DSLR news

🔥What's hot

🛠New gear

• RICOH GR IV 30th Anniversary Edition Kit — a limited run of 6,000 GR IV bodies whose shutter and rear buttons are painted to echo the 1996 GR1 film camera, boxed with a leather finger strap, a metal hot shoe cover and sixteen pin badges. Nothing changes under the skin, so this is trim and scarcity you are paying for rather than capability — worth knowing before the resale listings start quoting silly money. The ring cap is diamond-cut so it glints only with the lens retracted, keeping reflections off your subject while shooting. On sale since 21 October. Ricoh Imaging

• Sigma 135mm F1.4 DG Art — the first autofocus 135mm built around an f/1.4 aperture, now reviewed by TechRadar, which found it extremely sharp when focus lands and rated the twin-motor autofocus fast and accurate even at that depth of field. It is a lens you would take out deliberately rather than carry all day: 1,430g and 111.7 x 135.5mm, with no stabilisation of its own, so it needs a body with IBIS. $1,899, Sony E and L mounts only, 13 aperture blades and a closest focus of 1.1m. asobinet (とるなら)

• Tamron 25-200mm F/2.8-5.6 Di III VXD G2 — a one-lens travel kit for Sony E bodies, which Digital Camera World rated well for detail across the range and for autofocus that holds onto moving subjects. For a weekend where swapping glass is a nuisance, this is the current best argument against carrying a standard zoom and a telezoom. 575g and 122mm long with 67mm filters, no optical stabilisation, and firmware V3 pushes close-up magnification past 0.5x between 25 and 70mm; 25mm shows strong barrel distortion that in-camera correction clears up. asobinet (とるなら)

• Sony ECM-W5 — a two-transmitter radio mic set, tested by Digital Camera Watch on an α7 V: touchscreen receiver, MI-shoe connection with no cable run, and 32-bit float audio recorded straight into the body. If you shoot the occasional clip alongside stills, audio that effectively cannot clip and needs no syncing afterwards removes the fiddliest step of the job. ¥59,400 for two transmitters and a receiver, on sale 20 November; each transmitter holds 64GB for standalone recording, but the case will not close with windscreens fitted. Digital Camera Watch

💬What people are saying

• Sigma AF 50-120mm f/2.8 DC OS — ePhotozine has published its review and handed the lens an Editor's Choice, listing sharpness, dust and splash resistance and low flare on the plus side, with the absence of an aperture-ring lock as the single complaint. It arrives just as Fujifilm's XF50-140mm f/2.8 Mark II is expected, giving X-mount shooters a cheaper, lighter telephoto to weigh the Fujinon against before committing. Demand has outrun supply — Sigma has issued a statement on shipping delays, and Adorama currently expects stock in late November. Fuji Rumors

  “Performance is not in question, the results are almost universally excellent, the price is keen, so we have a highly attractive Editor’s Choice.”

• Viltrox AF 26mm f/2.8 EVO FE — Lens Tips has run its full test of this compact, mostly metal Sony E prime: centre resolution is excellent, chromatic aberration is negligible, and it ships with a five-year warranty. Worth reading before you put it on an a7 — the cheap, tiny everyday prime makes a far better case on a crop body than on a full-frame one. The review calls vignetting on a full-frame sensor enormous, finds flare resistance disappointing and notes pronounced focus breathing. Sony Addict

• Richard Butler, DPReview — an argument against the recurring complaint that every maker has abandoned stills: photographic hardware is mature, so the visible gains now land on the video side, while autofocus and subject recognition are where photo progress continues. Useful framing next time a spec sheet looks like it was written for filmmakers — and a reminder that recent photo-first launches, the Ricoh GR IV among them, exist too. DPReview

  “Every camera company has become interested in video in addition to photography, but that’s not the same thing as instead of it.”

• Nikon Zf — an Fstoppers piece from a working director and photographer requesting internal N-RAW recording on the Zf by firmware, on the grounds that the cheaper Z5II and Z5IIC run the same 24.5MP sensor and already offer it. It is the firmware-gating argument again, from the useful side: if Nikon agreed, a three-year-old retro body would gain a capability for nothing. Those two cheaper bodies cap out at 4K 30p N-RAW, which the author reckons would cover almost all of his paid work. Fstoppers

📰Industry news

• RICOH GR IV firmware 1.20 — Out 21 October for the GR IV and GR IV HDF, it adds focus-point and USER-mode memory settings plus a power-off wireless switch, and cannot be rolled back.

• Nikon Z8 — Amazon is listing a refurbished Z8 in excellent condition at $2,880.80; the five-star body shoots 45.7MP stills, 20fps raw and 8K 30p video.

• Ricoh GR availability — Six GR models are in stock in the US and Canada, the anniversary kit included, while Pentax discontinuations have now reached 12 lenses.

• Micro Four Thirds — The standards group has warned about unlicensed third-party MFT lenses; Pergear's 10mm f/5.6 II pancake fisheye costs $69, and OM Digital revises Japanese pricing.

• Leica digest #256 — Sirui's Swift 20mm f/2.4 and 40mm f/2.2 L-mount primes take pre-orders at $149; a 0-Series Leica made €4.25 million at Wetzlar Camera Auctions.

• Leica Store London Mayfair — Leica's new UK flagship takes over from the Duke Street shop, with Harrods unaffected, and opens alongside a limited-edition M-A King Nerd.

💡One takeaway