The Nikon Z 400mm f4.5 VR S Lens

Nikon Z 400mm f4.5 VR S Lens

Nikon announces a new full-frame super-telephoto prime lens for the mirrorless Z system. The NIKKOR Z 400mm f/4.5 VR S is a smaller lighter version of the super-fast f/2.8 aperture version launched in January. The 400mm focal length is a go-to lens for sports, wildlife, and nature photography and with a smaller maximum apperture this new announcement from Nikon is significantly more compact, lightweight and lighter on the wallet than its f/2.8 counterpart.

The Nikon Z 400mm f4.5 VR S Lens £3,299
The lens is available to pre-order just contact our sales team on sales@fixationuk.com or call us on 0207 582 3294 to pre-order.

Nikon Z 400mm f4.5 VR S Lens
Nikon Z 400mm Build Quality

Built to give photographers every advantage out in the field, the NIKKOR Z 400mm f/4.5 VR S is impressively lightweight at only 1245g and 23.5 cm long. weather sealing and a rubber gasket keep dust, dirt, and moisture out of all moving parts. Nikon’s fluorine coat makes it easy to wipe the front lens element clean. Controls on the lens are customisable with two function buttons one close to the body and one on the larger barrel towards the front of the lens for fast access to settings in any given shooting situation.

Nikon Z 400mm f2.8 TC VR S lens detail showing drop in filter, built in teleconverter and memory set button.
Nikon Z 400mm f4.5 TC VR S lens detail showing on-lens controls and tripod mount ring.
Nikon Z 400mm Key Features

Powerful VR: Powerful in-lens optical VR gives a 5.5-stop advantage. This increases to 6.0 stops if paired used with the Nikon Z 9, Synchro VR.

Teleconverter compatibility: extend the reach to 560 mm with a Nikon Z TC-1.4x, or 800 mm with a Nikon Z TC-2.0x teleconverter. Using teleconverers reduce the maximum aperture by 1 and 2 stops respectively but with superb ISO performance from Nikon this should be no issue if you need to get closer.

Compact and Lightweight: 234.5mm in legth and only 1245g this lens will fit in a standard camera bag and give you telephoto reach whenever you need it without any additional cases or carry requirements that come with larger telephoto lenses.

Exquisite detail: Nikon’s ED, Super ED, and SR glass elements counter chromatic aberrations. ED stands for Extra-low Dispersion which reduces colour fringing at high-contrast edges. Super ED glass offers and improvement on ED elements Super Extra-low Dispersion. SR glass elements combat blue fringing bringing all wavelengths into a precise point where corrections had previously focused on red-magenta wavelengths.
Nikon’s Nano Crystal Coat optical coatings significantly reduce ghosting and flare.

Weather sealed and robust: sealing around all moving parts keeps dust and moisture at bay, and Nikon’s fluorine coating protects the front element. As a repair centre we must caution that no DSLR lens is completeley waterproof – a rain cover is essential to keep your kit dry when shooting in the rain.

Balanced: the lens’ centre of gravity is towards the rear for more stable operation. The tripod foot allows optimum balance when the lens is attached to a tripod. The foot is removable for a more compact form or when travelling.

Customisable on-lens controls: two custom function buttons L-fn and L-fn2 can be set to change different parameters whether that is snapping to a particular focus point or allowing modfication of a camera setting such as ISO without moving your hand off the lens. These butons once set up can make working with the lens much smoother. In addition there is a silent control ring that can be used to dial in settings from the lens. Switches on the lens are AF / M for switching off Autofocus if you are locked onto a subject at a set distance. The focus limit switch allows you to select the full focal distance range or limit to subjects between 6m and Infinity which makes locking on to a subject much faster as the motor has to move the optics in a smaller range.

The NIKKOR Z 400mm f/4.5 VR S: £3,299
The lens is available to pre-order just contact our sales team on sales@fixationuk.com or call us on 0207 582 3294 to pre-order.

Authorised Nikon Service Centre

At Fixation we are proud to be an official repair centre for Nikon in the UK able to service the current DSLR and mirrorless range of camera bodies and lenses. As a repair partner with Nikon for over 30 years we can complete many warranty repairs in-house, our technicians specialise in photographic repair making us the destination for profressional photographers. All our spare parts for repairs are supplied by Nikon to ensure all repairs are completed with genuine Nikon spares.

With the support of our in-house workshop our customers at Fixation know they will always recieve the best technical insights when investing in new equipment.

