Booth Report: Concord

21:55 EST - Concord Camera Corp. showed a wide range of digital cameras on its booth at PMA - some brand new, and others announced late last year.

The company achieved a measure of success with its 3346z digital camera, a three megapixel model that won an award as the "Best Digital Camera under $100" in the DIMA Digital Camera Shoot-Out. For the DIMA test, a range of cameras from various manufacturers and product categories captured an identical scene in a live model studio. Prints were made of the images, not labelled to show which... (More)

SeaLife universal external digital flash for dive photography

23:42 EST - Having reviewed a few underwater cameras, including a SeaLife ReefMaster, I'm always interested to see what they have up their sleeve. This time it was a universal digital flash designed to shed a little more light on a scene than most digital cameras are capable of. Since it's universal, it can be used with most digital cameras in waterproof housings.

Most digital cameras use some sort of preflash to determine how they're going to light a particular scene, and external slave flashes have to know about this and compensate for them, not blowing their one power burst on a preflash. The SL960D SeaLife Digital Flash has five preflash cancellation settings to work with many digital cameras. A flexible grip allows divers to aim the light strait ahead... (More)

Microtek 12 x 17 inch large format scanner

23:30 EST - When I saw it yawning over on the corner table, I thought it might attack. The Microtek ScanMaker 1000XL 3,200 dpi scanner is called "the highest resolution tabloid-size flatbed scanner on the market" in the press release.

Folks passing by marveled at its potential uses. With all the 13 x 19 printers coming on the market, it was nice to see a scanner approaching the same size. Two models are available, one with a Transparent Media Adapter for scanning transparencies like X-ray negatives, and one without. Perhaps more interesting are the film templates, which allow for batch scanning of negatives or slides all in... (More)

New Pentax Pancake and Zoom lens

18:25 EST - Pentax, one of the big five film SLR manufacturers, now makes two digital SLR cameras, and they're building their digital-specific lens collection just about every show.

What caught my eye at PMA 2005 was a lens I'd previously missed, announced last December: the Pentax DA 40mm F2.8 Limited lens. I'm not too far behind though, because it's just started shipping in February. Its small, flat profile earns the name "pancake" lens, giving the already small *istD and *istDS a more snag-free presence; great for small camera bags or backpacks. Its nine-blade diaphragm is... (More)

Booth Report: Wacom

17:35 EST - Every year at PMA, we see a couple of products that are just so cool, we want one yesterday if not sooner.

This year, one such product that's on News Editor Mike Tomkins' wishlist is the Wacom Cintiq 21UX pen display. Based on a 1600 x 1200 pixel color-accurate 21.3" LCD display, the Cintiq 21UX offers not only a beautiful image, but the ability to retouch your images with a pen that's used directly on the screen itself. The pen has tilt sensitivity, and can detect 1,024 different pressure levels... (More)

Booth Report: SanDisk

16:34 EST - On SanDisk's booth at this year's show, the company presented a number of new storage products that set new capacity highs, or brought new features to make them easier to use.

Amongst the announcements of interest to owners of products based on Sony's Memory Stick Duo media were the two gigabyte Memory Stick PRO Duo, bringing the company's offerings to 128MB, 256MB, 512MB, 1GB and 2GB cards. SanDisk also introduced a new line of high-speed Ultra II Memory Stick PRO Duo cards, available in 512MB, 1GB and 2GB capacities. For owners of Secure Digital-based products, SanDisk... (More)

Sprint PictureMail manageable from Sanyo MM-5600

15:59 EST - We don't spend a lot of time on camera phones here at Imaging Resource, but every once in awhile a company does something we recognize as interesting, and relevant to the digital photography industry overall.

Sprint PCS's expanded PictureMail online service is just such a product, offering easy organization of not just photos taken with the camera phone, but all digital photos on a user's home computer. The integration goes further, with EPSON joining in to provide a print-at-home solution. To enable this functionality, Sprint has placed the Samsung MM-5600 as the central hub, because it integrates a... (More)

Booth Report: Rollei

15:18 EST - Rollei USA had quite a few announcements before this year's PMA show, including a restructuring of the brand in the US market.

Rollei's digital camera products have been available in Europe and Asia for some time now, but they've been rather harder to come by in the USA. That is apparently set to change, with Rollei USA LLC being restructured. The company announced US availability for four new digital cameras, three of them being five megapixel models with either 3x or 4.8x optical zoom. The remaining model is a four megapixel... (More)

Concord: Two impulse-buy digicams

12:37 EST - Wrapping up Concord Camera Corp.'s PMA announcements are two new digicam models aimed at impulse buying by first-time digicam users.

