News Archive - October 2002 Return to: Current News Archive Index Tuesday, October 29, 2002 Preliminary review posted for Dimage Scan Dual III film scanner! 23:58 EST - Minolta has developed an impressive line of desktop film scanners, offering solid performance at competitive prices, ranging from "prosumer" models to units suitable for professionals scanning medium-format film. Now though, they've figuratively blown open the low end of the market, with their new Dimage Scan Dual III model. This new unit boasts a 16-bit A/D, 2820 dpi resolution, fast scanning, and surprisingly... (More) Monday, October 28, 2002 Minolta: New 35mm / APS film scanner 09:00 EST - New Jersey-based Minolta Corp. has today announced a new film scanner model for the US marketplace, the DiMAGE Scan Dual III that looks set to gain a good slice of the market with solid specs and an astonishing predicted pricetag. We're planning to have a review up later today for the scanner (read on for a note from Dave), but in the meantime offer full specifications and a picture of the unit, alongside the official press release.... (More) Friday, October 25, 2002 Short-form review posted for Toshiba PDR-3310! 01:44 EDT - Toshiba has generally made their name with budget-priced full sized digicam models, so the stylish, metal-bodied 3.2-megapixel PDR-3310 is a bit of a departure for them. Based on what I saw of the case design and menu layout, this looks like a Kyocera S4 with a 3.2-megapixel sensor, instead of the S4's 4-megapixel chip. While we liked the compact size, clean styling, and... (More) Review posted for Maha Powerex 401FS fast/slow charger! 01:41 EDT - Maha's C-204F AA/AAA charger has long been my favorite battery charger, striking a good balance between speed, completeness of charge, and reasonable battery temperatures. Maha has now developed the PowerEx C-401FS as an extension to the 204, and I've taken a brief break from my stack of backlogged camera-review work to take a quick look at it. The new 401FS sports four... (More) Wednesday, October 23, 2002 Forgent signs up another JPEG licensee 19:15 EDT - We told you last July about Forgent Networks Inc., a little-known company with a past in videoconferencing that hit the headlines when it issued a press release claiming that it owned a patent covering technology used in the JPEG standard. At the time of that announcement, the company also revealed that it had signed its first multi-million dollar licenses with Sony and another unnamed company for the technology. A press release issued by... (More) Tuesday, October 22, 2002 Taking the work out of photo sharing (UPDATED) 17:15 EDT - A new piece of software called PhotoLightning promises to make it easier for users to share their digital photos. The program, from Photolightning Corp., breaks the photo-sharing process down into three distinct stages. Start the program and you're prompted to select some images to work with. Alternatively, you... (More) Get a handle on RAW at Digital Outback 01:12 EDT - Uwe Steinmueller over at the Digital Outback Photo website emailed to let us know of a series of e-booklets he's published with the help of wife Bettina. Covering the RAW file workflow, the four booklets are similar overall, but have sections specific to cameras from different companies: Nikon D100 / D1x Canon EOS-D60 / EOS-1D Fuji FinePix S2 Pro Kodak... (More) Monday, October 21, 2002 Bayer interpolation: Joining the dots 23:13 EDT - We've been meaning to mention this for a little while now, but what with the constant flow of behind the scenes work are only just getting to it. Mike Chaney of Digital Domain Inc., author of Qimage Pro and Profile Prism, has put together an excellent page comparing the results of Bayer interpolation with samples from Sigma's SD9 digital camera... (More) Rob Galbraith offers EOS-1Ds preview 22:56 EDT - An in-depth look at Canon's amazing 11 megapixel SLR from a pro photographer... Our good friend Rob Galbraith has posted an article on his website, Rob Galbraith Online, looking at Canon's recently-announced EOS-1Ds digital camera, a sibling to the sports and photojournalism-oriented... (More) Short-form review posted for Fuji FinePix F401! 22:39 EDT - Dave tries out Fuji's compact 2 megapixel digicam... This is a neat-looking little package from Fuji, very slim and compact. (Slightly thicker than Minolta's Dimage X, but a roughly similar square format.) The 401's 2.1 megapixel SuperCCD produces interpolated... (More) Asiva Photo reviewed 15:11 EDT - Newsletter Editor Mike Pasini checks out Asiva Photo, an application that allows for quick corrections and enhancements to specific areas of images without the need for careful, time-consuming masking... Color corrections and changes are just one trick Asiva Photo can perform. It's equally adept at sharpening or softening, enhancing detail and applying some special effects. And all of this in 16-bit channels,... (More) Turn 8 bits into 16! - Mike Pasini reviews Optipix! 12:42 EDT - Newsletter Editor Mike Pasini has taken a look at an interesting suite of Photoshop plugins that can turn a set of images with differing exposures into a rather more useful single image... Blown highlights. Noise in the shadows. A density range only a mother could love. Ah, the pitfalls of digital photography. But riding to the rescue is Optipix, a suite of Photoshop-compatible plug-ins... (More) Saturday, October 19, 2002 How much difference does 11 megapixels make? 13:10 EDT - In the midst of working away on my standard test shots for the Canon EOS-1Ds, it occurred to me to do a careful side-by-side with a D60, to see just how big a difference the 11 megapixels of the 1Ds amounted to... How much difference does 11 megapixels make? I just received a full-production model of Canon's amazing EOS-1Ds, and am even now slogging through the long, careful process of shooting my standard test... (More) Friday, October 18, 2002 PRESS RELEASE: PhotoPlus announces special events at photo show Oct. 31 - Nov. 2, 2002 in New York City 16:25 EDT - Keynotes by photographer Greg Gorman - Adobe VP Bryan Lamkin - NY Times Editor David Pogue New and Classic Work by Renowned Photographers Walter Iooss, Douglas Kirkland, Pete Turner Ron Haviv & Susan Meiselas First U.S. showing of the World Press Photo 2002 exhibition October 18, 2002, NY, NY -- Photo District News (PDN), the leading publication for professional photographers, announced today... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Microsoft and Panasonic unveil new HighM.A.T. technology to enable smoother digital media exchange between PCs and consumer electronics devices 16:12 EDT - New specification, also supported by FujiFilm, makes it faster and easier to navigate and play back personal photo, music and video collections on CDs for consumer devices including CD and DVD players. TOKYO and REDMOND, Wash. - Oct. 18, 2002 - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Panasonic) and Microsoft Corp. today unveiled a new technology they have co-developed that enables a dramatically... (More) Contax: 'G series' going digital? 11:49 EDT - A news article published yesterday by an Japanese online industry journal, the "NikkeiBP Network", brings with it a rumor of an upcoming digital rangefinder camera from Contax. According to the NikkeiBP item, Kyocera (the company behind the Contax brand) has started development of a digital variant in its 'G' series, which currently consists of two interchangeable-lens AF rangefinder... (More) Full Review Posted for Minolta DiMAGE 7Hi 01:47 EDT - I've just completed my review of a production-level DiMAGE 7Hi from Minolta. (No images quite yet, they're all shot, but I need to complete my analysis of them. Stay tuned, they should be up by the end of the week.) This is yet another update to Minolta's very successful DiMAGE 7 design, which was rev'd earlier this year to the DiMAGE 7i. The faster autofocus speed and reduced shutter delay of the 7i are retained,... (More) Wednesday, October 16, 2002 Pentax: New digital SLR in the works? 19:20 EDT - A news item from the Japan Industrial Journal (JIJ) website (a publication of Japanese newspaper Nihon Kogyo Shimbun) predicts that Pentax will again attempt to enter the digital SLR marketplace with a new design next spring. According to the JIJ article (available in Japanese only, but translated by your humble news editor), Pentax are planning to announce the new digital SLR, and at the same time cut the number of film-based... (More) Nikon D100 in stock! 14:14 EDT - We don't often put mention of specific camera models being available for purchase on our news page, but if you've tried to order Nikon's popular D100 you'll know just how difficult it can be to actually find a store that has stock in-house. We've just heard from our affiliate Ritz Camera that they have a number of D100s available right now - and are expecting to sell them out within a matter of hours, maybe a day or two at most. If you've been wanting to buy the D100, but haven't been able to find anywhere that can sell you the camera immediately, here's your chance! Visit Ritz's D100 product page, where you'll be able to confirm that stock is still available - then get your order placed before somebody else gets the last one. :) Ritz has a number of guarantees that offer buyers peace of mind, and your order helps to support this site... Monday, October 14, 2002 Maha: New charger optimizes battery life 15:34 EDT - Maha Energy Corp. has announced a new addition to its line of NiMH battery chargers that sell under the PowerEx brandname. The Maha PowerEx MH-C401FS "100 minute cool charger" has some rather attractice features, including independent circuits for more accurate charging of individual cells, as well as a new charging algorithm... (More) Friday, October 11, 2002 DCS Pro 14n: Get your pre-order in now! 16:51 EDT - IR affiliate Ritz Camera is now accepting preorders for the amazing 14 megapixel digital SLR from Kodak, the DCS Pro 14n. As regular readers will be aware, new digital SLRs are generally in very tight supply initially - so if you're wanting to step up to a combination of super-high resolution, a full 35mm-frame sized CMOS... (More) Thursday, October 10, 2002 Short form review posted for Kodak DX4330! 02:01 EDT - For some time now, I've been impressed with Kodak's EasyShare(tm) line of cameras. They're not "enthusiast" models, hence more something I'd buy my non-technoid wife Marti, rather than a camera for myself. But that's where the vast numbers of the mass market are. What's great about... (More) Tuesday, October 8, 2002 Nikon: SLR software, firmware, hardware updates 03:48 EDT - Nikon USA has announced a number of updates which will be of interest to owners of its D100, D1X and D1H SLR digital cameras. Described on Nikon's website, there are the following: Nikon D1X Increased Buffer Size Kodak were the first to announce a camera that would be memory-upgradeable, the DCS Pro 14n - but it looks like... (More) Monday, October 7, 2002 EXCLUSIVE: Sigma SD9 night samples! 00:26 EDT - While I was at Photokina in Cologne, Germany, the fleeting sunshine never aligned with my meeting schedule to allow me to shoot with the Sigma SD9 prototype under sunny conditions. Friendly competitor Phil Askey of DPreview.com managed not only some sunny shots, but much better ones than I'd likely have come up with. (He's a much better photographer than I. :-( I thus thought... (More) Friday, October 4, 2002 DataPlay: New storage media played out? 15:27 EDT - Regular readers will be familiar with DataPlay Inc., whose long-anticipated optical storage disks have been mentioned numerous times on our news page since they were first announced back in early April 2000. Exactly two and a half years later, it seems that the 'pause' button has been hit almost immediately that the first DataPlay products hit the market. DataPlay was touted by its creators as being suitable... (More) Thursday, October 3, 2002 Four Thirds' Redux: Correcting the misconception 13:21 EDT - When details of Olympus' plans for its new "four thirds" camera system began appearing in public a year and a half ago, it seems that something was lost in the translation. In an interview with Olympus executives yesterday afternoon, we learned that the "Four Thirds System" does not refer to a 4/3-inch image sensor that has been presumed to be the base of the design. In fact,... (More) Wednesday, October 2, 2002 Multiple "Gallery" samples posted from Canon EOS-1Ds 16:55 EDT - This camera was one of the *hot* announcements at Photokina last week, and I've now managed to get a fairly good assortment of sample photos posted from it, shot by my friend and practicing pro Gibbs Frazeur and myself. These are from a prototype camera, so the usual caveats apply, but *man*, is that a lot of resolution! We're almost at the point where the ISO-12233 resolution target I use in the test studio is running... (More) Tuesday, October 1, 2002 Sanyo announces DSC-AZ3 digital camera 22:33 EDT - Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. has today announced a four-megapixel partner for its recently-announced DSC-MZ3 model. Readers familiar with Sanyo's past models will remember that shortly after the announcement of the 2 megapixel DSC-MZ1 model in June 2001, the company followed up with a 4 megapixel version called the... (More) PreClick betas new photo software 16:42 EDT - New Jersey-based PreClick Corp. has today announced a new photo organising application which it is currently developing. PreClick's "5-Star Photo Organiser" has already been licensed to two third-parties, New York photo retailer Adorama Camera Inc. and what PreClick refers to as "the Internet's fifth largest photo processing... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Argus Digital Camera Studio Developed as Educational Tool 14:53 EDT - Enables Children aged 7 to 12 to be Creative Using Digital Photography ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 1, 2002--Digital photography has finally become a family affair with the release of the Digital Camera Studio from Argus Camera, a leading provider of quality digital, 35mm and Advanced Photo System (APS) cameras. Aimed at 7-to-12-year-olds, the Digital Camera Studio includes the... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Nikon(R) Announces Fall 'Coolpix(R) Cash Back Event' With Savings on Selected Coolpix Digital Cameras 14:40 EDT - MELVILLE, N.Y., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Nikon®, the world leader in photography, today announced their new "Coolpix® Cash Back Event" promotion which includes a series of Fall rebates and savings programs on five of its most popular Coolpix digital cameras (http://www.nikoncoolpix.com) purchased between October 1 and December 31, 2002 -- the Nikon Coolpix 2000, Coolpix 2500, Coolpix 3500, Coolpix... (More) Return to: Current News Archive Index