Nikon to unveil its next-generation D4S digital SLR

Slightly odd announcement, Nikon say they are going to unveil their new flagship camera…..really? Were they going to let it sneak out quietly.

Anyway the full specifications are still awaited, the good people over at DP Review seem to have a picture of one and tell us:

As Nikon’s new flagship model, the D4S will offer advances over the Nikon D4 HD-SLR camera, including enhanced image quality enabled with adoption of a new image-processing engine. The new HD-SLR will also feature more advanced autofocusing performance, further solidifying it as the choice for professional sports, nature and event photographers as well as photojournalists.

The D4S represents a concentration of Nikon’s advanced camera development technologies and legacy as a leader in imaging. The D4S will further expand the possibilities for professional photographers who demand the best possible performance and image quality in challenging environments. The Nikon D4S will build upon the success of the acclaimed Nikon D4, a camera highly regarded for its speed, unrivaled low-light ability and amazing image quality that made it the choice of professionals and advanced amateurs around the world.

So not very much really except that it is going to be better. So as Sid would say ’Off the record, On the QT and all very hush-hush’

 

Night visions: Darren Almond’s full-moon landscapes

Sean O’Hagan writing in The Guardian tells us about landscape taken just by the light of the moon.

Taken over the course of half an hour at night, Darren Almond’s images expose what happens when ‘you give the landscape longer to express itself’.

At least two guiding spirits hover around To Leave a Light Impression, the new show by British artist Darren Almond at White Cube, Bermondsey. The most obvious is Charles Darwin, in whose footsteps Almond followed to make several of his images. The other is the lesser-known Scottish nature writer, Nan Shepherd, whose book, The Living Mountain, provides the exhibition’s epigraph:

“So there I lie on the plateau, under me the central core of fire from which was thrust the grumbling, grinding mass of plutonic rock, over me blue air, and between the fire of the rock and the fire of the sun, scree, soil and water, moss, grass, flower and tree, insect, bird and beast, rain and snow – the total mountain. Slowly I have found my way in.”

Almond is trying to find a way in to a landscape tradition that he belongs to, but stands outside. His preternaturally still photographs evoke all kinds of precedents – from painters of the natural sublime like Caspar David Friedrich to early photographic pioneers like Edward Steichen and more recent ecologically attuned photographers including Robert Adams – but they also evince a kind of beautiful unrealness…..MORE

 

Details of the exhibition can be found here

Darren Almond
To Leave a Light Impression
22 January – 13 April 2014
South Galleries, Bermondsey

 

Hasselblad unveils its 2014 Masters

 

– Fashion/Beauty: Bara Prasilova, Czech Republic

Held every two years, the Hasselblad Masters competition is open not only to users of medium or large format cameras but also active professionals with over three years experience using cameras that offered resolutions of 16MP or above.

This year, Hasselblad received more than 4000 entries from which 12 Masters were selected, each in their own categories.

The winners are:

– Architecture: Martin Schubert, Denmark

– Editorial: Antonio Pedrosa, Portugal

– General: Roman Jehanno, France

– Fashion/Beauty: Bara Prasilova, Czech Republic

– Fine Art: Rafal Maleszyk, United States

– Landscapes/Nature: Hengki Koentjoro, Indonesia

– Portrait: Dmitry Ageev, Russian Federation

– Product: Bryn Griffiths, United Kingdom

– Project/21: Paul Gisbrecht, Germany

– Underwater: Chris Straley, United States

– Wedding/Social: Joseph Goh Meng Huat, Singapore

– Wildlife: Rafael Rojas, Switzerland

Winner in the Portrait category: Dmitry Ageev, Russian Federation

Winner in the Architecture category: Martin Schubert, Denmark

Three giraffes and reflection in waterhole, Etosha NP, Namibia

See all the winners here