Find out more about our Nikon repair service and warranty repair services

MIRROLESS APS-C DIGITAL CAMERAS

Mirroless APS-C Digital Cameras

APS-C digital camera sensors are smaller in size to “full frame” digital camera sensors. Cameras with an APS-C sensor are usually cheaper, smaller and better for distant subjects than their full-frame counterparts. With Canon and Nikon producing mirrorless cameras with APS-C sensors there is now a level playing field in terms of viewfinder format – no more DLSR vs Mirrorless – to distract from the technology at the core of the cameras. We have put 4 important bodies side by side but first lets explore what an APS-C camera really is.

What is an APS-C Sensor?

APS C stands for Advanced Photo System “Classic” which was a format of film that was smaller than 35mm film rolls. The image size is 25.1×16.7 mm compared to a full frame image on a 35mm roll which has space for a negative image 36x24mm. These standard sizes carried on into digital camera sensor manufacture because lens manufacturers all had lenses that worked well on those formats. APS-C digital sensor units are smaller and so easier to make compared to the larger full-frame 35mm digital sensors, the format has been around longer than digital cameras and have some distinct advantages:

1. APS-C digital imaging sensors are cheaper. The imaging sensor in a digital camera is one of the most expensive single parts of a digital camera. A smaller APS-C sensor is less expensive than a full-frame imaging sensor and so APS-C format cameras are usually cheaper overall than their full-frame counterparts so APS-C cameras are often more affordable.

2. Your lenses are longer with an APS-C sensor. If you put a 300mm lens on an APS-C camera body it will look like you are using a 480mm lens if you are used to using a full-frame 35mm sensor camera because the smaller image-sensor crops-in to the middle of the image-circle projected by the lens. This is useful for telephoto lens users who need extra reach, using an APS-C sensor camera will fill the frame more with a distant subject.

3. Dedicated APS-C lenses are lighter. The APS-C format is smaller so the lens needs only project a image-circle to fit to the corners of the APS-C rectangle. The individual optics can be smaller and it is in the glass optical lenses that most of the weight of a lens is held. With this weight saving a dedicated APS-C sensor kit of cameras and lenses can be a fraction of the weight of a full-frame equivalent kit.

Four APS-C Sensor Cameras Compared

Key specifications compared
Fujifilm X-H2SCanon EOS R7Nikon Z50Sony Alpha A6600
Release Year2022202220192019
Resolution Megapixels26.132.520.924.2
Max. Video Resolution6.2K 30P4K 60p4K UHD 30p4k HDR (HLG)
Weight660g612g450g503g
Image StabilisationYes: 7 StopYes: 8 stopNoYes: 5 Stop
Lens mountFuji XFCanon RFNikon ZSony E

Fujifilm X-H2S


Lanched today the X-H2S is a powerful storytelling tool that combines high-end photographic and filmmaking features for full creative freedom. With a 26.1MP BSI X-Trans 5 stacked sensor and X-Processor 5, the X-H2S delivers an outstanding 14-stop dynamic range. For motion professionals, this camera also offers a wealth of recording options, including 6.2K 30P, and up to 7-stops of in-body image stabilisation.

Canon EOS R7


Lanched on May 24th the EOS R7 camera continues Canon’s legacy of formidable next-generation mirrorless tech, packing precision autofocus, state-of-the-art image stabilisation and incredible speed. This RF-mount camera with an APS-C sized sensor provides the ideal balance between resolution, speed and low-light performance for a truly hybrid result that’s capable of competing with other professional full-frame models.

Nikon Z50


The Nikon Z50. A welcome addition to the Nikon mirrorless family, the Nikon Z50 comes as an affordable bridge between beginners to enthusiast consumer camera systems. Inheriting features and inspiration from the successful Nikon Z6 and Z7 cameras, including the Nikon Z mount and the impressively fast and wide Hybrid autofocus system; the Z50 features a large 20.9 megapixel DX CMOS sensor and a powerful EXPEED 6 Image Processor. The power of the sensor and processor, coupled up with Intelligent Eye-Detection AF and 209 AF points across the frame allows for edge-to-edge sharpness and detail in your photos and videos. Capable of 4K/UHD recordings at 30p and 20 in-camera effects, this camera offers a whole host of creativity and versatility.

Sony A6600


With this body, it is all about incorporating beautiful detail and high resolution images combined with super-fast and powerful processing, all in a compact shell. The A6600 hits the brief with ease. This system caters to the needs to enthusiasts and professional alike, and in both photography and videography because of the pure quality of its capture. Its compact nature makes it perfect for travel documentaries as well as vlogging. Yet, it can be used for any type of photography with Wex Photo Video’s whole range of Sony E mount lenses.

