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The Latest News:
Light Lens Lab’s Upcoming 75mm f/2 SP-II Lens
credits: Light Lens Lab
Light Lens Lab says its upcoming 75mm f/2 SP-II for Leica M-mount has now reached the final prototype stage, and production is just around the corner. The company plans to start building the lens once it finishes shipping its current backlog of the 35mm f/1.4 Aspherical “11873,” which should be wrapped up in March. Preorders for the new 75mm are scheduled to open on March 1.
This lens has been a long time coming. Light Lens Lab first teased the 75mm f/2 SP-II back in 2023 as part of its goal to gradually fill out the SP-II lineup with more focal lengths. Like the existing 50mm f/2 SP-II, the new lens is inspired by the classic Cooke Speed Panchro Series II 75mm T2.2 cinema lens. Optically, it sticks to a Double-Gaussian layout with apochromatic elements, using eight elements in five groups and a 12-blade aperture. The idea is to keep the vintage-leaning rendering while still delivering strong resolution when needed.
Based on early sample images from pre-production units, the lens behaves much like you would expect. At f/2, it shows smooth transitions, noticeable character, and some cat’s-eye bokeh toward the edges. Stop it down to f/2.8 or further, and you get much higher sharpness across the frame. One interesting technical detail is that the lens covers a 44×33mm image circle, making it adaptable to Fujifilm GFX and Hasselblad X cameras. It focuses down to 0.7m, weighs about 310g, and measures 73mm long. Pricing is set at $749 for a chrome version and $799 for black paint, with deliveries expected to begin around March 20.
You can see more details and sample shots on Light Lens Lab’s website here
Hasselblad Phocus Mobile 2 Update
credits: Hasselblad
Hasselblad has rolled out version 4.0.0 of its Phocus Mobile 2 editing app, and it is a pretty nice update if you edit on an iPhone or iPad. The headline addition is a new Mask feature, which finally brings localised adjustments. Until now, Phocus Mobile 2 was mostly about quick, global adjustments so this update definitely pushes the app closer to being a more serious mobile editing tool, especially for photographers working with large medium-format files.
Version 4.0.0 adds three different mask types, Linear Gradient, Radial Gradient, and Brush. Linear Gradient masks are meant for broad areas like skies or foregrounds, with adjustable falloff and an easy way to flip the gradient direction. Radial Gradient masks are better for isolating subjects, and they can be inverted to affect everything outside the selected area. The Brush mask gives you manual control, with adjustable size and flow for more detailed selections. You can apply multiple masks to a single image, duplicate them, or delete them as needed. Within each masked area, you can also adjust exposure, highlights, saturation, temperature, and tint.
Hasselblad mentioned that getting this to work smoothly on mobile was not easy. Medium-format files can be pretty big (often 100 megapixels with lots of colour data) and early versions reportedly struggled with memory usage and performance. According to the company, optimisation work led to performance improvements of three to five times compared to the beginning. The interface itself is kept fairly clean, with consistent behaviour across all mask types to reduce friction on smaller screens. Hasselblad sees this release as a starting point rather than a finish line, with plans to keep expanding Phocus Mobile 2 into a more complete ‘mobile studio’ in the near future.
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Something You Have To Check Out
AI is something that most photographers/creatives see critically, and for absolutely good reason. HOWEVER the fact at the end of the day is that there sadly is no stopping AI, so the best thing you can do is learn how to use AI to your own advantage, whether that be with helping you with daily tasks, writing, editing, your day-job etc.
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Photographer Spotlight
Discover amazing photographers
This time in the Spotlight: John Castillo
You can find him on Instagram as: @nightcrawler1986
A few photos of his:
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Missed The Sunday Issue?
In case you missed yesterday’s Sunday Issue (Snapshot Issue 102) including the amazing interview with photographer Peter Rask and many more incredible articles, you can read it here.
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