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Sony MEA Launches Mentorship Program for Content Creators

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Sony MEA has announced the Sony Mentorship Program for the region’s content creators. This is a three-month program that aims to discover, nurture and elevate regional talent. Open to content creators, visualizers and aspiring storytellers in the Middle East and Africa, the Sony Mentorship Program is powered by Sony’s Vlogging Camera ZV1.

Murat Gebeceli, Head of Digital Imaging, Sony Middle East & Africa said: “We look forward to discovering and guiding a new generation of bold and fresh new creative talents through the Sony Mentorship Program, an initiative that reflects our commitment to expanding opportunities available to regional talent. Through the three-month program, we will be empowering creatives with access to world-class gear such as Sony Vlogging Camera ZV1 as well as guidance from mentors, who are all successful trailblazers in their own right.”

Applicants can apply for the Sony Mentorship Program through https://alphauniverse-mea.com/sonymentorship/. They need to submit five still images or one video, up to one minute long. Along with this applicants also have to submit a personal video of up to one minute duration which explains why they want to part of the program.

Applicants’ images and/or video can be shot using any equipment of their choice, even a computer camera or smartphone. The personal video is meant to give the judges a visual introduction to the applicant’s persona. Applicants are required to be on camera to introduce themselves, and not provide just a voice-over.

Based on their applications, eight participants will then be selected for entry into the Sony Mentorship Program. The deadline to submit the application is midnight, January 15, 2020 UAE time. Selected participants will be notified after January 24, 2021, via email or phone. The three-month long program takes places from end January until April 2021.

Eight industry players will be assigned to be one-on-one mentors to the eight successful applicants. The eight mentees will also be given a Sony Vlog Camera ZV-1 and GP-VPT2BT Grip, worth $1000, to shoot as well as the opportunity to let their final project shine on the world stage. They will have access to exclusive online workshops to improve their photography, videography and editing skills.

Mentees also have the opportunity to have their project featured on Sony’s social media channels and Alpha Universe MEA. Three of the mentees will be announced as the final winners in April 2021, once the program concludes, judged for the quality and creativity of their resulting content. The first winner will be awarded $3,000, the second winner will walk away with $2,000, and the third winner with $1,000, along with a chance to do a commissioned project with Sony. Additionally, they will be recognised as pioneer members of Sony Collective, with their completed projects featured on AlphaUniverse.com.

Three ZV1 cameras are also up for grabs for the general public across the region, when they vote for their choice of winners in the competition. The program is currently open only to legal, adult residents of the Middle East and Africa. Applicants can be users of any camera brand.

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Digital Cameras

Canon Adds New Cinema RAW Light Recording Formats to EOS C500 Mark II Via Firmware Update

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Canon Europe has announced the release of a new free-of-charge firmware update for the EOS C500 Mark II, further enhancing the camera’s professional functionality. The firmware update adds 12-bit Cinema RAW Light formats: LT (Light), ST (Standard) and HQ (High Quality), improving workflow flexibility and providing more options post-production. Previously made available for the EOS R5 C and EOS C70, this highly requested feature allows users to select a scalable range of internal RAW recording data rates that either further enhance the fidelity of the sensor output or reduce file sizes – all while maintaining the high-quality 12-bit colour information.

The EOS C500 Mark II features a 5.9K full-frame sensor, internal RAW recording, interchangeable lens mount and highly configurable modular design. The camera is a popular choice for television and cinematic productions due to its impressive image quality, extensive connectivity, and compact body. 

Aron Randhawa, Senior Product Specialist at Canon Europe, said, “Cinema RAW Light is continually evolving and has a clear advantage over heavily compressed formats, especially for colour grading and VFX pipelines. All three scalable new formats are 12-bit, even at higher frame rates, with no chroma subsampling, enabling cinematographers to unleash the full capability of their production camera.”

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Fujifilm Launches INSTAX Pal

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FUJIFILM Corporation has launched the “INSTAX Pal” in the market. The palm-top size camera joins the INSTAX series of instant cameras, allowing users to take photos anytime and anywhere. It will be available in five colours to suit different lifestyles, broadening the scope of shooting situations and experiences. The INSTAX instant photo system marks its 25th anniversary this year since its original launch in 1998. The system evolved with time, embracing trends and new technologies, to expand its lineup from analogue instant cameras to hybrid instant cameras and smartphone printers. The INSTAX series offers diverse ways of enjoying photography to broaden its user base covering young people and middle-aged groups.

