Adorama just informed their facebook followers that they have the Sigma SD1 in stock. It retails for US-$ 6,899, so it is indeed significantly “cheaper” than the originally annouced $ 9k-something (which obviously were a typo.)
 Sigma SD1 mock-up at photokina 2010 B&H doesn’t have it in stock yet, however.
Another round of news and articles, this time a little late as I was pretty knocked out for more than a week sind last week, and have only just really recovered.
Noktor is dead! Long live Noktor!
Remember Noktor, a couple of chaps, operating from a shed somewhere in the U.S., retrofitting and rebranding Japanese CCTV lenses for Micro Four Thirds? They made quite a stir last year when they announced a 50mm f/0.95 high-speed lens with native m4/3 mount, but it turned out to be low quality and overpriced. Just recently, Noktor announced their death, just to announce their rebirth a couple of days later. As it seems, they have merged with SLR magic. We’ll see what that is going to bring to the Micro Four Thirds world!
How diffraction limits resolution …
… and what this means for technical implementation as well as actual photography. If you’re fluent in German, here’s an interesting article on the topic by photoscala.
How do instant cameras work?
Ever wondered about the magic behind your dad’s old Polaroid? Well, here’s a simple, easy to grasp explanation of how the Polaroid instant pictures work. Simple and effective, yet fascinating nonetheless!
The Sigma SD1’s Foven sensor analyzed
Here’s another interesting technical article, this time about the new 15 megapixel Foveon X3 sensor of Sigma’s latest DSLR flagship, the SD1. (Which, by the way, will shortly be available!)
Fujifilm X100 giveaway by PhotoRumors and Adorama
Do you want a Fujifilm X100, but don’t have the money to buy one? Well, here’s your chance to get one FOR FREE! Fantastic, isn’t it?
Fujifilm X100 vs. Leica X1
Steve Huff has put both the Leica X1 as well as the Fujifilm X100 through their respective paces, and has now taken the additional effort to compare the two in terms of looks, build quality, usability, fun-factor and — chief of all — image quality.
The challenge of the 24mms
And another one for those fluent in German  Photoscala has put together (or is putting together) a big challenge of high-speed 24mm lenses for various systems. The series has only just begun, but in the coming weeks the following lenses will undergo meticulous tests and will be compared to each other:
AF-S Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 G ED (for Nikon)
Sigma 24mm f/1.8 EX DG Macro (for Nikon)
Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 L (for Canon)
Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm f/2 SSM (for Sony)
Leica Summilux-M 24mm f/1.4 ASPH. (for Leica)
That’s it for today!
It’s a warm and sunny sunday here in central Germany, and after spending the first half of the day in our beautiful garden I decided the sun’s become too hot and went inside to share with you some more interesting news and articles I found this week.
Leica Freedom Train
Ernst Leitz II, son of Leica-founder Ernst Leitz, helped many people — Leitz employees as well as fellow citizens — to flee the Nazi regime before and during World War II. The Amateur Photographer recollects the story and reports on the ongoing efforts of a british Rabbi to find the last living survivors.
Sigma SD1
According to this post in an Australian Sigma user forum, the release of the new Sigma’s new flagship DSLR SD1 is postponed to June 2011, to coincide with the company’s 50th anniversary.
The first digital camera
The blog “ISO50” reports on the first digital camera, built by Kodak in 1975. The “camera” that looks more like a projector fitted to an early PC, took 23 seconds to save a single image onto a datassette. The whole story’s available at Kodak.com.
Leica Summarit-M 90/2.5 review
Olivier Giroux reviews Leica’s affordable tele lens, the 90mm f/2.5 Summarit-M, and finds that it suffers from severe focus shift — a side effect of the lens’ simple, spherical design. In another article, he explains why fast M-mount lenses longer than 50mm need floating elements.
Leica Summarit-M 35/2.5 on the Sony NEX-3
Wolfgang Spekner, photographer and photo-blogger from Austria, tried the “cheap” 35 on his Sony NEX-3, comparing it to the more affordable but faster Zeiss Biogon 2/35 ZM. The little Summarit really shines on the NEX! Now is that a praise for the lens or for the camera? Or maybe for both?
(The 35 Summarit is in stock at B&H photo as I’m writing these lines — hurry if you want one!)
Thanks for stopping by, and have fun reading!
It’s Easter Monday and there’s not much going on — the kid is playing in the garden, the wife is enjoying the sun, and the in-laws are preparing lunch. So I thought I’d take the opportunity and give you a short update on some interesting articles I found around the interwebs recently.
The New Yorker — “Candid Camera” — by Anthony Lane
An older, seven-page article from 2007, focusing on the history and mystery of the Leica brand and their famous cameras. Very interesting, and a must-read for any Leiac fan.
DC Watch — Fixed-lens compact camera comparison
The guys from DC Watch took the effort to make an in-depth comparison between four current fixed-lens large-sensor compact camera models: The modular Ricoh GXR, the Foveon-equipped Sigma DP1x, the Leica X1 and the just-released Fuji X100. In addition to comparing design, build and specs, there’s also a huge number of identical sample pictures to compare.
ePHOTOzine — How to use a toy camera
The title says it — this article focus on so-called “toy cameras”, explains what defines them, how they work and what you can do with them.
Have fun reading!
The Sigma SD1 at photokina 2010 On last year’s photokina in Cologne, Germany, Sigma announced and presented a mock-up of a new high-end DSLR camera called SD1. The camera’s main punchline is a newly developed Foveon sensor with effective 15 megapixels, more than triple the resolution of their current sensor used in the SD15, DP1 and DP2 models. So far, little is known beyond that about the upcoming SD1. Here are some bits and pieces, though, assembled from the interwebs, which may give us a more complete picture of what there is to come.
There’s a minisite for the Sigma SD1, so far containing a flash-intro with some sample shots, a leaflet on the SD1 in several languages, and a “Print Quality Sample”. Not much. But then again, we know how long it takes Sigma to develop an upgrade model, so let’s not speculate on how long it’s going to take them to develop this new model …
Carl Rytterfalk has collected all currently available information on the SD1 in a two blog-post here and here.
And finally, a thread in the dpreview Sigma SLR Talk forum discusses the SD1 shots used in the aforementioned flash-intro to the SD1 minisite.
Source: 1001noisycameras.com
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June 21st, 2011, 6:49 pm | 
