16 hours ago
News archive for August 1999
Aug31
HP announce eight new printers, eight new scanners
and two digital cameras.
Aug30
Epson Introduces Its Most Powerful, Versatile
and Advanced Digital Camera -- the PhotoPC 850Z
Aug27
Aug26
Welcome, if you're seeing this message then you're on
our new server which has been put in place to cope with the increasing
numbers of visitors coming to the site.
An
anonymous contact has let me know that Olympus will be releasing
a new camera named the D450Z, it will apparently be the same form
factor and resolution as the ever popular D400Z (AKA. C900Z) but
will feature much faster operation and new burst mode operable
in any resolution. This info should become more apparent towards
the end of August, suggested retail price will be around the $500
mark.
Welcome, if you're seeing this message then you're on
our new server which has been put in place to cope with the increasing
numbers of visitors coming to the site.
Aug25
Congratulations to the following people, who won
an Olympus C-2000Z in the
contest that we participated in along with Imaging Resource and
DC Resource:
Aug24
In an attempt to improve the quality of the information
available on our forums we've decided to create brand specific forums
for the top five Digital Camera brands
Simple Technology, Inc. today announced the availability
of three new high-capacity ATA flash cards in 512MB, 800MB and 1024MB
(1GB) capacities. The PC Cards are available in Type I, II and III
form factors, respectively, and are ideal for notebook computers,
digital still cameras, handheld computers, and other portable devices.
Olympus
America Inc., Digital & Imaging Systems Group, the world leader in
film and filmless photography, today announced 32MB SmartMedia cards
under the Olympus brand. Also announced was a compatibility program
bringing 32MB card compatibility to legacy filmless digital cameras
and the P-330 Instant Photo Printer.
Nick over at PixelZone has published the first samples from
the Nikon D1 courtesy of Nikon Canada (note: they are scans of prints from
the D1).
In Japan, not much changes in the digital camera sales
charts, the Nikon Coolpix 950 in short supply leaves it stuck down
in 4th place, the Coolpix 700 starts to climb the chart.
Dimage EX Zoom 1500 Places First in Digital Camera
Shoot-Out and Dimage EX Wide 1500 Wins Most Innovative Product
In Japan, Fuji dominate the top ten sales chart, Olympus
C-2000Z still at the top of sales and the Sony DSC-F55 is still popular
along with the Olympus C-900Z (D400).
Ed Hamrick, author of the excellent VuePrint and
VueScan has just released a new version (3.0) of VueScan which
offers support for the Minolta Dimage Scan Dual film scanner which
can support both 35mm and APS film.
Steve's
been busy again! This time he's had his hands on the wonderful Kodak
Pro DCS620 (which I've previously reviewed)
and the new 340MB IBM Microdrive which he tests in the DCS620 and
a Canon Pro 70.
PC
Watch post a Kodak DC215 Zoom first impression, professional photographer
Yamada offers his opinions on Kodak's new slimline entry-level zoom
digicam.
Steve
managed to get his hands on the leaflet from which came our news article
of a few days ago, he's posted it up on his site. Canon describe the
S10 as "The Worlds smallest and lightest 2MP digital camera with
zoom and built-in flash".
Japan's Sanyo Electric Co Ltd , Olympus Optical
Co Ltd , and Hitachi Maxell Ltd said on Tuesday they have jointly
developed a new high-capacity memory disc for use in next-generation
digital cameras.
In
an effort to constantly improve the service level to our readers
we're in the process of improving site design, specifically in
the areas of easy of use, loading speed and browser compatibility.
You'll see some changes in the site over the next few weeks (the
most major of which will be the removal of frames) which will
make the site not only look better but work better and load quicker
for you.
SST (Silicon Storage Technology, Inc., Nasdaq:SSTI)
today announced it has expanded its CompactFlash card family to
include 32 MByte and 48 MByte density cards. The new cards are
based on SST's patented ATA controller technology and flash memory
design expertise. Because of this technology, SST's CompactFlash
cards offer the industry's fastest sustained write performance,
up to 1.4 MByte/sec. This speed benefits users of CompactFlash
cards in applications such as digital cameras, where a faster
write performance leads to significantly lower set-up time between
pictures. With the addition of these new products, SST's CompactFlash
card family now includes cards ranging in densities from 4 to
48 MBytes.
Agfa Offers Free ePhoto Digital
Cameras With Purchase of Select DuoScan Scanners
Unity
Digital announced the "ProPower Pack", a compact external battery
pack for digital cameras that delivers 2.45 amp hours of sustained
power. The ProPower Pack significantly increases the number of photographs
that a digital camera can take without replacing the camera's internal
batteries. Using Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery cells in a genuine
leather pack, the ProPower Pack clips onto the photographer's belt
and delivers nearly ten times more shots than using typical AA Alkaline
batteries.
