Canon 400D looks maybe interesting…

Canon EOS 400D

Engadget: Canon China spills beans on new DSLR. It looks sort of interesting, with its full-frame 10.1 megapixels and ultra-sonic dust removal. Nothing amazing, though, really. (And am I the only one not following these Canon EOS DSLR naming conventions?)

What looks more interesting, though, is the new EF 50mm f/1.2L USM lens also announced, along with the EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM, which as far as I can tell, a lot of people have been asking for (the IS part, of course…)

[UPDATE: So, it turns out it’s an APS-C sensor…]

Brighter, sharper, faster: Lensbaby 2.0


Lensbaby 2.0 has been released, and adds some nice upgrades from the version 1 (which I never got around to trying out, although I keep meaning to.) Lensbaby 2.0 adds a brighter aperture of f2.0 (in addition to the f2.8-f8.0 (in steps) of the original. It also uses better optical elements, of coated low dispersion glass. Changing apertures is faster thanks to magnetic positioning of the aperture disks, instead of rubber gaskets. You just drop them in and they jump into position. Anyway, worth a look and maybe I’ll finally get around to trying one.

Sigma go zoom-crazy!

Sigma have also announced the 11x zoom 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 DC. This is an extremely compact package giving you 35mm equivalent of 28.8-320mm on a Canon 20D or Rebel. As a user of the 18-125mm I can say that this certainly interests me as a possible replacement – Sigma manage to squeeze more quality into that zoom factor than seems possible. Let’s see if this even wider range can follow up on that.

Sigma 10-20mm F4.0-5.6 EX DC HSM

An interesting super-wide zoom from Sigma is the 10-20mm with HSM focusing. Always the tricky area for APS-C cameras, getting down to a 35mm equivalent of 15 or 16mm is a welcome addition to the lens selection.