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Service Message

Service Update

Royal Mail stike action

The Communication Workers Union has announced four strike days on Friday 26th and Wednesday 31st August and then Thursday 8th and Friday 9th September. We expect our parcelforce collections service to be disrupted and our service support team may be busier than usual on the days after the strikes as we may need to make last minite shipping updates or hold deliveries for a day.

Our tracked UPS services will continue as usual and we recommend using an alternative courier if neccessary. You can bring repairs to our service counters in Manchester or London, Vauxhall. Alternatively you can bring repairs for delivery to us to any Wex Photo Video branch.

Repair turnaround times

Please be aware that while we are booking in as many repair items as we were in 2019, and many aspects of life have returned to normal, both COVID-19 and Brexit have had some adverse effects on our workshop capacity, repair turnaround times and customer service response times.

Fixation is continuing to repair and service photographic equipment and while customers can still receive rapid sensor cleaning and while-you-wait repairs at our service counters, we are aware that for more in-depth repairs that stay in our workshop for longer our current turnaround times are causing concerns with both new and returning repair customers. We are doing all we can to bring our service levels back to the fast repair service we were delivering before the pandemic.

How COVID-19 affected repairs

We have a large workshop of 20 technicians supported by a team of five administrators who all work in fairly close proximity to one another to complete a repair. At significant COVID peaks we reduced our workshop to six key technicans and one administrative support member who could continue to work at a safe distance from one another. Our demand for repairs never dropped to the same extent and this created a bottleneck in every area of the business from booking-in new repairs to producing estimates and shipping kit back to customers.

Outside of the UK COVID-19 affected both the demand for and supply of electronic components especially semiconductors which make the chips and processors present in every digital camera and many new lenses. This did not have an immediate impact as we hold a helathy stock of parts in our workshop but over time as these stocks in the UK and Europe were not replenished, some repairs have experienced unprecedented spare parts waiting times.

How Brexit has affected repairs

In addition to COVID affecting the supply chain of parts and our turnaround times, Brexit-related delays may also occur if your repair requires spare parts. All our spare parts ship to the UK from Japan, China and South Asia via depots in Europe. The movement of goods into the island of Great Britain is not as easy as it was before the UK left Europe in 2019 and our deliveries of spare parts are facing delays when crossing the channel. Deliveries being held at customs, and delays and queues at ports ahead of channel crossings make it almost impossible to accurately forecast when spare parts from outise the UK will arrive with us.

How is Fixation changing to improve our repairs

We have six new team members who have joined us in the workshop and some new roles to help make our workshop more efficient. While we train new team members our teams will be slower to reply to enquiries coming in but once eveyone is up to speed these new recruits will make a world of difference.
Customer Service: Sara and Jenice have recently joined the repairs team, Sara has joined us as Customer Service Manager, Jenice is joining the customer service team. They are both being trained up at the moment on our repairs administrative systems.
Workshop: Steven and Jaya are new starters in our workshop currently shadowing experienced technicians to learn repair processes and techniques for a range of cameras and lenses.
New role: Head of Repairs Regina has joined Fixation as Head of Repairs, a role that spans administrative and technical teams. She is currently working with the customer service team to make our processes more efficient and chipping in where needed to help booking in new repairs that have arrived.
New role: Stock Controller for Spare parts Tahir has joined us to look after spare parts ordering and stock control, this gives time back to our technicians who were managing spares orders as well as estimating and completing repairs. Once Tahir has our day to day orders running smoothly we will look at increasing our stock holding to minimise supply delays.

Coming Soon: Behind the scenes we have been working on our repair tracker to make it easier to track and respond to repair updates online and make more information about repairs available at all hours.

If you are looking to start a new repair then the best place to start is with our Online Repair Form https://www.fixationuk.com/complete-a-repair-form/

We appreciate your patience and support during these difficult times and we hope to be back up to capacity shortly.

Our current COVID-19 measures in place in Leeds, London and Manchester

Masks: We reommend that customers continue to wear masks when possible when entering our premises. Spare masks are available on request, alternatively we can bring sales items and repairs to the door if paid in advance.

Our showroom and repair counters in London, Manchester and Leeds are open for business. Feel free to drop in whenever you can for expert advice, product demos and repairs.

