AGENDA
NEWS
Sony goes super long! Sports and wildlife filmmakers who want longer lenses for their E-mount cameras have had their prayers answered by Sony, which has revealed a pair of telephotos at fluorite elements to minimise chromatic aberration and suppress colour bleeding. It has built-in image stabilisation and is compatible with Sony’s 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters, extending the reach to a maximum of 1200mm at f/13.
The lens features an 11-blade circular aperture for smooth bokeh in images, and is coated with Sony’s original Nano AR coating to suppress reflections, glare and ghosting. Magnesium alloy is used throughout to minimise weight, and the hood is carbon fibre. The lens is dust and moisture resistant, and its front element is coated with fluorine to resist dirt. It has customisable focus-hold buttons in four different locations on the lens barrel, and a ‘Full-Time DMF’ switch to immediately engage manual focus at any point. The focus ring features Linear Response MF for responsive manual focus. The lens has built-in optical stabilisation and a drop-in filter slot that accepts 40.5mm filters as well as an optional drop-in circular polariser. The new FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS super-telephoto zoommight not have the fast maximum aperture of its big brother but is a fraction of the cost and size. It weighs in at 2115g/4.7lb.
The weather-resistant lens has five ED glass elements and an aspherical element. Both lenses are on sale now. Sony has also revealed the new A7R IV, aimed largely at stills shooters as it has a full-frame 61-megapixel BSI sensor. An evolution of the current A7R III, it has a redesigned body and shoots in 4K with 6K oversampling, plus HDR, and offers a 14- stop dynamic range for video. It offers S-Log 2/3 and Hybrid Log Gamma but will only record in 8-bit 4:2:0 internally or externally via HDMI. It has an HDMI Type-A connector, a new dedicated movie function menu and an overhauled new digital audio interface. It will cost around £3500/$3500 and is on sale in August. sony.co.uk
very different ends of the price range. The FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS zoomwill ship in August 2019 priced at £1799/$1998 while the super-exotic but much faster FE 600mm f/4 GM OSS will cost a staggering £12,000/$13,000. The fast f/4 beast is Sony’s longest reaching prime lens, and despite its size is the lightest lens of its type, weighing in at only 3040g/6.7lb. It joins the FE 400mm f/2.8 GM OSS lens as an ideal tool for sports, wildlife and news shooters. The new 600mm lens features two XD linear motors to provide fast AF and reliable subject tracking. As it’s part of Sony’s flagship G Master series, it is designed for outstanding contrast and resolution even in the corners of the image. The optical design includes a large XA (extreme aspherical) and an ED (extra-low dispersion) element to suppress common telephoto lens aberrations, plus three
MID-PRICE OPTIC PLUGS 35MM GAP Sony has revealed a fast mediumwide-angle lens for its full-frame mirrorless cameras, the FE 35mm f/1.8, priced at £630/$750. It finally plugs the obvious gap in the range between the premium Zeiss Distagon FE 35mm f/1.4 ZA and the older and far cheaper Zeiss 35mm f/2.8 which does not have the greatest reputation. The new FE 35mm f/1.8 is not part of the G Master range of lenses, which is the firm’s own high-end range. The lens has 11 elements in nine groups, with one aspherical element, weighs 280g/0.62lb and focuses as close as 22cm/9in. There is also a nine-bladed aperture. Sony has also revealed a newall-digital mic and an XLR audio converter to fit its A-series cameras. Both accessories connect to the camera via Sony’s multi-interface shoe.
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AUTUMN 2019 PRO MOVIEMAKER
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