Well it was either this or the Kathy Griffin severed Trump head photo. . . Boeing's 737 Max 9 went up for its first flight in May, and we were there. With our cameras. Because planes are cool.
Thinking back to May we struggled to recall anything much happening, but once we actually went back through the archives and looked, it turns out that May was a pretty busy month. Sony and Nikon released a brace of excellent new lenses, and as rumors of a forthcoming 'D820' started to swirl, Nikon announced an ominous-sounding 'reshuffle'.
Meanwhile Photokina declared that it was 'repositioning' to become an annual show, and Panono - maker of one of our favorite 360-degree cameras - announced bankruptcy. At the other end of the solar system, NASA's Juno probe sent back the first images of Jupiter's pole.
May was also the month that a huge chunk of California's Big Sur area slipped into the Pacific (here are the pictures to prove it), President Trump let a Russian press photographer into a closed briefing in the White House, and comedienne Kathy Griffin got in trouble for a photoshoot where she was pictured holding his (fake, obviously) severed head. Trump's head - not the photographer's. He probably runs the FSB by now (the photographer - not Trump).
A museum in the Netherlands put on an exhibition of 19th Centry photography pioneer Anna Atkins' cyanotypes
Speaking of The Swamp, a museum in the Netherlands put on an exhibition of 19th Century photography pioneer Anna Atkins' cyanotypes, documenting rare varieties of British algae. They're prettier than you might think.
At DPReview, we weren't pretending to behead anyone – we were busy reviewing the Sigma Quattro H and nerding out over the first flight of the new Boeing 737 Max 9*.
Tomorrow - June!
* The first flight actually happened in April, but it took us a while to go through all the images in Lightroom and we were really busy doing other things and our dog got sick so we had to take it to the vet and we couldn't find our keys.
Nikon releases 28mm F1. 4, 8-15mm fisheye and DX 10-20mm
Nikon's AF-S Nikkor 28mm F1. 4, released in May, is an excellent fast-aperture wideangle prime lens for FX and DX-format DSLRs.
Nikon release three new but very different lenses in May. The AF-S NIKKOR 28mm f/1. 4E ED is a high-quality wideangle prime for full-frame, which offers excellent sharpness and a very bright maximum aperture. The AF-P DX NIKKOR 10-20mm f/4. 5-5. 6G VR sits at the other end of the scale, and offers an effective focal length range of 15-30mm on Nikon's APS-C format DSLRs. Meanwhile, the AF-S Fisheye NIKKOR 8-15mm f/3. 5-4. 5E ED is even wider - and a lot of fun.
Read more about Nikon's latest lenses
Sony unveils FE 12-24mm F4 G and 16-35mm F2. 8 GM
Sony's new FE 12-24mm - an affordable and extremely high-quality ultrawide zoom for Sony's full-frame a7 and a9-series cameras.
Sony put a lot of energy into updating and expanding its full-frame lens lineup in 2017, and May saw two major releases. We're big fans of both the FE 12-24mm F4 G and 16-35mm F2. 8 GM, which have proved themselves to be excellent performers on Sony's a9 and a7-series mirrorless cameras.
Read more about Sony's FE wideangle zooms
New images of Jupiter's pole show enormous, gorgeous storms
Jupiter is pretty. Some day we hope to visit this place.
Since 2011, NASA's Juno probe has been steadily, quietly, and without any fuss been making its lonely way to Jupiter. It entered Jovian orbit in 2016, and in May it sent back the first high-resolution color images of the massive storm raging at the planet's poles. Isn't science beautiful?
Take a detailed look at the storms on Jupiter
Rare collection of algae cyanotypes goes on display
Yep. Algae.
Read more
2017-12-24 17:00
