Exclusive AURORA skycam video: See the impossible with the new Canon ME20F-SH

AURORA skycam TV had the unique chance to play with the new Canon ME20F-SH $30,000 mirrorless FF camera that will go on sale in November. The 2.2 Million Megapixel camera can shoot up to 4,5 Million ISO. Aurora writes:

“All of us in AURORA skycam are very proud to exclusively present some of the first video footage shot with the amazing new Canon ME20F-SH.
Right in time for the next aurora borealis season, see northern lights filmed in Norway in a previously unknown quality. The short film shows nature filmed at night as you’ve never seen it before.
Facts: 12 days filming in August 2015 and 14,5 hours of footage have been cut down and presented in a 3 minute long video at the IBC 2015. On our tour we’ve been driving 4.600 km through Norway, chasing good weather, dark skies, northern lights, and Miss Aurora´s dance.
More info, behind the scenes pictures and film footage, together with reviews and more amazing content will be released on our website (https://aurora-skycam.com/me20f-sh) and in our YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtzs…). Follow us, there is more videos to come soon.”

via CanonWatch.com.

(PRESS TEXT) Metabones adds phase-detect autofocus (PDAF) support for Olympus OM-D E-M1 and Sony Alpha 7R2.

MetabonesMFT

Vancouver, Canada, September 18, 2015: Metabones® adds phase-detect autofocus (PDAF) support for Olympus OM-D E-M1 and Sony Alpha 7R2 to its EF-mount Speed Boosters and Smart Adapters through firmware update version 1.8, available from Metabones’ web site for download.

Free of any potential misalignment issues, on-sensor phase-detect autofocus is capable of attaining excellent accuracy. Overall, phase-detect autofocus offers a significant performance improvement over contrast-detect autofocus, and for shorter focal length lenses the autofocus speed approaches that found in digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras. Performance, features and limitations of our solution are comparable to other on-sensor PDAF systems involving adapted DSLR lenses on mirrorless cameras, such as A-mount lenses on Sony Alpha 7R2 with LA-EA3 adapter, Four Thirds System DSLR lens on Olympus OM-D E-M1 with MMF-3 adapter or Canon SLR lens on EOS M3 with Mount Adapter EF-EOS M.

Limitations include:

  1. During video recording there is no AF (Olympus) or only slow contrast-detect AF (Sony).
  2. Continuous AF may have unsatisfactory performance (phase-detect AF) or not supported (contrast-detect AF).

Also added to Metabones firmware update version 1.8 is fast contrast detect AF for other Olympus cameras including E-M5II, E-M5, E-M10 and E-P5. Contrast-detect AF accuracy on Olympus is lens-dependent with most Canon-brand lenses introduced over the last 10 years working satisfactorily. However, some older Canon lenses and some third party EF-mount lenses may not be able to achieve pinpoint-accurate focus on Olympus cameras with contrast-detect AF. These lenses should be used on OM-D E-M1 instead.

In addition, AF support for JVC GY-LS300 is added to this new firmware version. Existing Panasonic contrast-detect AF support is enhanced with 24p added as a supported frame rate for single-autofocus (AFS) during video recording.

By simply downloading and running Metabones App Version 1.8, new autofocus support is added to the following Metabones products:

  • EF-E Smart Adapter Mark IV (model number MB_EF-E-BM4)
  • EF-E Speed Booster ULTRA (model number MB MB_SPEF-E-BM2)
  • EF-E T Smart Adapter Mark IV (model number MB_EF-E-BT4)
  • EF-E T Speed Booster ULTRA (model number MB_SPEF-E-BT2)
  • EF-Micro Four Thirds Smart Adapter (model number MB_EF-M43-BM1)
  • EF-Micro Four Thirds Speed Booster (model number MB_SPEF-M43-BM1)
  • EF-Micro Four Thirds Speed Booster S (model number MB_SPEF-M43-BM2)
  • EF-Micro Four Thirds T Smart Adapter (model number MB_EF-M43-BT2)
  • EF-Micro Four Thirds T Speed Booster ULTRA 0.71x (model number MB_SPEF-M43-BT4)
  • EF-Micro Four Thirds T Speed Booster XL 0.64x (model number MB_SPEF-M43-BT3)

The following discontinued products must be updated by factory service. Please contact Metabones customer service for details.

