News / New Cameras & Lenses

Cosina has announced that its Voigtländer Nokton 42.5mm F0.95 will be available in August, and will be priced at ¥123,900 in Japan. This ultra-fast short telephoto 'portrait' lens is for Micro Four Thirds cameras only, and will offer similar photographic characteristics to an 85mm F1.9 lens on full frame in terms of angle of view, depth of field control, and background blur. It has a 10-bladed diaphragm, and features manual focus and aperture operation - the latter can be made clickless for movie recording.  

Lytro has released a firmware update that enables the Wi-Fi chips inside its 8GB and 16GB light field cameras. The San Fransisco-based company has also announced a new iOS companion app called Lytro Mobile, which allows you to browse images from the camera on an iOS smartphone or iPod Touch. Replicating some of the functionality of Lytro's existing desktop app, the mobile app allows you to refocus and change the perspective of your images and share the 'living pictures' via social media. Click through for more details. 

Leica has announced a special edition of its D-lux 6 high-end compact camera, in collaboration with clothing manufacturer G-Star RAW. The special D-Lux 6 (itself arguably a 'special edition' Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7) will be available from Leica Stores and Boutiques worldwide, and is expected to cost around $1300. What do you get for your money? Well, 'a new dot structure on the leather body trim' and a leather case with 'exclusive carrying strap'. Excited? Click through for more details. 

Sigma USA has announced its 18-35mm F1.8 DC HSM Art lens for APS-C DSLRs - the world's first constant F1.8 zoom - will be available from July at a street price of around $799. Meanwhile the recommended retail price will be £799.99 in the UK, and €999 in Europe. The company has also said the lens will be available for Pentax and Sony mounts, as well as the Canon, Nikon and Sigma mounts originally announced. It covers a 27-52.5mm equivalent range and offers the depth-of-field of a constant F2.7 lens on full-frame. Click through for more information and to link to our first impressions of shooting with the lens.

Samyang has announced two manual focus lenses for cameras with APS-C or Four Thirds type sensors, a 16mm f/2.0 wideangle for SLRs and mirrorless, and a 300mm f/6.3 for mirrorless. The 16mm f/2.0 ED AS UMC CS offers a 24mm-equivalent angle of view with an unusually bright maximum aperture, and comes in a wide range of mounts to fit almost every brand of camera. Its RRP is £419.99 / €395, or £459.99 / €435 for the Nikon mount 'AE' version. Meanwhile the Reflex 300mm f/6.3 ED UMC CS is a compact catadioptric or 'mirror' lens to fit Micro Four Thirds, Canon, Sony and Fujifilm models, and comes in a choice of silver or black for £289.99 / €259. Both will be available in July.

Now that he has his own copies of the new Zeiss Touit lenses, Roger Cicala of Lensrentals decided to crack into the Planar 32mm F1.8 lens. His mission was to see if the renowned build quality of Zeiss optics was compromised to make the lenses more affordable. His teardown detailed the Touit's polymer construction and its use of a DC motor. Click through to see what he thought.

Pentax has refreshed its entry level DSLR lineup with the announcement of the K-50 and K-500. The K50 is an update of the K-30, featuring less controversial styling and slightly tweaked processing, helping it offer a maximum ISO of 51,200. The K-500, meanwhile, gets most of the K-50's features - the main loss being weather sealing - in a less expensive package. While not radically different from the K-30, both cameras bring twin dial controls and 100% glass prism viewfinders to price points ($799 and $599 respectively), where both those features are rare. Alongside the cameras, Pentax is launching revised, DA-L versions of its 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 WR and 55-200mm F4-5.6 WR lenses.

Pentax Ricoh has announced the Q7 - its latest Q-mount camera and the first to feature a larger, 1/1.7" type sensor. The 7.44 x 5.58mm, 12MP BSI CMOS sensor is the same size as the one used in many enthusiast compacts, with the company claiming a 60% improvement in S/N ratio over the existing Q10. This improvement also allows the camera to focus faster in low light. The Q7 will cost around $500 with the '02' 5-15mm zoom lens and can be custom-ordered in any of 120 color combinations. The company has also introduced a body-cap 'Mount Shield' lens for the Q system - the 11.5mm F9 lens will cost around $80.

Samsung has officially unveiled the Galazy S4 Zoom - the nearest thing yet to a true camera / phone hybrid.  The 'camera side' features a 24-240mm equivalent F3.1-6.3 lens with a zoom ring around the barrel, in front of a 16MP 1/2.3" CMOS sensor. It includes optical image stabilisation, a built-in xenon flash, ISO 100-3200, 4 fps continuous shooting, and 1080p30 HD video; images are stored to internal memory or microSD. On the 'phone side' you get a 4.3" Super AMOLED display, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, and all the other features you'd expect of a modern smartphone. The S4 zoom will go on sale this summer.

