘was designed to reproduce the good properties of analog film, while giving you the easy controls of digital photography,’ according to the darktable 2.6.0 announcement post. The filmic module is effectively a spin-off of the curves tool with more adjustments to precisely dial in the exposure. Blacks, whites, contrast, local contrast and more can all be adjusted within the new filmic module.

A subsection of the new filmic module in darktable 2.6.0

Also added in darktable version 2.6.0 is a new duplicate manager. This new tool makes it easy to create multiple versions of Raw files and keep them in a stack for simple organization. Other features include new zoom options, mask previews and an updated color picker tool.

For a full rundown of all the new features, modules and tools, head over to darktable’s announcement post. It’s a long read, but full of the wonderfully geeky insights we’ve come to expect from the darktable team.

Darktable is available to download for free for a macOS, Windows, and a number of Linux distros. Find out more information on how to download darktable here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Sigma releases X3F Raw conversion plugin for Photoshop

25 Dec

Sigma has released ‘Sigma X3F Plug-in for Photoshop’, a Raw conversion plugin for processing files from its Foveon Merrill and Quattro cameras.

The plugin allows users of the DP Merrill and dp Quattro large sensor compacts, along with Quattro mirrorless camera shooters to bring X3F files into Photoshop without having to use Sigma Photo Pro. The SD1 and SD1 Merrill cameras are also supported.

Both Mac and PC versions of the plugin are available.

As the name suggests, Sigma X3F Plug-in for Photoshop only supports X3F files: X3I files generated by the multi-shot ‘Super-fine detail’ mode will still need to be process with Sigma Photo Pro.

Users of older Foveon camera are advised to use Adobe Camera Raw or SPP.

On Twitter, CEO Kazuto Yamaki described the software as ‘a small Christmas present to our camera users’, adding ‘Ho, ho, ho!’

The download page can be found here

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Gear of the Year 2018 – Dan’s choice: Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 Di III RXD

24 Dec

My past Gear of the Year choices – the Nikon D750, DJI Mavic Pro and Sony a9 – were based on the strong emotional connection I made with each, as a photographer and videographer during the given year. This year I’ve picked the Tamron 28-75mm F2.8, a lens I’ve recommended more than any other in 2018 and one Sony desperately needed for its system.

It’s the first third-party zoom for Sony E-mount to offer autofocus and it plays nice with all AF modes; even Eye-AF. It’s also the piece of gear in the DPReview cupboard I’m most excited to get out and shoot with once Seattle’s weather turns.

The Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 is a lens I’ve recommended more than any other in 2018

Last year’s pick, the a9, was an admission that I’ve finally come around to enjoying Sony’s cameras. But for me as a reviewer, a camera brand is only as good as its best budget lens options. In my opinion, Sony (in common with quite a few other brands) has done a poor job ensuring budding photographers on a tight budget have access to affordable, fast zooms.

ISO 200 | 1/60 sec | F8 | 28mm
Photo by Carey Rose

At $ 800, the 28-75mm F2.8 isn’t exactly cheap, but it does offer a-single-lens-solution to new E-mount customers and is a great companion to the a7 III – for about $ 2800 total, you’ve got a killer combo. It also makes Sony’s own 24-70mm F4, which costs about the same, seem irrelevant.

But the price is not the only thing Tamron got right: it nailed the size and weight, too. Sony’s F2.8 zooms tend to be large and heavy: the $ 2200 24-70mm F2.8, for instance, weighs 886g, compared to 550g in the Tamron. Size-wise, the Tamron is also much smaller, about the same size as a can of soda pop (until you zoom, that is).

It offers good center sharpness throughout its zoom range and for most photographers, that’s what counts

And just because it’s priced a lot lower than comparable native glass doesn’t mean it’s built with a ‘budget’ mindset. Sure, the body is made of polycarbonate, but it feels and handles like a high-quality piece of gear. It also well-suited to take on the elements: a fluorine coating on the front repels grime and a moisture-resistant construction, including gaskets around the barrel and at the mount, keeps water out.

It can also handle both stills and video capture as well as Sony’s modern full-frame cameras. A ‘Rapid eXtra-silent stepping Drive’ – the RXD at the end of its name – is virtually silent, ensuring accurate focus with no unwanted focus motor sounds in your videos.

It’s the most sensible zoom currently available for E-mount

Now some will argue Sony’s heavier, pricier lenses offer sharper results, nicer bokeh, etc., and honestly, this might be true. But who cares? The Tamron offers good central sharpness throughout its zoom range and for most photographers, that’s what counts. Those who want to spend 3x the cash on Sony’s version can go right ahead, while the rest of us use the Tamron.