  • The original EF-E Smart Adapter
  • EF-E Smart Adapter Mark II
  • EF-E Smart Adapter Mark III
  • The original EF-E Speed Booster

You can now preorder the new Sony A7sII in USA.

A7sII

US/UK folks hands on you credit card get the Sony A7sII which right now is on preorder at Amazon, BHphoto, FocusCamera, WeXUK xand Adorama! And if the A7s ISO performance isn’t enough for you wait for the Canon $30,000 mirrorless camera which will go on sale in November. But if you buy that cam add another $100,000 lawyer expenses you have to pay to cover the wife divorce trial…

And here are some deals you can grab :
$200 price drop on the 12-35m Panasonic X lens at Amazon (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).
At 11am New York time you have a Gold Box deal on the huge Sony 256GB(!) SD card at Amazon US (Click here).
At 11am New York time you have a Gold Box deal on the Samsung 16GB SD card at Amazon US (Click here).
At 18:00 Berlin time you have a Gold Box deal on the Samyang/Wallimex 85mm f/1.4 Full Frame E-mount lens at Amazon DE (Click here).

(High credibility rumor) The end of a rumor saga? Fuji X-PRO2 will finally be announced in January.

(High credibility rumor):

Bildschirmfoto 2015-09-16 um 14.41.46

The current X-PRO1 with a photoshopped “2”. Yes, exciting change :)

Yes, the long painful wait for the new X-PRO2 is close to an end! The folks at Fujirumors got info from reliable source saying the camera will be announced in January. The major changes are expected to be inside the camera. The X-PRO2 will keep the original X-PRO1 design but (listen listen!) possibly feature a new Sony sensor! Will that mark the end of X-Trans? Probably not but Sony proved to make very high quality sensors and it would certainly help Fuji to use them to keep costs down. I can hear the lament of the Fuji folks on this :)

Masaya Maeda (Canon) says: “we will come out with a mirrorless camera that you would really like”.

Bildschirmfoto 2015-09-16 um 21.22.51

Masaya Maeda from Canon got interviewed by David Pardue from Imaging Resource. And there seems to be great news coming from Canon very soon. Mr. Maeda said:

Going forward, and this would be a repeat of what I said before, but we will put more effort into mirrorless, and also, naturally, we will continue to expand the EF-M lens group. In the very near future, I think that Canon will come out with a mirrorless camera that you would really like.

David from Imaging Resource added a note based on his impressions:

[This is very interesting indeed. While the EOS-M3 only recently came to the US, it sounds like a significantly more capable M4 may not be too far in the future. Mr. Maeda’s particularly emphasis that I would like it suggests it will be a model aimed particularly at the enthusiast market. We wonder what features it might include; improved AF seems like a must-have.]

This could be a new EOS-M4 but I think it could also be a much more high-end camera with 4K recording and DSLR style. Let’s see if I am right with my guess. And I think it’s highly likely the new Canon Mirrorless camera will be announced at PhotoPlus.

–

found via CanonWatch.

Sony A7sII gets listed at Amazon US and Digitalrev. Preorder start on September 17.

A7sII_amazon

Nice, we have a new A7sII with real 14 Bit RAW recording but …we cannot preorder it yet! You will have to wait exactly 24 hours from now (time of writing) to preorder it. The camera is now listed in many US stores like Amazon US (Click here), FocusCamera (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here). It’s also listed in Asia at Digitalrev (Click here).

P.S.: European folks should check out the Smayang 8mm E-mount Gold Box deal that starts at 18:00 at Amazon Germany (Click here).