The new INSTAX Pal is INSTAX series’ first model specialising in taking pictures. Removal of the printing function has made it possible to reduce the size to a palm-top level for even greater walkaround capacity. The INSTAX Pal features a variety of functions to facilitate shooting situations and photographic experiences. The Standard mode, activated by pressing the shutter button on the rear panel, takes advantage of the wide-angle lens to shoot from an elevated position or at a sharp angle, difficult to achieve with smartphones, using just one hand to capture a dynamic image that brings in more of the background.

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The Remote mode connects the camera to a smartphone installed with a dedicated app via Bluetooth so that pictures can be checked on the smartphone as they are taken. The Interval mode takes photos continuously at a three-second interval. These features set this camera apart from smartphones with unique shooting experiences. The INSTAX Pal can also establish a Bluetooth connection with the INSTAX Link series of smartphone printers to produce INSTAX prints out of images taken with it.

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Sony MEA Launches the Alpha 9 III

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Sony Middle East and Africa has introduced the new Alpha 9 III camera equipped with the world’s first full-frame global shutter image sensor.  The new global shutter full-frame image sensor enables the camera to shoot at burst speeds of up to 120 fps with no distortion or camera blackout.  By combining this innovative sensor with Sony’s most advanced AF system to date – boasting AI autofocus with up to 120 times AF/AE focus calculations per second – as well as the ability to sync flash at all shooting speeds, the Alpha 9 III opens up a new world of possibilities for professional photographers to capture that decisive moment.

The new Alpha 9 III is equipped with a newly developed world’s first global shutter full-frame stacked CMOS image sensor with approximately 24.6 effective megapixels and built-in memory, combined with the latest image processing engine BIONZ XR. It achieves blackout-free Continuous Shooting Speed with AF/AE tracking of up to approximately 120 frames per second. The new Alpha 9 III is equipped with high-density focal plane phase-detection AF. A Designated AI processing unit uses Real-time Recognition AF (autofocus) to recognise a wide variety of subjects with high precision.

By combining the high-speed performance of up to 120 frames per second with highly accurate subject recognition performance, it is possible to easily photograph decisive scenes and moments that cannot be captured with the naked eye.  The AI processing unit in the Alpha 9 III supports movies as well as stills with accurate subject form and movement recognition, providing a significant improvement in human eye recognition performance with Real-time Recognition AF and Real-time Tracking automatically recognising, tracking, and focusing on the eyes of a specified subject. The Alpha 9 III is equipped with 8.0 stops of optical 5-axis in-body image stabilisation, allowing for high-quality image rendering.

Shutter speed is freed from the limitations of conventional mechanical shutter image sensors and achieves a maximum shutter speed of 1/80000 second (1/16000 second during continuous shooting), making it possible to capture at high speed without any distortion. When a compatible Sony flash is attached, such as the HVL-F60RM2 and HVL-F46RM (sold separately), it is possible to synchronise the flash and take pictures at all shutter speeds up to 1/80000 second.

Previously, if the user released the shutter at a speed faster than the flash’s synchronisation speed, the amount of light would drop sharply, but with the full-speed flash synchronisation function, it’s now possible to photograph scenes that could not be easily captured with conventional technology. Also, when shooting stills or movies under LED lighting, the Hi Frequency Flicker function can significantly reduce high-frequency flicker problems by allowing the shutter speed to be finely adjusted to match the flicker frequency while viewing the monitor.

The Alpha 9 III features selectable release lag modes which allows the user to prioritise release lag or viewfinder/monitor display. The newly installed Pre-Capture function allows the user to go back up to 1 second and record the moment before pressing the shutter, a Continuous Shooting Speed Boost change during shooting, and enhanced burst stamina ensure that important moments are reliably captured due to a large buffer memory and increased overall system speed allow up to approximately 390 Fine JPEG images to be captured in one continuous 30 fps burst.

