12-28-2004

Olympus Posts v1.2 of Studio Software for E-System Olympus has posted Olympus Studio v1.2 update for versions 1.0, 1.1 and 1.11. Revisions for the new 1.2 update are: Support for Evolt E-300 SLR, RAW development now features Noise Cancellation and False Color Suppression, New Auto Tone Correction feature, There is now a single RAW development screen for all camera models, improving ease of use. The new built-in RAW development engine improves the speed of RAW development.

12-24-2004

Best Holiday Wishes to All Steve's Readers! Here's hoping that Santa brings you the digicam of your dreams or whatever else it is that you've been wishing for. As we begin our seventh season I'd just like to thank all of our readers, new and old, for making this site so popular - I am truly humbled! 2005 promises to be an even more exciting year as the camera prices continue to tumble and their performance approaches that of a Pentium 4 computer. There's now four digital SLRs selling for under $1000, fully featured 5-megapixel cameras can be had for a little over $300 and who knows what else we'll see this year. You can be sure of one thing, as soon as it becomes news you can read about it here -- that's our promise to you. Have a safe and wonderful holiday and a great new year!

12-21-2004

Camera Firmware Updates Available Nikon USA has posted the Coolpix 8800 firmware update 1.4 fixes a problem that caused pictures taken continuously at an image-quality setting of [RAW] to have a magenta tint overall when viewed in PictureProject or Nikon Capture. A problem that caused recording problems for pictures taken continuously at an image-quality setting of [EXTRA] has also been corrected. Canon Japan has posted updates for their top two professional digital SLR cameras. EOS-1Ds Mark II firmware update 1.0.3. improves the AF tracking in AI Servo AF and fixes a reduction in color differences between RAW and JPEG thumbnails. EOS-1D Mark II firmware update 1.1.0. improves the AF tracking in AI Servo AF, reduces the time between when the camera is turned on and ready to shoot and adds support for the WFT-E1 Wireless File Transmitter. And Kodak Professional has posted DCS Pro 14n/14nx firmware 5.3.0. which: Fixed a problem that occasionally caused some Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems to restart when capturing bursts of images directly to the host computer while tethered via the IEEE 1394 interface. Fixed an intermittent problem that generated incorrect header data in DCR files that prevented the images from being opened by Photo Desk. Fixed a problem that caused green and magenta blocking in some ERI JPEG images. Although ERI JPEG image quality is improved when viewing/processing images using ERI FFM version 1.0, some artifacts will still be present. Further artifact reduction will be achieved when using ERI JPEG images from firmware version 5.3.0 with ERI FFM version 2.0 (which was not yet available at the time of this release). Added a Manual Mirror Prerelease option that uses the shutter button to raise the mirror and the OK button to open the shutter and capture the exposure.

12-17-2004

New Camera Reviews Posted Just posted is the Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200, a more compact version of the A2 with 8-megapixels and the manually zoomed 7x lens and now has an articulated 1.8-inch LCD and all the features to please the novice and more experienced users alike. This is KM's top of the line DiMAGE camera and it shows. Next up is the reasonably priced Olympus D-590 Zoom with 4-megapixels, a good quality 3x zoom lens and a 1.8-inch Semi-Transmissive TFT LCD. We have posted the full Nikon Coolpix 8400 review. Nikon's "wide"angle 8-megapixel camera with a high quality 24-85mm equivalent 3.5x zoom, articulated 1.8-inch color LCD and a rich feature set. And also finalized and posted is the Sony Cybershot DSC-L1 review. This is a great little 4-megapixel pocket sized camera with a 3x Zeiss optical zoom that comes in four different colors and has excellent image quality.

12-15-2004

Digital Camera Flash Media Cards Safe In Both Carry-On And Checked Baggage White Plains, N.Y Dec. 15, 2004 — Recent tests found no evidence of X-ray scanner damage to digital camera media cards or to the images they hold. The tests of scanner models currently in use in the U.S. transportation industry were jointly conducted by the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), the leading global association for the imaging industry; SanDisk Corporation, a manufacturer of digital media cards; and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). These findings mean that digital cameras and their image storage media can travel safely in either checked or carry-on bags, which will be reassuring to holiday travelers. And though they were not explicitly tested, it is likely that images on camera-phones will be safe in either situation as well. More care is needed for cameras with film, however, as the X-ray scanners for both checked and carry-on luggage can fog both developed and undeveloped film. "Our tests should put travelers' fears to rest, that their digitally captured holiday memories won't be damaged in transit," said Lisa Walker, I3A President. "Digital cameras and media can safely go in carry-ons without the need for hand-inspection, which will simplify security checks and make those long lines move a little faster." Read the complete I3A article here.

