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Canon Instant Lens Savings With Purchase Of Select EOS Bodies

Click To See Full Promotion and Rebates!

For all you loyal Canonistas who’ve been waiting patiently for a hot new lens rebate program, wait no more for it is upon us! The one fly in the ointment this years is they’re all in combination with body purchases, a promotion logic which the current build of our website doesn’t support. So, rather than look liking we’re pulling a fast one when the price isn’t reflected in the cart, we’re asking you to call us at 1-800-726-5544 where our helpful mail-order staff can fully and completely take care of you. You’re looking at savings of up to $280 for your troubles, so, give the promos a look over, then give us a call. We’re waiting.



Sony Announces Drop-Dead Gorgeous Update to Bloggie Camcorder

So, while we kinda liked the quirky little original Bloggies, we’ll forgive you if they weren’t quite your thing (especially if a camcorder in the color “Eggplant” weirded you out a bit). But, we have to say, there’s a lot to like about the refresh to the Bloggies, and it starts with “ooooh” and ends with “aaaah.”

I mean, really, take a look at this metal-clad bit of gorgeous over here. This is everything the last gen wasn’t, and borrows heavily from their T-series CyberShots. Which is not a bad thing.

Under the hood, you’re looking at an f2.8 “wide angle” lens with the pocket-cam standard 4x digital zoom. Hard specs aren’t listed yet, we don’t know exactly how wide the lens is, and we also know it’ll have internal memory this time (a much better idea all around than its predecessor’s Memory Stick hangups) in 4 and 8GB sizes, but no suggestion as to how many minutes of footage those will hold.

We do know it’ll do 1080 HD in MP4 format, and can take 12.8 megapixel still with its CMOS sensor. We also know that it’ll have a touch interface, and easy sharing to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa. The software is preinstalled on the device, and the USB plug is also built-in this time, making this a full-on Flip competitor now.

And, of course, it’s Sony, who is one of the biggest names in consumer video and who have been cranking out absolutely stellar HD-ready devices for the past couple years, so we have little doubt it will return anything but wonderful video quality.

The 4GB will be about $180, the 8GB about $200. We’ve heard black and silver, but could swear we saw pink kicking around too. Still, even without pink, they seem safer color than the last model’s silver, orange, and purple.



Canon’s New XF100 and XF105 Camcorders Are Professional, Also Small

If you’re a pro in the market for a new camcorder, you might be interested in Canon’s newest announcements. The nearly-identical twins known as the XF100 and XF105 claim to be Canon’s smallest pro cams to date, and still feature the XF codec from the XF300 and XF305 (for those who’d forgotten,  that’s an MPEG-2 4:2:2 50Mbps video codec, it is). Both models record to hot-swappable CF cards, 10x Optically Stabilized HD zoom lenses, DIGIC DV III processing engines, infrared low-light recording, and features to help align two of them for use in recording ridiculously high-quality 3-D footage.

The two models are differentiated merely by the XF105 having HD-SDI output and genlock in/SMPTE time code terminals.

You can read Canon’s full press release after the jump.

read more



Olympus Releases All Black E-P2 Kit, Jody Grober Is The Likely Audience

If there’s one thing my boss is good at, it’s helping pros get the equipment they need. If there’s a second thing, it’s complaining when cameras don’t come in “professional” black. So, Jody Grober, this kit is for you.

At its heart, it’s the same E-P2 with 17mm f2.8 pancake prime that’s been available for a while. So, you’re talking 13 megapixels, a 3″ LCD, full-time LiveView, Olympus’ dust-reduction system and in-body sensor-shift image stabilization, and those find-them-fun-or-hate-them-passionately art filters (including multiple exposure.) And they’re adding the previously optional FL-14 flashgun to the package. And the lens and flash are now black.

Think you can handle that? Good. Estimated pricing is about the same as the current kit without the flash, so, basically you get the black paint and the flash for free. Can’t beat that, now can you?

Coming, er, sometime?



Olympus M.Zuiko 75-300mm Reaches 600mm Equivalency

Like zoom? (Zoomy!) You know you do, come on… And that’s why you’re excited by Olympus’ new M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75-300mm f4.8-6.7. Because, for those of you not hip to the game, on the Four-Thirds and Micro Four-Thirds system, there’s a crop factor of 2x, meaning a 300mm lens will appear to have the same zoominess a 600mm did on 35mm film bodies.

