Category: Uncategorized

Rare Leica KE-7A military rangefinder camera for sale on eBay

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eBay seller M&K Kamera has something for the vintage Leica lovers out there – a rare KE-7A with Leitz Elcan 50mm F2 lens, all in working condition. The KE-7A is a military version of the M4 that was produced in limited numbers in the 1970s.

The seller, asking $ 24,898.85 for the camera and its lens, says that both are in excellent condition and that the shutter is still in working order. Given the camera’s heritage and who it was made for, we’d expect it to keep on clicking for a long time to come. You can check out the listing on eBay if you’ve got $ 25 grand burning a hole in your pocket.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

December 22, 2017
Imatag protects your images with invisible watermarks

With advanced technologies such as Google’s AI capable of removing watermarks from images, and intelligent upscaling technologies like EnhanceNet, including visible watermarks on your images and uploading them at low resolution are no longer necessarily sufficient safeguards against your valuable images being stolen.

Invisible watermarking could be an efficient answer to these high-tech pirating methods. Imatag is a new service that adds an invisible and indelible watermark to your images, all without any degrading effect on image quality. This allows agencies and photographers to track their work and prove ownership when images are found to be illegally used on the web or in print.

On the Imatag website an online demo allows you to upload your own image, inspect the visual quality of the watermarked image and assess the robustness of the watermark. You can crop, scale and compress the original image to see see at what point the Imatag algorithm loses its ability to detect the watermark.

Another way of testing the system is by registering for a free account which allows you to upload 1GB worth of images. Uploaded images will be watermarked and hosted on the website but not be publicly available unless you make them visible. You can then download a watermarked image, edit it in your preferred image editing software and re-upload the modified image to check if the watermark can still be detected.

During a brief test with a couple of images we found that the modifications required to make the watermark undetectable were so strong that they would severely limit the usability of the resulting image. If you think Imatag could be a useful tool for your photography business but 1GB of storage is not sufficient for your purposes, 10 Euros per months subscription fee buy you 100GB. Special packages for agencies are available as well. More information is available on the Imatag website.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

December 22, 2017
Idaho gets the first International Dark-Sky Reserve in the United States

The United States has established its very first International Dark-Sky Reserve—one of 12 found around the globe, and now third largest in the world. The designation was granted to the Central Idaho Dark-Sky Reserve by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), which says the region offers 3600km² / 1400mi² of “exceptional or distinguished quality of night sky, view of the stars and nocturnal environment.”

The Central Idaho Dark-Sky Reserve IDA designation is a milestone for American conservation, not only protecting wildlife in the region from the negative effects of artificial light, but also giving visitors from around the world another place to view the pure night sky.

The US reserve and its international designation is the by-product of about 20 years of policy and hard work by Idaho residents, businesses, and officials, according to the IDA. The collective worked to reduce artificial light in central Idaho and agreed to manage artificial light in the region henceforth.

The boundaries of the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve. Image from Idaho’s IDA application.

To get the special designation, Central Idaho land managers formed partnerships with IDA, committing to help preserve the quality of the pure, unadulterated nighttime environment. Ketchum, Idaho Mayor Nina Jonas talked about that, saying in a statement to the IDA:

This is the culmination of a lot of work, important policy decisions and commitment by so many to manage our light pollution. We’re pleased what this says about the commitment our communities have shown to protecting our environment and spectacular window to the universe.

Central Idaho didn’t only win an International Dark-Sky Reserve designation, though. IDA says it has granted this reserve its Gold Tier rating, meaning that the reserve offers one of the darkest night skies among all Dark-Sky Reserves. Information on the Central Idaho Dark-Sky Reserve, including a clear sky chart and map, are available here.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

December 21, 2017

2017 in review: a look back at February

Nikon announced the demise of its DL compacts on the eve of Valentine’s Day, because love is pain.

We learned a lot of fun facts in February: people don’t really like looking at selfies, it’s possible to make a camera out of drinking straws, and Google’s AI-powered image detail enhancement technology is getting creepy good.

February is also when we tend to see winners revealed from year-end photo competitions. True to form, we were not disappointed by the top images in SkyPixel’s aerial photo competition and the 2017 Underwater Photographer of the year. But one photo will probably be remembered before all others – the photo of a slain Russian ambassador was announced as the winner of the 60th World Press Photo award.

Their impressive spec sheets got our hearts all a-flutter, but thanks to unexpectedly high production costs, they were never to be

In gear news, Nikon fans woke up to the equivalent of a break-up text the day before Valentine’s Day – the company was ditching its previously-announced-but-never-realized DL compact cameras. The DLs were meant to be a series of enticing-looking 1″ sensor compacts. Their impressive spec sheets got our hearts all a-flutter, but thanks to unexpectedly high production costs, they were never to be.

