When Sigma released its SD1 DSLR with its fancy Foveon sensor last year, many photographers balked at the camera’s $9,700 price tag. Now, perhaps due to the launch of a new generation of Canon and Nikon DSLRs, Sigma is rethinking the camera’s price. In a press release put out today, the company announced that the camera will be re-launched the Sigma SD1 Merrill — named in honor of Foveon co-creator Richard “Dick” Merrill.
However, even with this revolutionary image sensor, we could not solve issues related to some of the manufacturing methods before the start of mass production, and the production cost ended up substantially exceeding our originally expected price. As a result, we had no choice but to set the price of the Sigma SD1 high. This caused great discouragement to all of you who looked forward to its release, and wished to experience the very unique image quality of the Sigma SD1 in person; this has become our biggest disappointment and pain.
Since then, overcoming this situation has become the first priority for us and Foveon, and we have together made improvements to reduce production cost substantially. Even though this effort took nearly a year, at last, we achieved a reduction target close to the price we originally planned. Therefore, we decided to release Sigma SD1 as a new product
The company has decided to lop off a whopping $6,400 from the MSRP, meaning the camera is now priced at $3,300. It was selling in stores for $6,899 before, so the new “street price” will likely be around $2,300.
If you have an old mount for attaching a GPS or cell phone to your windshield, you can upcycle it into a suction cup tripod for your camera (just make sure it’s not the flimsy kind that falls off on its own). What you’ll need to do is flatten the mount surface and then install a tripod screw. Nano_Burger has a step-by-step tutorial on how he did this conversion over on Instructables. The resulting tripod allows you to fix your camera in locations that aren’t accessible to tripods that don’t suck (hah, get it?).
Industrial design student Hunter Frerich came up with a simple and cheap DIY beauty dish that’s created using fabric, foil, velcro, and glue. To make your own, simply download and print out the template and follow the step-by-step instructions.
You can make yourself a quick and simple snoot by cutting off the upper portion of a soda bottle and covering it with gaffer tape. While it’s definitely not the most elegant solution, it’s a cheap way to isolate your subject when shooting with a flash unit.
Beauty dishes are pricey, and so are dedicated cases for carrying them around. If you want a cheap and simple way to protect your dish, LA-based photographer Mariusz Jeglinski suggests buying a Christmas wreath bag for less than $10. The shape works nicely for dishes, and you can add some extra padding to the case if you want added protection.
Wanting a cheap and compact way to carry, protect, and manage his SD cards, Instructables member FrankenPaper discovered that the plastic cases that come with Sunstar GUM Soft-Picks are the perfect size for holding 2 cards. To keep the cards from jostling around and to track whether they’re full or empty, he created an insert that you can print, cut, and fold yourself (download the PDF here).
If you have a potato chip tube lying around, you can convert the tube into a super simple DIY snoot. All you need to do is cut an opening in the closed end that’s the size of your flash head (tip: use some duct tape to prevent it from scratching your flash). Read the rest of this entry »
Canon’s 50mm f/1.8 Mark II is a terrific lens for its price, but its build quality definitely leaves something to be desired. Do a quick search, and you’ll find legions of broken-hearted Canonites who had their ‘Nifty Fifty’ split into two pieces after accidentally bumping or dropping it. Flickr user tastygiant is one such Canonite, but he subsequently discovered an awesome use for the broken lens:
Being a geek, I figured I could use the broken pieces in the future, so I shelved it and bought a new 50mm 1.8 Canon lens. One day, while taking shots around my apartment, I stumbled across the broken lens again and decided to reverse the “barrel assembly” onto the front of my intact 50mm. Everything was blurry of course, but I noticed if I got very close to an object the detail came into view. After adjusting the aperture to around f5.6, I had a clear image.
It’s important to note that you should switch to Manual focusing and rotate the focusing ring to “infinity”.
In the past week, two different lens dial camera cases have been announced for iPhoneographers: a Holga toy camera case and a more serious lens dial case. If you don’t want to shell out cash to add a lens dial to your phone (and don’t mind it looking ridiculous), you can make a do-it-yourself lens dial using a jar lid and random lenses scavenged from various devices. The dial is attached to the back of your phone using a suction cup, and can give you magnification on-the-go.
