I got few additional tidbits about the two Sigma lenses coming on February 21 at 2am Berlin time (That’s February 20 at 8pm New York time)

Sigma 500mm f/5.6

• Sources confirmed it has very fast autofocus
• Sadly frame rate is still limited to 15fps (that’s Sony’s fault and I hope Sony will change this policy)
• Doesn’t take telconverters

Sigma 15mm f/1.4 diagonal fisheye lens

• The lens looks nearly exactly like the current Sigma 14mm f/1.4.
• Same shape, similar weight.

Sony A9III at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.
Sony 300mm at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.
Sonny A9III Vertical Grip at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.

You can now preorder the new Radiant Mega Sling on Kickstarter (Click here).

Reminder: Asuizo launched their new Card reader case on Kickstarter (Click here). It stores 4x SD cards, 12x Micro SD cards, 4x Nano SIM cards. It protects your data against dust and moisture and fall. This is how it works:

Godox announce the new V1 PRO that you can buy now at BHphoto, Amazon, Adorama (branded as “Flashpoint”). Full press text can be read at Explora.

Reminder: $129 for the Ritz 256GB SD card sold by Amazon. Best V90 pricing yet!

Finally we got the detailed CIPA camera and lens shipment data for the whole year 2023. It contains a lot of interesting data:

• Shipment of cameras (fixed and interchangeable) did drop by 3,6% in terms of numbers and increased by 4.9% in terms of value.
• Shipment of mirrorless cameras increased by 18,6% in terms of numbers and increased by 10,9% in terms of value.
• Shipment of DSLR cameras did drop by 37.1% in terms of numbers and decreased by 24,8% in terms of value.
• Shipment of fixed lens cameras did drop by 17,4% in terms of numbers and increased by 8,9% in terms of value.
• Shipment of interchangeable lenses did drop by 0,9% in terms of numbers and increased by 6,7% in terms of value.

What does this tell us? The decade long decline stopped. In terms of value both mirrorless and lens sames increased quite a bit. So overall we can look forward to a 2024 that should have a similar pace like 2023 had. And this is good as manufacturer now don’t have to fear the market will shrink further.

This week OpenAi released a demo of Sora (Click here). It’s their text to video generation tool and the samples are impressive! If you are a photographer and/or filmmaker you have to take into account the devastating influence those tools will have on the industry. We have to learn from these tools how they work so that we can adapt are business. Don’t worry, AI is not going to replace the entirety of photography and film making. But if your business is doing stock photography/filmography you might be in trouble :(

You can now preorder the new FJORD 50-C camera backpack on Kickstarter (Click here).

Reminder: Asuizo launched their new Card reader case on Kickstarter (Click here). It stores 4x SD cards, 12x Micro SD cards, 4x Nano SIM cards. It protecst your data against dust and moisture and fall. This is how it works: