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SHORTS & BRIEFS: April 16

LCDs upgraded on Sony a7R III, a7R IVDaylight third in mirrorless race…EF lenses dropping like flies…

LCDs upgraded on Sony a7R III, a7R IV

Sony has released updated versions of its a7R III and a7R IV cameras with minor enhancements and the letter ‘A’ added to their model numbers to differentiate them from their predecessors. So the a7R III now has the model number ILCE-7RM3A.

Both the a7R III (model: ILCE-7RM3A) and a7R IV (model: ILCE-7RM4A) have improved rear LCD panels, with 2.36 million dots compared to the 1.44 million dots in the original models. Users sacrifice about 10 shots of battery life for the extra resolution.

It’s not known whether the models with the higher res LCDs will find there way to Australia. But if Sony Australia doesn’t want leakage to grey marketers, they had better!

Daylight third in mirrorless race

A report from Techno System Research in a Japanese business website reveals that Sony and Canon are  neck-and neck in mirrorless camera production, with 1.15 million and 1.05 million units respectively. Nikon produced a meagre 250K units.

The rest – Fujifilm, Panasonic, Olympus, Ricoh/Pentax and Sigma produced 810K mirrorless cameras between them. From this we can deduce that a) Nikon is in a world of pain and b) APS-C and M43 cameras have gone off the boil, which bodes particularly bad for the OM Digital Solutions Olympus ‘M43-forever’ strategy.

Canon led the race in DSLRs with 1.72 million cameras followed by Nikon with 650K.

Canon EF lenses dropping like flies

A report from Canon Rumors indicates that Canon is discontinuing quite a few EF lenses this year, with the running list on the rumour blog at 26 at time of writing. Some of the listed lenses have already been discontinued while others, according to the author, will be discontinued ‘some time in 2021’. It should be noted that most of these lenses were announced over 10 years ago.

Canon has been approached for comment in the US, but is remaining shtum.

Here’s the unofficial list to date:

Already discontinued:
Canon EF-S 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 USM
Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L USM II
Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
Canon EF 24-70mm f/4L IS USM
Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 IS USM
Canon EF-S 35mm f/2.8 IS STM Macro
Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM
Canon EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS STM
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM II
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM
Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM II
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM
Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM
Canon EF 180mm f/3.5L USM
Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM
Canon EF 300mm f/4L IS USM
Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM

To be discontinued ‘some time in 2021’:
Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM
Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM II
Canon EF 400mm f/4 DO IS USM II
Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM II

 

 

 

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