Lensbaby Velvet 85mm f/1.6 announced

The new Lensbaby Velvet 85mm f/1.6 lens is now available for preorder at Adorama and BHphoto.

Dan Mandell (Click here) wrote a first impression review:

I could justify buying it simply because of its increased situational versatility. While you have the option to go full artsy with this lens, you can dial it down or season to taste if you prefer. It would have been interesting to really see how this lens works in even more diverse scenarios. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few things. There are probably ways to exploit what the lens does to create more targeted areas of effect. Using spotlights or fresnels, you could literally paint in or pinpoint areas of light that would receive the effect. Even light painting or long exposure shots have interesting possibilities here.
I’m happy to see Lensbaby making some moves in this direction. I look forward to more and more interesting entries into the market from them.

Is this the new Sony RX100VI sensor? Has all-pixel global reset function!

Sony announced a 20 Megapixel sensor that could find its way in the next generation RX100 camera:

In the industrial application field, needs are increasing for faster products with higher pixel counts and for rolling shutter functions. To meet these needs, Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation has developed the “IMX183CLK-J/CQJ-J” CMOS image sensors equipped with an all-pixel global reset function. The image sensor uses a high sensitivity back-illuminated structure 2.4 µm square unit pixel, and we have developed both color (IMX183CQJ-J) and monochrome (IMX183CLK-J) products. The optical size is Type 1 to enable use of a C-mount lens. In addition, these products are equipped with a variety of functions such as 4K video mode and a vertical arbitrary cropping function.

via Image Sensor World

Mirrorless and Lensless is the future :)

At Caltech, engineers have developed a new camera design that replaces the lenses with an ultra-thin optical phased array (OPA). The OPA does computationally what lenses do using large pieces of glass: it manipulates incoming light to capture an image.