Buyers’ guide
Profoto B10 › £1545 › profoto.com
Sigma fp L › £1999 › sigma-imaging-uk.com
Despite being rightly lauded for its excellent lens range, this year Sigma launched perhaps its most compelling camera body yet – and it comes at a great price. The Sigma fp L has masses of appeal – not least that it’s currently the world’s smallest and lightest full-frame camera. It also uses a 61-megapixel, back-illuminated Bayer CMOS sensor, which boasts incredible detail and colour. All of this should make it highly attractive to landscape and travel photographers. There’s also fast hybrid contrast and phase detect AF. Enjoy the ever-growing range of L-Mount lenses to use on it, including Sigma’s own – but also those from L-Mount Alliance partners Panasonic and Leica.
experienced photographers – and that extends to its effortless trigger via Profoto’s AirTTL remotes.
If you’re looking for a flash with the optimum combination of quality and portability, it’s hard to see beyond Profoto’s B10. It’s light, incredibly easy to use and powerful, with a maximum output of 250Ws. This adds up to around five times that of an average speedlight, and lets you shoot with more versatility in exposure and flash placement. There’s subtlety,
RødeWireless Go II › £234 › rode.com
Tamron 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di III-AVCVXD › £679 › tamron.co.uk too. Its energy can be delivered across 10EV power range, and being compatible with over 120 Profoto modifiers – including the full OCF range – there’s no end of ways to shape the light. A simple and clear interface means it can be used by beginners, as well as
If you want to create high-quality video with your camera, external mics are vital, especially if there’s to be any spoken word in the footage. But with something as simple and affordable as the Røde Wireless Go II, you can elevate any project. This kit includes two lightweight, wireless mic transmitters and a receiver to mount on your camera or external recorder. These second-generation versions also record internally as a fail-safe and have an extended range of up to 200m. They come pre-synced, so are easy to set up and they run off lithium batteries with up to seven hours of life.
In the age of mirrorless cameras, superzooms are really coming into their own. Tamron’s new 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di III-A VC VXD is a great example. Available for Fujifilm X and Sony E-mount cameras, it gives an equivalent full-frame view of 27-450mm, and its 16.6x zoom allows bags of framing opportunities. It features Tamron’s Vibration Compensation technology to fight camera shake, which is especially important at the long end, and there’s a very respectable 15cm minimum focusing distance for close-up work, too. It’s light, weighing 620g.
MindShift Gear BackLight Elite 45L › £439 › snapperstuff.com
an internal aluminium frame, and it uses tried-and-tested hiking features, like lumbar padding with foam ridges for increased ventilation. There’s also a thick, adjustable waist belt, a storm-proof and tear-resistant exterior, YKK AquaGuard zips, external webbing and pockets to hold additional gear.
The BackLight Elite 45L blends a camera backpack with a traditional hiking rucksack, to create a brilliant solution for all landscape photographers. There’s 45 litres of internal space, meaning room for large camera bodies and lenses, along with outdoor gear and a 17in laptop. Its lightness and strength comes from
NovoVersa leather camera straps › from £34.90 › novo-photo.com
Permajet Photo Lustre 310A3 › £28.95 for 25 sheets › permajet.com
blue, olive green and tan colours. Stitching is matched to the leather’s tone. The straps are soft and smooth with a non-abrasive reverse finish, so they won’t mark whatever they’re attached to. They fit any camera and come with dual fixings for increased safety.
Novo’s Versa straps make a great addition to any camera – or Christmas stocking. They’re beautifully designed, strong and well crafted, with a subtle retro styling. Both wrist and neck straps are available, made from premium leather, and come in black, grey,
It’s durable, too, with a tough and relatively scratch-resistant surface, and has a UV-protected, microporous supercoat – guaranteeing a high degree of water and fade resistance. It's 100% compatible with pigment or dye-based inks, available in sizes from 6x4in to A2, and in roll media, too.
The winter season is a great time to hole up and print some of your best work from the year, so why not invest in great paper to do it? Permajet’s Photo Lustre 310 is a bright, white paper, with a luxurious, subtle sheen and a heavyweight 310gsm feel. All of this adds up to a high-quality and nostalgic photographic feel. Sennheiser MKE 400 › £179 › en-uk.sennheiser.com If you’re expanding into video, a shotgun mic is a must. Used on camera or a boom, it picks up sound in whatever direction it points, so you cut out a lot of ambient noise and keep attention on the subject. Sennheiser’s MKE 400 is a compact, well-built and affordable model, delivering clear, crisp and high-quality audio. To
accomplish that, it has built-in wind protection, internal suspension to offset handling noise and an integrated low-cut filter. Light and small, it uses a common 3.5mm jack and mounts neatly in the camera’s hot-shoe, or an external cage.
Issue 94 | Photography News 39
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