You’ve probably read plenty of articles touting the benefits of Sony’s translucent mirror technology (e.g. high fps, AF for video, quietness, etc…), but what about the cons? One of the main downsides to having a translucent mirror is that the light hitting the sensor passes through an additional layer (the translucent mirror), which reduces the amount of light and the image quality.
Ray over at TheSyberSite attempted to quantify how much the mirror affects the resulting image quality by removing the mirror on his A55 and comparing the resulting photos. He confirmed that about 1/2 stop of light is lost, and estimates that 5% of the detail in each shot is lost due to the mirror. Head on over to the article for some side-by-side comparisons.
This photograph was taken by a lens with some “obstruction” on the front element. Aside from the blurry patch of nastiness in the bottom portion of the frame, the rest of the image looks pretty decent. What do you think the “obstruction” is? A little dirt? A smudge where the photographer accidentally touched the front element? A scratch? The answer is a little closer to a scratch than a smudge… Click here to see the answer
One of the benefits of running a gear rental business is that you have a ton of equipment you can use for random experiments. That’s exactly what Roger Cicala, the owner of LensRentals, did with the UV filters he had on hand. One-upping the 19 filter stack we shared a while back, he mounted 50 different UV filters to a Canon 5D Mark II and 300 f/4 lens to see what the resulting images would look like. Read more…
Turns out Fujifilm’s new FinePix X100 isn’t just nice to look at — DxOMark just published results from testing the camera’s APS-C sensor, finding that it delivered better results in all aspects compared to the best Micro Four Thirds camera sensors (namely the Olympus PEN EP2 and Panasonic Lumix DMC GH2) and rivals the quality of the best APS-C sensors found in DSLR and SLT cameras. Now if only the camera would start becoming available here in the US…
This is a 17 minute video showing Kai over at DigitalRev (the same guy that painted a Nikon D90 pink) putting a Canon 400D and Nikon D70 through various torture tests. The tests include stabbing them with knives, dropping them down escalators, smashing them with elevator doors, using them as stilts, and more.
It’s painful to watch, and not just because beautiful cameras are being abused — the video is much too long. However, it’s interesting to see how much damage entry-level DSLR cameras can take and still remain functional.
DxOMark has expanded their website to include lenses in addition to camera bodies. They’ve tested a good number of lenses from quite a few manufacturers, with each lenses tested on a large number of camera bodies. You can then compare how certain camera and lens combinations perform against one another.
