Which interchangeable lens cropped sensor kit to buy in 2009?

Written by Gary on March 7th, 2009

If you already have lenses designed for cropped digital sensors then you will probably be wisest to stick with that brand, otherwise, contrary to what most people do, it is probably best to work out what lenses you need (as these are often the most critical feature) and which system will provide them best in your price range.

Don’t get sucked in by megapixels – only go for 10-12mp in the cropped sensor format as more mp means less dynamic range, more image noise at high ISO, larger files to store, and potentially the same image detail unless using the highest quality lenses.


If dynamic range, low noise at high ISO or radio wireless remote TTL flash is more important to you than edge to edge image sharpness, choice of dedicated excellent lenses, built-in image stabilising, compact size and weight, and weatherproofing then there are two excellent Nikon DX dSLR’s depending on your budget and needs:

  • Nikon D300
    • excellent features, great for sports and action work but no video capture
  • Nikon D90
    • a highly regarded cropped sensor with benefit of a video capture mode but no continuous AF and lacks the high end features of the D300

The main problem with the Nikon DX system is choosing the best lenses for your needs and the lack of built-in image stabiliser.

If you need the smallest kit with HD video capture with continuous AF or you want a compact 14-28mm (in 35mm terms) lens, then the new Panasonic GH1 Micro Four Thirds system is the only way to go – see my last blog.

If you are embarking on serious deep sky astrophotography, then a Canon 450D or perhaps 40D with its IR filter removed and replaced is probably the best way to go.

For everyone else looking for a relatively compact system with excellent optics at reasonable prices, built-in image stabilisation and flip-out live LCD then, my preference is the Four Thirds system:

  • if you need the BEST weatherproofing of all dSLRs, then the Olympus E-3
    • you can pour water over this and it will still work (although not recommended you do this regularly – but at least it will not stop you shooting just when it gets exciting!)
  • if you don’t need weatherproofing but still need the better action features of the E-3, then go for the new Olympus E-30
    • added benefit of creative filters, multi-exposure and more
  • if you can’t afford the E-30, then the Olympus E-620 has most of its features in a smaller, lighter package

The Olympus system allows you to use almost any legacy lens on it via an adapter and have it image stabilised which is fantastic for those who can’t afford all these expensive AF lenses, and has a brilliant range of AF lenses designed for the demanding requirements of digital including:

  • a great kit lens, although the bigger, more expensive 14-54 or 12-60mm are excellent alternatives
  • an extremely versatile ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD lens which I use the most although it is a touch big and scary, but does great portraits as well as allows super-telephoto at 800mm reach with a 2x TC (see my blog)
  • one of the sharpest edge to edge macro lenses – the ZD 50mm f/2.0 which is great for portraits as well as macro and matches very nicely with the 2x TC although this lens is due for a revamp to improve its AF speed and make it compatible with Micro Four Thirds AF
  • a brilliant consumer grade ZD 9-18mm lens which gives 18-36mm angle of view in 35mm terms with minimal aberrations – see my blog
  • and of course the brilliant super pro range including the ONLY constant f/2.0 high quality zoom lenses out there
 

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The promise of Micro Four Thirds is realised – continuous AF in video mode in a dSLR 2x crop sensor super compact interchangeable lens system

Written by Gary on March 5th, 2009

Panasonic has just announced what many of us have been waiting for – their new Micro Four Thirds interchangeable lens camera with 2x crop sensor but now with HD video capture at the touch of a dedicated button AND for the 1st time in a dSLR type camera (excluding the super expensive RED system), continuous AF with silent lenses – meet the new Panasonic DMC-GH1.

GH1

The Nikon D90 and Canon 5DMII have video capture but do not allow continuous AF in video mode due to constraints of their contrast detect AF speed.

Hopefully, the GH1 will also allow silent still photography for those times such as conferences, performances, weddings, etc where noise becomes intrusive.

Video may be captured in AVCHD format as either 1920x1080x24fps or 1280x720x60fps and includes a Wind Cut feature to reduce wind noise, as well as Creative Movie Mode which allows you to select shutter speed and aperture for creative effects, while the optical image stabiliser and face detect AF both work in movie mode!