ISO 1250 | 1/160 sec | F2.8 | 35mm
Photo by Carey Rose

The Tamron 28-75mm F2.8 my choice for 2018 Gear of the Year because it is a wonderful solution to a problem Sony has long had: the lack of a fast, affordable zoom full-frame zoom. For years, Tamron has concentrated on producing lenses that fill gaps in the market and this might be its most successful to date – there’s a reason it was back-ordered months after its launch.

Ultimately, it’s a lens for the many, not the few and in this writer’s opinion, the most sensible zoom currently available for E-mount.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Thieves steal more than $50,000 in equipment from camera store in less than a minute

24 Dec

This past week, Hunt’s Photo and Video, a small camera store located in Manchester, New Hampshire, had thousands of dollars worth of camera gear stolen from its stands and cases overnight.

Detailed in a video produced by NBC10 Boston, CCTV footage shows four thieves breaking through the front of the store with the help of an axe. Once the entrance is cleared, the thieves run inside with four containers and smash the display cases to access the gear. The thieves subsequently fill each container with thousands of dollars in camera equipment and slide them across the floor as they make their way towards the exit.

In less than a minute, the smash and grab netted the thieves more than $ 50,000 in equipment, according to Mike Mitchell, VP of Hunt’s Photo and Video. The high quality CCTV footage captured a partial identification on one of the thieves when their mask was lifted, but hasn’t led to any definitive identifications as of the publication of this video.

Four months prior to this break-in, Hunt’s experienced a nearly identical break-in wherein the thieves made off with another $ 50,000 in gear. Local authorities are working alongside Hunt’s Photo and Video to identify and capture the suspects and believe the two break-ins are related to each other.

DPReview has contacted Hunt’s for more information on what was stolen and what the serial numbers are. This article will be updated accordingly if Hunt’s responds with the information.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Video: Zeiss shows hands-on footage of its ZX1 camera with Lightroom integration

24 Dec

In September 2018, Zeiss announced the ZX1, a fixed-lens, full-frame camera that has onboard Adobe Lightroom CC integration. Yesterday, Zeiss shared a two minute video that gives the world its first hands-on look at the ZX1 and its onboard editing abilities.

Throughout the video, portrait photographer and photojournalist Sabrina Weniger walks around the streets of Little Tokyo in Düsseldorf narrating her experience with the ZX1 and the features she most enjoys about it. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t hit on the negatives.

In addition to her overall positive thoughts on the camera, Zeiss shares a glimpse of the camera itself, including the 35mm F2 lens and the massive 4.3-inch touchscreen display that’s used to compose, view and edit photos using the onboard Lightroom. The video also details the onboard version of Lightroom CC in action, as she edits a portrait captured inside a small shop right on the rear display of the camera.

Nothing new is necessarily learned from the video, but it’s the first time Zeiss has shown off the camera in action before its yet-to-be-determined launch date said to be in the first part of 2019.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Gear of the Year 2018 – Barney’s choice: Nikon Z7

24 Dec

This year seems like it went by in a flash (although thinking back to some of the news headlines I’m still tempted to say ‘good riddance’). In the photo industry, 2018 has definitely felt like a year of transitions: not least because this was the year that Canon and Nikon finally entered the full-frame mirrorless market, and in so doing began the slow process of moving beyond their respective legacy EF and F mounts.

Appropriately, perhaps, I sold a lot of camera equipment this year too, including my long-serving/suffering DSLR and several lenses. It’s always hard to say goodbye to gear, but there’s no point keeping expensive cameras and lenses around if they’re not getting used. The end result is that without a ‘main’ camera to reach for I’ve been feeling a little transitional myself. Of course I’m lucky that I can raid the DPReview gear cupboards when I need to, but more often than not I’ve been grabbing one of my old film cameras when I want to go out shooting. Sometimes I’ll even remember to grab a roll of film, too.

But enough about me – let’s talk about me!

My pick for Gear of the Year is the Nikon Z7, which is actually one of the few digital cameras released in the past 12 months that I’ve enjoyed spending any significant amount of time shooting with. That doesn’t mean I’m writing about it by default, just because I can’t think of anything else – far from it. For the kind of photography that I do, it’s close to being the perfect camera.

When the light gets low, the Z7’s autofocus system can start to struggle. Usually, though, if you can point it at a contrasty line or point of light (like the frames of the windows reflecting the sunset in this shot) it’ll lock on just fine.

My preferred style of photography (“interesting boring” to quote a friend whose opinion I don’t remember asking) rarely stresses any camera’s continuous autofocus system. I actually shoot manual focus lenses much of the time, and I almost never need to fire off images faster than 1-2 frames per second. As such, two of the major shortcomings of the Z7 are pretty much irrelevant to me. I’d love a taller handgrip, but I’ll take the Z7’s rather short, stubby one for the sake of a smaller and lighter body. Ditto a single card slot.

