Kipon just announced the IBELUX 40mm f0.85, available also for Fuji X-mount! This high speed lens will cost you $2000. It will be available in February 2014.

You can read more and see some samples, taken also with the Fuji X-PRO1 at their official press release here.

via mirrorlessrumors

Fuji X-PRO1 with IBELUX 40mm f0.85 (image courtesy: Kipon)

PRESS RELEASE

HANDEVISION  —  December 12, 2013

A mutual passion for photography and the art of image capture between two companies’ owner has led two special firms, Shanghai Transvision and German IB/E Optics, to collaborate on an industry-shaking new innovation. By merging Geman high-quality engineering standards with Chinese cost-effective production infrastructure, the new camera lens brand Handevision (“Han” means China in Mandarin and “De” is the word for Germany).

After many months of collaboration between engineering and production teams, final quality control assessments have concluded and the IBELUX 40mm f0.85 high-speed lens, the fastest lens in the world, is nearly ready for release. Available for sale by February, 2014, this lens will be available for Sony NEX, Fuji X, Canon EOS M and Micro 4/3 digital mirrorless camera mounts (MSRP is $2,080 USD).

While risky to start our launch with this ground-breaking high-speed lens, we hope to gain the attention and confidence of photographers around the world with our expanding new lenses. Our mission is to manufacture high-grade lenses of metallic construction with a clean, aesthetic finish. As a new player in the lens market, we believe we can expand our new brand internationally as our engineers, uninhibited by production costs nor by material restrictions, will be free to work creatively in seeking optimal image quality and artistic design.

We are currently working on our next project, the wide-angle IBEGON lens. With Sony releasing the new full-frame mirrorless A7/A7R camera, we have designed a high-speed telephoto APO mirror lens called the IBECAT, named for its sharp image capture, its lightweight construction and fast glass. Additional lenses are in development for full frame mirrorless cameras, including a tilt-shift lens and a compact fixed focal length lens.

We are focusing our efforts at expanding our line of full-frame mirrorless and DSLR detachable lenses in 2014 and are constantly developing ways to satisfy demand of professional photographers for faster, sharper lenses.

Adobe just released the final version of Lightroom 5.3 and Camera Raw 8.3. Download Lightroom 5.3 for Windows | Mac

This version adds support for the X-E2 and XQ1.

Lightroom 5 costs $111 here at AmazonUS, BHphoto sells it for $114 here and Adorama for $114 too here. Pictureline’s price is $119 here.

Rob Dose shared on the FR-facebook wall his first feedback:

“[…] Lightroom 5.3, it has corrected the magenta issue with the raw files from the Fujifilm X-E2. Skin tones are extremely pleasant now […].”

Mission accomplished! With the XQ1/X-E2 Fuji’s gear release roadmap for 2013 is complete.

Yes I know, many of us hoped for the XF 10-24 to come this year, too. In fact I’m pretty sure that the announcement was planed for late November, but Fujifilm decided to postpone it. I don’t know if it will be still announced this year, but we will hardly be able to take shots with it earlier than February 2014. It seems that Fuji could release the 56mm f/1.2 earlier than the 10-24 (the 56 should be announced January 6th).

With no new gear released this year, it’s time for us to take our conclusions. Which Fuji product made you say “WOW”? What was the gear that excited you most? The list includes the 14mm, announced late 2012, but shipped only on January 19th 2013.

It’s a pretty long list… Fuji wasn’t lazy at all this year!

You can choose just one product, so think about it carefully.

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Fujifilm gained two more recognitions: Thomson Reuters and ephotozine awarded the innovatory force of the company.

1) Thomson Reuters named Fujifilm Top 100 Global Innovator 2013 (press release):

The Thomson Reuters 2013 Top 100 Global Innovator methodology is based on four principle criteria: “overall patent volume”, “patent grant success rate”, “global reach of the portfolio” and “patent influence as evidenced by citations”, using Thomson Reuters’ intellectual property and intelligence collaboration platform. Fujifilm was selected as one of the top 100 companies for its particularly high recognition of the “overall patent volume” as well as high ratings for “patent grant success rate”, and “global reach of the portfolio” and “patent influence as evidenced by citations.

2)  ephotozine declared the X100S “the best innovation of 2013” (read here).

Split Focus Screen – if you’ve ever used an old film SLR camera with manual focus lenses, then the way to ensure your photo was in focus was to use the split focus viewfinder and line up the image. The Fujifilm X100s (and later the Fujifilm X-E2) re-introduced this feature to digital cameras, and is an excellent way of manually focusing an image.

have a great start in this new week,
Patrick