BPPA ASSIGNMENTS

BPPA Assignments 2021

Fixation and Canon are proud to sponsor the the British Press Photographers Association annual exhibition Assignments. After a two-year break we are pleased to see Assignments return with an exhibition set for August at the Bargehouse gallery in London.

Stormzy performs at the 2019 BRIT Awards in London. 18 February 2020. © Samir Hussein
Stormzy performs at the 2019 BRIT Awards in London. 18 February 2020. © Samir Hussein

Assignments 2021 celebrates the best of British press photography from the BPPA members. Curated by five leading industry figures, this year’s exhibition covers stories from April 2019 and will include a mix of sport, celebrities, royals, protests and global events such as the pandemic as seen through the eyes of the association’s photographers.

The exhibition is an edit of 100 entries printed and framed, filling the Bargehouse London gallery across 4 levels.

Admission Free 11am-6pm daily. 27th August – 5th September

Bargehouse
Oxo Tower Wharf
Bargehouse Street
South Bank
London, SE1 9PH

Assignments 2021 Events Program

Activities and seminars running at the Assignments 2021 Exhibition. Booking is essential.

Hands on | Canon EOS mirrorless sessions

Canon EOS Mirroless digital cameras and lenses
Try the latest gear for yourself. Canon Tech Guru Justin will walk you through the features of the latest EOS R system cameras and lenses.

  • Friday 27th August
  • Tuesday 31st August
  • Wednesday 1st September
  • Thursday 2nd September

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Assignments Seminar | Heathcliffe O’malley and Jack Hill

Tuesday 31st August, 13:00
Join two leading newspaper photographers as they deliver talks about their work over the last two decades.
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Assignments Seminar | Marc Aspland

Wednesday 1st September, 13:00
The Times Chief Sports Photographer Marc Aspland talks about how he captures the most important moment of a sporting event creatively. He will also show you the Times Unseen project which often shows images that have never been published and which sometimes shows a different side to the sport.
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Assignments Seminar | Dan Kennedy

Celebrity photographer Dan Kennedy shares valuable insights plus tips and tricks on how he creates magazine cover portraits.
Thursday 2nd September, 13:00
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Assignments 2021 Curators

Each year different curators are selected from within the news and press industry. This year’s Curators are:

Police officers detain Patsy Stevenson as people gather and protest at a memorial site in Clapham Common Bandstand, following the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, in London. 13 March 2021. © Hannah Mckay
Police officers detain Patsy Stevenson as people gather and protest at a memorial site in Clapham Common Bandstand, following the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, in London. 13 March 2021.
© Hannah Mckay

Wimbledon display at Fixation

We are displaying some of our favourite BPPA images from past year’s Assignments exhibitions in the Fixation Showroom. It is Wimbledon Championships fortnight so we are displaying some superb Tennis images of Serena Williams, Rafal Nadal, Andy Murray and more.

For us the photographers are the stars of the show so come along to see Wimbledon from the unique perspectives of Lindsey Parnaby, David Levenson, Andy Rain, Heathcliff O’Malley and Facundo Arrizabalaga.
If rain stops play, pop up to see us: Find Us London

Find out more about the BPPA Assignments exhibition and about the BPPA on the BPPA website.

the BPPA logo

COMPACT FULL FRAME LENSES FROM SONY

Compact full frame lenses from Sony

Sony has announced a trio of compact lightweight prime lenses. These are all lighter and smaller than their closest G-Master equivalents thanks to their f2.8 and f2.5 apertures. The lenses are compatible with all Sony full frame mirrorless cameras for a travel friendly photography kit.

The Trio:
Sony FE 28mm f2.8 G
Sony FE 40mm f2.5 G
Sony FE 50mm f2.5 G

The lenses are £629 each including VAT
Put your name on our waiting list and our sales team will be in touch as soon as stock is available. Email us at sales@fixationuk.com or call 0207 582 3294

Compact and strong

Sony have made each lens around 170g and have not compromised on build quality with metal exterior barrels and a metal lens hood to keep the lenses robust. The iris ring markings and focal length information are all engraved in the metal work for longevity.

Uniform design

Their uniform size 68mm diameter x 45mm length, makes these lenses easy to add to a kit bag and the Designers at Sony have even kept the filter thread uniform 49mm for each lens so they can share polarizing filters or a Lee filter kit.

