Talked to former colleagues this past week, day to day photojournalists opting for lighter cameras & lenses over speed/l

[pRICE cUBE]

vision63 wrote:
With improved sensor, do you really need 2.8 over a 4? Maybe a tiny bit.

I am having a tough time with moving to a slower aperture because much of my young photographic life was won or lost with 2.8 lenses. The amassing of funds to buy a 70-200 2.8 and a 400 mm 2.8 consumed much of my college days. There is just something so beautifully wonderful about optical glass as wide as your face.

[pRICE cUBE]

Wags wrote:
[quote=AllGold]
[quote=pRICE cUBE]
What surprised me the most is that they no longer use 400mm f/2.8, 300 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8 lenses for sports/action. They carry 70-200 f/4 and 200-400 f/4.

On the other hand, the newer Canon 400/2.8 and 300/2.8 lenses are light as a feather. (The latest Canon 70-200/2.8 is still pretty heavy, though.)

I see a ton of 200-400/4s being used these days, both Nikon and Canon.
Canon 400/2.8, $12K. Yikes

Yep, Canon and Sony's latest 400 2.8 are quite light but $12k

[pRICE cUBE]

C(-)ris wrote:
There are places that still have photographers and didn't just give the reporters a mirrorless?

Those jobs are going away and some of the time reporters are just using iPhones.

[AllGold]

pRICE cUBE wrote:
...a 400 mm 2.8 consumed much of my college days. There is just something so beautifully wonderful about optical glass as wide as your face.

And a 400/2.8 gives you a different look that you can't get with smaller aperture lenses.

[pRICE cUBE]

AllGold wrote:
[quote=pRICE cUBE]
...a 400 mm 2.8 consumed much of my college days. There is just something so beautifully wonderful about optical glass as wide as your face.

And a 400/2.8 gives you a different look that you can't get with smaller aperture lenses.

MILC is changing the game is what you see in the viewfinder. A 2.8 optic in a low light situation means you can see more of what is going on (brightness) compared to a 4 or 5.6 because those lenses were showing less light in the viewfinder. There was less light physically entering your eye. MILC can take a 4 or 5.6 lens and brighten the electronic viewfinder to allow you to frame things in low light at optimal brightness to what the eye percieves.

[cbelt3]

pRICE cUBE wrote:
[quote=C(-)ris]
There are places that still have photographers and didn't just give the reporters a mirrorless?

Those jobs are going away and some of the time reporters are just using iPhones. This... my BIL gave up his 35 year career as an investigative journalist after they laid off 50% of the staff and told the few remaining actual journalists to use their personal iPhones to take photos.

“Dead Tree Media”, he calls it. He’s mostly doing documentaries, writing for an alt.weekly . He says it’s liberating because he can now write his opinions.

[pRICE cUBE]

This Sony 200-600 lens looks fun. It is $1900 new and a used A7 III used is around $1600-1800. Hmmmmm.

[DP]

Those jobs are going away and some of the time reporters are just using iPhones.

This.

Also, these 40,000 ISO cameras are, again, possible due to software. To me, the biggest change, other than going from film to digital, is the way software has and is making 40,000 ISO's with no grain (or very little) possible, among other advancements. Soon, we'll just have to think, "click!" in our minds and a photograph will be made...

[deckeda]

DP how is this just software? Shouldn’t we have seen cameras tethered to computers creating impossibly high ISO images years ago? People would have gladly run high end Macs or PCs out of their truck with long cords if all it took was some number crunching and clever code, no?

[jonny]

If I remember correctly, the camera takes 10’s of pictures in a few seconds and uses an algorithm to combine them to remove noise.