When you visit please remember that we have the following measures in place:

• We recommend wearing a mask if possible when entering our premises
• Hand sanitiser stations are available
• Our showrooms and demo equipment are cleaned regularly
• All repairs are disinfected as a final stage of cleaning before return

SONY FE 24-70MM F2.8 GM II

Sony FE 24-70mm f2.8 GM II

Today Sony launches the FE 24-70mm f2.8 GM II lens the second generation of the workhorse wide to standard to short-telephoto lens that powers countless professional photographers around the world. With a few new features and in-house G Master lens standards from Sony this release packs a lot of power into a smaller and lighter lens.

Sony FE 24-70mm f2.8 GM II: £2,099
The Sony FE 24-70mm f2.8 GM II is available to pre-order just contact our sales team on sales@fixationuk.com or call us on 0207 582 3294.

Sony FE 24-70 GM II in use on the Sony FX3 and a gimbal.
Sony FE 24-70 GM II in use on the Sony FX3 and a gimbal.
New features:

1. Circular Aperture with 11 aperture blades for smooth out of focus areas and consistent bokeh at all apertures.
2. Dedicated aperture control ring with click / declick switch
3. Smaller and lighter, only 699g vs 886g from the Mark I version
4. Sharper images, twenty elements arranged in 15 groups employing ED (Extra-low dispersion), XA (Extreme Aspherical), Super ED and aspherical elements in addition to special lens coatings, reduce aberations and artifacts for sharpness throughout the zoom range.

Sony FE 24-70mm f2.8 GM II: £2,099
The Sony FE 24-70mm f2.8 GM II is available to pre-order just contact our sales team on sales@fixationuk.com or call us on 0207 582 3294.

Sony FE 24-70 2.8 GM II side view
Sony FE 24-70 2.8 GM II Lens

Sample images from Sony by Mathias Kniepeiss:

Olivia Harris on Shot by Women image

Olivia Harris on Shot by Women

Shot By Women, launching on International Women’s Day 2022, is a project dedicated to uplifting female press photographers and allowing them to gain recognition in the industry. It’s a new image library that women photographers around the world can sign up to, providing them with support and rights-managed distribution for their work.

Women photographers come together to support the launch of SHOTBYWOMEN – Worlds first ever stock library to house exclusively women-created content covering all areas of photography. Launching International Women’s Day 2022. www.shotbywomen.com

And it works on the other side of the fence too – providing busy picture editors and newsdesks with a resource they can use to quickly and easily find women and feminine-of-centre photographers, worldwide. Someone who understands just how valuable this could potentially be is Olivia Harris.

Olivia spent just under five years working in pictures for The Times, rising through the ranks to become Saturday Picture Editor. She worked with news photographers every day to break the biggest stories with unforgettable imagery, and has also worked to redress the gender balance in the newsroom by commissioning and championing women photographers.

Women and non-binary people are significantly more represented in news photography than they have been in the past – however, as demonstrated in data collected by Women Photograph, there is still a long way to go before reaching parity, with the majority of front-page bylines still going to men. Shot By Women and projects like it are putting in the vital work needed to make news photography more representative of everyone’s experiences. We spoke to Olivia to find out more about the project…

Fixation: Thanks for talking with us, Olivia. Can you tell us about Shot by Women and how it all came together?

Olivia Harris: About a year ago, I put out a call-out on my personal Instagram, saying that I would really like to increase the number of female contributors that we were using at The Times. I’d looked down our freelancers list and realised that almost everyone we were regularly using on news were men. And, while obviously the guys we were using were dependable and fantastic, I found that fact really depressing.

So, I put out this callout, and thought it probably wouldn’t get much traction, maybe a couple of dozen responses.

I got thousands of messages. I had to turn off notifications on my Instagram because it was going off every second! It was quite overwhelming, and took me literally months to go through, but it was one of the best things I’ve done. I just loved it – loved seeing the enthusiasm, and talking to female freelancers who were desperately trying to break into news, but finding it really difficult, finding it to be quite a closed-off environment.

Off the back of that, Tabatha Fireman, founder of Female Perspective, messaged me, saying she was launching Shot By Women. Covid had previously kind of put a stop to it ramping up, but over the past year Tabatha has really propelled it forward, and it’s launching on International Women’s Day.

The plan for Shot By Women is to bridge that gap. I was hearing so often in the messages I was receiving how difficult it was to contact people on the desks – and yeah, having worked on the desks, it’s hard enough to talk to people on other desks in the same building! Shot By Women will hopefully make it a lot easier for people on both sides – for photographers to get in contact, be commissioned, and have their archive used through the agency side of things. That will be an amazing resource for them, to make sure that their work is being seen.