12-15-2004

Mirra Announces "Thanks for Sharing" Photo Contest Mirra Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., USA, kicks off the "Thanks for Sharing" promotion showcasing secure, two-way file and photo sharing using the Mirra Personal Server. Rick Smolan, photojournalist and creator of the New York Times book series "A Day in the Life of America," is the editor of the program's first theme, "Mirra Goes to the Dogs...and Cats," and will select the grand prize winner and runners-up. Entrants visit Mirra.com, click on "Thanks for Sharing," enter their e-mail address and receive a personal return e-mail inviting them to securely share photos of dogs or cats on an unmodified Mirra Personal Server set up for the program. Entrants can submit up to five photos of their dog or cat with no limit on file size. The program runs through Feb. 28, 2005. The grand prize is the Nikon D70 digital SLR. The first runner-up will receive a Mirra M-250 Personal Server, the second runner-up will receive an Epson Stylus R800 photo printer, the third runner-up will receive a $250 shopping spree at Petco.com. The first 100 participants will receive a copy of Smolan's book "America 24/7" customized with a photo of their own pet on the cover. All participants will be offered a $50 instant discount off the price of a Mirra Personal Server when purchased at Mirra.com.

12-15-2004

Delkin Devices’ Portable Burnaway Now Burns DVD's Poway CA, December 14, 2004 - Delkin Devices Inc., maker of premium quality eFilm memory cards and other innovative digital photography products, introduces a new version of its popular BurnAway portable combo media player that burns DVDs. The DVD BurnAway is now the easiest way to backup your precious digital images to DVDs. The MSRP for the DVD BurnAway is $399.99US with the BurnAway retailing at $299.99US (plus VAT in some countries). Delkin introduced the CD burning BurnAway this summer as a versatile mobile recordable disc burner that combines a number of today’s most popular digital electronic devices in one unit. Both the CD and DVD BurnAway feature a Slim Type Recordable Disc Drive, and works as a USB 2.0 memory card reader, a digital slideshow player that shows photographs on TV, and a DVD/MP3/CD player. The DVD BurnAway features a DVDR/RW/CDR/RW drive, which allows you to burn both CDs and DVDs with one unit.

12-14-2004

PENTAX Introduces Lightweight, Ultra-Thin 40mm Limited Lens For *ist Digital SLRs Golden, CO.…PENTAX Imaging Company continues to expand its digital SLR lens family with the announcement of a fourth member - the smc PENTAX DA 40mm F2.8 Limited lens. Designed for exclusive use with PENTAX digital SLR cameras, the unique pancake style standard lens measures a mere .59 inches in length and weighs just 3.17 ounces. Combined with the popular PENTAX *ist DS digital SLR, the PENTAX DA 40mm F2.8 Limited lens will offer the smallest and lightest digital SLR combination available from any manufacturer. Featuring a sophisticated appearance that incorporates an aluminum lens barrel, hood and cap, the lens offers a perspective similar to the naked eye with its 40mm focal length (equivalent to 61mm in the 35mm format), a large maximum aperture of F2.8, and a minimum focusing distance of 40 centimeters. The PENTAX DA 40mm also features the PENTAX Quick Shift Focus System for instant switching to manual focus operation, a nine blade diaphragm to assure true-to-life reproduction of out-of-focus areas, and filter attachment versatility (a 49mm-size filter on the lens or a 30.5mm-size filter on the lens hood).

12-14-2004

Microsoft Announces Enhanced Windows XP Online Print Wizard REDMOND, Wash. — Dec. 14, 2004 — To offer even greater choice and convenience for digital photography customers, Microsoft Corp. today announced the availability of an updated version of its Online Print Wizard, a feature that allows quick and easy ordering of prints from digital photos via Windows XP. In addition to the mail-order service, consumers can now pick up their photo prints directly from their nearest photofinisher in as little as one hour (pickup times may vary by retailer and location). The Online Print Wizard has an extensible architecture that now enables photofinishing retailers to provide Microsoft® Windows XP users with the ability to order prints of their digital photos for pickup at any affiliated photofinishing retailer. This added service offering gives consumers even greater choice and convenience when ordering prints of their digital photos, and enables retailers to reach millions of current and potentially new customers. Microsoft also announced today that Fujifilm’s Get the Picture Online service is the first to be implemented into the enhanced Online Print Wizard, enabling Windows XP users to order prints of their digital photos and pick them up at participating Fujifilm retailers, including Ritz Camera Centers Inc., Sam’s Club and Wolf Camera Inc. Fujifilm’s Get the Picture Online service is available via Windows XP beginning this week. With the enhanced Online Print Wizard, photographers of all levels can enjoy a more robust digital photography experience with Windows XP. Once a photo or group of photos is selected in Windows XP, consumers can click on the Order Prints Online icon and choose to pick up their prints at the retailer of their choice, or have the pictures sent via postal mail to their home. Currently available only in the United States, the Online Print Wizard can be accessed by consumers via the Windows XP desktop. Similar functionality incorporated into MSN® Photos and Digital Image Suite 10, Microsoft’s powerful, yet intuitive software for organizing, editing and archiving photo memories, enables those products to print directly to retailers as well.

