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Digital Photography News Archive!
April 1998
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Monday, April 27, 1998
April 27
By Michael Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Monday, April 27, 1998 - 0:00 EDT)
Just a couple of quick notes today: First, reader James Fillmore reported spotting a Kodak model DC210A, on Kodak Japan's web site: http://www.kodak.co.jp/NEWS/88055a00.shtml The page is all in Japanese (no surprise), but here are front and rear views of the camera from the same site. No idea what the specs are, or even if it's ever meant to see the light of day in the US. Interesting, though. (Cool color!) - Thanks, James
In response to a query in the comments section of our Olympus D-340L review, reader Erin Richards reported: "Harmony Computers is "advertising" the 340L so they must have some in stock. Check them out at www.shopharmony.com or 800-441-1144. Price is $699" We have no experience with Harmony, so no endorsement implied, just passing the info along... - Thanks, Erin!
On the home front, Canon has confirmed shipment of our review sample of their new PowerShot A5 model to us! Look for pictures next week, a full review about a week later!
Sunday, April 26, 1998
April 26
By Michael Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Sunday, April 26, 1998 - 0:00 EDT)
Wow! - Lots to catch up on! First though, our full review for the Casio QV-770 is finally up! Stay tuned for some sample movies and panoramas from the camera in about a week.
Our new server is (still) waiting for a network node to be configured to host it, should be up by the end of next week. Look for really fast downloads once this goes live!
Epson has officially announced their EX and 700 printers in the US. These promise to be exciting units, the first of a wave of larger-format, higher-quality photo-grade injkets. (That's a mouthful!) Still no sign of it on their US web site though - their European site is still the only place to go for info. Look for the unit code-named "Aspen" from Canon soon, too. (Showed 'way back at Fall Comdex, reportedly almost due to ship.) dcresource reports: The new Epson Stylus Photo EX and 700 printers are starting to show up in stores. M&M Photo Source (1 800 863 9329) has them in stock, and they have the original Stylus Photo printer for $279, the lowest price we've heard of. Steves Digicams reports that the new models have appeared in the PC Zone catalog, but not yet on their web site.
In other color printer news, HP has announced the HP2000C printer, intended for full-on office applications. Print speeds are spec'd by HP at 3-5 times faster than their other printers, including the Color LaserJet 5M(!) The units are expected to sell for a US street price of $799.
Several readers have written to inquire about the amazing EFS-1 drop-in digital imaging cartridge for 35mm cameras from Imagek. Is it real? When will it be available? Will we have a review of it? Where to go for more information? We can't answer all of those questions, but have had some contact with Imagek, and hope to be able to review the product when editorial samples are available. Meanwhile, their parent company appears to be enjoying an improving financial condition, based on this report in the Orange County Register.
Nikon has announced that they'll be bundling Quickstitch(tm), the amazing 2-D panorama stitching software from Enroute Imaging with every CoolPix 900 digital camera. Quickstitch is unique in that it can assemble panoramas both horizontally and vertically at the same time! We hope to include Quickstitch in a special section on panorama technology sometime this summer.
Living Media has announced their Living Album software, a combination organizer, slide show creator, and web publishing package. A free 30-day trial copy is available at their web site, and an example of what somebody is doing with can be seen here.
Lexar Media recently introduced "high performance" CompactFlash cards, which promises a 4X increase in write performance. In addition, they have a starter kit that includes software and CompactFlash or SmartMedia cards. (Thanks again, dcresource!)
"Over the horizon": A group at "A HREF="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/newsfs.html">Stanford has gone public with intriguing details of their project to integrate digitization and image processing into every pixel of a CMOS sensor array. With support from Canon Inc, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Intel Corp, and Interval Research Corp, this could have a huge impact on future digital cameras. The per-pixel processing could do much to enhance the quality of CMOS sensors, and bring other advantages as well. (Stay tuned, but don't hold your breath: This will likely take a couple of years before coming anywhere close to an actual product.).