And through an entirely female perspective. At the moment when you go to a standard agency – Getty, for example – you can’t filter by gender of photographer. It will be a completely new concept, and will hopefully encourage the desks to really think about the bylines that they’re using. And then on the other side of it, from the commissioning perspective, it will make it super-easy for desks to go to a bank of hopefully hundreds, maybe even thousands, of photographers who have signed up to Shot By Women, and know that they can speak to one of the team and get exactly what they need. To know that what they’re commissioning will be shot by a woman – which, unless you know someone specifically, you can’t really do at the moment.

Montage of images created by SHOTBYWOMEN contributing photographers.

Fixation: The world of press photography is still very male-dominated. Why do you think press photography specifically has been so slow to change in this regard?

Olivia: It’s sad that there are so, so few women photographers in comparison. I think it’s also the nature of it being so competitive – and The Times is a prime example of this. Once you find a photographer that is trustworthy, and will do exactly what you want, when you have a business job that comes in at 9AM, and needs shooting at 2PM that day, you have to just get it done. You’re conditioned by the pressure and the editors and the expectations.

It’s only when you have a little bit more time that you are able to introduce those new voices and perspectives into the paper. So it needs work on both sides, I think – for women to really shout and push themselves forward, and then also for desks to be way more conscious about who they’re commissioning, and to think about how we can maybe try and balance it out a little bit more. It’s so desperately needed.

Fixation: In the messages you received after your callout, were there any things that women photographers said that particularly stayed with you?

Olivia: The overwhelming thing that I took from it was just the enthusiasm and the gratitude. Everyone was just saying, “Oh my god, someone’s actually thinking about this, and wanting to change it.”

Working on the desk is unrelenting. It’s ridiculously long days, very high pressure. And I think it’s so easy to just keep going without stopping and thinking, “Okay, how can we change this and how can we make it better?” I’m not criticising anyone, because I was one of those people. But I think that was the main thing I received from the call-out was just everyone being like, “Thank you so much for wanting to change something.”

Fixation: This conversation has definitely made me reflect on what a difficult and demanding job being a Picture Editor sounds like it must be.

Olivia: The adrenaline keeps you running. If you’re picture editing, there is a standard of anywhere between a 12-hour and 14-hour day. You have to see everything, you have to be aware of everything, and you have to love it. You really, really have to love it.

Fixation: Something I wanted to touch on was also that you were recently a curator for the British Press Photographers’ Association Assignments 2021 exhibition. We spoke to a few of the selected photographers – Samir Hussein, who took that fantastic shot of Stormzy at the Brits, and Hollie Adams, who captured the moment of Dominic Cummings leaving Downing Street. What was that experience like for you?

Olivia: That has been the highlight of my career so far. I absolutely loved it. I have a lot of thanks to go to Hollie – she was, I think, one of the people that put me forward to be one of the curators. It was an absolutely phenomenal experience – I mean, it’s just the dream. You get given… I think it was nearly 2,000 photos, and you have to whittle it down to your top 20, and then a reserve top 20, because there are going to be duplicates between the curators.

I did my first edit, and managed to get a great selection .. of about 300 amazing photos, and I had to keep going and going and going. I had given myself a couple of days off – I requested that from my manager, because I really needed the time. By the end of it, I was going slightly doolally, looking at the same photos over and over again. But it was amazing, and it was so great to go to the exhibition – I think I went three or four times – and see the collection up on the walls. It was a really nice collection, and was so diverse.

Dominic Cummings waits for a taxi on Whitehall the day he leaves downing street © Hollie Adams
Image from Assignments 2021 exhibition by the BPPA: Dominic Cummings, special adviser to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, waits with a box of possessions on Whitehall after departing from number ten Downing Street on the day of his resignation. 13 November 2020.
© Hollie Adams

Also, one of the highlights was meeting so many people. Working on the desk, I would speak to these people every day, or see their names in the feeds. But I hadn’t met any of them, ever. And so I was walking around the exhibition and constantly bumping into photographers and being like, “Oh, it’s you!”

I think it’s sad that there aren’t more opportunities to do that, because the relationships between photographers and desks are so important. I don’t think that they’re nurtured enough at all. And that kind of loops back to my call-out, because desks putting a bit more effort in and nurturing relationships with photographers – that’s how you get the most out of your commissions. And that’s how you get new voices in.

Olivia Harris was talking to Jon Stapley. You can find out more about Shot By Women at www.shotbywomen.com

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