News Archive - December 2003 Return to: Current News Archive Index Sunday, December 28, 2003 Review posted for Canon PowerShot A80! 11:44 EST - This was one of a handful of cameras I put in the "too good to wait" category, listing them as Dave's Picks selections even before I'd completed their reviews. The A80 is the "big brother" to the *extremely* popular A70, adding a four-megapixel sensor and a tilt/swivel LCD screen. Other features are virtually identical to the A70, so I expect that the A80 will... (More) Leica: New flash unit 11:27 EST - Our friends at Dutch website LetsGoDigital.org have uncovered news of a new flash unit announced by Leica. Compatible with the recently announced LEICA DIGILUX 2 camera (as well as LEICA rangefinder and SLR cameras and the LEICA CM analogue compact camera), the Leica SF 24D flash is available immediately in... (More) Saturday, December 27, 2003 Japanese digicam manufacturers see big gains 11:46 EST - An article published by Taiwan's "Taipei Times" notes that worldwide sales of digital cameras from Japanese manufacturers rose by some 53% last month, whilst film camera production fell by 38% in the same period. The European region is apparently showing the most growth, with 12 consecutive months as the highest-gaining market. Interestingly, Sanyo (which mostly manufactures digicams for other companies rather... (More) Friday, December 26, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: Olympus to introduce Digital Macro Flashes for 100% digital E-System in January 09:57 EST - Melville, NY, December 22, 2003 - Olympus America Inc. will introduce two new macro photography flash units for its award-winning E-1 professional digital SLR in late January 2004. The Olympus STF-22 Twin Flash Set and SRF-11 Ring Flash Set are designed specifically for digital capture, as are all the product offerings in the innovative Olympus E-System, the world's first 100% all-digital interchangeable... (More) Monday, December 22, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: World's Fastest Battery Charger Brings Lenmar Third Consecutive Honors with Prestigious CES 2004 Innovations Award 16:16 EST - Mach 1 "Delta" SpeedCharger Using Patented Technology is Recognized for CES Innovations and Design Award for 2004 Lenmar Enterprises, Inc., a leading manufacturer of rechargeable batteries, battery chargers and accessories for consumer electronics, today announced that its award-winning Mach 1(R) SpeedCharger(TM) line has been honored for the third year in a row with the prestigious CES Innovations... (More) SD surpasses CompactFlash in October 10:59 EST - According to an article from the PMA's Newsline International, SD Memory Card sales surpassed those of CompactFlash cards for the first time in October. The article, first noticed by our friends at Steve's Digicams, notes that in October 2003 the SD Memory Card had a market share of 30% in the US. This compares to 28.8% for CompactFlash cards, and 22%... (More) Friday, December 19, 2003 Phase One announces C1 SE software 18:27 EST - Phase One A/S has today announced a new version of its Capture One (C1 for short) software that fills the gap between the LE and Pro versions. Phase One C1 SE (Capture One Special Edition) has the full camera support of the pro version (ie. all Canon digital SLRs - 1Ds, 1D, 10D, 300D, D60, and D30 - on Mac and Windows, as well as Nikon's D1x... (More) Nikon D2H full review posted, with sample images from a production-level camera! 11:03 EST - If you've been wondering why so few review postings on the site lately, here's at least a partial explanation for it: My in-depth review of the Nikon D2H. Given all the foment in the online community about image noise with this camera, I wanted to take particular pains to analyze exactly what was going on in the camera across a range of ISOs and light levels.... (More) Fuji Japan: 20.8 mpix digital back pricing 10:59 EST - Fuji Japan has today announced pricing for a 20.8 megapixel SuperCCD based digital camera back. First announced back in late February, the camera back will be compatible with Fujifilm's GX680. When it was announced, a version for the GX645AF (a variant of Hasselblad's H1) was also planned (we don't... (More) Thursday, December 18, 2003 Ricoh Japan announces Caplio 400G Wide 19:51 EST - Ricoh Japan has today announced its new Caplio 400G Wide digital camera. The Ricoh Caplio 400G Wide is a ruggedized model with dust and waterproofing, as well as a setting designed to comply with the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's CALS standard (an... (More) QPict for Mac upgraded to v6 10:56 EST - We've had a couple of emails in the last few days regarding QPict, Rune Lindman's $35 Macintosh media asset manager, which has just been upgraded to v6 for Mac OS X. Version 5.2.8, released in November, remains available for those of you who've not upgraded from OS 9 - but if you're on OS X you'll definitely want to upgrade. The list of feature additions is quite... (More) PRESS RELEASE: New FM Plugins! 