Leica has officially announced its much-teased (and leaked) X Vario - the world's first compact camera with an APS-C sensor and fixed zoom lens. Its Vario Elmar 18-46mm 1:3.5-6.4 ASPH lens offers a 28-70mm equivalent range, and sits in front of a 16.1MP CMOS sensor. Viewing is via a 920k dot 3" LCD, or the same optional plug-in EVF as used by the M Typ 240 and X2. The camera has control dials on the top plate for shutter speed and aperture, and zoom and focus rings around the lens barrel. The price tag is a hefty $2850/£2250.

Samsung has announced a 10mm F3.5 Fisheye lens for its NX mirrorless cameras, which it says is the smallest and slimmest of its type. It offers a 180 degree diagonal angle of view, and includes Samsung's unique 'i-Function' button that allows the manual focus ring to re-purposed to operate other camera controls. It's just over 26mm / 1" thick, and is a featherweight 71g (2.5 oz). It'll be available at the beginning of July, in black or white.  

Swedish camera manufacturer Hasselblad is finally shipping the 'Lunar'. This 24 megapixel camera - essentially a rebadged Sony Alpha NEX-7 - was announced at Photokina last year and comes with your choice of grips: black or brown leather, carbon fiber, and wood: mahogany or olive, to be precise. The Lunar includes an 18-55mm lens and is priced at $6995/£5280. 

Tokina has announced a US price of $599 for its AT-X 12-28mm F4 Pro DX lens. Soon to be available in both Canon and Nikon mounts for APS-C bodies, this lens was announced at the CP+ tradeshow back in January and will replace the company's existing 12-24mm F4 wideangle zoom for APS-C cameras. 

Capturing the perfect panorama shot with a smartphone can be tricky. A new gadget currently gaining ground on Kickstarter could help you achieve a perfect panning motion, and even aid in motion time lapse photography. Spinpod works with both iOS and Android devices, as well as cameras. See it in action on connect.dpreview.com.

In advance of Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference next week, we're sharing our photographer's wishlist of the announcements we're hoping to see from the annual event. Compare our thoughts with yours on an expected new iOS 7 mobile operating system, whether or not we'll see a new iPhone and more at connect.dpreview.com.

Canon has announced the EF-M 11-22mm f/4-5.6 IS STM - an image-stabilized wideangle zoom for its EOS M mirrorless camera. It's Canon's first wide zoom with IS, promising three stops of stabilization for stills and 'Dynamic IS' for video. A linear stepper motor offers silent autofocus during movie shooting, and a retractable barrel design makes the lens about the same size as the 18-55mm kit zoom. It should be in shops at the end of June, at an MSRP of £379.99 / €399. A firmware update for the EOS M (v.2) will give full compatibility with the 11-22mm, and faster autofocus with all lenses.

Pentax has announced a white version of its WG-3 rugged waterproof camera and an entry-level point-and-shoot compact. The white version of the WG-3 shares all the features with the existing model but comes in a different color scheme (we'll let you guess what that is). We'll be testing the GPS version of the WG-3 as one of our forthcoming waterproof camera tests. Meanwhile, the 'Efina' is an inexpensive 14MP CCD-based camera that's exactly the sort we thought Pentax had stopped making. Still, it comes with decorative patterns on it, which seems to be this season's thing - so that's something. The Efina, announced in Japan in January, will cost around £80, while the white WG-3 will retail for $299/£289.

Roger Cicala of Lensrentals has published a blog post in which he gives his first impressions of the new Carl Zeiss 32mm F1.8 'Touit' lens, in Sony E-mount. Unlike Roger's normal approach, where he exhaustively tests multiple samples of the same lens, he was only able to look at a single example of the 32mm F1.8 on the Sony NEX-7. Click through for some details of his findings, and a link to the full article at the lensrentals blog.

Zeiss has announced that its first two Touit lenses for mirrorless cameras are now available for sale. The 12mm F2.8 wideangle has been designed according to the 'Distagon optical concept', and has an RRP of €920 / US$1,250 excluding VAT. Meanwhile the Planar-type 32mm F1.8 normal lens will cost €670 / US$900 excluding VAT. The lenses will be available to fit Sony NEX and Fujifilm X-system cameras, and include autofocus but lack optical stabilisation. The X-mount versions also feature aperture rings with 1/3 stop detents. The next model in the line, a 50mm F2.8 Macro, is expected to appear at the end of the year.

Canon has announced that it has now produced 90 million EF lenses since the launch of the EOS system in 1987. The proliferation of digital SLRs has seen a rapid increase in lens production in recent years, and the company's 90 millionth lens - an EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM - was manufactured on May 23 2013, just over 9 months after its 80 millionth. The company's lens lineup currently consists of no fewer than 84 models, ranging from the inexpensive EF 50mm f/1.8 II to high-end exotica such as the recently-announced EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x - the world's first SLR lens with a built-in switchable teleconverter.