Panasonic has also announced a couple of exciting new lenses to match the system:

  • Lumix G 14-140mm f/4.0-5.8 HD OIS
    • specially designed for silent AF in video mode

      • 14-140mm

  • Lumix G 7-14mm f/4
    • no IS but compatible with contrast detect AF including face recognition and MUCH smaller, and lighter and cheaper than the Olympus ZD 7-14mm whilst still hopefully providing excellent optics
    • 7 blades, circular aperture, close focus 0.25m, max. diameter 75mm (just a fraction to wide to allow an Olympus ring flash to be placed on it BUT perhaps it can be placed on it BEFORE the lens is mounted to the camera?), 83mm long, 10.6 oz

      • 7-14mm

    Never before have we been able to have a small, light high quality kit with focal length coverage of 14mm to 280mm (in 35mm terms) in just 2 relatively inexpensive lenses AND have continuous AF HD video to boot – just amazing!

    Now, to really make the video impressive, we need a wide aperture HD compatible lens to allow nice background blurring and lovely bokeh that would really set it apart from the current digital video cameras – although with an adapter, you can use Four Thirds lenses such as the ZD 50mm f/2 macro for this but you will need to have a fixed focus or manually focus during video.

Rumours have it that it will be available after April 24th, so keep an eye out for it – see Amazon.com

Using Leica M lenses on Micro Four Thirds (the Panasonic G1): – see luminous-landscape.com using CameraQuest adapter for Leica M, and using second generation Novoflex adapters for Leica M lenses.

In addition, Cosina has just announced a Voigtlander VM / Voigtlander L (via a 2nd Cosina adapter) / Carl Zeiss ZM / Leica M adapter for Micro Four Thirds.

Voigtlander adapter

 

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Sensor size, resolution, telephoto reach and more.

Written by Gary on March 4th, 2009

Following my last post, many people seemed to be confused over what should be a relatively simple concept – what happens when you place a 400mm lens (in true focal length) on either a full frame 35mm dSLR vs a 2x cropped sensor such as an Olympus or Panasonic dSLR.

First, what does not change significantly or at all:

  • perspective at the same subject distance
    • if you focus on a subject at a given distance with a lens of the same focal length, then, the size of background objects will be the same in comparison to the subject size
    • HOWEVER, if because of a 2x cropped sensor which effectively magnifies your subject 2x, you choose to move away from the subject to keep the subject the same size in the viewfinder as on the full frame, then changing subject distance WILL CHANGE PERSPECTIVE.
  • depth of field at same aperture and subject distance
    • actually depth of field may actually be reduced if the final image is printed to the same size from each camera and viewed at from the same distance, as DOF is dependent also on the final viewed image magnification – the greater the magnification, the more evident the out of focus areas appear as out of focus
    • HOWEVER, if because of a 2x cropped sensor which effectively magnifies your subject 2x, you choose to move away from the subject to keep the subject the same size in the viewfinder as on the full frame, then changing subject distance WILL INCREASE DEPTH OF FIELD which can be a good thing when using super telephoto reach – a big advantage for 2x cropped sensors (not so good for short focal length situations where you wish to blur the background though)
  • aperture

Now let’s look at what DOES change substantially:

  • image field of view
    • how wide a view you see in the viewfinder and in the final print is ONLY dependent on the true focal length and the sensor size (assuming that the design of the lens has an image circle which covers the sensor diagonal)
    • angle of view = 2 x arctan[(0.5 x sensor dimension)/true focal length of lens]
    • thus, for a 300mm lens, the diagonal angle of view is 8.2 degrees on a full frame and 4.1 degrees on a 2x crop sensor HENCE the term “2x crop”, of course you could use “digital zoom” in post-processing, or in some cameras, within the camera to give a 2x crop image size and thus field of view from a full frame dSLR but thus will have 1/4 of the number of pixels of the full frame image
  • subject magnification at the same subject distance – “telephoto reach”
    • the comparative size of the subject at the same distance will be twice as much in a 2x crop sensor as on a full frame because of the angle of view issues, but in the final image on screen or in print when enlarged to the same pixels per inch enlargement, the subject size is dependent also on the pixel density of the sensor
    • if using sensors with the SAME number of pixels, then subject magnification will be 2x for a 2x cropped sensor, thus giving a substantial advantage to the cropped sensor when telephoto reach is important BUT at a cost of smaller sensor photosites resulting in more image noise at higher ISO and less dynamic range (assuming the same sensor technologies)
    • if the full frame sensor had 4x the number of pixels of the 2x cropped sensor, assuming same technology, they will both have the same photosite size, same noise at high ISO and same dynamic range, and if you cropped the full frame image to half its diameter you should give the SAME subject magnification, DOF, perspective as on a 2x crop sensor, BUT what will be different is the optical resolution and aberrations as physics dictates that these will be easier to make to higher specifications on a lens with a smaller image circle (as long as you do not use such a small aperture that the laws of diffraction adversely effect resolution – smaller than f/8 on 2x crop).
    • thus even if Canon or Nikon made a 40mp full frame dSLR which would allow telephoto reach magnification of an Olympus 10mp dSLR when cropped and give the option of a full frame image with twice the angle of view, there are unlikely to be any lenses made that could deliver that optical resolution and thus the image will lack the detail of the Olympus image (assuming you are using a ZD lens and not a legacy 35mm lens) – current 35mm zoom lenses struggle to deliver 16mp optical resolution let alone 25mp or 40mp
    • perhaps a bigger question would be – can a Canon 5DMII with EF 400mm f/5.6 lens provide the same image detail at the same subject distance as a 12mp Olympus E620/E-30/E-3 with a ZD 50-200mm lens with a 2x TC?
    • in my brief experiments, a 10mp Olympus E510 with a ZD 50-200mm lens with a 2x TC EASILY gives more image detail at same subject distance as a Canon 5DMII with EF 70-200mm f/2.8IS L lens with 1.4x TC – presumably this lens combination just can’t give 21mp optical detail.
  • hand holdable shutter speed
    • traditionally, the slowest shutter speed advisable for hand held work which still provides reasonable image sharpness is dependent primarily on subject magnification which is a proxy for the amount of image movement from camera shake and thus is usually given as 1/(focal length)
    • thus, theoretically, you could use 1/400th sec when using a 400mm f/5.6 lens on a Canon 5DMII, although, as you are already pushing the limits of optical resolution when trying for a 21mp image, an even faster shutter speed would be advisable, particularly, given the weight of the lens and the likelihood of muscle fatigue causing increased tremor
    • the situation with the Olympus ZD 50-200mm when used on an image stabilised body allows much slower shutter speeds – for instance, with a 2xTC at effective 800mm reach, I usually shoot at 1/200th sec or faster – without the TC, you could shoot at 1/100th sec at 400mm reach. This allows lower ISO to be used for static subjects and helps to negate the main downside of the cropped sensors of image noise at high ISO, although for action shots requiring 1/500-1/1000th sec you may be forced into the higher ISO regions and more noise – although improving technology should address this in the near future.
  • lens size and weight
    • a lens with an image circle to fit a 2x crop sensor not only can be made to much higher optical resolution and aberration specifications for a given aperture and price point than a 35mm lens, but can be made smaller and lighter and thus more easily hand held and transported which is a major benefit when it comes to super telephotos
    • yes, you can get 800mm reach at f/8 on a full frame dSLR, but using a 400mm f/4 lens with 2x TC or a 600mm f/4 with 1.4x TC both options are MUCH bigger, heavier, harder to hold and far more expensive than a ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 Olympus lens with 2x TC – not to mention the Olympus 2x TC is perhaps the best 2x TC made

Well I hope this clarifies a few things although I am sure many will still debate aspects as always on the net.

 

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Sports using the Olympus ZD 50-200mm with 2x TC for 800mm reach from the boundary

Written by Gary on March 2nd, 2009

Much has been aired of concerns of the inevitably higher noise levels at high ISO of the Olympus 2x cropped when compared to the larger sensors.

BUT, if you can get by with ISO 800 and below, the 2x crop creates a unique opportunity by giving you unprecedented image stabilised telephoto reach of 800mm in a compact, relatively light (1.8kg), hand holdable package which you just can’t manage to achieve at all with a Nikon D700 or Canon 5DMII.

Yesterday, I played in our annual social cricket game, and brought along with me two camera kits:

  • Canon 1DMIII (1.3x crop) with EF 135mm f/2.0L + 1.4x teleconverter
  • Olympus E510 with ZD 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD + EC-20 2x teleconverter

I like this combination as they are both about the same weight, and I can use the Canon to get in close while I am on the field risking my life getting hit by a cricket ball as I concentrate on getting the shot. While the Olympus I gave to a friend’s teenage son who had never used such a camera before, and I showed him how to AF by pressing the Fn button and all he had to do was take shots from the safety of the boundary line.

He absolutely loved clicking away and the extreme telephoto of 800mm reach in 35mm terms allowed him to capture the action on the centre of the pitch as if he was standing right there.

