Photo News: GoPro relaunch and Sony's luxury glass

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The summer of sport is slowly coming to an end, with the Paralympic Games in Paris after the Olympics and the European Football Championships – so it's time to wake up our column from its summer break. What has changed fundamentally in sports photography with these events can be found in the long read for the weekend, but this week there were two very interesting new devices that take precedence.

The first is the new G-Master from Sony with a focal length of 85 millimeters and an aperture of f/1.4 – Wait, that's been around since 2016, hasn't it? Exactly. The numerous new functions that have been added to the cameras since then, above all the AI autofocus with scene recognition and tracking, mean that the lenses also need to be faster. Sony has updated numerous standard lenses this year, and now it is the turn of the specialist for portrait and studio work. The autofocus of the new 85 is said to be three times faster.

This is important when working with a model in the studio, for example. If the person moves quickly, for example to present clothing, the autofocus has to keep up. In large studios, where you can illuminate the scene perfectly with many lighting elements, a little more distance is useful than with the usual 50 millimeter lenses. Of course, an 85-millimeter also takes great pictures in landscapes and available light tasks as well as at events. This has never been cheap fun: Sony charges around 2100 euros for the new G-Master.

However, this is put into perspective when you look at the price at the launch of its predecessor: It came onto the market eight years ago for a whopping 2000 euros. Since then, the price has fallen continuously and, as always with a model change, now is the time for bargain hunters. Some dealers offer the previous device for around 1300 euros. However, G-Master still stands for "good value for money". However, you have to see the crisp images of this series of devices on your own computer to understand why such investments are worthwhile.

Sigma's fast universal zoom

Sigma's new lens is probably also strong in available light, everything else is quite unusual. The two standard zooms with f/2.8 usually have a focal length of 24-70 and 70-200 millimeters. The Sigma 28-105mm f/2.8 DG DN Art is therefore roughly in the middle of the two zooms that many photographers always have with them. A combination lens that replaces the other two. Does this mean less weight in the photo bag? As always, it depends. The four millimeters of focal length at the short end, which are missing from the 24-70 millimeter, are usually missed more at events than the 95 millimeters at the long end. To be on the safe side, you usually have a telephoto with you anyway.

What weighs more heavily, literally, is the lack of internal focusing compared to modern zooms. The tube of the Sigma extends, which relativizes the almost 16 centimeters in length when retracted. Sigma has not yet specified exactly how many centimeters. Nevertheless, the lens is said to be weatherproof, which puts it in the class of professional 2.8 lenses. And that with a weight of 995 grams. Sigma probably wanted to undercut the 1 kilogram limit at all costs. The first thing that springs to mind is wedding photography, when the party isn't taking place in the most confined surroundings.

For concerts on large stages, a longer focal length in the telephoto range would be better. For outdoor work, the 40 centimeter close-up limit over the entire focal length range is interesting. And with locking switches for aperture and focal length, an aperture ring and function buttons as well as a fast linear motor with little focus breathing, according to Sigma, the Sigma should also be well suited for filming. You can check this out at the end of September, when the lens for E- and L-mount will be available for 1650 euros. The price seems quite fair due to the flexibility.

GoPro with its own clip-on lenses for cinema formats too

The prices for the new GoPros are also somewhat fairer. Recently, the company has not only had a lot of competition from the likes of Fuji and DJI, but also little innovation to offer. So the company is returning to its old strengths and offering a more compact and more affordable model as well as a high-end action cam. The details of these cameras, called Hero and Hero 13 Black, can be found in a detailed report, so here is just what GoPro has changed in its strategy.

For the Black version, the manufacturer is offering its own clip-on lenses for the first time, i.e. an interchangeable front lens as part of the fixed lens. Previously, there were only some adventurous designs from third-party manufacturers with sometimes questionable quality due to distortion and cloudy lenses. Even the rectification functions of video programs could only help with a lot of manual work because they were not familiar with the combinations of lenses and GoPros. This should now change. Already available are an ultra-wide angle for a 117-degree angle of view and a macro with a close focusing distance of eleven centimeters. With these attachments, the camera takes care of the distortion correction internally.

The attachment for anamorphic images with an aspect ratio of up to 21:9 – cinema format is extremely exciting. The big question is how GoPro's software corrects the inevitable distortions and the sharpness at the edge of the image. GoPros have already been used for sports filming, but they are not the only cameras to do so. For professional work, there are also ND filters (gray filters) for the clip-on mechanism, so they cannot be combined with the other lenses.

Agency photography at sporting events explained

The professionals from the huge agencies, in this case Getty Images, use robotic cameras for major sporting events. And the Canon R1, which is not yet available for purchase. With a lot of technology and large teams on location and in the editorial office, they can then, in extreme cases, get from an athlete's action to the customer, such as an online magazine, in 20 seconds. In a long interview with Matthias Hangst, Director of Sports Content at Getty, Tom Leon Zacharek explains how this works and why JPEG photos play the biggest role . It is our recommendation for a long read on the weekend. The only thing to add because it was not yet known, is that the IOC photographers themselves sometimes held the R1 in Paris up to the camera for advertising purposes. As predicted several times in this column, Canon's new flagship certainly played a role in these games.

(nie)