For the record, 600mm is a lot.

I mean, 600mm is often the longest lens any manufacturer will make in a 35mm line-up.

So yeah.

As always, the name really tells you most of it, like that this lens is a little slow at 6.7 on the long end. What the specs don’t tell you is it weighs less than a pound and is a little over 4.5″ long as pictured. Yeah, seriously. Not even 5″ traveling size gets you 600mm equivalent. And, it looks pretty nice to boot.

Estimated retail? $900 or so. But you’ll pay it, because you know you love the zoooooooom!



Olympus Announces m.Zuiko 40-150mm f4-5.6

For all you Micro Four-Thirds fans, Olympus has a couple new ones today for you, starting with this new M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 which ways all of 6.3oz and, like in the big-brother Four-Thirds line, compliments the kit 14-42mm to make a fully covered 28-300mm equivalent range in only two compact lenses.

Now, I used the Zuiko 40-150mm that came out back with the E-410, and it was a nice lens. Compact and light, and fairly sharp. A bit slow, sure, but it was like a fifth the size of the 50-200mm I replaced it with (a lens that was so big in comparison I nicknamed it the “Leviathan”). So, I have every faith this newer, more compact model with the same range and f-stops will be a rather similar performer, and will be just fine for general use.

Also, it reportedly uses a silent motor, so it can autofocus during movies with being heard over the din of your memories.

Estimated retail when it starts trickling in? About $300 bucks.



Canon Creates Monster Sensor, Largest CMOS Going

So, see that diagram there? That diagram shows the size differences between common sensor sizes and Canon’s newly announced 202mm x 205mm CMOS beast. Here’s a clue, that whole black area is the new sensor, not a frame. That red area is Phase One’s biggest medium format sensor. Seriously. Click it to see it larger, and all conveniently labeled.

This new CMOS is apparently being made from a 12″ wafer, and the final usable area still measures at about 8″ square. It’s really kind of huge. Canon is also saying it works in situations with 1/100th the light as a DSLR can operate in. Can you say ‘yowza’?

Like Canon’s other bit of silicon bragging recently, no word when or even if this’ll ever see use, more or less in what. For now, we just get to respect their mad-tinkering ways. Go go engineers!

It's The Big One, Obviously.



Canon’s brand new L zooms -EF 8-15 f/4L and EF 70-300 f/4.5-5.6L IS USM

All new from Canon comes the EF 70-300 f/4-5.6L IS USM, jumping right to the four-stop IS compensation tech and a minimally described
function that prevents erroneous operation when the lens is mounted on a tripod or monopod
-so I’m curious about whether it’s an “ON/OFF” switch or some hyper-intelligent artificial life-form that subsists in the flourite lens elements or the Flourine coating. We’ll see what our technical rep Brian Matsumoto says. It’s also got the dust and water resistant design of the other lenses we’ve discussed today.
The other new lens is an 8-15mm Fisheye Zoom. That’s delightful – a six inch close focusing distance, as fast an aperture as you’d expect from a fisheye, and 180 degree diagonal angle of view for APS-C and Full Frame formats. The EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM also features
a new fluorine anti-smear coating is applied to the front and rear elements to make lens cleaning easier than ever.
Which should bring some reassurance to the folks accustomed to putting protector filters on their lenses.
Check Canon’s press release at the source link for more deets about availability and Estimated Selling Price.


Canon’s refresh of four lenses, beyond amazement.

The Refresh line up is as follows:
The EF 1.4X Extender and the EF 2x Extender which are supposed to offer faster autofocus and  improved autofocus precision. There’s also talk of “an anomalous dispersion lens element for reduced chromatic aberration” -whether this is new from the Series II teleconverters, I’m not certain. They’ve also got this high-falutin new flourine anti-smear coating -somehow repelling both oil and water for cleaning with a dry cloth -and this coating is applied to all six new lenses. They also kept the weather sealing.
The refreshed EF 300 2.8 IS II USM has been beaten and starved to 82.9 ounces for decreased reliance on mono and tripods. It’s also been given adamantium bones… read more