This weekend, Fstoppers has been at PhotoPlus Expo in New York City to give an inside look at all the new products being announced to the photography community. Yesterday, we showed off new products from Samsung, Spider Holster and more, and the day before we showed off the impressive DEFY gimbal system and others. Today, we were able to look into Sigma, Canon and Nikon's new product lines.
Sigma
Sigma has had a big year this year with the release of their Art, Contemporary and Sports series of lenses. Breaking grounds with the first ever f/1.8 zoom lens in the 18-35mm Art Series lens, and showing off pristine sharpness with their 35mm f/1.4 Art.
In correlation with PhotoPlus Expo, last week Sigma announced their update to the 24-105mm f/4 lens with the Art version under the same focal length. Sigma promises incredible image quality from this refreshing update, and still maintains to hit a nice price point at $899. Check out the video below as one of their reps walks us through their new line of lenses, and shows us the brand new 24-105mm f/4 Art which is expected to hit stores soon.
Nikon
Among the largest booths on the Expo floor was of course Nikon. Sporting a stage for public speeches from Joe McNally, Jerry Ghionis, and others; paid actors in a diner scene to show off the video functions of the D610 and D4 and a beautifully decorated candy booth, showing both the picture quality and vibrancy from their line of DSLRs. But the two big announcements they had for us this year were the Nikon 58mm f/1.4 and the Nikon D5300.
Nikon 58mm f/1.4
Announcing just a few days after the Zeiss 55mm f/1.4, the Nikon 58mm f/1.4 sports Nano Crystal coating, fast focusing and promises to have some of the sharpest images available for the general focal range. Nikon's Sales Rep was able to talk with us about this Nikon 58mm f/1.4, and share some of its impressive features.
The Nikon D5300 was also announced for PhotoPlus Expo and was a refreshing update to their affordable cropped body market.
Canon
Canon holds the largest portion of the market share for DSLRs, by a significant margin. Perhaps that is why I find the release of the 1DX firmware during the PhotoPlus Expo this year insulting. Every brand in photography pushed out brand new innovations into the field, and showed them to the world this week while Canon just sat calmly and watched. And for what reason?
Perhaps it's because Canon does see comfort in their brand. Being the largest camera manufacturer in the world certainly has some perks, and Canon can sit and watch. However, I find it to be blind arrogance. The world is changing faster than ever, and with video becoming a huge staple in the DSLR market, no brand is safe for long enough.
And lets be clear, I'm personally the biggest Canon fanboy ever, and have thousands of dollars blindly investing in their gear. I just don't know how to process that they seemingly made no effort to make any significant news at PhotoPlus, and seemingly mocked us all with their sign advertising their firmware update like it's actual news.
Is this foreshadowing of things to come for Canon? Perhaps that is a bit too dramatic. But it is discouraging. Nikon released a beautiful pro level 58mm f/1.4 to replace their archaic 50mm f/1.4 (Something that needs to be done with Canon 50mm as well), and Sony wowed the audience with their Sony A7R, showing us all that full frame mirrorless cameras are indeed possible, and they're now.
Maybe something is coming down the line, and was just delayed. For whatever reason, Canon did not have a rep to speak with us despite multiple attempts to do so. However, with what we saw from them, we were generally unimpressed.
And that is what we have from the showroom floor. Stay tuned in the coming days as we're able to give you a more detailed look into our favorite products, highlights from the days, and exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names in the photography industry.
FANBOY!(just messin with ya)
I too am kinda annoyed that Canon didn't give us something new and exciting to drool over.
Tho I still drool over the 1Dx and want one badly...
I am dying to see the next release!!
Zach great job putting up with all the damn people in the show, and bringing us the info :)
Happy to help. I hope I was able to provide an experience to those who aren't able to attend these kinds of things. If I did, I'm sure we'll make these trips a regular thing :-) Thanks for taking the time to watch it all.
My frustration at the show with Canon ran deep. They had their booth set up in the front of the expo, and was likely the largest one there. Like all shows, you're able to play with many of their products and they had speakers giving free lectures throughout the day. However, this isn't different to what Nikon, Sony, Sigma and FujiFilm were all also doing.Certainly I'm not advocating that they need to refresh their camera lines every 3 months, but they do have some stuff that people have been asking for for years at this point. I really believe a 50mm f/1.4 is way overdo, and would make sense to release alongside Nikons 58mm and Zeiss' 55mm. I think it's also overdo to have a new 35mm come out of the woodwork. Sigma's is better than the 35L on every regard, and I know Canon doesn't like to be looked at as silver medal for too long.
lol, "art series lens". Haha, I really can't deal with that. lmao
Back in the day, there was a really big Mac trade show and Apple would announce all sorts of new stuff...then they announced that they wouldn't do that. People freaked! Then Apple stopped participating entirely. OMG! Apple is dead! At the time there were the same type of laments over Apple not timing their announcements to the shows, but look at where Apple is now and I can't even remember the name of that tradeshow. Apple makes it's own news on its own schedule just as I think Canon should. Don't rush it out or hold it back just to time it for a show. Participate, sure, but it doesn't mean anything for Canon to not hold a big hoopla event at every small trade show.