Does all this Bold Type help the readability of this section? - Or is it just a nuisance? We thought it might help our readers scan the news more quickly, but boy, is it ever ugly! Tell us what you think: Here's a link to our comment-server for your feedback!
With all the review work that's in process and the aforementioned server switchover, we're (way) behind on industry news. Stay tuned though, we should have some updates later this week. See the Whats New page for our latest image postings and product updates.
Monday, April 20, 1998
April 20
By Michael Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Monday, April 20, 1998 - 0:00 EDT)
Breaking news! Agfa will drop the price on their 1280 camera $100 today to $799!
Epson should be announcing their new Photo EX printer in the US today. Meanwhile, Mike Rettie and Kathie Paulist reported on usenet that full info is available from Epson UK's site, at http://www.epson.co.uk/pstudio/
BIG doings in the background for the Imaging Resource web site: We'll be running on a dedicated 200MHz server by the end of this month! MUCH faster downloads during peak periods.
With all the review work that's in process and the aforementioned server switchover, we're (way) behind on industry news. Stay tuned though, we should have some updates later this week. See the Whats New page for our latest image postings and product updates.
Saturday, April 11, 1998
April 11
By Michael Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Saturday, April 11, 1998 - 0:00 EDT)
The Olympus D-340L review is finally up, along with all its sample images! The Casio QV-770 should be up next week.
LOTS going on: Check the Features page for a preview of "coming attractions!"
With all the review work that's in process, we're behind on the industry news. We'll try to catch up by early next week.
Thursday, April 9, 1998
April 9 - The day the Tornado Struck!
By Michael Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Thursday, April 9, 1998 - 0:00 EDT)
Apologies for our ~8-hour service outage earlier today! Our main server is located in Atlanta, GA, and was affected by one of the tornadoes that roared through in the early morning! The facility wasn't affected, and our own backup power worked fine, but BellSouth dropped the connection to our nameserver, so nobody could connect to us. (It turns out BellSouth had a backup generator too, but it is powered by natural gas: Roots from toppled trees breached the gas main feeding the generator, and voila - no power. -- Sometimes, even a belt and suspenders aren't enough!)
Stay tuned for our D-340L review in the next couple of days, with the QV-770 right behind it!
Friday, April 3, 1998
April 3
By Michael Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Friday, April 3, 1998 - 0:00 EST)
Our eval QV-770 arrived Monday, and our eval Olympus D-340L(!) showed up today! Look for preliminary images sometime next week!
Wednesday, April 1, 1998
April 1
By Michael Tomkins, The Imaging Resource
(Wednesday, April 1, 1998 - 0:00 EST)
April 1
No Joke! Olympus prices drop today:
D-220L: From $499 to $399
D-320L: From $699 to $599
D-500L: From $899 to $799 (A great price for the feature set!)
BIG news for potential Olympus buyers! Olympus is giving away free "FlashPath" floppy-disk adapters with every D-320L sold between now and the end of June! Download and complete this form to get your free adapter! (A ~$100+ value!)
Epson cut the price of their PhotoPC 600 to $499.
Wondering what to do with your digital photos? Kinkos has free 30-day trial copies of Microsoft Publisher and PictureIt!
AOL Alert: Several readers connecting
via AOL have complained of poor image quality when using the AOL web browser.
This is caused by a setting called "compress images" in the browser
that causes it to completely mangle images in the interest of faster transmission.
You should turn this setting OFF before viewing any of the comparison images
on this site.
- FLASH: Thanks to reader Lynn Mannan, here's an explanation of how to
make the correct settings adjustments (at least in AOL 4.0 for PCs):
- I opened the "My AOL" preferences screen
in the toolbar across the top. Then I clicked on WWW icon and selected
the "web graphics" tab where I unchecked the "compressed
graphics" choice and clicked on the Apply button at the bottom. Now
the scanner test pictures are gorgeous. The pictures take a long time to
load. But they are worth waiting for. Thank
you, Lynn!
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