This from James Wakefield over at Focus-Online:
Just
posted is our latest review which is of the
Olympus C-2000Z, it fits into the same class of cameras
as the Nikon Coolpix 950 and the two are often compared. "When
the Olympus C-2000Z was announced it surprised some people, everyone
was expecting Olympus to release a 2 megapixel 3x zoom digicam
to match Nikon, but most expected it to follow along the lines
of the popular D600/D620L (C1400XL) digital SLR."
Sneak preview: Kodak DC240 & DC265 specifications
Outpost are now accepting pre-orders for the Nikon Coolpix
950 & 700
The ePhoto CL30 & CL50 announcements force recommended
price of 1680 down to $699
In a slight departure from Digital Photography (just
for a second)
Another 50+ photographs from the STUNNING Pro 70, I'm
really liking this camera.
Reader Joseph Luk has produced a comparison page between
these two Canon cameras.
Many thanks to all my visitors for helping to make this
site such a success.
The Japanese site PC Watch have posted a "mini
report" and some sample images from the Kodak DC240 including
a rather strange mis-coloured image.
Agfa Improves a Popular ePhoto Camera by Adding Style
and Reducing Cost. The ePhoto 780c ships in a metallic blue housing
and will be available in the U.S. for the suggested price of $199.
New
2.3 Million Pixel MX-2900 Sports 3x Optical Zoom, Adaptable Lens and
Flash Features Building upon its prior digital imaging success stories,
Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc., announced today its latest innovation
in digital camera performance and design -- the Fujifilm MX-2900,
a new double mega-pixel model featuring a 2.3 million pixel resolution
and a 3x optical zoom lens.
Not much change other than the arrival of the Coolpix
700 at number eight and the BIG slide of the Fuji MX700.
This thanks to Steves Digicams:
Agfa
Offers Free 4 MB SmartMedia Card and Premium Quality AgfaJet With
Purchase Of ePhoto CL50 from Shopping.com. This special bundle is
exclusive to those customers who purchase the ePhoto CL50 from Shopping.com,
and make their purchase on, or after, Friday, June 4, 1999. The offer
will be available until supplies last.
"Version 1.0.3 Firmware Upgrade provides a number
of performance and reliability improvements including: Elimination
of the Red -> Magenta Color Shift External Flash Sync is now active
for all photos when this option is enabled"
Toshiba has developed a new IC package that's as thin
as a piece of paper. Toshiba has plans to use the technology to make
higher-capacity flash memory storage cards by next year, and claims
it can open the door to new applications. . By the first half of next
year, Toshiba plans to ship samples of a 1-Gbit SmartMedia card which
uses four stacked 256-Mbit flash devices.
Infotrends: The robust digital camera market is starting
to change the face of photography in America, according to a new forecast
report from InfoTrends Research Group, Inc. Digital camera unit sales
will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 38% through 2003, reaching
over 6 million units in North America. In 1999, revenues will grow
35% to nearly $1.2 billion.
New
CF cards from Lexar won't need CF card readers, they'll only need
the US$20 Lexar JumpShot cable and a USB enabled PC/iMAC: "Lexar
Media Launches New Line of High-Speed, USB-Enabled CompactFlash Digital
Film Cards for Digital Cameras. New CompactFlash Cards Capture High-Resolution
Images Quickly; Provide Fast, Hassle-Free Photo Transfer to Desktop
Computers Via the USB Port With Lexar JumpSHOT(tm) Cable; Cards Guaranteed
to Work With CompactFlash Cameras"
PC
Watch and their professional photographer Yamada post a preview of the new
Nikon D1 Digital SLR. Most of the notes in their preview seem to be based
around the Nikon Japan launch.
The Japanese magazine D# Dreamarts have published a
low-light shot comparison between various cameras on their website.