It was quite a cloudy day (great for avoiding highlights being blown out but not so good for super-telephotos hand held), so I had set the E510 to AWB, ISO 400, aperture priority at f/8 (f/4 x 2 for the teleconverter, although for some he must of accidentally moved it to f/10 ie. f/5 x 2).

So here are a few of what this 1st time, unsupervised photographer managed to achieve – these are straight jpegs from the camera – no crop, no sharpening, no PS other than resize and jpeg compression for the web.

Click on each to be taken to a larger view.

The first is a photo he took of his dad leg glancing for four runs:

his dad

And a batsman about to punish a bowler:

batsman

And he took one of his friend on the field not to far away, and it shows the lovely bokeh this lens has (this one I have cropped to about 25% of the whole image):

portrait

More of the day’s cricket shots can be seen here – yes that’s me in far camera right of the team photo

The close portrait shots using the Canon are very nice but it did require me to be within 3m of the subject to get them, not 100m as with the Olympus combo – distance changes everything!

More of my photos of the 50-200mm with 2xTC combo can be seen here.

The new E-620 and E-30 will be MUCH better than the E510 for sports as the extra AF points will allow more functional continuous AF, while the E-3 will allow you to keep shooting with this lens combo even if it starts raining.

Each tool has its strengths and weaknesses – as good as the Nikon D700 and Canon 5DMII are, I doubt they could achieve this telephoto reach without necessitating a tripod or monpod, and of course, the 5DMII may die if it starts getting a bit of a drizzle rain happening whereas the E-3 should be fine.

I have a web page outlining the comparative offerings available to Canon, Nikon and Olympus for telephoto lenses here – as can be seen, a hand holdable 800mm kit is not really possible on full frame dSLRs but could be achievable on the 1.5x or 1.6x cropped sensor dSLRs but on these, the noise at high ISO is not substantially different to that on Olympus.

 

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NASA images of Australia’s recent extreme weather, floods and bushfires

Written by Gary on February 28th, 2009

Jan-Feb 2009 will go down in history as 2 months of extreme weather conditions for Australia.

NASA has captured these events via their satellites showing us a new photographic perspective of the world – you can subscribe to new “image of the day” at their NASA Earth Observatory website.

First, the meteorological engine that started it all off – the tropical rains in far north Australia which not only flooded a vast region of northern Australia, particularly northern Queensland, but the massive amounts of ascending air which formed the clouds and rain to produce these floods had to descend elsewhere as hot, dry air mass with strong winds – and these came in unprecedented extremes from north-west Western Australia flowing south-east across the Australian deserts where they became even hotter and finally hitting south-east Australia producing the hottest temperatures on record in Victoria reaching 47.6deg C near Melbourne following an unprecedented 3 day heat wave and a record driest start to a year.

See before and after images of the flood waters reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria in far north Queensland

This image from the NASA site shows the extremes in temperature variation from normal for the regions in Australia which clearly shows the extreme heat in south-eastern Australia while the north is flooding – dark red his 10deg C or greater hotter than normal, blue is colder than normal (click on image to be taken to its source web page):

NASA temperatures

and the extent of the main bushfire damage only 65km north east of Melbourne which claimed well over 200 lives in its extremely rapid spread of previously unseen firestorm ferocity:

Kilmore bushfire aftermath

 

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Olympus announces a new dSLR – the E-620

Written by Gary on February 24th, 2009

dpreview.com has a preview of the newly announced Olympus E620 dSLR which has some of the features of the E-30 in the size nearer the E420 and with optional vertical grip and underwater housing.

Features include:

  • 12.3mp sensor, 4.0 fps, swivel LCD, image stabiliser
  • 7pt AF including 5 cross-type (not 11pts as with E-30 but better than 3 pts in E420/520 and better than only 1 cross-type as in the Canon 450D/500D)
  • three mode live view AF as with E-30 including face recognition
  • no top panel LCD, 1/4000th sec (not 1/8000th as with E-30), x-sync 1/180th (not 1/250th as with E-30), 95% field of view (not 98% as with E-30)
  • 6 art filters as with E-30 but no electronic spirit level
  • multiexposure mode allows 2 frames (not 4 frames as with E-30)
  • 4 aspect ratios (not 9 as with the E-30)
  • 521g incl. battery (E-30 is 768g, whilst E-520 is 552g)
  • lower capacity battery (BLS-1 instead of the BLM-1)
  • no PC sync socket or DC-in socket
  • still no movie mode as with Nikon D90 or Canon 500D – perhaps Olympus is reserving that for a Four Thirds Micro body which should do movie mode much better with its improved contrast detect live AF capability

Sounds like it will kill off the E420 and E-520 pending price competitiveness, as it combines the advantages of each of these and then adds features of the E-30.