12-14-2004

Adobe Photoshop Elements 3 Now Available The complete, all-in-one solution for home digital photography — Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 software, now including flexible organization options and advanced sharing capabilities, along with new and improved editing tools and features. Enjoy Quick Fix and the Spot Healing Brush to instantly click away flaws, and the advanced control of Camera Raw and 16-bit color support. Quickly and easily organize your ever-expanding digital photo collection, find the photos you want now with revolutionary Keyword Tags and Collections, and share your creativity in dynamic slide shows, Photo Mail, and Adobe Photoshop Services online. From shutter click to perfect photos in eyecatching creations, the #1-selling consumer photo editing software is now much more than editing — it’s everything you need to perfect, transform, and organize your photos like a pro. Read all about the new Photoshop Elements 3 and Premier Elements for Windows or Mac OS at www.adobe.com

12-14-2004

Price of Nikon D2H Drops Below $2000 in the U.S. I received numerous emails today from users pointing me at one site this morning which is a highly reputable and authorized Nikon dealer who was advertising the Nikon D2H Professional SLR for $1999. A quick check today still showed B&H, RitzCamera.com and others with it priced at $3199. Later in the day we found two more authorized Nikon dealers in the U.S. showing the D2H's price at $1999 so it was no pricing mistake. As of this time there has been no official word from Nikon USA but it is obvious that they have drastically lowered the price of the D2H to their authorized dealers so we expect to see more of them lowering the price today. If you've been wanting one of these fast professional dSLRs then I guess Christmas has indeed come early this year.

12-09-2004

DP Now Posts Epson P-2000 Multimedia Storage/Viewer Review Our friends over at DP Now have posted a review of the Epson P-2000 multimedia storage and viewer. The P-2000 is a highly portable device with a 40GB hard drive, large 3.8" high-resolution color display screen, memory card slots, USB 2.0 connectivity and a rechargeable li-ion battery. It sells for about $499.

12-07-2004

ATP Announces 2GB SD Cards Ready for Mass Production Sunnyvale, CA -- The ATP 2GB cards, like its smaller SD siblings, are intended to withstand any harsh environment, offering ample protection from water, dust, electrostatic discharge, and extreme temperatures. This superior versatility and reliability makes the new ATP cards ideal for any indoor or outdoor portable electronic application. The twofold increase in capacity to 2GB will also allow high end, professional digital photographers to store pictures with the highest quality settings (130 - 6 megapixel, uncompressed Tiff files). Although this does result in colossal file sizes, a super fast transfer rate will continue to allow for the fast, snappy shooting that action shooting requires. With each flash card holding 2GB of data, reliability is also a significant issue. ATP uses the highest quality components giving the cards a 10 year data retention rating and a lifetime of 100,000 read/writes. The 2GB cards also offer a superior level of performance and are rated at 60x (up to 10MB/s). ATP 2GB SD cards will be priced at a MSRP of $249.

12-07-2004

Canon Japan Announces ChromaLife 100 Inks and Papers With Enhanced Longevity I have not received any information on this from Canon USA but from what I can gather at Canon Japan, they are announcing a new ChromaLife 100 inkset and Photo Paper Pro media for use with upcoming PIXMA printers. As you can see from this graphic, it will be an 8-color system (cyan, magenta, yellow, photo cyan, photo magenta, red, green and black) with the designation of BCI-7 on the ink tanks. From the rough translation of these pages it says it offers 100 year permanence when prints are placed in albums, 30 year light resistance in a "photo frame" and 10 year longevity to environmental gases when displayed in an unprotected frame. We'll update all of this when Canon USA releases the information officially. Apparently it isn't exactly "new" news but it is the first that I've heard of it here in the states.