Increased Quality and Lower Prices Enhance Mass Market
Appeal for Digital Cameras, IDC Says. Worldwide Digital Camera Sales
Will Approach 4.7 Million Units in 1999.
The Imaging Application with Ink, Voice and Text Annotations
for the latest version of Windows CE on the Palm-size PC and Handheld
PC Pro Devices.
People have been reporting a problem with the discussion
forums over the "NEW" tag. Here's how to resolve this.
Those guys over at PC Watch in Japan get to play with
all the best toys!! Note that these samples are from "beta"
cameras.
The Tokyo Business Show '99 was held between 18th and
21st of May. They have brief report on the Canon A50, Ricoh RDC-5000,
Epson CP800 and an interesting digital camera add-on for the Cassiopeia
from Casio.
The first report of a production model Nikon Coolpix
700, the smaller brother of the outstanding Coolpix 950.
Canon
U.S.A. today announced the immediate availability of the HyperPhoto
System, a fully-integrated digital photo production system. Offering
the finest photo-quality output on the market today with 1,200 dots
per inch (dpi) resolution, HyperPhoto transforms negatives and transparencies,
reflective art, and digital media into calendars, postcards, stickers,
composites and other creative mediums.
The new VFIR (Very Fast IR) standard promises 16MB/s
transfer, ideal for Digital Cameras.
To quote: "Olympus raises the bar with 2.1 million
pixels, unparalleled exposure control, and a great user interface!"
Just released VuePrint 7.3 - a JPEG image viewer for Windows. The main new feature may be of interest - it displays comprehensive digital camera information when reading files that have embedded EXIF, CIFF, or Olympus APP12 info.
Sorry for the late reporting of this, pictures enclosed...
Samsung Electronics is seeking to extend its dominance
of the memory market to flash but it has made little progress so far
as a supplier of that technology for hot MP3 audio players.
Looks like everyone will be naming their camera "CP"
from now onwards, maybe it's a marketing technique... Anyway, here's
some information on a very interesting new camera from Epson, read
on...
FotoNation's FotoDeveloper(TM), provides application
developers a single interface to support multiple digital camera protocols
without having to customize the code or the user interface for each
different camera manufacturer, saving development time and costs.
Six new cameras in the database
By popular demand...
The Canon PowerShot Pro 70 uses Datalight's ROM-DOS
as its operating system.
Sony has taken the Digital Mavica(R), the nation's
best-selling digital camera since September 1997, to the next level
in picture quality with the introduction today of a 1.3 million pixel
camera. - why?
The excellent Picture Information Extractor has been
updated
Digitalkamera.de report on the new products coming from
SanDisk
UPDATED: The excellent Picture Information Extractor
now supports Nikon Coolpix 950
This update although only marked for the Japan domestic
market does make some interesting improvements. (UPDATED
18/March/99)
Thanks to one of my readers for sending in this tip
It's
not often I make mention of online galleries, there's just so many
of them out there, but I'm always impressed by photographers who can
take basic equipment and produce something beautiful. Mark Czerniec
posted a link to his site on our Samples and Galleries forum, all
his shots were taken with the fixed-focal-length Nikon Coolpix 700
and are a perfect example of how it's possible to take excellently
composed, exposed colourful and interesting photographs without big
lenses, manual features and all that fluff.
A little background on the microdrive: When two IBM
designers started tinkering around in a motor-research project five
years ago, they weren't planning to create a new form factor around
1-inch disks. After all, the industry hadn't embraced a smaller disk-drive
format in more than a decade.
Firstly Epson announce the new Epson PhotoPC 650 which
is a 1.09 megapixel USB (using Lexar's new JumpShot CF cards) for
less than US$350! Secondly they officially announce the PhotoPC 800
(2.1 megapixel) in the US at US$699.
Canon have posted english releases of their version
2.4 TWAIN drivers for the Powershot series of cameras (350, 600, A5,
A5 Zoom, A50, Pro 70). This release does seem to do some extra processing
when importing CCDRAW images.
Rob
Says: "Thanks also to those who took the time to send an email
explaining their thoughts about and experiences with the D1. Among
those was Mike Deluca, US Product Manager for Digital Capture at Kodak.
Mike forward a detailed document responding to a number of the assessments
I made of Kodak's pro digital cameras in the D1 report. As I'm sure
that prospective purchasers of pro digital cameras in the next few
months are as keen as I am to understand Kodak's current offerings
and how they measure up to the D1, I've excerpted Kodak's document
below, framed by my comments in response. Be warned, this is highly
technical stuff. To ensure fair representation of Kodak's position
I've posted it largely unedited."
