Nikon has today announced two new lenses, the AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G ED and the AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR. Now, those of you used to Nikon’s nomenclature will already know all this, but for those unsure, the AF-S designation in both of those means they’ll auto-focus on any body, and the lack of “DX” anywhere means these are designed for use on FX (and will still work, albeit with crop factor, on DX). They’re both G series lenses and both use ED and aspherical elements and Nikon’s new nano crystal coating to handle optical phenomenons like diffraction, ghosting, etc…
As those of you with a grasp of modern optics and physics might expect, the 24mm f1.4 is rather chunky, basically a 3.5″ cube and weighing in closer to 1.5 lbs. It’s also not a budget prime, and it’ll enter the market at just under $2,200. The 16-35mm f/4, being a slower aperture zoom, slots in as Nikon’s affordable alternative to the 14-24mm f/2.8 (well, sorta, it’s obviously not apples-to-apples), weighing in at $1,260, or approaching 600 bucks cheaper than it’s bigger bro.
They’re both up on our preorder waitlists, so you should go here and add your name: https://www.robertsimaging.com/preorder.jsp
During the ’70s, a producer/director friend of mine used to roam the LA punk scene with an amazing little 35mm camera, the Minox 35 GL. It was the smallest 35mm camera ever produced. Its sharp Minotar lens shot beautiful pictures and thanks to the high ISO films that were being perfected in those days, one could shoot in very low light. There has never been any digital equivalent in size and low light capabilities until now, with Canon’s introduction of the S90. With the G11 and S90 cameras, Canon has finally reversed the maddening pixel race. Pixel density on the G11 has been reduced from its predecessor’s 34MP/cm² down to 23MP/cm² and low light performance has greatly improved. The S90 uses the same sensor and its f-2 maximum aperture helps to make this the best p&s for available light shooting.
The king of the show (of course) is the M9, sporting a Kodak-designed 18 megapixel full-frame sensor (which solves one problem of its predecessor, which made wide primes behave notably less wide thanks to a crop factor). The sensor once again lacks an anti-aliasing filter, which I hear resulted in insanely sharp photos from the M8s and which meshes well with all expected physics as well. This time Leica has seen fit to put the cut-off filters back over the sensor, removing the sometimes criticized need for a gamut of such filters for your lenses. Bravo, Leica. Combined with the body tweaks done on the M8.2 to solve a few problems with the day-to-day, in-the-warfield use, Leica’s getting its M series very much to a nice zenith for the digital age. Mind you, I think you still have to take the baseplate off to switch memory cards, but there’ll always be trade-offs for 
The other camera, a compact body with a 12.2 megapixel APS-C sensor and a fixed 24mm f2.8 lens (kinda like Sigma’s DP2), brings the clasic M series aesthetic to the compact market, while simultaneously creating a new price tier for digital compacts. It features an available grip, and a built-in flash (which is quite cute and cylindrical), full-manual controls (including aperture and shutter dials), RAW, etc.
