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Improve yourwildlife photography skills
Billingham adds to its Hadley camera bag range
The Hadley Pro 2020 is made in England from robust, three- layer, waterproof Billingham canvas or FibreNyte material, and furnished with full-grain leather trims, with brass fasteners and buckles. It can accommodate most DSLRs and almost any mirrorless camera with three small tomedium-sized lenses and accessories. It also features a removable insert, which can turn the bag into a more compact casual messenger bag. Alternately, the capacity of the bag can be increased and customised with the addition of optional BillinghamAvea 7 or 8 pockets, which fasten securely to the leather side panels to protect crucial accessories. The Hadley Pro 2020 costs £240, measures in at 43x14x28cm, weighs 1.2kg, and is available in six colour combinations. It’s backed by the Billingham five-year guarantee.
TheWildlife &Wetlands Trust (WWT) MartinMereWetland Centre is the venue for the NorthWest BirdWatching Festival on 16 and 17 November. The centre is near Southport, Lancashire, and is open 8am to 5pmon each day. MartinMere’s general manager Nick Brooks says, “The NorthWest Bird Watching Festival is one of the centre’s most popular events and is a great weekend for nature loving photographers to get together and perfect their wildlife imaging skills.” Experts including wildlife author Kate Bradbury, cameraman Jack Perks and
wildlife photographer Alan Hewitt will be hosting talks, and events include photo workshops, bird ringing demonstrations, swan feeds, and tours around the centre and reserve. Most events are free, but for some talks there is a charge – for example, a photo workshop with Alan Hewitt costs £5 per person. Entry for non-WWT adults costs £13 on the day or £11.70 if booked in advance online – entry is free toWWTmembers. Concessions, group and family tickets are available. • wwt.org.uk/NWBWF
X-Rite launches the i1Photo Pro 3 Plus
• billingham.co.uk
X-Rite’s i1Photo Pro 3 Plus is a spectral colour measurement solution specifically designed for photographers who print on more challenging textured and glossy photo media. The i1Photo Pro 3 Plus combines the i1Pro 3 Plus spectrophotometer and
i1Profiler software to deliver ultimate professional colour management for displays, projectors, scanners, RGB printers and cameras. It’s priced at £2100. In addition, X-Rite announced a third generation i1iO Automated Scanning
Table that supports the i1Pro 3 Plus hardware. It is a robotic, automatic chart reading system designed for photographers, printers and designers. This has a price of £2880. • xpdistribution.com
More about the Sony A7R IV
Last month, Sony announced the A7R IV, its highest resolution full-frame camera with 61 megapixels. PN caught up with Pierrick Masson (above), Sony Europe’s imaging product manager, to chat about the technology featured in the new camera. What were the biggest technical challenges in designing the A7R IV? Firstly, after receiving feedback from pro users, we had to improve the grip, the weather sealing resistance, and the button placement and feel of the current A7R III. One of our biggest tasks was to implement those changes while retaining the Sony compact body form factor. We believe this new body design will please existing Alpha users and bring newcomers to the Sony brand. Secondly – and maybe the biggest technical challenge – was to implement a new sensor with a huge resolution while maintaining ISO performance (low noise) and high-speed operations. Also, as never seen before, the A7R IV is capable of 10fps at 61 megapixels and
at the same time provide the best AF tracking currently available with the Real Time Eye AF. With such a high resolution for stills and a pro-level movie feature set, do you consider the A7R IV to be the ultimate hybrid? It could well be! The A7R IV can address the needs of many parts of the market, from some medium-format applications down to APS-C users, with the benefit of a crop factor on lenses while maintaining a good image resolution. Our objective with the A7R series is to provide the best high resolution shooting experience for professional and enthusiast photographers. The A7R IV is a big leap in the series, with the introduction of the new 61-megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor. With the evolution of the imaging market and the emergence of professional hybrid shooters, we consider this camera to be one of many that fit the requirements for bothdemanding still and video shooting environments.
For some users it will be the ultimate hybrid camera, as their work requires more resolution for stills and the A7R IV offers high video performance standards. Who do you expect to buy it? We believe this camera will please primarily professionals and enthusiasts who have the need for resolution, such as with landscape or studio photography. However, this camera includes our new real-time AF technology, and has a 26 megapixel APS-C crop mode with 99% AF points coverage, and 10fps with AF/AE tracking. We think that more and more wildlife and sport shooters will be interested in this camera as it offers a unique positioning: mega resolution in a portable and high-speed body. With so much data being processed and with a 10fps shooting rate, was there any thought about using XQD/CFexpress slots for the fastest performance?
We always consider the best media storage format for our camera design, and the SD card format remained the best-balanced solution in terms of performance and size for the specifications we established for the A7R IV. Sony also has high durability and fast cards, the Tough range, which are a perfect match. Can you tell PN readers which of the A7R IV features excite you most, and why? Most people are understandably enthusiastic about the 61 megapixel sensor while keeping similar or better speed performance of the A7R III. Personally, I am really excited about the 26-megapixel APS-C crop mode, the new handling and the wireless options, which provide APS-C users with new perspectives and the best of full frame and APS-C in one. Coupled with a lens like the 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS lens (300-900mm equivalent in crop) it will give a lot more flexibility with maximum performance.
12 Photography News | Issue 70
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