As
an update to our previous D770 information sheet we now have all the
details on the Sony DKC-FP3 digital camera which is aimed more at
the professional end of the digicam market and features an IEE1394
(FireWire) connection.
Phew! - Welcome to the new single paged (no frames)
Digital Photography Review. It's been a long job but I've finally
converted all the previously framed pages in the site to non-framed,
in the process I've streamlined alot of the back-end database
design and associated scripts.
Nikon finally release the updater for Windows! It's
been a long wait for most NTSC Coolpix 950 owners, Nikon mysteriously
published the firmware updated for Mac way back but withdrew the
Windows updater. Here are the official list of bugs fixed in this
release:
PC Watch Sales Charts:
In Japan, not much changes in the digital camera sales charts, Fuji
still dominate the top ten sales chart with no less than four cameras,
Olympus C-2000Z still at the top of sales and the Sony DSC-F55 is
still popular along with the Olympus C-900Z (D400). And of course
the Coolpix 950 in short supply...
Ever wonder WHY manufacturers drop the price of
products?... hmmm.
Sony
have posted yet another picture of their upcoming 2.1 megapixel,
Swivelling 5x Carl Zeiss zoom lens, MemoryStick storage digicam.
Now we can see its size, in this picture the user is holding it
with the lens swivelled 90 degrees upwards, looking DOWN onto
the LCD. This picture also seems to reveal that the object on
top of the lens is a pop-up flash (see the hinge).
Just
posted: Our latest digital camera review, the Kodak DC280 Zoom.
The DC280 Zoom fits into the new Kodak line of digital cameras
just below the recently announced DC290, the DC280 has a 30mm
- 60mm (2x) zoom lens, 2.3 megapixel CCD and a host of built-in
features designed to satisify the medium-level digital camera
enthusiasts.
Much
to my displeasure Imaging-Resource have posted a review of the
Kodak DC280 a full two days before my NDA allows me to release
my complete review, I've had a DC280 since early July on an extended
loan and review and am only allowed to publish that review after
the 14th.. Looks like a communication problem between Kodak Singapore
and Kodak US.
EXCLUSIVE:
Once more we can bring you the inside information on a new digital
camera release, this time the much awaited Sony DSC-F505. Loosely
based around the DSC-F55 this digital camera has had an interesting
marketing campaign over the last few days, just a few minutes ago
I received a confirmation of specifications and the name DSC-F505
for the camera.
Matsushita Electric, SanDisk
and Toshiba Agree to Join Forces to Develop and Promote Next Generation
Secure Memory Card
The Japanese Magazine D# Sharp have posted a short article
on the New Sony DSC F505 along with a set of sample images. Some interesting
pictures and undoubtedly good quality.
The Japanese D# Sharp Magazine have just posted a mini-review
of the Olympus C2500-L along with a few sample images.
So today is Monday 16th, my site is down but I can
still create news items, so hopefully y'all see this as soon as
things get better.
And Sony reveal a little more info, auto/manual focus,
macro mode, manual white balance preset, spot metering and
by fiddling with the image they've posted I've managed to discover
it has a 10 x zoom (can't confirm if that's 10 x optical or 5
x optical, 2 x digital). We also know it has an L shaped profile,
video output, will use Memory Stick for storage (whoopy doo!),
has a Carl Zeiss lens and USB. Other rumours indicate a 5x zoom
lens.
Anyone
getting tired of this yet?? Sony today revealed that the new DSC
will have an MPEG capability. Not really a surprise saying that
several of the Mavicas and the recent DSC-F55 do. This image also
confirms my guess of yesterday that the camera has a hybrid available
light / backlit LCD. One other thing, todays page notes the next
release as 20th (Friday) which we can safely assume will be the
launch date and they can finally reveal all.
Sony
have just announced the MSA-64A memory stick. The chewing-gum
sized stick now expands the range of available MemorySticks from
4MB to 64MB, meaning that Sony have now overtaken SmartMedia as
far as storage capacity per physical size is concerned. Availability
(in Japan) will be November 21st, MSRP price is 20,000 YEN (US$164
- $2.60/MB).