The Concord 4042 is a $99 four megapixel CCD-based camera with a 36mm-equivalent fixed-focal length lens. It offers both an optical viewfinder and 1.5" LCD display, and stores images on either SD cards or 16MB of built-in memory. Power is supplied by two AAA batteries. The lower-cost 3047 model, which will cost $79.99, offers a three megapixel CMOS imager and 44mm-equivalent fixed focal length... (More)

Booth Report: Hi-Touch Imaging

19:50 EST - On the booth of Hi-Touch Imaging Technologies this year, we saw an impressively wide range of dye diffusion thermal transfer printers, including one model that offered the rather unusual ability to print a true, reflective (shiny) gold color.

We're not sure exactly how useful the average user would find this ability to be, but it certainly offered the ability to add an interesting (and very eyecatching) touch to photo prints, and we can't remember seeing a consumer printer that offered this feature before. Also new was the FotoDazzle S300, a stylish-looking 4" x 6" 300dpi CMY printer that we wouldn't mind seeing on our own desk.... (More)

Booth Report: Creo Inc.

18:29 EST - Creo Inc.'s big news in the runup to this year's PMA show was that the company is in the final stages of acquisition by imaging giant Kodak, in a deal valued at some $980 million.

Creo's board has recommended the acquisition to shareholders, and the deal looks set to go ahead - meshing the company's strengths in digital pre-press products and its commercial printing customer base with Kodak's own (already rather impressive) portfolio of digital imaging-related products and services. The Creo booth showed large posters created from scans made using the company's scanners and... (More)

Booth Report: Adobe Systems Inc.

17:42 EST - Adobe may not have had any new announcements in the runup to this year's PMA show (the most recent announcement being updates to the company's RAW converter products), but there were still plenty of interested customers eager to see live demonstrations of Adobe software products.

The Adobe Camera Raw plug-in and DNG Converter products were recently upgraded to offer support for the Canon EOS 20D, Canon PowerShot S70, Canon PowerShot G6, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200 and Konica Minolta MAXXUM 7D cameras. On the Adobe booth, the company demonstrated the 'Elements' versions of its Photoshop and Premiere applications - Photoshop Elements being a photo editor... (More)

Concord: Two new ultracompact digicams

17:21 EST - Following on from the previous article, Concord Camera Corp. has announced two new ultracompact digital cameras at PMA which we're only now getting time to mention.

The Concord 5040 is a five megapixel CMOS-based camera with a fixed-focus, fixed-focal length lens. It offers no optical viewfinder, instead featuring only a 1.8" LCD display. The camera stores images on either SD cards or 16MB of built-in memory, and draws power from two AAA batteries. Announced alongside the 5040 is the ultra-compact 5042 model. Unfortunately we've been unable to obtain detailed... (More)

Another video - A tour of the Kodak EasyShare-One!

17:00 EST - One more video (two more from PMA yet to come), this time a look at Kodak's unique EasyShare One camera/wireless photo sharing device.

Here's a video tour of a product that we first saw back at the CES show in January, but it's since moved further along the development path, apparently on track for retail availability in June. Kodak's done an excellent job of focusing on what consumers actually do with their cameras, and the EasyShare One is the latest example of that. Designed for "Power Sharers" (think of families with a new baby,... (More)

Booth Report: ACD Systems

16:59 EST - ACD Systems' booth at PMA promoted the company's latest versions of its award-winning software line, including both ACDSee and the ACDSee PowerPack.

ACDSee 7, announced last October, is a powerful photo management tool that supports 50 photo and multimedia formats, including RAW file support for Canon, Fujifilm, Kodak, Minolta, Nikon and Olympus cameras. It offers basic image editing features, as well as the ability to create slideshows and prints. The ACDSee 7 PowerPack includes ACDSee itself, along with ACD Photo Editor 3 for image editing,... (More)

Tokina Lighting Company: Handy, stowable "studio in a box" solutions.

19:18 EST - A line of lightweight, portable lighting setups were among Dave's favorites at the show.

Tokina Lighting Company: Handy, stowable "studio in a box" solutions. A line of lightweight, portable lighting setups were among Dave's favorites at the show. Lighting is one of the toughest things for amateur photographers to get right, and the difference between good and bad lighting is blatantly obvious. People selling products on eBay know the value of good-looking product photography,... (More)

The show may have ended on Wednesday afternoon, but there's still a lot more to come here at the Imaging Resource. As well as the articles you may have seen posted over the last day or two, a good selection of our existing booth report articles posted while the show was running have now been updated to include further photos and commentary. Updates we've recently made include the following booth... (More)

GREAT black & white *and* color prints: A closer look at the HP 8570

18:08 EST - HP's new 8750 printer offers archival color and black and white. A three-tone black system yields beautiful gradations and neutral grayscale across the tonal range.