How does it match with the Canon 450D?

  • 450D has 9 pt AF but only 1 is a cross point and requires f/2.8 or brighter for cross point to work – and most EF-S lenses do not have a f/2.8 or brighter aperture
  • no built-in image stabiliser in the 450D – a big advantage to the E620
  • 450D has 3.5fps whilst E-620 has 4.0fps
  • 450D max. timed exposure only 30sec while it E620 offers 30sec and 60sec
  • 450D allows only +/- 2 stops exposure compensation, while E620 offers +/- 5 stops
  • many other features lacking on the 450D such as swivel LCD, art filters, multiexposure mode, face recognition live view AF
  • MUCH better lenses designed for cropped sensor dSLRs available for the E620
  • 450D is approx. same weight as the E-620

    • How does it match with the new Canon 500D?

    • the 500D is much the same as the 450D BUT:
      • 15mp sensor, 3″ 920,000dot LCD
      • HD video at 20fps BUT as with Canon 5DMII and Nikon D90, no AF during video capture
      • HDMI out
      • ISO 100-1600 (expandable to 12800)
      • face detection AF in live view as with E-620
      • so nothing really innovative, and still no in-built image stabiliser or swivel LCD!

    The UK Photo Safari Group have prepared a pdf report on the E-620 you can download here

     

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    More portrait fun with Canon 90mm TS-E tilt-shift lens and Canon 1DMIII

    Written by Gary on February 20th, 2009

    Following from my previous blog on tilt-shift portraits, I have added a couple of more portraits to show what it can do.

    Click on the images to see an enlarged version.

    The first is an outdoors Australian bush 1920’s style portrait and this is actually a crop of the original but no PS effects applied:

    Jo

    The second was one I took to demonstrate the tilt-shift lens and again has not been modified in PS:

    Sara

     

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    Review of the Olympus ZD 9-18mm ultra wide angle zoom lens

    Written by Gary on February 20th, 2009

    dpreview.com have just posted their review of the Olympus ZD 9-18mm budget / consumer level lens.

    It again reinforces the optical quality that Olympus is delivering in their lenses from centre to corners with minimal aberrations which is largely possible because of the smaller sensor size and their use of telecentric optic design.

    The ZD lenses are perhaps the best reason to buy Olympus / Four Thirds dSLRs as they generally provide the best optical performance for the money and weight available, and as most of the Olympus dSLRs have in-built image stabilisation, you get this functionality as well for all lenses, even old legacy manual focus lenses.

    “The lens is remarkably compact and lightweight for an ultra-wideangle zoom, due in part to the rather modest maximum aperture, but also realising the downsizing benefits of the small Four Thirds sensor format. At a mere 280g you’ll hardly notice it’s on the camera,”

    “It’s sharp even wide open, has negligible distortion, and shows practically no vignetting. Indeed it’s a delight for pixel-peepers looking for high levels of sharpness right across the frame; there’s little of the drop in sharpness towards the corners that is often encountered with wideangle zooms. The only visible optical flaw is lateral chromatic aberration, but this is pretty well inevitable for this type of lens,”

    “Olympus taking advantage of the smaller area of the Four Thirds sensor to produce optics which are simply more consistent in overall image quality and edge-to-edge performance than those of its competitors.”

    “The lens is specifically designed to be compatible with contrast-detect autofocus in Live View on compatible Four Thirds camera, and works very well in this mode. Indeed it was unusually fast and reponsive on all of the cameras we tested it on, including the Olympus E-30 and Panasonic DMC-L10.”

    Thus for those who cannot afford the much more expensive but weatherproof pro series lenses such as the brilliant ZD 7-14mm or the ZD 11-22mm, this lens will fit in very nicely indeed, providing high quality 18-36mm focal length coverage in 35mm terms and you can use standard 72mm polarising filters without vignetting and they don’t rotate as focus changes – ideal for creative work as well as landscape and architecture work.

    There is also another excellent review at biofos.com

     

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    Canon launches 2 new tilt-shift lenses 17mm and revamped 24mm

    Written by Gary on February 18th, 2009

    Canon has responded to Nikon’s push into higher quality tilt shift lenses with two new lenses announced today.

    A remarkable 17mm f/4 TS-E tilt shift but with protuberant front element which means filters are not possible. Maybe at last I will have a wide angle for my Canon 1DMIII that I will love!