Just a quick note to let all my visitors know that
you WILL experience some downtime on the site over the next 24
hours (when exactly it will take place I'm not quite sure,
it should take about two hours total). The downtime is to install
the latest version of the site with lots of changes (I'll post
a complete list of improvements when the site is live).
PC Watch Digital Camera Sales Charts:
In Japan, the Fuji MX1500 bursts its way into the first place in the
sales charts, the Olympus C2000Z is pushed down to second place and
Kodak's new DC280 breaks in at number 7.
Even though I've already updated my 950 (it's a
PAL version) the US and EUROPE have officially announced their
firmware updates, heres what the US site says:
Professional Photographer Yamada posts on PC Watch a
vast image quality comparison between all of the top two megapixel
zoom, two megapixel fixed and less than two megapixel digital cameras
taken at all the possible compression settings. Including new cameras
such as the Sony DSC-D770, Olympus C-21 (beta), Epson CP-800, Kodak
DC280 and Fuji MX2900.
Dave Etchells over at Imaging-Resource dropped me
a note:
This is the latest word from the NikonTech USA
website:
Nikon Japan (as expected) have just posted the Coolpix
950 v1.1 firmware update, uploadable from both PC and Mac via
serial cable.
Here's what they say: "The '99 PPA (Professional
Photographers of America) Annual Convention and Trade Show is now
underway in Atlanta, and we'll have some selected highlights from
it appearing here over the next few days. - There isn't a whole lot
that's truly new, so there won't be a huge amount of news from it,
but there are a few things worth reporting"
Rob
Galbraith, professional photographer, author and photojournalist has
just posted the first-look at the Nikon D1. He says "A trip to
New York last week afforded me an opportunity to spend some quality
time with a pre-production Nikon D1 digital camera. The camera, known
as Sample 43 and the only pre-production unit currently circulating
in North America, was on display in the bustling, crowded Nikon booth
at the PC Expo trade show."
A warning to people who post photographs on Geocities:
Yahoo, faced with a growing boycott of its recently launched, integrated
Yahoo-GeoCities, said today it is likely to announce a change in its
terms of service, which many users believe gives away rights to their
intellectual property.
Foveon Inc. has built a high-end digital still camera
that aims to rival the quality of analog film. The new startup is
backed by Carver Mead, the inventor of the gallium-arsenide transistor,
the silicon compiler and the artificial retina. Although Mead is not
revealing details of the three analog VLSI image chips that are to
be used in place of a charge-coupled device (CCD), he claims the Foveon
camera spits out a 48-Mbyte, 4,000 x 4,000-pixel Photoshop file.
Steve
Just posted another user review, this time it's the Agfa ePhoto CL-50,
he says "There are some positives here, really! I bought the
camera (tried to get a loaner from Agfa but they said no twice --
guess now I know why) for only $525 from www.ubid.com and there's
a $100 mail-in rebate for U.S. buyers until August 31, 1999. $425
for a brand new and fully warrantied 1.3 megapixel camera with a 3x
optical zoom and 2-inch LCD ain't bad. I would have to recommend that
most people spend a little more and get the ePhoto 1680 instead, it
just works better. "
For
those of you how haven't yet seen The Digital Journalist online magazine
it's a compilation of articles by professional photographers and journalists
who work out in the field with combinations of professional digital
equipment and traditional cameras to bring us some of the photographs
that make our front pages and magazine covers. A worthy read with
some beautiful photography, well worth spending an hour on.
Lots more exclusive photographs from the Olympus booth
at CeBIT. This time we've got seven different shots of the Olympus
C-2500L and two of a new unknown Olympus camera.
The Japanese PC-Watch and German DigitalKamera website
have yet more pictures of the Oly C-2500L
More Canon Pro 70 images...
CeBIT: The World's Highest Capacity CompactFlash Card
Don't you love the internet...
Nikon Coolpix 950, Nikon Coolpix 700, Fuji MX-2700,
Ricoh RDC5000, etc.
John Cowley, the author over at Lone Star Digital has
just completed his review of the Kodak DCS315.
Fuji's new MX-2700 storms into the Japanese market.
