It’s a warm and sunny sunday here in central Germany, and after spending the first half of the day in our beautiful garden I decided the sun’s become too hot and went inside to share with you some more interesting news and articles I found this week.
Leica Freedom Train
Ernst Leitz II, son of Leica-founder Ernst Leitz, helped many people — Leitz employees as well as fellow citizens — to flee the Nazi regime before and during World War II. The Amateur Photographer recollects the story and reports on the ongoing efforts of a british Rabbi to find the last living survivors.
Sigma SD1
According to this post in an Australian Sigma user forum, the release of the new Sigma’s new flagship DSLR SD1 is postponed to June 2011, to coincide with the company’s 50th anniversary.
The first digital camera
The blog “ISO50″ reports on the first digital camera, built by Kodak in 1975. The “camera” that looks more like a projector fitted to an early PC, took 23 seconds to save a single image onto a datassette. The whole story’s available at Kodak.com.
Leica Summarit-M 90/2.5 review
Olivier Giroux reviews Leica’s affordable tele lens, the 90mm f/2.5 Summarit-M, and finds that it suffers from severe focus shift — a side effect of the lens’ simple, spherical design. In another article, he explains why fast M-mount lenses longer than 50mm need floating elements.
Leica Summarit-M 35/2.5 on the Sony NEX-3
Wolfgang Spekner, photographer and photo-blogger from Austria, tried the “cheap” 35 on his Sony NEX-3, comparing it to the more affordable but faster Zeiss Biogon 2/35 ZM. The little Summarit really shines on the NEX! Now is that a praise for the lens or for the camera? Or maybe for both?
(The 35 Summarit is in stock at B&H photo as I’m writing these lines — hurry if you want one!)
Thanks for stopping by, and have fun reading! 
It’s Easter Monday and there’s not much going on — the kid is playing in the garden, the wife is enjoying the sun, and the in-laws are preparing lunch. So I thought I’d take the opportunity and give you a short update on some interesting articles I found around the interwebs recently.
The New Yorker — “Candid Camera” — by Anthony Lane
An older, seven-page article from 2007, focusing on the history and mystery of the Leica brand and their famous cameras. Very interesting, and a must-read for any Leiac fan.
DC Watch — Fixed-lens compact camera comparison
The guys from DC Watch took the effort to make an in-depth comparison between four current fixed-lens large-sensor compact camera models: The modular Ricoh GXR, the Foveon-equipped Sigma DP1x, the Leica X1 and the just-released Fuji X100. In addition to comparing design, build and specs, there’s also a huge number of identical sample pictures to compare.
ePHOTOzine — How to use a toy camera
The title says it — this article focus on so-called “toy cameras”, explains what defines them, how they work and what you can do with them.
Have fun reading!
 The Sigma SD1 at photokina 2010 On last year’s photokina in Cologne, Germany, Sigma announced and presented a mock-up of a new high-end DSLR camera called SD1. The camera’s main punchline is a newly developed Foveon sensor with effective 15 megapixels, more than triple the resolution of their current sensor used in the SD15, DP1 and DP2 models. So far, little is known beyond that about the upcoming SD1. Here are some bits and pieces, though, assembled from the interwebs, which may give us a more complete picture of what there is to come.
There’s a minisite for the Sigma SD1, so far containing a flash-intro with some sample shots, a leaflet on the SD1 in several languages, and a “Print Quality Sample”. Not much. But then again, we know how long it takes Sigma to develop an upgrade model, so let’s not speculate on how long it’s going to take them to develop this new model …
Carl Rytterfalk has collected all currently available information on the SD1 in a two blog-post here and here.
And finally, a thread in the dpreview Sigma SLR Talk forum discusses the SD1 shots used in the aforementioned flash-intro to the SD1 minisite.
Source: 1001noisycameras.com
It would be this one:
 The Pentax K-5 DSLR. Picture courtesy of B&H Photo The Pentax K-5. Why? Well, it’s simply one of the best semi-professional DSLRs currently available. It has a small, solid body that is completely weather sealed, it has a great performing 16 megapixel sensor that compares well with current Nikon and Canon models, it has fast AF, a quiet shutter, a decent viewfinder, HD video — essentially all the features you could wish for. And it’s getting one great review after another. And it can be used with a number of great lenses. The two which I would have for it are:
The Sigma 24mm f/1.8 Macro (equivalent to 36mm on full-frame) and the Pentax 55mm f/1.4 (82.5mm eq.). These would make a great two-lens kit, with one for general shooting and the other for portraiture (or anything else that asks for a narrower field-of-view.) And maybe one of the nice small Pentax Limited primes, such as the 40/2.8 (60mm eq.), the 43/1.9 (64.5mm eq.) or the new 35/2.4 (52.5mm eq.), as an intermediate, small walkaround lens.
But I’m not going to buy a DSLR today. But if you are, you should seriously consider the K-5!
Look what I’ve just found in the Sigma SLR Talk forum on dpreview.com:
 Major mirrorless camera rumor sites — as well as the visitors of above named forum — speculate as to whether this could be an official Sigma product. Well, I doubt that very much. It looks to be a Sigma DP camera which has been stripped of its lens and fitted with a third-party M-mount adaptor. Still, it might actually be a commercially done conversion, and if so, you might be able to purchase one soon. Wouldn’t that be cool? Finally, you could use your magnificent M glass with an equallly magnificent Foveon sensor! I’ll keep you updated in case this turns out to be an actual product …
|
Today’s gear Camera: Pentax ME
Lens: Revuenon 50/1.4
Film: Kodak VR Plus 200
|
May 8th, 2011, 2:59 pm | 