Customisable focus areas have been expanded to include from XS to XL instead of the previous S, M, and L sizes. The Preset Focus/Zoom function allows preset focus and zoom settings to be memorised in the camera for quick recall when needed. In addition to the existing custom white balance frame size, the user can now select other sizes as needed which allows for fine white balance adjustment after an image has been composed. The Alpha 9 III has upgraded features such as the latest AF algorithms to achieve high AF precision down to light levels as low as EV-5 in AF-S mode (ISO 100 equivalent, F2.0 lens), AF tracking for continuous shooting at F22 and a composite RAW shooting function that gives the ability to combine multiple consecutive images into a high-quality composite.

The global shutter image sensor provides distortion-free image expression for videos as well as still images. For example, the user can shoot images of nearby scenery from a fast-moving vehicle such as a car or fast-moving subjects with ease. This camera is the first in the Alpha series to be able to record 4K 120p high-frame-rate video without cropping, allowing the user to shoot at the angle of view intended. It is also possible to shoot high-resolution 4K 60p videos with 6K oversampling.

The Alpha 9 III has the image creation process S-Cinetone, created through the development of the VENICE digital cinema camera for video production, making human skin and subjects stand out beautifully, creating natural highlights. The Alpha 9 III is equipped with the latest video performance including rich gradation performance and S-Log3, and when in Log shooting mode, it can reflect and display the user’s favorite imported LUT. Alpha 9 III is compatible with the mobile app “Monitor & Control” for video creators.

Sony has listened to the voices of professional photographers and created operability and reliability that supports professional image makers. The shape of the grip is improved and ergonomically designed so that it can be easily held in the palm of the user’s hand to avoid straining the user even when wearing a telephoto lens or using it for long periods of time. The VG-C5 vertical grip (sold separately), provides the same operability and versatility as when shooting horizontally; the user can comfortably support long shooting sessions.

The grip and shutter button area share the same design as the main body, allowing image capture without feeling uncomfortable, with the same operability as the camera. The Alpha 9 III is equipped with a 4-axis multi-angle LCD monitor that can be operated by touch, allowing for intuitive operation using the latest touch menu. The electronic viewfinder uses a 9.44 million-dot Quad XGA OLED and achieves high visibility with the same brightness as the α7R V and a magnification of approximately 0.90x. Also, a custom button is placed on the front of the camera, and the continuous shooting speed can be changed by operating the custom button assigned with Continuous Shooting Speed Boost with the finger holding the grip, allowing for highly immediate operations. It supports professional photographers when shooting in all environments.

New features for the Alpha 9 III include a playback image filter that allows the user to efficiently select a large number of images using high-speed continuous shooting and a function menu that can be used even during image playback, strongly supporting professional workflows from shooting to delivery. A function menu can now be used during playback so the user can efficiently select a huge number of images using high-speed continuous shooting.

The “Playback Function Menu” can be assigned in advance, so the user can perform protection, smartphone transfer, FTP transfer, etc. during image playback. The user can select images narrowed down with a playback filter and play them from the function menu, allowing for quick delivery of specific images. The camera is equipped with a dedicated microphone for voice memos on the back, and the built-in microphone located near the mouth allows clear recording of audio even in noisy environments. The recorded audio data can be transferred via FTP along with the images. The camera allows the user to set up to 20 presets from the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), an international consultative body in which news organisations from various countries participate.

The Alpha 9 III can transfer data up to twice as fast as the Alpha 9 II. 5 GHz communication offers maximum speed and stability for news and sports shooters who need to deliver immediately via FTP, as well as for studio environments. The Alpha 9 III allows stills and movies to be recorded to memory media in numerous ways including the two media slots that support CFexpress Type A cards as well as UHS-I and UHS-II SD cards.

It is compatible with the professional mobile application “Transfer & Tagging” which speeds up the image delivery workflow, and the application “Remote Camera Tool” which allows remote shooting of PCs using wired LAN. In addition, the Alpha 9 III is scheduled to support functional enhancements such as FTP operability, relay playback, and C2PA  format support through a camera software update. Sony says it will continue to expand functions such as breathing correction, relay playback, and C2PA format support for the Alpha 1 and Alpha 7S III in the future to meet the needs of professionals along with the Alpha 9 III.

The Alpha 9 III camera will be available in the UAE from Q1 2024 (calendar year). The VG-C5 vertical grip will be available in the UAE from Q1 2024 (calendar year).

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