The gear announcements are flying thick and fast in the Autumn season when new products are unveiled and among the various gizmos announced today, amateurs would probably be struck by the odd mix of a Nikon full-frame body, Tamron lenses and (wait for this) Apple’s new iPhone – and why not?  Would you believe that the iPhone is one of the most popular snapshot cameras!

    The iPhone 5’s camera has an 8 MP resolution, like its predecessor.  However, it’s going ‘upmarket’ with additions like a sapphire-crystal lens coating.  The biggest evolution seems to be in the software as you can pan across a scene to take a panoramic picture of upto 28 MP.  You just click and pan, the software will straighten out the hand-shake and off-axis movement, and create the panorama!

    Since the days of film Tamron has been one of the ‘go-to’ names in optics.  Many pros opt for Tamron lenses because they are seen to offer above-average quality at below-average prices.  Their A009 zoom catches the eye because of its maximum aperture – a big f/2.8.  The 90mm macro opens up to f/2.8 and has a magnification ratio of 1:1.

    The biggie surely has to be Nikon’s D600; one can call it the amateur’s ‘pro’ camera or the pro’s backup body.  An expert has dissed this camera’s sync speed of 1/200 which has caused quite a flurry of chatter on the Strobist blog.  (Remember when flash sync used to be 1/60?  Those were the days!)

     (Flash sync-speed is important, and the higher the better because that results in a wider aperture which is what is really important as it lets in more light; consequently, assuming all other variables are constant, you can either get more juice out of your lighting setup or, more critically, it will give you more ‘reach’ or ‘throw’.) 

    On the point of (flash-)freezing motion, the blog’s author makes the pitch-perfect point that flash cares only about aperture and not shutter-speed.  And, the converse point, in a somewhat back-to-front way, is that motion blur ‘cares’ only about shutter-speed, i.e. even with motion-freezing flash, you can get some residual (post-flash) motion blur for effect.  Anyway, how about a choice of sync speeds?  I think that would make everyone happy!