Coming soon: Lightroom 5 free beta…Sigma 18-35mm…Sony superzoom HX50V…
Lightroom 5 free beta
Noted price gouger Adobe has a beta version of Photoshop Lightroom 5 available free until release of the commercial version – complete no doubt with a special high price for Australian customers.
New features in Lightroom 5 Beta include: Advanced healing brush; an Upright tool to straighten tilted images with a single click; and improved photo book templates.
The Lightroom 5 beta program is available to the public as a download from here. Anyone can download it and start putting it to the test. You do not need to own a previous version of Lightroom. It will expire on June 30.
Fast and wide
Sigma has announced a new 18-35mm f1.8 DC HSM lens for DSLR cameras that have APS-C sized sensors.
It offers a constant f1.8 aperture across the 18-35mm zoom range (equivalent to 27-52mm in 35mm format) and will focus to 28cm. Its optical design consists of 17 elements in 12 groups with five SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glass and four glass-moulded aspherical lens elements.
The lens is 121mm long with a diameter of 78mm and an overall weight of 810 grams. The barrel length remains constant and the front element doesn’t rotate during focusing and zooming. It will be available in Sigma, Canon and Nikon mounts. Release dates and pricing have not been disclosed thus far, but more technical specs are available here.
Sony superzoom in June
Sony is set to release the Cyber-shot HX50V, a digital compact with a small but high-res sensor and 30x optical zoom range on June 1.
Powered by a 1/2.3-inch type (6.17 x 4.55 mm) 20.4-megapixel Exmor R CMOS sensor, Sony says the HX50V has exceptional low-light performance and the AF system is more than twice the speed of the Cyber-shot HX200V at full zoom.
For more advanced photographers, there’s a dial to adjust exposure compensation, plus a mode dial for other manual shooting settings such as P/A/S/M modes. A ‘Multi Interface Shoe’ is included for attaching compatible electronic viewfinders, flashes or microphones for video shooting. The HX50V also supports a remote controller.
The HX50V offers nine different picture effects to experiment with. Three picture effects are also available in Intelligent Sweep Panorama mode, along with four special movie effects.
The Cyber-Shot HX50V will be available in Australia from June 1 at an RRP of $499. (Currently offered on US websites for US$448.)
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