Reader Gino Creglia sent me this info on some experimentation
he's done with a Tiffen 2.0x telephoto and 0.05x super-wide angle
Our latest professional digital camera review: The
Kodak DCS 620 (based on the Nikon F5 body, 2 megapixel CCD)
PC Watch report on the Japan Photo Exposition 99
PC watch report that the Toshiba PDR-M4 will be on the
Japanese market at the end of May at a price of ¥89,800 (about
US$700). [updated]
The latest and potential most useful addition to the
site is this complete digital photography glossary, dive in, browse
around and maybe you'll learn a little.
Macro experiments with a Canon PowerShot Pro 70 and
an old 37mm video 2 x telephoto lens.
Nikon Japan have posted the first official Nikon Coolpix
950 samples
Dave Sheldon reviews his recently acquired Sony DSC-D700,
some first impressions.
UPDATE: Sneak preview: Kodak DC200 plus, DC240 &
DC265 specifications
An anonymous source has just forwarded the following
information
AGN Hardware have done an interesting preview on the
IBM Microdrive
Not much digital photography news these last few days,
but February proved to be an important month for this site.
Apologies for my absence, and D# Dreamarts update their
digital camera comparison shots. News on the Pro70 vs. 950 article
Epson's Image Authentication System Provides Users
With Image Validation Technology for Applications in Law Enforcement,
Insurance and Quality Assurance Inspections
An interesting article by Dirck Halstead, a Whitehouse
journalist who uses the Pro70.
To all those people who are patiently waiting for my
Coolpix 950 review...
The Japanese Technology news site PCWatch post the first
Nikon Coolpix 950 review, although this is a beta machine, and the
review is in Japanese.
Shot through a glass box, but you'll get the idea
I just returned from a long weekend, so what's available
and how much?
Found on a Japanese website
New TWAIN drivers for the Powershot Pro70, A5, A5Zoom,
A50 and 350.
After a slight slog I've translated the Japanese Olympus
C-2000Z "before you buy" FAQ. There are some facts in here
which may be of interest to prospective purchasers.
PC Watch do a sort-of head-to-head comparison of the
Nikon CP950 and Olympus C2000Z
Potential advertisers please take note of our latest
statistics in the media kit.
A few years ago, the memory-card market for digital
cameras was up for grabs as competing formats fought for industry
acceptance. Today, it's much less of an issue, as CompactFlash cards,
introduced by SanDisk Corp. in 1994, are now used in more than 70%
of all digital-camera designs, according to International Data Corp.
According to a new report from InfoTrends Research
Group, Inc., a new breed of photo minilabs, called digital minilabs,
are poised to play a critical role in the mainstream adoption of digital
photography by allowing users to bypass the hassles associated with
processing and printing digital photographs themselves.
SanDisk Corporation today denied all allegations in
a complaint filed by Lexar Media Inc. in U.S. District Court charging
SanDisk with unfair competition, false advertising, trade libel and
interference with Lexar's business.
Just received this note from James Wakefield over
at Focus Online (one of our affiliates): Just posted a review of the
Epson Stylus Photo 1200 Printer on my site by Brian Allen, thought
it may be of interest to your readers as I believe it is the only
review currently available.
Steve
has posted a short user-review of the Canon PowerShot Pro 70: "I
just finished posting my user review of the Canon PS Pro70 camera.
This is one impressive digicam and when it is mated to the Canon 380EX
Speedlite it becomes an affordable but very powerful "pro" digital
camera. The image quality is spectacular due to its superb Canon lens
and a nearly foolproof white balance and focus system."
Lucky
guy! Steve has posted his first impressions of a beta Japanese model
Fuji MX-2900, he says: "The soon to be released FujiFilm FinePix
2900Z (aka MX-2900) zoom has the largest CCD imager of any consumer
digicam that we have tested so far. It is an impressive 2.3 megapixel
CCD that yields 1800 x 1200 pixel images"
This from one of our readers from Amateur Photographer
(UK): "Scientists from Cambridge University and Hitachi have
developed technology that is likely to produce digital cameras
which can store millions of images."
Digital Photography Review exceeds one million page
impressions per month and keeps on growing. Many thanks to all my
visitors for helping make the site such a success in such a short
time.
The Nikon Coolpix 950 comes back into the charts at
no.3 to the Sony DSC-F55K and Olympus C2000-Z.
Traditional photographers have been slow to adopt
digital cameras, as they don't want to discard the lenses and accessories
that only fit their film-based cameras. Now Kodak has an answer: it
is teaming up with chip maker Intel to produce a device that lets
a normal stills camera take digital pictures.
