Kit reviews
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Manfrotto Professional Roller 70 £319 Mankind invented the wheel to make life easier and that’s definitely the case when you have a serious photographic outfit to move around. It’s true not every photographer has to lug a camera outfit as well as a location lighting set-up but should the need arise, investing in a rolling case is totally worthwhile. TheManfrottoRoller 70 is a significant investment at £319 but it offers a safe and secure way of moving a professional photo outfit around. The case features Exo-Tough Construction, designed to spread impact across the surface rather than transmit it through to the contents. Inside, there’s the Camera Protection System (CPS) with structured, shock-absorbing adjustable dividers and padding to protect the kit at the centre of the bag. Two long and four short CPS dividers accompany eight Velcro-secured padded dividers so you can quickly tailor the interior to suit your needs. For wildlife or sports photographers, the case is deep enough to hold a couple of fast aperture long telephotos, a couple of camera bodies, spare batteries, chargers and other accessories. I packed a Nikon D3s and five lenses, plus an Elinchrom two- head Quadra Ranger kit with a spare battery and cables. With a couple of lighting stands strapped to the case and a couple of modifiers in a side pocket, the whole lot weighed close to 17kg. Samsung 16- 50mmf/2-2.8 S EDOIS £1000 The first thing you notice is the size and weight of this lens. It’s a hefty piece of glass, and this is because of the wide maximum aperture, but it adds a lot of weight to the front of the NX cameras. The solidity gives it a feel of quality too, as does the overall handling. The zoom ring slides smoothly and freely, but still with enough resistance to feel nice – if there is a criticism, it’s that this ring comes to an abrupt stop at the extremes. The focusing ring glides extremely smoothly though. Autofocusing also is very smooth, as well as quick and absolutely silent. Optical image stabilisation (OIS) is included, turned on with a switch below the AF/MF switch, saving you going through the camera menus. It’s activated with a half press of the shutter button, and again this is absolutely silent. The benefit of OIS is significant as well. At a focal length of 50mm with image stabilisation on, we could still get 50% of shots pin-sharp at a shutter speed of 1/8sec, compared to just 10% without OIS. Even at 1/4sec, we could get 40% sharp, and the odd shot was still sharp right down to 1/2sec. When it comes to image quality, it puts in an impressive performance. We tested it on an NX30 at focal lengths of 16mm, 35mm and 50mm, and sharpness is excellent throughout the range. Particularly impressive is performance wide open,
SPECS
PRICE £1000 CONTACT www.samsung.com/uk CONSTRUCTION 18 elements in 12 groups FILTER SIZE 72mm MINIMUMAPERTURE f/22 MINIMUMFOCUS 0.3m DIMENSIONS (DXL) 81x96.5mm WEIGHT 622g
16MMF/2.8
50MMF/2.8
The verdict
It’s good to see Samsung introducing some top- quality glass, because the NX sensors are capable of great things, and premium lenses will make the most of them. The 16-50mm was billed as the first lens in the S series when it was launched, so we’re expecting more. And if they’re all as good as this one, then the Samsung CSC line-up will suddenly look a lot more attractive. It’s big and heavy, but built well and delivers excellent results.
where it’s very sharp at all focal lengths, and this is maintained until around f/8 or f/11. At smaller values, things get softer. Edges and corners are softer throughout, particularly at 50mm, where there’s fringing towards the corners too. At 35mm and 16mm, we saw practically no fringing. Comparing this lens to the standard 18-55mm kit lens, there’s an obvious benefit. When both are at their sharpest, they’re comparable, but the kit lens is only this sharp in a very limited range, around one f/stop. Above and below, it drops off, and suffers badly when wide open – the S lens is very sharp from wide open and across a good aperture range.
PROS
Excellent image quality, sharp wide open, well built
CONS
Big and heavy, price
SPECS
STREET PRICE £319 CONTACT www.manfrotto.co.uk CAPACITY 2 DSLRs, 1x 24-70mm f/2.8, 1x 70-200mm f/2.8, 4-5 lenses, 2 flashes, 17in laptop, tablet and tripod (strapped to outside) CONSTRUCTION Exo-Tough Construction, Camera Protection System DIMENSIONS (WXHXD) 37.5x56x23cm WEIGHT 4.77kg
The verdict
A roller case like this Manfrotto Professional Roller Bag 70 is a serious piece of kit and not every photographer has a need for carrying such a large outfit around. But if you do a lot of location shooting and want a convenient method of transporting your outfit that’s also a base to work from, a quality roller case like this is worth every penny. It’d mean arriving at your location in a fit state all primed to take great pictures rather than exhausted and shaking from the sheer physical effort of getting your kit there.
I took a fully loaded case on a shoot to London and the occasional lift onto the train, down stairs or onto the Tube escalator was no problem. At other times I just pulled it behind me and the case behaved itself fine. Some roller cases wobble as they are dragged across uneven surfaces at any sort of speed, but I had no problems. Importantly, the kit was well protected during the journey and everything arrived safely and in full working order. The dividers did a great job of ensuring nothing moved around – I’d packed the power pack at the bottomof the case as a precaution in case anything did get loose.
Spacious, build quality, high level of protection PROS
CONS Fill it and it’s heavy
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Issue 11 | Photography News
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