I know what you are thinking ahhh not another photokina blog ….. Well yeap here is my bias opinion about what I saw, played with and found interesting. I probably don’t look at the same stuff as other people when I go to places like this
The things I was interested in looking at were studio accessories, Medium format cameras, Sonys new E-Mount lenses and then just stuff that might catch my eye. This year there seems to be less halls open than 4 years ago that my just be a my imagination but I defiantly think there were several halls more in the past.
First up on my test list was the Sony Zeiss 16-35 f4 and the Sony G 28-135 f4 cinema lens. Unfortunately the 16-35 f4 was a prototype and I wasn’t able to save any images with it. What I can say is the AF seemed quick and responsive and the previews were very sharp but i don’t have and files that I could pixel peep.
The Sony G 28-135 f4 cinema lens was a lot lighter than i though it would be, it was very responsive. I’m not a cinematographer so I’m not the target audience for this lens. It looks funky and is packed with features and yes it can be used as a photography lens . It has a very large zoom range for a constant aperture lens. An interesting feature is that it has an aperture on the lens that can be set in cinema mode for smooth transition between f/ stops, or be set to click so photographers can feel the change in f/ stop, or your standard aperture control via the camera.
The focus ring has a clutch that you can use to slip in and out of AF mode.
28-135mm @f4 135mm
After i spent about 1 and 1/2 hours at Sony it was time to scour through the “made in Asia” department for toys. Bare bulb flashes for mobile shooting (studio in a bag etc), light modifiers, and studio equipment were my main items of interest. To my disappointment I didn’t find any new light modifiers, but there were a lot of bare bulb flashes from different manufacturers. In fact I even have one to test and blog about latter.
You buy my flash it a good flash…
This was actually one of the more interesting flashes I was one of the more interesting bare bulb flashes I was. Made by a company called Dison, it is a twin flash head mobile unit. The concept is you have a master flash head and a slave flash head that is connected via as 5m cable. Both flashes can be controlled from the master flash head, that also contains a large battery. But the real novelty here is that you can swap you the strobe flash tubes and replace them with high-power LED lights (which are included) for use with video and other constant lighting work. Unfortunately the hard sell was to much and i didn’t get a lot of technical details, a shame as I was genuinely interested until it just got to much.
The next thing that caught my eye was this unique flash head by Photo Dynamic, the mono-block head is on a pivotable head, allowing it to be pointed into some very interesting positions e.g behind a translucent wall or on confined spaces. Here getting info was not so easy as the staff were a lot shyer that other stands, but what i seemed to find out was. They have them in several different WS outputs from 200ws up to 1200ws and use a Bowens type bayonet.
At the next stand I forgot to take photos of the things that were interesting but there is ca company called Meike they seemed to have the standard line up of flashes and stuff but sitting in a small glass display box wew 2 items of interest. A 3rd party battery grip for the Sony A7 and a hot shoe for the NEX cameras.
This photo is from their website and the version I saw didn’t seem to have a remote control with it. But it should be available for sale in about 2 months and should cost around 80€. The Second item is a hot shose for the NEX cameras so they can use the old minolta/sony flashs. It supports TTL/Manual mode/ Multi/Front-curtain sync and is actually designed to be used with a Flash designed by them called a MK300S, Maximum GN. 32 ans id dust and waterproof.
These arent my photos either but the photo on the right is the Sony Minolta mount adapter for the NEX cameras. It is listed as supporting a large list of Sony Nex cameras NEX-3,NEX-3D,NEX-C3，NEX-5,NEX-5C, NEX-5N,NEX-5R,5RL,5RY,NEX-5T,5TL,5TY. And they also have a version of the Multi-Interface Shoe Adapter. Bothe these adapters should cost about 20€ each
And they also have a version of the Multi-Interface Shoe Adapter. Both these adapters should cost about 20€ each and be available in about a month
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