Camera Reviews

Celebrating Halloween with a true low-light “beast” – The Sony A7s II review

11/11/2015 By Mathieu

Testing a camera in the right environment and on the right occasion can definitely help you carry out a more complete analysis, even if you don’t spend that much time with it. This is what happened over this year’s Halloween weekend here in Wales. Given the great low-light capabilities of the first Sony A7s, there couldn’t have been a better chance to review its successor, the Sony A7s II!

Review of the Olympus Firmware Update 4.0 – Focus Stacking, updated movie modes and more

03/11/2015 By Heather

Update: You can now download firmware update 4.0 on the Olympus website.

The OM-D E-M1 may have just celebrated its second birthday – a lifetime in technological terms – but it remains just as relevant as it was when it was first released. How is this possible? Well, it is partly owing to the numerous firmware updates Olympus has released to keep the flagship model up-to-date.

A welcome improvement – The Nikon 1 J5 Review

27/10/2015 By Mathieu

The Nikon 1 system is often underrated because of its small 1-inch CX sensor but it offers both stunning autofocus performance and continuous shooting speeds. The problem is that the series didn’t get off on the right foot. The first models were too expensive and I’ve always felt that there was a large discrepancy between the amazing performance and the target user. Expert photographers generally don’t consider the system because of the small sensor, while shooting at 30 or 60fps is probably too much for an amateur’s needs.

Not an A7 or DSLR competitor – Hands-On with the new Leica SL (Typ 601)

22/10/2015 By Mathieu

Two days after the announcement, Heather and I had the chance to see the new Leica SL in London. There is still a lot of talk surrounding this camera, as well as many questions related to its dimensions, price and real target user. As with every press event, one hour was not enough to arrive at a definitive conclusion. However, the title of this article already gives you a big hint as to where my impressions are headed.

Sony A7r II: compressed vs. uncompressed Raw and a firmware wish list

19/10/2015 By Mathieu

Today Sony released firmware update 2.0 for the Sony A7r mark II. It allows users to select the uncompressed Raw format, an option already available on the A7s II and RX1r II. The update (hopefully) brings to an end the long debate about the Sony A7 series having only a lossy compressed Raw file. There have been reports and discussions about artefacts you can get with these files but I have been testing A7 cameras since they were first released in late 2013 and in the real-world I have never found this to be a real issue. However I will always support a solution that gives more choice to the customer and satisfies the most demanding of users.