Image quality

There is no compromise in image quality with aspherical and ED (extra-low dispersion) elements in use to control chromatic aberration. With smaller optics these lenses will deliver consistent sharp images that stand up to the test of Sony’s high resolution imaging sensors.

We are excited to see these lenses and hope to have our first delivery from late April.

The lenses are £629 each including VAT
Put your name on our waiting list and our sales team will be in touch as soon as stock is available. Email us at sales@fixationuk.com or call 0207 582 3294

SONY FE 50MM F1.2 GM LENS

Sony FE 50mm f1.2 GM Lens

Sony have added a 50mm f/1.2 lens to their G Master stable of full frame lenses. With a fast maximum aperture of f1.2 this 50mm lens will deliver beautiful bokeh and shallow depth of field to isolate your subject from the background, ideal for portraiture.

The Sony FE 50mm f1.2 GM is £2099 including VAT. To get your name in our order book contact our sales team on 0207 582 3294 or email sales@fixationuk.com

Lens Features
Sharpness

With three XA (Extreme Aspherical) elements the FE 50mm f1.2 GM controls the light even when shooting wide open for excellent image quality from corner to corner.

Smooth Bokeh

Sony use eleven curved aperture blades in their lens design to give a circular aperture. This offers the smooth defocus effects for objects in front of and behind your subject.

Nano AR Coating II

This optical coating from Sony dramatically reduces flare and ghosting even when shooting backlit subjects and under bright sunlight. You can rely on the Sony FE 50mm f1.2 GM to deliver clear images with excellent contrast in all shooting conditions thanks to this lens coating technology.

Fast Autofocus with Four XD linear motors

Four motors drive the heavy f/1.2 optical elements for rapid focusing and tracking. This high level of responsiveness is a great benefit for a lens with a shallow depth of field. The focus speed will also be a benefit for tracking focus for video.

Professional build quality

Sony G Master lenses are made for professional use. The FE 50mm f1.2 GM features dust and moisture sealing for indoor and outdoor use. The lens also has intuitive controls such as an aperture control ring and programmable buttons for rapid control or access to menu options. You can adapt this lens to suit your working style.

Close focusing with a wide field of view

A minimum focus distance of 40cm lets you capture details with a wide angle of view for a more dynamic perspective in close up shots. Ideal for adding the environment in to detail images that would be lost with a longer telephoto lens. This is a feature seen on Sony’s last G Master lens release the FE 35mm f1.4 GM.

The current lineup of Sony G Master prime lenses

A 50mm G Master lens from Sony was never a case of if? but when? This new announcement fills the gap between the existing 35mm and 85mm f1.4 G Master lenses, the prime lens range is listed in full below. To see a wider range of options for Sont full frame mirrorless cameras view our guide to Sony lenses.

  • FE 24mm f1.4 GM
  • FE 35mm f1.4 GM 
  • FE 50mm f1.2 GM
  • FE 85mm f1.4 GM
  • FE 100mm f2.8 STF GM OSS
  • FE 135mm f1.8 GM
  • FE 400mm f2.8 GM OSS
  • FE 600mm f4.0 GM OSS

The Sony FE 50mm f1.2 GM is £2099 including VAT. To get your name in our order book contact our sales team on 0207 582 3294 or email sales@fixationuk.com

FUJIFILM GFX 100S AND X-E4

Fujifilm GFX 100S and X-E4

Fujifilm has announced two new cameras: the GFX 100S medium format mirrorless camera, and the X-E4 an X series mirrorless APS-C sensor camera body. Both have an impressive specification seen in flagship models, squeezed into a smaller build. The full feature set of the GFX100 has been re-engineered to fit within the smaller, lighter body of the new GFX 100S. In a similar fashion the X-E4 has the same sensor and processor as the flagship X-Pro3, again in a more compact design.

Both camera bodies are more affordable then their flagship counterparts making them lighter on the wallet as well as lighter in your camera bag.

New Fujifilm camera bodies: GFX100S (left), X-E4 (right)

Fujifilm GFX100S Features

The GFX100S has at its heart a 102 megapixel medium format sensor. The sensors in the Fujifilm GFX series are 1.7x larger than the full-frame 35mm sensor seen in Canon, Sony and Nikon flagship bodies. Medium format digital sensors offer a different quality of image closer to that achieved with medium format analogue camera bodies such as the film cameras from Hasselblad, Mamiya and Fujifilm in the past. A large lens mount is needed for such a large sensor and the GFX100S has a reinforced chassis which is 1mm thicker around the mount while the camera is overall 500g lighter than the GFX100. The increased density at the lens mount gives greater support for larger GF lenses.