HP 8750 - A Printer for Fine-Art Black and White AND Color. HP's new 8750 printer offers archival color and black and white. A three-tone black system yields beautiful gradations and neutral grayscale across the tonal range. We posted the press release for this printer back when we first received it, but I wanted to give it a little more play on the news page, as it looks to me to be a pretty significant... (More)

Portrait Weavers offers color photo blankets

17:45 EST - We ran a story about another photo blanket maker in our Opening Day PMA 2005 video. Shortly thereafter while combing the floor for other interesting items, I found Portrait Weavers. They also make blankets, but they were displaying blankets made in full color, whereas the other company's were only monochrome.

A visit to the Portrait Weaver's website reveals no more than the printed materials I collected from the booth. The blankets are impressive, though. They offer a 54 x 70 inch Tapestry Throw starting at $100, but if you buy two to 10, the price goes down to $70. 26 x 36 inch wall hangings include a pole and tassles and start a $125. Both are made from 100% cotton. See their site for an exact duplicate... (More)

Concord: Three new EasyShot digicams

17:15 EST - Concord Camera Corp. announced three new digital cameras for the company's EasyShot line in the runup to this year's PMA (unfortunately with the flood of PMA work, we're only just now getting to these).

The Concord EasyShot 500z is a five megapixel, 3x optical zoom camera with a fairly stylish compact body. It offers no optical viewfinder, in favor of a large 2.0" LCD display, stores images on either SD cards or 16MB of built-in memory, and draws power from two AA batteries. Announced alongside the 500z are the EasyShot 510z and 820z. Unfortunately we've been unable to obtain detailed specifications... (More)

Tamron announces two digital-specific lenses

16:35 EST - Tamron announced two interesting lenses for APS C-sized digital SLRs at PMA. Dubbed "Di" for Digitally Integrated design, the lenses are meant for 24mm x 16mm sensors, and are not intended for 35mm SLRs. A quick look at the zoom specs tells you that they'll be excellent for the intended audience.

The SP AF11-18mm F/4.5-5.6 Di-II LD Aspherical lens gives digital SLRs equipped with APS C-sized sensors a focal length equivalent of 17-28mm on a 35mm camera, offering the true wide angle many have been waiting for. The AF11-18mm uses one high dispersion glass element in conjunction with a low dispersion gladd to "minimize on-axis and lateral chromatic aberrations" according to the press release... (More)

Tamrac Expedition Series has pockets galore

13:50 EST - Tamrac showed off a few of their new digital camera packs and bags at PMA 2005. Their Expedition Series backpacks appeared to have many desirable features, including a nicely padded belt and oodles of pockets.

I liked the many lashing points for attaching various bags and pockets for extra lenses, water bottles, cards, cell phones, and whatever else you need along. Easily accessible from the front of the pack are two zip-open pouches that have small pockets for batteries, CF cards, and filters, all without having to open the main compartment. There are four new Expeditions, numbered in descending order... (More)

Change your perspective in a BIG way with Elevated Photos

01:00 EST - In giving advice to amateur photographers who want better pictures, one of the key pieces of advice is to take initiative and change your angle on a subject. This is as true for kid photographs (get down to their level) as it is for just about anything else commonly seen from the adult point of view of about four to six feet off the ground.

Many photographers also use a ladder, and I've posed models on the ground for an unusual point of view. Well, now there's another option that looks high above crowds and gives an angle that even a ladder can't deliver. In fact, before the advent of Elevated Photos, you'd need a helicopter or very brave grip in a building to get photographs from so high up. Called Aerial Photography Systems, the product... (More)

Booth Report: Sigma Corp.

14:09 EST - On the company's booth at PMA, Sigma Corp. showcased not only its SD10 single-lens reflex digital camera, but also a vast array of lenses offered in mounts compatible with cameras from quite a range of other SLR manufacturers.

In the runup to PMA, Sigma firmly declared its commitment to digital photography with a whopping thirteen lens announcements aimed at digital photographers. Of these new models, 10 were APO lenses which are variations on existing designs, but with lens coatings that have been specifically tweaked for the best digital performance. These models all offer a full 35mm image circle, providing compatibility... (More)