10:18 EST - All FM Plugins (PC and Mac) are now compatible with Photoshop CS in 16-bit mode. This includes, ISOx Pro, SI Pro, WP Pro, SR Pro, Intellisharpen Pro and all of the CSpro custom made sharpening plugins. The CSpro series offers solutions to many digital SLRs and includes the 10D CSpro, D60 CSpro, 300D CSpro, 1D CSpro, 1Ds CSpro, and Nikon CSpro plugins. In addition, I just released the PC and Mac versions... (More) PRESS RELEASE: ACDSee 6.0 and ACDSee 6.0 PowerPack Released in French, Italian, German and Spanish 10:12 EST - VICTORIA, British Columbia - December 16, 2003 - ACD Systems International Inc. (TSX: ASA), the digital imaging company and makers of ACDSee™ and Canvas™, today released ACDSee 6.0 and ACDSee 6.0 PowerPack in the French, Italian, German and Spanish (FIGS) languages. ACDSee is known for its speed, ease-of-use, powerful image management capabilities and ability to work with digital image... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Reindeer Graphics, Inc. releases free Wide Histogram plug-in 10:06 EST - Reindeer Graphics, Inc., developers of Optipix and Fovea Pro, have released a new free plug-in, Wide Histogram, for Photoshop 5.x, 6, 7, and CS on Mac OS 9.2.x, X 10.2, 10.3 and Windows 98 or better. Reindeer Graphics(R) Wide Histogram is a tool for exploring the detail in the histogram of a 16-bit image that cannot be shown in Photoshop. The plug-in can display the histogram in three widths that... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Kodak Names Smith-Pilkington Vice Chairman of Greater Asia Region 09:58 EST - ROCHESTER, N.Y., Dec. 17 - Eastman Kodak Company announced the appointment of Karen Smith-Pilkington, a 23-year veteran of the company, as vice chairman of the company's Greater Asia Region, reporting to Henri Petit, the region's chairman. Both are senior vice presidents of the company. Smith-Pilkington's appointment is effective Jan. 5, at which time she will relocate to Shanghai. In August, Smith-Pilkington,... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Digital Photography 101 now open for registration 09:54 EST - Enrollment is now open for the next session of Digital Photography 101, an online interactive digital photography course that begins January 12, 2004 and is taught by Arthur H. Bleich, professional photographer and feature editor of Digital Camera Magazine Lighting, color, texture, composition, and other subjects are covered to give both beginning and intermediate students a solid grounding in photodigital... (More) Tuesday, December 16, 2003 First F828 Samples Hit the Web! 23:39 EST - Our friends at A-Digital-Eye and the DC Resource page have posted sample images from full production-level Sony DSC-F828 cameras! Our friends Dave Kamanski of A-Digital-Eye and Jeff Keller of The DC Resource Page have posted some sample images from the first full-production samples of the Sony DSC-F828! Boy, just a quick glance... (More) Monday, December 15, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: FixerLabs Plug-ins reach an even wider audience 11:35 EST - Since their launch in April 2003 the FixerLabs range of plug-ins, developed for Adobe's Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, have taken the image enhancement world by storm. Now the latest versions of all the plug-ins have been developed to work in Jasc's Paint Shop Pro as well other Photoshop compatible image editing programs. This brings the FixerLabs products to an even wider range of digital imaging... (More) Friday, December 12, 2003 2004: The year of the Digital SLR? 11:19 EST - A 16 page report published by Popular Photography and Imaging Magazine this month makes a number of significant predictions for the immediate future of the digital imaging marketplace - a new Minolta Maxxum Digital SLR, possibly two new SLR and lens lines from Pentax, two new 4/3-type SLRs from Olympus, new medium-format digital bodies from