Sony Tidbits…

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WHY Shoot with PRIME Lenses?! NEW Tamron 24mm and 35mm 2.8 PRIME LENSES!

Note: If you are interested in electric cars check out our new website Electric-fun.com
5 Unconventional Lenses for Wedding and Portrait Photography (Explora).
New real life Canon EOS-R5 8K images from the WPPI show (MirrorlessRumors).
Tamron 24mm FE test at Lesnumeriques.
24-70mm zoom super comparison at Mobile01.
8K vs 4K TVs: Double-blind study by Warner Bros. et al reveals most consumers can’t tell the difference (TechHive).
Sony E 70-350mm review (Pixelmania).

Personal photos and tests from SAR Admin Andrea on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and 500px.

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TopazLabs announced the new Sharpen AI plugin with 25% discount

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Topaz has just released a major update to their Sharpen AI software. This update will include highly-requested batch processing capabilities. Sharpen AI will also include the ability to selectively apply or remove the sharpening treatment to certain areas in your image.

To promote the latest update, Topaz is launching a special sale. Sharpen AI will be on sale for $59.99 (save 25%) from today until April 3.

On this website you can use their interactive tools to see how the plugin performs. Below there is a video showing the new features:

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Good news from Tamron: “no delays are taking place with regard to the development of Tamron interchangeable lenses”

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Well at last some good news folks: Tamron issued an official press release to inform their shareholders about the Covid19 outbreak. And it looks like the company hasn’t been really affected hard by this. Some interesting facts:

– plant in Foshan, China, was closed until February 9, operations were gradually restarted as of February 10, employees are now attending work as scheduled, with no current impact on plant operations;
– plants in Japan and Vietnam are operating as usual;
– no delays are taking place with regard to the development of Tamron interchangeable lenses;
– sales in China account for around 10% of total sales of Tamron interchangeable lenses;
– sales in China are performing more weakly than usual, sales in other regions are not seeing any major impact now.

I hope this means the 70-180mm f/2.8 FE lens is going to be on market before Summer!

Thanks Valdimir

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Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN E-mount lens review at Opticallimits: “great value offering”

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Opticallimits tested the Sigma 16mm f/1.4 E-mount lens:

While there are numerous fast, full format E-mount lenses available, they are very expensive and simply oversized when mounted on APS-C cameras. Sony showed little interest in providing dedicated APS-C prime lenses lately so it’s most welcome that Sigma has taken the leap of faith by providing some new and interesting designs for the smaller format. The Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN Contemporary is about as fast as it can reasonably get without running into a cost trap especially considering the rather wide-angle of view – equivalent to a “24mm” full format lens. Performance-wise it is pretty good but it has a couple of weak spots, too. At maximum aperture, the center resolution is very decent but the corner quality falls apart. Whether sharp corners at f/1.4 are really important is a question of application. For astrophotography, it’s clearly not ideal whereas for shallow depth-of-field scenes, it’s hardly relevant. Stopping down to f/2 helps a lot in the image corners and the results are sharp across the image field from f/2.8 onward until diffraction effects set in. The native vignetting characteristic could be better and image distortions are on the high-side. However, this isn’t too much to worry about with activated auto-correction. Lateral CAs are generally very low. The quality of the bokeh is a bit of mixed bag with very nice out-of-focus highlights but also with a fairly smeary general bokeh rendition.The overall build quality is very good. The lens body is made of metal and the huge, rubberized focus ring is both smooth as well as very grippy. It also has basic sealing of some kind. On the downside, manual focusing is way too coarse to be useful at shorter focus distances. The AF is quite speedy and noiseless though.

The Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN is may not be flawless but given the very reasonable pricing, it’s a great value offering.

Sigma APS-C E-mount lenses:
16mm f/1.4 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon. Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES.
19mm f/2.8 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon. Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES.
30mm f/1.4 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon. Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES.
30mm f/2.8 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon. Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES.
56mm f/1.4 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon. Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES.
60mm f/2.8 at BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon. Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES.

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UPDATE: Warning on a likely BOGUS Sony A7III offer

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UPDATE with Warning: There is the A7III listed with a big discount at Amazon Germany. But I have been told this is likely to be a WRONG/FAKE offer and although covered by Amazon warranty it’s likely your order will be CANCELED.

A REAL deal reminder from the dutch Amazon store (Benelux shipment only?):
Save 600€ on the Sony 16-35mm GM at Amazon Netherland (Click here).
Save 500€ on the Sony 100-400mm GM at Amazon Netherland (Click here).

Thanks to the anonymous tipster!

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Luminar 4.2 released with new “AI Augmented Sky” feature

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Skylum launched the new free Luminar 4.2 update ($10 discount with our code “SAR”). There are three BIG improvements you can “live test” on their interactive press release page. Here they are:

1) New AI Augmented Sky

Inside the Creative tab of Luminar 4.2, you’ll find a new tool called AI Augmented Sky. This tool lets artists choose objects from the curated Luminar collection or upload their own, and blend them seamlessly with the photograph’s sky.

Here’s how it works. AI Augmented Sky detects your photo’s sky automatically and then places the chosen element directly into the sky area. Using content-aware technologies, foreground objects are recognized and taken into account, making the object blend naturally with your existing scene. You can drag the new element around the sky for ultimate control, yet retain those realistic qualities.

2) New Portrait tools:

When Luminar 4 launched, we announced some new, groundbreaking tools to help you optimize your portraits. And so far, photographers have loved the enhanced controls and adjustments they can make to their portraits!

With today’s update, we’re introducing a new Face Features Detection Network, which enables us to give you even more accurate and realistic automation when it comes to enhancing portraits. This technology is trained to detect different faces no matter what position, angle or tilt they might be in. It even recognizes those badly lit or partially hidden faces, as well as those with heavy makeup. No matter what the skin color or age of the person, Luminar 4.2 will recognize faces — even if it’s a group photograph. Check out the example below to see the power of the new Face Features Detection Network:

In the AI Skin Enhancement tool, you’ll find a new Shine Removal Technology. It lets you reduce shine on a person’s forehead or cheeks, making for a more evenly-lit portrait. In the example below, you’ll see that this technology restores the skin on the patches of the face where it was hit by excessive light, and automatically generates realistic-looking skin that blends in perfectly.

AI Portrait Enhancer has also received improved slimming capabilities through its Slim Face 2.0 Technology. Prior to today’s update, Slim Face only worked with the lower portion of a person’s face, sometimes making for unrealistic results. As you can see below, with Slim Face 2.0, the tool now recognizes the entire face and makes changes proportionally.

 

3) Improved Relight Scene in AI Sky Replacement

In addition to AI Augmented Sky and the enhancements to our portrait tools, you’ll also see a few other updates in Luminar 4.2.

We’re constantly improving one of our Luminar artists’ most-loved features — AI Sky Replacement. Relight Scene technology improvement lets you retain colors as you originally captured them in-camera. In previous versions, you might have seen a yellow and unrealistic glow on white objects. Improvement of the Relight Scene technology lets you avoid this problem.

You save $10 on the new Luminar 4.2 using our coupon code “SAR” at checkout!

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