It wasn’t all bad news though – CP+ would cheer us all up later in the month with announcements of lovely new lenses like the Sigma 14mm F1.8 Art. It was also the first opportunity for us to do some shooting with the Fujifilm GFX 50S, which was announced at Photokina in late 2016.

See all February content

2016 Challenge of Challenges winners announced

In February, we announced the winner of our annual Challenge of Challenges competition. DPR member cand1d’s image of a glowing sunset in Bagan, Myanmar took top honors in the 2016 Challenge of Challenges competition. The photo is one of almost 1000 challenge-winning entries from the year, which we whittled down to a more manageable shortlist of 25 before DPReview readers voted on a final winner.

See the 2016 Challenge of Challenges Winners

Sigma 14mm F1.8 DG HSM Art samples

The Sigma 14mm F1.8 DG HSM Art made its debut at CP+, and it got the low light shooters on our staff all excited. We jumped all over the chance to take a pre-production version of the lens out for a spin in Yokohama during the show, and later updated our gallery with many more samples from a production-ready unit.

See our Sigma 14mm F1.8 sample gallery

Things we found at CP+ 2017 which had been cut in half

It’s not a photo tradeshow until you’ve seen a lot of things cut in half, and CP+ 2017 was no exception. Take a look at what’s going on inside of some very nice gear.

See all of the things we found at CP+ which had been cut in half

CP+ 2017: Full show coverage

DPReview was at the CP+ show in February, over in Yokohama Japan. As usual, it was a great show for new gear, weird sights, and plenty of hot vending machine coffee.

Read our full CP+ coverage

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

December 21, 2017

Rokinon AF 35mm F1.4 FE: sample gallery and impressions

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The Rokinon/Samyang AF 35mm F1.4 FE ($ 800) is a lens that delivers a lot of speed at budget price, and is significantly less expensive than Sony’s similar lens, the Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA, which retails for $ 1499. At that budget price, the Rokinon comes with a few compromises – but not as many as you might think.

Side-by-side, the Rokinon and Sony lenses are almost exactly the same size, and of similar cosmetic design. Whether or not this is intentional, it makes the lens feel somewhat Sony-esque. It has a 67mm filter ring, compared to 72mm on the Sony, and is just slightly heavier (645g vs. 630g). Subjectively speaking, it feels very solid in your hand.

Optical performance exceeded my expectations for a lens at this price point. It’s surprisingly sharp wide open, though stopping it down does sharpen things up. The lens does exhibit longitudinal chromatic aberration (magenta and green fringing in front of and behind the focus plane, respectively), but even when looking at 42MP images from the a7R III you might need to look pretty close to see it. However, it can be distracting around high contrast edges, such as the specular highlights in the lower left corner of this shot at the beach. Lateral chromatic aberration is generally well controlled.

Optical performance exceeded my expectations for a lens at this price point

The lens has some issues with bokeh as well. You can see examples of onion ring patterns in the out of focus Christmas lights at the Pike Place Market. However, this was more the exception than the rule across the photos I took. Interestingly, neither of these aberrations are as bad as what we saw with the Rokinon 50mm F1.4.

Autofocus is neither as quick nor as decisive as on the native Sony lens (which is very fast, thanks to Direct Drive SSM). If you’re used to quick focusing lenses, the Rokinon can feel slow, though I didn’t find it sluggish enough that I would consider it unusable, and most of the time it slides into focus without much trouble. It performs better in this respect than Rokinon’s AF 50mm F1.4 lens, which hunts noticeably.

Although the Rokinon AF 35mm F1.4 FE isn’t a particularly fast focusing lens, it does focus in low light, allowing you to shoot reliably in dim settings.
35mm | ISO 800 | F2.8 | 1/250 sec.
Photo by Dale Baskin

Autofocus works reasonably well in video, but the autofocus motor is audible during operation. The good news is that it makes a lot less noise than its 50mm F1.4 sibling, which can be heard several feet away. It’s unlikely to be noticed by anyone other than the photographer except in very quiet settings, but it’s certainly loud enough to be picked up by on-camera microphones if you’re recording video. The lens also supports Sony’s Eye AF, and it generally worked reliably for me.

For the price, it delivers a lot of bang for your buck and could be a viable alternative if you’re on a budget

If you’re looking for a fast 35mm F1.4 lens to use with an E-mount camera, the Rokinon is definitely worth considering. Optical performance is good (in some cases, as good as the Sony), though it’s still not in the same league as the Canon 35mm F1.4L II USM, which can be used on E-mount with an adapter. For the price, however, it delivers a lot of bang for your buck and could be a viable alternative if you’re on a budget.

See our Rokinon AF 35mm F1.4 FE gallery