Mamiya and Pentax and a lot more besides. Read Popular Photo's report, based on a visit by three or their editors to tour the Japanese Photo Industry's big names, for the full story. In brief though, these are what we see as the key points they've... (More) Thursday, December 11, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: First Pentax Digital SLR lens introduced 12:53 EST - Compact 16mm-45mm DA-Series Zoom Lens Sports A Quick-Shift Focus System GOLDEN, Colorado (December 9, 2003)...PENTAX U.S.A. has announced a perfect companion lens for the *ist D digital SLR camera. The compact, high-performance, interchangeable smc PENTAX-DA 16mm-45mm F4 ED AL lens features a 3X zoom ratio with focal lengths covering ultra-wide to moderate-telephoto ranges for the angle of view equivalent... (More) NoiseNinja 1.1 released! 11:35 EST - Word comes to us from Jim Christian of PictureCode LLC that he's released a new version of NoiseNinja, an excellent program for cleaning up high ISO sensor noise, scanner noise and grain from digital images. We must admit at this point, we've been rather remiss. When Jim recently announced the original version of NoiseNinja, we tried it out intending to tell our readers about the program. We corresponded... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Simple Star Announces the Release of PhotoShow Deluxe 2.5 09:57 EST - Award Winning Photo Software and New Animated Clip Art Packs Available in Time for the Holidays San Francisco, CA (December 10, 2003) Simple Star, Inc., the creators of easy to use consumer software, announced today the release of PhotoShow Deluxe 2.5. With PhotoShow Deluxe 2.5, powerful new features enable users to get more enjoyment from their digital photos than ever before. PhotoShow Deluxe 2.5... (More) Tuesday, December 9, 2003 Minox: Two new digicams, 2 and 5 mpix 20:58 EST - Minox Germany has announced two new models for its digital camera lineup - one a very slight cosmetic alteration of an existing Minox camera, and the other a rebadged model we've seen under a number of other names already. First up is the "Minox DD1 Diamant", a variation on the Minox DD1 we told you about last August. The camera is near-identical to its style-conscious predecessor, the only addition being 8 synthetic diamonds... (More) Monday, December 8, 2003 Review posted for Pentax Optio 555 12:53 EST - Pentax has been carving out a niche for themselves in the compact-yet-full-featured camera arena, and the Optio 555 is one of their latest efforts. Having tested it, I found a lot to like, including good color (a little undersaturated for my tastes on some subjects, but the optional color-saturation adjustment compensates nicely), flexible exposure... (More) HP, Olympus offer Malaysia sales projections 12:05 EST - Browsing news from around the web this morning, we came across two interesting articles published in the last few days by Malaysia's "Star" newspaper. Both look at sales projections offered for the Malaysian market by digicam manufacturers, but offer some statistics that may be of interest to readers around the world. In the first article published... (More) Friday, December 5, 2003 Shutter closing on Yashica brand? (UPDATED) 14:57 EST - A historic name in the camera world may soon be departing, we hear today. Our good friends at Steve's Digicams have reported that the Yashica brandname - that of a Japanese camera manufacturer which first appeared in late 1954 - will soon be appearing on its last camera. Yashica... (More) Thursday, December 4, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: Shockwave.com and Simple Star Partner to Release PhotoJam 4 13:57 EST - New Version of Popular Digital Photography Software Now Available San Francisco, CA (December 3, 2003) -- Shockwave.com, the Web's leading destination for interactive entertainment, and Simple Star, the leading developer of personal media software, announced today that they have partnered together and developed PhotoJam 4, the next generation of Shockwave.com's popular photo entertainment software.... (More) PRESS RELEASE: PhotoFreebies 1.0 - Free Photoshop-compatible Plugins For Editing Photos 13:40 EST - December 4, 2003 - The Plugin Site (www.ThePluginSite.com) is pleased to announce Version 1.0 of PhotoFreebies, the third product in its popular PhotoWiz product series. PhotoFreebies is a collection of 10 Photoshop-compatible plugins for performing useful photo manipulations and effects. They can be used with dozens of different image editing applications e.g. Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Photo-Paint,... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Foveon X3 image sensor wins PC Magazine Technical Excellence Award 13:33 EST - Foveon technology receives prestigious award for digital input devices Santa Clara, CA (December 3, 2003) - Foveon Inc., a technology leader in high-quality digital photography, announces that the Foveon X3 5M CMOS Direct Image Sensor has won PC Magazine's Technical Excellence Award in the Digital Input Devices category. The PC Magazine announcement was made during the magazine's 20th Annual Awards... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Concord Camera Corp. ships Concord Eye-Q Go Wireless -- Bluetooth™ digital camera 13:23 EST - Transmits Images to Compatible Bluetooth Device or USB Computer in as Little as 5 Seconds No Cables -- No Fuss Hollywood, Florida, December 3, 2003 -- Concord Camera Corp. [NASDAQ: LENS] announced today shipment of the Concord Eye-Q Go Wireless, the first 2 Megapixel Bluetooth enabled digital camera. Designed with convenience in mind, the Concord Eye-Q Go Wireless transmits images to Bluetooth compatible... (More) Microsoft's FAT fees add a little more to digicam costs 11:51 EST - An article on premier Geek site Slashdot notes that Redmond, WA-based Microsoft Corp. is to suddenly begin enforcing patents related to the FAT file system. According to the article, Microsoft is apparently expecting to receive 25 cents per unit up to US$250,000 per manufacturer of solid state media or numerous consumer electronics devices (including digital... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Photo Site Funtigo Decorates for the Holidays 11:13 EST - New generation photo site provides complete Web pages, not just photos SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., December 4, 2003 - Funtigo LLC announced today that its photo sharing website, www.funtigo.com, has added 362 high-quality pieces of clipart from collections of Ultimate Symbol and WebstarWest. An additional collection of 250 GIF animations is soon to follow, according to the company. Although clipart is... (More) Wednesday, December 3, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: RealViz Introduces Stitcher 4.0 With Pre-Launch Offer 12:38 EST - Free up-grade to version 4.0 and a saving of Euros/USD 50.00 on all purchases of Stitcher 3.5 made by Dec 31. Sophia Antipolis, France (December 2, 2003) -- RealViz, a leader in image processing software development, has announced that the latest version of their flagship product, Stitcher® 4.0 is now scheduled for worldwide release in January 2004. Internationally recognized as the "industry-standard... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Toshiba, SanDisk to Expand NAND Flash Memory Production 12:19 EST - Companies Constructing 300mm Wafer Fabrication Facility at Yokkaichi Operations TOKYO and SUNNYVALE, Calif, Dec. 2, 2003 --Toshiba Corporation and SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) today announced that they intend to cooperate in the construction of a new 300-millimeter (mm) wafer fabrication facility at Toshiba's Yokkaichi operations in order to meet growing demand for NAND flash memory. The move... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Asiva to Release Selection Plug-In 12:15 EST - Shapiro Consulting Group, Inc., (SCGI), Austin, Texas, has developed a true 16-bit selection plug-in for Adobe Photoshop based on the patented Asiva technology. The plug-in, called Asiva Selection, is currently under final testing and its release is expected in mid-December. The Asiva Selection plug-in allows users to make selections or masks with its patented curve technology. Users are able to make... (More) PRESS RELEASE: BlueBox Offers Holiday Discounts on Basic, Image Info Toolkit 12:04 EST - BlueBox Christmas special offers unique opportunity for useful christmas presents: BlueBox Basic 1.2 -- the powerful image database software for Mac and Windows, which archives even large collections of digital images without a lack in performance and makes a searchable archive from your already embeded IPTC information with a single mouse click. Christmas special price: 59,00 EURO Image Info Toolkit... