Photography News issue 26

Photography News Issue 26 absolutephoto.com

News

A fast light affair Elinchrom has launched the Quadra HS flash head, a compact flash head compatible with the ELB 400 and all previous generations of Quadra battery packs. The HS in its name tells you it’s optimised for high-speed sync photography and ideal for use with the new EL-Skyport Plus HS transmitter. With this pairing, shooting flash in bright sun is easy with plenty of power. Integrated in the head is a daylight-balanced LED modelling lamp producing the equivalent of 50W tungsten light output. Buy the new head alone or with the ELB 400. The ELB 400 One Head HS To Go Set Li-ion costs £1279 and the Quadra HS Upgrade kit for Canon or Nikon costs £499 – including the head and the Skyport Plus HS transmitter. Elinchrom’s latest transmitter, the EL-Skyport Plus HS – for Canon and Nikon – costs £199 and it’s the most advanced Skyport ever. You can takewireless control of all lights’ power settings directly from this Skyport transmitter, and the Elinchrom’s Hi-Sync technology means you can go beyond your camera’s usual flash sync speed and work at speeds up to 1/8000sec in high-sync mode. It has 20 frequency channels for Normal or Speed mode usage, and you can see each light’s individual settings on the large LCD, which glows green if you’re using Normal sync mode and red for Speed sync so you always know where you’re at.

elinchrom.com

Fresh Fujifilmglass

A new prime lens is what Fujifilm has in store for you this month in the form of the Fujinon XF35mm f/2 R WR lens. The XF35mm is equivalent to 53mm in 35mm format so it is the perfect standard focal length giving you an angle of view that is similar to that of the human eye. Including two aspherical elements, the 35mm is constructed out of nine elements organised in six groups and features the smallest diameter in the XF line- up as well as a stand-out autofocus time of just 0.8sec. It’s dust-resistant and canwork in temperatures as low as -10°C. Look out for it as of mid- November when you can expect to pick up one for around £299.

Next up from Fujifilm is the XF1.4X TC WR teleconverter. With a seven element in three group construction, this converter is designed to minimise any quality loss fromthe original lens, a common problem with teleconverters. At this time, the only compatible lens is the XF50-140mm f/2.8 which becomes a 70-196mm f/4 with the converter attached – this is 107-299mm in the 35mm format. It costs £329. Firmware updates for Fujifilm X‑series cameras to give full compatibility to the above products are also available to download from the website.

Shorter focal length, wide-angle Zeiss has added to its Otus family of top-end manual focus lenses with the 28mm f/1.4 for Canon and Nikon SLRs. This is one for the landscapers, as even with a maximum aperture the corners of the image are completely usable, leaving no limits to composition. Like the other lenses in the Zeiss Otus range, this one is no exception when it comes to design, featuring internal focusing, a dial window and the well-known yellow-labelling of the dials for easy legibility. It’s constructed in 16 elements in 13 groups with one of the elements having an aspheric optical surface and another being aspheric on both sides. A price has yet to be released but we do know it’ll be out in shops in spring 2016.

fujifilm.eu/uk/

Canonmakes a good impression

There’s a new printer on the market from Canon, the imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 which promises to keep stride with the pro photographers of the world. Its advanced 12-ink pigment-based system features a new series of Lucia PRO inks that includes a photo black, matt black, grey and photo grey to get your monochromes up to scratch with increased black density and uniform glossiness. A L-COA image processing system makes sure that all those inks are delivered to paper in perfect balance and precisely to give your photos the professional finish they’re deserving of. With cameras always packing more megapixels in, this printer keeps up with the best of them accepting 1200ppi high- res image data. It’s a large-format printer that delivers prints up to A2 in size, and being wireless, you can send images to print straight from places like Google Drive and Dropbox. You’ll be able to take one home as of early 2016 and it’ll be the first in a new series from Canon of professional- grade printers.

canon.co.uk

zeiss.com