X-Processor 4 is the engine behind the impressive 102 megapixel sensor. It powers the on-sensor phase detection auto-focus making this camera versatile, accurate and very fast. The shutter unit has been re-designed and the in-body image stabilisation (IBIS) unit is a new design which is 20% smaller and 10% lighter than the IBIS in the GFX100 while delivering 6 stops of image stabilisation.

The large sensor is also capable of recording 4k30p video at 16:9 or 17:9 aspect ratios, and can record 10 bit F-Log to an internal SD card or output 12bit ProRes RAW via the HDMI port to an external recorder. 12 bit RAW footage can be output via HDMI to an Atomos Ninja V recorder to eliminate in-camera image processing and offer you freedom to make decision in post.

Fujifilm X-E4 Features

The Fujifilm X-E4 is a lightweight, rangefinder-styled camera built around the latest X-Trans 26.1MP CMOS 4 sensor and the X-Processor 4. With Fujifilm’s latest sensor and processor combined the X-E4 inherits features from the most recent Fujifilm cameras, including an updated AF system, 4K video recording and fast burst shooting rates. If you shoot to JPEG, there are now eighteen of Fujifilm’s film simulation modes to choose from.

The X-E4 has a tilting LCD screen which can be flipped to 180 degrees for forward facing monitoring. The AF system can achieve focus in 0.02 seconds and uses an advanced tracking algorithm to hold focus on moving subjects.

When recording video the X-E4 oversamples 6k footage to record 4k30p 4:2:0 8-bit in camera, or to output 4k30p 4:2:2 10-bit via HDMI.

SONY A1 Camera

Sony A1

The Sony A1 is a high resolution, high speed, mirrorless camera body with some impressive headline specifications and some remarkable technology under the bonnet. Built for professional photographers and videographers the A1 has something to suit photographers covering everything from weddings to wildlife via sports, portraits and news. Whether used for stills, video or both, there are features that will appeal to everyone.

Sony A1 Features

The Sony A1 specification exceeds any expectation of what a flagship camera body can offer. Sony has thrown out the notion of a trade off between shooting speed and resolution by combining a 50 megapixel sensor and a burst rate of 30 frames per second.

50.1 Megapixel Sensor

The high resolution sensor allows photographers to crop into their images without sacrificing detail. The sensor feeds in to an upgraded BIONZ XR image processor with eight times the processing power of the BIONZ X engines in previous Sony bodies. The 50.1 megapixel sensor exceeds the requirement for 8k video recording (which is 33.1 megapixels in photography-talk).

30 frames per second blackout-free continuous shooting

The impressive processing power of the camera is able to record 50 megapixel images at 30 frames per second while delivering a constant feed of image information to the electronic viewfinder so that you can view your composition throughout shooting. With the capacity to record high resolution still images at 30fps the Sony A1 can also record 8K 30p video and lower resolution 4K 120p for slow-motion.

Fast sensor readout for high speed AF and AE

The new sensor and processor enables 120 AF/AE calculations per second even while recording images at 30 frames per second. This means the Sony A1 will continuously track subjects and can adjust for flickering artificial lighting steadily, while taking a burst of photographs. To put this in context this is twice as responsive as the Sony A9 II camera body, the high speed camera lunched by Sony at the end of 2019. The Real-time Eye AF for humans and animals is improved, and a new Realtime Eye AF for birds has been added to the AF system.

High speed electronic and mechanical shutter

Sony have improved features in both their mechanical and electronic shutter systems. The electronic shutter provides silent and vibration-free shooting. Both the electronic and mechanical shutter offer anti-flicker shooting. For the first time in the Sony Alpha series the electronic shutter is compatible with flash synchronisation up to a sync speed of 1/200th sec. The mechanical shutter synchronises up to 1/400th sec, faster than any other full-frame digital camera.

Connectivity: Wi Fi, Ethernet and SuperSpeed USB

Filing your images, or transmitting footage is fast with a variety of connection options. Sports photographers working in press centres can file images via 1000BASE-T Ethernet LAN connection direct from camera. If you are on the move you can use built-in WiFi to send files from the camera. High Speed USB Type-C connection allows tethered shooting to a PC for smooth transfer of large files.

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