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Scalado, Open Bit to Jointly Develop Mobile Imaging Technology 11:56 EST - The alliance will collaborate to develop and market top-of-the-line camera phone applications combining Open Bit features and Scalado imaging technology Scalado AB (www.scalado.com), a Swedish software technology company, and Open Bit Oy Ltd., a Finnish software application company, both specializing in digital imaging for the mobile industry, enters a strategic alliance, to increase their combined... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Canto Releases Cumulus 6 11:49 EST - New version delivers ease-of-use as a central feature by simplifying creation, management and deployment of Digital Assets December 3, 2003, San Francisco, Berlin. Canto, a global leader in Digital Asset Management (DAM) solutions, today announced the immediate availability of Cumulus 6 (Single User, Workgroup and Enterprise), with ease-of-use being the central feature of its upgraded product line.... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Nikon announces development of D70 Digital SLR camera 01:59 EST - New Nikon D70 Poised to Expand Digital SLR Camera Market by Delivering Excellent Performance and Superb Image Quality at an Attractive Price MELVILLE, NY, DECEMBER 03, 2003 - Nikon (www.nikonusa.com), the world leader in photography, today announced development of the D70, a new interchangeable-lens digital SLR camera designed to deliver superb image quality and hallmark Nikon SLR performance at... (More) Tuesday, December 2, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: Leica Digilux 2: The 'Analog' Digital Camera 22:32 EST - The new Leica Digilux 2 camera combines the best of two worlds. In the new Leica Digilux 2, modern digital technology and the proven concepts of traditional analog photography are joined in a harmonious combination: Decisive photographic parameters such as sharpness, aperture, focal length and shutter speeds can be controlled like those on a classic single-lens-reflex camera by means of setting rings... (More) PRESS RELEASE: PhotoDub Album Creates Talking Picture Albums, Presentations 20:28 EST - DTWSoftware, a division of DTW Associates, Inc., has released PhotoDub Album(tm) (PDA), a Windows application for digital picture management and presentation that allows you to organize your digital pictures into a talking picture album for presentation and sharing. With PDA, you can group your pictures into categories of your choice for easy retrieval and management, edit your pictures with commonly... (More) PRESS RELEASE: Pictographics, Fong Release BullZeye Color Corrector 20:25 EST - BullZeye High-Speed Color Corrector introduced by world-renowned photographer Gary Fong based on Pictographics' CandelaColor EditLab Technology December 2, 2003, Burnsville, MN, USA, Pictographics International Corporation has partnered with world-renowned photographer Gary Fong to create BullZeye High-Speed Color Corrector. BullZeye is a stand-alone color correction program that inspects, selects,... (More) The Gigapixel Image 20:15 EST - Dave woke us up from our afternoon nap with his trademark, "Check it out!" He'd just read about Max Lyons gigapixel landscape image made from 196 individual photos taken with a Canon D60 6-Mp digicam. The images were subsequently stitched together into a single file. "Just saw this on Slashdot -- a gigapixel image!" he shook us. "Mike! Mike! Can you get this up on the news page?" Fortunately, we weren't installing Panther, Apple's latest version of OS X, on our cluster... (More) Rollei brings Premier's long-zoom digicam to market (UPDATED) 11:12 EST - Regular readers of this site will remember we reported on the first long-zoom digital cameras appearing on booths of Taiwanese digicam manufacturers last Spring at the PMA show. One such camera was Premier Image Technology's DC2A30, a model very much in early development at that time (a woodblock model was shown on Premier's booth as well as that of partner Vivitar). It seemed... (More) Monday, December 1, 2003 PRESS RELEASE: FotoWare launches new FotoStation PRO with smarter archiving and workflow for digital photographers 11:18 EST - FotoStation PRO solves overflow from digital camera files for stand-alone photographers and workgroups alike. The Norwegian based software company FotoWare a.s, presents a completely rewritten and enhanced version of its renowned and widely used software for acquiring, processing, archiving and distribution of media files. Now FotoStation PRO offers unparalleled flexibility and capability whether utilized... (More) Return to: Current News Archive Index