With the unveiling of the new Pentax Q7, the Q-series gets a larger 1/1.7″ sensor instead of the previous 1/2.3″ sensor. This replaces a typical compact camera sensor with a typical premium compact sensor, the same size used by the Panasonic Lumix LX7 and Nikon Coolpix P310. Given the resolution remains at 12 megapixels for the Q7, this is bound to improve image quality of the smallest mirrorless system on the market.

The change in sensor-size leads to an interesting and puzzling change: All lenses for the Q-system suddenly become wider and shorter. The obvious follow up question is if those lenses were designed to allow for the new larger image-circle needed by the 1/1.7″ sensor.

With a new 4.6X crop factor, instead of 5.6X, the 5-15mm 02 Standard Zoom, becomes a 23-69mm instead of 28-84mm. No a huge change but to some this is an important difference. The 03 Telephoto Zoom shifts accordingly to 69-207mm from 84-252mm.

Along with the Q7, Pentax introduces a pinhole lens, called the 07 Mount Shield. This 11.5mm lens has a fixed F/9 aperture and fixed focus with a 20cm – 3m depth-of-field. This adds one more Q-mount lens in the playful and artistic style which Pentax has been emphasizing since the launch of the Q-series of mirrorless cameras.

The Pentax Q7 is immediately available in 120 color combinations for a suggested retail price of $499 USD or CDN. The 07 Mount Shield will be available next month for $79 USD or CDN.

Neocamera Blog  © Cybernium

Pentax just revealed two new updates to their DSLR lineup. First up is the K-50, a minor upgrade to the K-30 with nearly identical specifications except for an updated processing engine, allowing for a maximum ISO of 51200. The look of the K-50 has also been refined to something more elegant. It obviously keeps the 100% coverage viewfinder, dual control-dial, weather-sealed and freeze-proof body.

The K-50 is immediately available in 120 color-combinations, allowing the buyer to customize the body and grip colors separately. It can be ordered for a suggested price of $599. Allow a few weeks for custom color configurations.

Second is the K-500 which is a K-50 without the weather-sealed body. It will be available next month, in black only, for a suggested price of $599 including a kit 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 lens. This is an exciting entry-level model and the cheapest DSLR to ever feature a 100% coverage viewfinder and the cheapest one to feature dual control-dials. As far as improving your photography goes, the 100% coverage viewfinder goes a  long way and those dual control-dials make this the most efficient entry-level DSLR on the market.

Both the K-50 and K-500 features Pentax’s unique AA and Lithium-Ion power options. The K-50 is supplied with a proprietary battery giving it 410 shots-per-charge according to CIPA. It can also use AA batteries for 710 shots-per-charge. The K-500 is not supplied with any batteries and but takes AAs out-of-the-box for 710 shots-per-charge. It can also take the proprietary battery for 410 shots-per-charge. Given the incredible convenience of AAs, we do not expect many people to use the Lithium-Ion option.

Neocamera Blog  © Cybernium

Sigma offers a lens optimization software to tweak lens performance and focus which connects to lenses via a special USB doc. There is a very nice demo on Vimeo that shows how the Optimization Pro software works.

The video is very neat and illustrates some important and surprising points about lenses. AF Fine-Tuning allows lens focus to be shifted forward or backward. This feature is available on many high-end DSLRs. However, Sigma is the first to allow the shift to be applied according to focal-length. This obviously makes sense since focus is not always off by a constant amount.

The most important thing to understand though is that lens calibration done by software is done on the lens alone and there does not seem to be a way for the lens to apply calibration depending on which camera it is attached to. For people with a single camera, only software calibration would be needed. For users of multiple cameras, the software calibration will most likely be used to ensure the lens focuses the same way at all focal-lengths and then in-camera AF Fine-Tuning would make sure that the lens focuses properly on that particular camera.

The Sigma Optimization Pro software lets user specific an AF Fine-Tuning adjustment ±20. The units are unspecified, so this would have to set by trial-and-error. This will be rather tedious and time-consuming but there is little way to improve this without the possibility of tuning with the camera attached to the lens. The Sigma USB dock makes this obviously impossible since it takes the place of the rear lens cap.

The other thing to note is that lens performance as a compromise between AF speed and accuracy can also be tweaked. Something similar is possible for stabilization where the compromise seem to be between view stability and stabilization efficiency.

It is certainly awesome to see Sigma try such new thing and we cannot wait to see how this works in practice.

Neocamera Blog  © Cybernium

This week DxOMark released new rankings for several recent cameras, including the Nikon Coolpix P330 which is now the highest-rated small sensor digital camera with a score of 54.

The score breaks down as 21 bits of color-depth, 11.7 EVs of dynamic-range and low-light rating of 213. As said in the DxOMark report, the first two numbers are excellent and compare well even to large sensor cameras.

The low-light performance of 213 is still the second highest among small-sensor cameras, just behind the Fuji X20 which gets 245, yet is far behind what large sensors can deliver. However, the X20 falls short from the P330 on both other metrics which leaves it with a score of 50. This corresponds to about small but visible difference in final output.

The other compact ranked is the large sensor Pentax Ricoh GR which features a large 16 MP APS-C sensor paired with a fixed 28mm F/2.8 lens. This one scores a 78 which, as expected, puts it in high-end DSLR territory. Despite a high-performing sensor, it falls short on the low-light side with a 972 rating. Top APS-C sensors score in the 1200+ range significantly better and even the recently reviewed Nikon Coolpix A makes it at 1164.

Neocamera Blog  © Cybernium

Today Yahoo! unveiled a completely designed Flickr which finally puts photography at the center of the user-experience. Many will say it is long overdue but the all-new design also comes with a new offering of 1 TB for free accounts. Yes, that is 1 terabyte or 1000 gigabytes, enough for 200,000 images of 16 megapixels each.

The new Flickr also comes in an Android app available at the Google Play store. An iPhone app will follow in December.

The Flickr interface now features a customizable header photo which stretches horizontally to fit the scalable interface. Photos now fill pages as well as they can fit and the slide-show feature is full-screen on HTML 5 capable browsers.

On your marks, get set, upload!

Neocamera Blog  © Cybernium