12-07-2004

Canon Posts EOS 20D Firmware v1.1.0 Canon Japan has posted the EOS 20D firmware version 1.1.0, it includes the following additions/improvements: Three new languages (Russian, Korean, and Traditional Chinese) have been added to the camera menus for a total of 15 supported languages. The phenomenon of horizontal line noise appearing in images taken at high ISO settings while using the internal flash has been fixed. The issue with horizontal line noise appearing in shots taken at high ISO settings (ISO800, ISO1600, etc.) while using the internal flash has been fixed.

12-07-2004

New Camera Reviews Posted Posted today is the completed Nikon Coolpix 8800 review. This is Nikon's flagship Coolpix camera with an 8-megapixel imager, 10x optical zoom with Vibration Reduction and an articulated LCD monitor. Another review that was updated from First Look to complete is the Sony Cybershot DSC-L1. This is a stylish and very compact 4-megapixel camera that fits easily in pockets and purses and has excellent image quality. Completely new is the Pentax Optio X review. This is a uniquely styled 5-megapixel camera with a 3x optical zoom and a swiveling 2-inch color LCD section. In-work and upcoming are the Pentax *ist DS SLR, Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D SLR, Nikon Coolpix 8400, Konica Minolta A200 and the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II SLR reviews.

12-06-2004

Breeze Systems Announces BreezeBrowser Pro 6th December, 2004 : Breeze Systems today announced BreezeBrowser Pro, new version of their well known image browser, raw conversion, and web page generation software. The new BreezeBrowser Pro introduces a unique combined conversion facility, outstandingly fast image browsing and side by side image comparison. BreezeBrowser Pro's combined raw conversion converts the image twice: once using normal conversion and once with settings optimized for highlight detail. The two images are then analyzed and merged to give a unique single image which combines the excellent colors and shadow detail of normal conversion with improved highlight detail. Normal conversion has the advantage of producing images with good colors which are ready for printing or web display with little or no post processing. One of the problems with normal conversion is a tendency to clip the highlights resulting in loss of detail in these areas. Models supported include Canon EOS-1Ds MkII, 1D MkII, 20D, 10D, 300D and many PowerShot cameras. Also supported are Nikon, Pentax, Minolta and Olympus cameras. BreezeBrowser Pro is Windows based software developed and marketed by Breeze Systems Ltd. Available at an introductory price of US $59.95 or US $74.90 bundled with the new Breeze Downloader Pro 1.6; the price includes one year's free upgrades. Existing BreezeBrowser customers upgrade for US $25. Download a trial copy at www.breezesys.com.

12-02-2004

Bibble Labs Announces Competitive Upgrade Program For C1 Users Austin Texas (December 2nd, 2004) - Bibble Labs today announced the availability of limited time special upgrade pricing for existing licensees of Phase One's C1 product who wish to acquire the latest version of Bibble Pro 4.1 Through December 20th, 2004 existing C1 users will be able to purchase Bibble Pro 4.1 for the special price of $99 by providing qualifying proof of purchase for any version of C1. For more details on the program, please visit us on the web. Bibble Labs recently released Bibble 4.1. This update to the popular Bibble line of Raw Workflow products included versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux and is the first third party raw converter to support the recently released Canon EOS-1DS Mark 2. Bibble is perfectly suited for processing the 100 megabyte files the 1DS2 is capable of producing. The new highlight recovery tool allows users of all supported cameras to recover detail in blow highlights with one easy to use slider. Additional features in the 4.1 update include new sharpening and noise controls, printer output profiles, and additions to our already powerful batch processing system. Image quality has been enhanced across the board, to provide less noise and more detail. Updated color profiles and white balance routines have been provided for other canon SLR’s.

12-01-2004

DDI Software Releases Qimage 2005 DDI Software announces the release of Qimage 2005, a fully-featured Windows photo printing application. The 2005 edition is a major rewrite that allows Qimage to run much faster than before while using less memory. Users will enjoy faster printing, faster file conversions, ability to handle much larger images, and greater stability especially on older, less capable machines due to reduced memory requirements. The 2005 edition also offers new features like the ability to specify a page background color, ability to turn off print driver expansion and overspray when printing borderless in order to get exact sizes, and much more. For a full list of new features, improvements, and fixes, see the Qimage News page.

12-01-2004

Canon Japan Posts Powershot Pro 1 Firmware Update The Powershot Pro 1 firmware update (Version 1.0.1.0) incorporates the following: (1) AF speed improvements, (2) Changes for the way images are displayed in Continuous AF Mode and (3) Zoom ring responsiveness improvements. Not all cameras will need this firmware, when you go to the website you will be asked for your camera's serial number. If it needs the firmware update then you will be taken to the download page to get the file.

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