PC
World have posted a short article on the pros and cons of the two
top condenders, to quote: "Although some of the latest digital
cameras are small enough to fit in your shirt pocket, their prices
may bore a hole through it. Svelte new models from Nikon and Olympus
deliver beautiful, ultrahigh-resolution images, but each of them carries
a hefty $999 price tag. "
Thanks go to Thierry Bousch on rec.photo.digital for
spotting these two sets of samples.
From the Society for Information
Display Show in San Jose is this info on an OEM CMOS digital
camera kit developed by Sound & Vision and HP, this camera doesn't
have a traditional LCD but instead uses Kopin's new microdisplay (as
featured on earlier in the news).
Announcing
a new competition in association with Imaging
Resource and the Digital
Camera Resource page you can win one of five Olympus C2000Z's !
The competition ends on August 17th and is only open to US residents (sorry!).
To enter just click on the Olympus competition banners all around the site!
Kodak Professional post new firmware for both the DCS520/560
(Canon EOS D2000 / D6000) and DCS620. Updates include tuned up Portrait
mode and minor interface refinements.
The
Japanese site PC Watch have posted a "first impressions"
of the Olympus C-21, here's the complete translation of their article.
UPDATED: Comparison pics
A survey conducted last week by the Consumer Electronics
Manufacturers Association (CEMA) found that digital consumer electronics
products top Dad's list of Father's Day gift ideas. When asked to choose
from a list of consumer electronics devices, the majority of fathers surveyed
(25 percent) indicated that they would like to receive a personal computer,
or a digital camera or camcorder (15 percent) as a Father's Day gift. A
DVD player and a color television tied for third place (8 percent each)
and a cellular phone or pager ranked fifth (6 percent).
Olympus America Inc., Digital & Imaging Systems Group,
world leader in film and filmless photography, today announced the Olympus
USB SmartMedia Reader/Writer, the fastest way to download images from any
SmartMedia digital camera. The new device complements the Olympus line of
connectivity options, which includes serial, parallel, and PCMCIA port image
download capability, and floppy disk compatibility, making the Olympus product
offerings broader than any other.
Just
ahead of my own review of the MX2700, Imaging Resource have posted
a review of Fuji's tiny MX2700, they say "Resolution is extremely
high, at about 750 lines per picture height horizontally, and nearly
800 lines per picture height vertically. (This is as good or better
than anything we've measured to date! - June, 1999) The MX-2700's
lens is also very good, producing very little geometric distortion,
only about 0.4% barrel distortion, and virtually no chromatic aberration."
Digital cameras are moving beyond specialty markets
to become tools that can fuel business initiatives. Digital cameras
are developing a new image. Not long ago, these products were typically
considered either high-end specialty gear for photojournalism or graphics
projects, or as low-end electronic toys for consumers. But a growing
number of companies are looking at the hardware as tools that can
propel business initiatives.
Digital cameras are moving beyond specialty markets
to become tools that can fuel business initiatives. Digital cameras
are developing a new image. Not long ago, these products were typically
considered either high-end specialty gear for photojournalism or graphics
projects, or as low-end electronic toys for consumers. But a growing
number of companies are looking at the hardware as tools that can
propel business initiatives.
Everybody's
at it! (so to speak) Steve has now posted a user review of the MX2700,
in which he concludes "At the time of this writing (June 1999)
the MX-2700 is a good value for the ~$550 price. Fuji makes it an
even better deal by throwing in a FREE $100 FD-A2 flashpath adapter
for cameras sold through August 31, 1999. I would recommend that anyone
who buys this camera invests in a good flash card reader as the 1800x1200
images are about a megabyte each. Serial port downloading is extremely
slow and the FlashPath adapter is not that much faster. I hope that
Fuji adopts the USB port for future digicams as most PCs are now equipped
with this faster device. "
Pretec
Electronics Corporation, the creator of CompactModem(TM) and Compact
I/O(TM) card, will be demonstrating the 160MB CompactFlash(TM) (CF+)
card, the highest capacity CompactFlash(TM) memory card available
in the world today, at Microsoft Windows CE Developers Conference
on June 6-9 at Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.
D# Digital Press (newly renamed site) have just posted
some samples from the Fuji MX2700, MX2900Z and MX1500 side-by-side.
It's worth noting that the MX2900Z and MX1500 are pre-production cameras.