    17mm TS-E

    A revamped 24mm f/3.5 II tilt shift which accepts an 82mm filter.

    24mm TS-E

    More information on perspective control (tilt-shift) lenses here.

    These come after Canon introduced a revamped EF 24mm f/1.4L II lens late in 2008 which hopefully will provide the resolution required for the 21mp full frame cameras. Of course this one is not a tilt-shift lens but does have a nice wide f/1.4 aperture for narrower depth of field and low light conditions.

    24mm f/1.4L

     

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    Off camera flash undergoes a revolution – the new Pocket Wizards

    Written by Gary on February 17th, 2009

    Presumably due to international differences in radio frequency usage, the camera manufacturers use infrared technology for triggering and syncing their off-camera flashes – including Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony and Pentax.

    Whilst this is OK indoors with direct line of sight, they fail when used in direct sunlight, at distances > ~10m or so, and if the off-camera flash is not in a direct line of sight.

    This has been extremely frustrating.

    There are many third party devices that allow radio wave triggering of off-camera flashes, but these did not allow TTL-exposure until RadioPoppers hit the scene last year.

    BUT now Pocket Wizard, which has produced professional line of radio triggers for some years, has just trumped the scene technologically with its new products – the PocketWizard FlexTT5 and MiniTT1.

    These beautifully designed products do away with cumbersome wires to connect to your flashes and are backwardly compatible with older Pocket Wizards (just not for TTL) but revolutionize off-camera flash by allowing:

    • full TTL control even at distances up to 240m (in practice perhaps only 40 feet), in bright sunlight and no line of sight required
    • maintains the camera’s high speed sync flash (focal plane flash) capability so that if you system allows it, you can shoot off-camera flash in bright sunlight at 1/8000th sec shutter speed
    • an exciting new capability – “hypersync” – a user customisable functionality that allows you to adjust the timings of the flash so that you can increase the sync speed of your camera by 1 stop (eg. to 1/500th sec) without losing any flash output power as you do with “high speed focal plane flash mode”
    • mode 2 hypersync that simulates FP flash on non-FP flash systems
    • allows 8fps ttl flash if your system can cope
    • allows a flash to be mounted on it either at the camera’s hotshoe or on a lighting stand
    • can use with the new Bowens Gemini R flash units – see here

    Now the bad news:

    • as they use the same camera flash pins, they are specific for ONE brand of camera
    • initial model is ONLY TTL compatible with Canon EOS
    • although they will be releasing models for other countries and for Nikon, there is no guarantee they will do so for other camera systems such as Olympus, Sony or Pentax
    • for these devices to work together they MUST be running at the same radio frequency – thus do not buy one made for US (which uses 344-354MHz) and expect it will work with one made for Australia, Europe, India, China, Malaysia, etc which run at 433.62-434.22MHz or one made for Japan which runs at 315.5-317MHz – see here for details
    • range may be substantially reduced when used with certain Canon flash guns due to their RF interference – see here – essentially you only get 24-31m with 580EX II in US and 52m in EU version, 6-12m with 430EX in US, but 207-259m with 430EXII in US, and 290m with 550EX as it produces almost no RF interference BUT unfortunately, there appear to be incompatibilities with the 550EX. You can double the range of a 580EXII by using RF shielding fabric around it – see here
    • initial version has had multiple issues, which hopefully have been resolved by this firmware update, see also here

    Where does that leave Olympus, Sony and Pentax users?

    Assuming Pocket Wizards are not made specifically for these brands, I suspect, one can still use them on your camera (perhaps via a normal hotshoe adapter that only passes the main flash sync and ignores the other pins).

    You will of course lose TTL flash capability (no big loss really, as manual control is often better anyway), and you lose high speed FP flash, but you will have off-camera triggering in direct sunlight, at a distance and not have to be in direct line of sight, PLUS you should hopefully still be able to program the hypersync mode to work – now this will be a BIG BONUS for outdoor flash as it will allow you to open up one more stop of aperture for more shallow depth of field or allow more underexposure of ambient lighting.

    There is also a mode 2 hypersync that simulates FP flash on non-FP flash systems which may work.

    More information:


    RadioPoppers still may be more desirable for those who have both Canon and Nikon systems as the one product will work on both brands (as I understand it), and you get full TTL and high speed flash sync, and in addition remote control of some studio flash systems BUT you will not be able to have access to the hypersync capability of the new Pocket Wizards.

     

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