Speaking as someone who lugged a D850 (my favorite camera of last year) up and down four mountains in a day in 90+ degree heat in Japan this August,* I can tell you that the Z7 is a very pleasant traveling companion by comparison. And shooting the production of a music video back in August, coming from a D810/D850 I was very impressed by how easy the Z7 was to get to grips with, too, even without an instruction manual (the camera was still strictly embargoed at the time and the manuals were still being translated).

It’s only been very recently that electronic finders have started to compete with the best DSLRs in terms of sharpness and responsiveness

Jumping back to earlier in the summer, when Nikon first briefed us on its then-unnamed camera, it was clear that the company’s engineers had set some pretty tough internal benchmarks for what became the Z7. One of those was image quality, and another was the viewfinder experience – both of which had to be comparable to the D850. I’ve never been particularly nostalgic about the optical viewfinders in DSLRs – the sooner they’re replaced by good EVFs the better in my opinion. But note my use of the crucial word ‘good’ in that last sentence. It’s only been very recently that electronic finders have started to compete with the best DSLRs. The Z7’s EVF is one of the sharpest and most detailed out there. So sharp and detailed, in fact, that I often find myself forgetting that its electronic at all, except in really high-contrast situations.

Ruby Beach, on the Olympic Peninsular, a few hours’ drive west from Seattle. Shot with the compact Z 24-70mm F4, this shot demonstrates the lens’s high contrast and almost clinical sharpness.

Where I tend to run into the Z7’s limitations, though, is with low-contrast subjects in subdued light when, even in AF-S mode, its autofocus system becomes… let’s say… unpredictable. If you’ve ever used first-generation Nikon AF systems such as those found in the likes of the F/N90X and F4, you’ll be familiar with the need to find a bright point of light or a contrasty line or something around the desired plane of focus for the AF system to lock onto. If you can’t find one, good luck and happy hunting. Literally.

Fortunately, the Z7’s EVF remains sharp and contrasty even in poor light, so if autofocus gives up completely I just pop it into magnified manual focus mode and do things the old fashioned way. The effort is usually worth it, especially with the 35mm F1.8, which – while it might not have the nicest bokeh around – is sharp enough for landscape work at F1.8.

Another shot taken with the 24-70mm, in Japan. At F13 (for the sunstar) diffraction is taking a bite out of critical sharpness.

In fact, Nikon appears to have designed all three of the new ‘S’ lenses for optimal sharpness, with admirable success. The result is images which are phenomenally detailed across the frame, but lack the pleasant bokeh of certain Nikon and third-party F-mount lenses. Of course, if you have a favorite F-mount lens that you want to use instead, there’s an adapter for that.

Thanks to the built-in stabilization and wide, shallow dimensions of the Z mount, the Z7 has a lot of potential as a 46MP digital back

What I’m most looking forward to, though, is trying out the Z7 with my collection of older third-party primes. High quality adapters from the likes of Novoflex are slowly starting to become available, and thanks to the built-in stabilization and wide, shallow dimensions of the Z mount, the Z7 has a lot of potential as a 46MP digital back. I have a Leica M to Nikon Z adapter on order, and I can’t wait to try out: there’s an uncoated 1936 Leica 50mm Summar on my shelf just crying out for some love…

The Z7 pictured next to one of my personal cameras, a much-used mid-60s F. As you can see, the new Z mount is significantly larger than the old F mount, despite covering the same imaging area. This gives Nikon’s optical engineers a lot more flexibility when designing certain kinds of lenses for the new mount.

Nikon could have played it safe with the Z7, but its engineers decided to aim for high-end and professional photographers and launch the Z7 with their best sensor. It was a risky decision, and I can completely understand why some of the photojournalists I’ve spoken to haven’t taken to the Z7. Without a doubt, its autofocus isn’t on a par with the D850 or D5, particularly in dull, low-contrast conditions. Speaking to wildfire photographer Stuart Palley recently, it’s obvious that Nikon has some work to do before he’ll feel comfortable leaving his DSLRs at home. But while the Z7 isn’t quite the ‘mirrorless D850’ that we had hoped for, it’s close enough for me. I think I might buy Stuart’s.

Nikon Z7 Sample Gallery

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* Impressed? I think I was trying to prove a point about how much of a pain DSLR photography is, with the intention eventually of writing an article about it. I suppose this is that article. [Return to text]

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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DPReview TV: Best and worst of 2018

23 Dec

For weeks, we’ve been getting hammered with the question “Will Chris and Jordan continue their tradition of doing a Best and Worst year-end episode?”

Oh yes, dear readers, they will. And here it is. Pour yourself a cocktail and enjoy. And if you must, get ready to throw some rotten tomatoes at the screen if you don’t like their selections, and tell us why you disagree in the comments. They won’t take it personally – we promise.*

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Introduction
Best Lens
Best Video
Best Camera
Worst Video
Worst Lens
Worst Camera
Wrap-up
Bonus Content

*They will probably take it personally, but go ahead and leave your comments anyway.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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