Friday 25 September 2009

Microstock News: Polylooks launches in the UK



A German microstock agency (owned by Deutsche Telekom) thinks it's seen a gap in the busy microstock industry in the UK and is launching its Polylooks brand here. It's aiming to be the go-to source for UK/European imagery, something which they say a lot of the US-based sites are not strong in.

Commission rates are 50% and 35% for exclusive and non-exclusive, respectively.

More details in their press release.

Microstock News: ShutterStock buys BigStockPhoto





Following consolidation in the microstock industry earlier this year (see my previous post), Shutterstock* is now getting in on the action, with its acquisition of BigStockPhoto*. There's a natural synergy between Shutterstock's subscription model and BigStockPhoto's credit-based model. For now, the sites will run independently, but presumably it wont be long before they'll look for marketing synergies and share collections to benefit all parties.

Friday 4 September 2009

Sigma News: 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG OS Launched

Sigma have launched a new zoom lens, the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG OS:


The 'OS' stands for 'Optical Stabiliser' and is equivalent to the IS on some Canon lenses.

It comes with a lens hood and versions will be available to support Canon, Nikon (D), Sony, Pentax and Sigma mounts.


CanonNikonSony


PentaxSigma


More information available from Sigma's website here.

Tamron News: SP AF 17-50mm F/2.8 Launched

Tamron have introduced a new zoom lens, snappily called the SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di-II VC LD Aspherical (IF):



VC stands for 'Vibration Compensation' - similar to the IS with some Canon lenses.

It's for digital cropped sensors only and initially only for Nikon mount, with Canon following at end of October.

You can read more about it on their website, here.

Nikon mount available here*:



Tuesday 1 September 2009

Canon News: New lenses

Canon weren't content with launching the 7D and have also announced three new lenses:

EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM lens

As discussed in a previous blog post, this is Canon's first lens to include their new hybrid image stabilisation.






EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens






EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens