News Archive - May 2002 Return to: Current News Archive Index Friday, May 31, 2002 Detailed(!) First Look review of Nikon D100 posted! 17:10 EDT - Dave tries Nikon's much-anticipated first entry into the consumer digital SLR market... This is probably one of the most-anticipated reviews I've done in the last year (along with my earlier coverage of the competing Canon D60). I've had non-stop emails from readers asking about it, particularly... (More) Thursday, May 30, 2002 Fuji's FinePix F401: Full specs! 13:11 EDT - As promised, we now have in-depth details on the Japanese company's latest digicam - and it will be sold in the USA and Europe... We told you briefly last night about the Fuji FinePix F401 based on details revealed by Yamada Kumio at the digitalcamera.jp website, and now we can tell the whole story. The new compact camera will indeed... (More) S2 Pro: Japanese pricing looks more competitive! (UPDATED) 01:15 EDT - Yamada Kumio predicts Fuji's latest digital SLR will ship at a cost equivalent to US$2500... Last March, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. revealed planned list pricing for its upcoming FinePix S2 Pro single-lens reflex digital camera, and the figure of $3495 surprised many readers as compared to Canon's... (More) Fuji FinePix F401: Details begin to appear! 00:56 EDT - Camera we first mentioned last Thursday is about to be unveiled... Last week, we told you about an upcoming camera from Fuji Japan - and whilst there's still no official announcement on Fuji's website, some details have been provided by Yamada Kumio of the digitalcamera.jp... (More) Canon: Manufacturing in China to cut costs, boost market share! 00:40 EDT - Japanese industry heavyweight is planning to dominate the digital camera market within two years... An interesting Reuters news article on the Yahoo! website reveals that Canon Inc. is planning to begin manufacturing digital cameras in China later this year or early in 2003 in an effort to cut costs.... (More) Wednesday, May 29, 2002 Coolpix 4500, 5700 samples online! 06:32 EDT - We're not sure how much to read into them though, given that Nikon USA has maintained that the current round of cameras isn't ready to have their results shown to the public... It's a little hard to figure out what might be going on with Nikon corporately these days. There was apparently significant confusion between their various international divisions over the state of readiness... (More) Nikon announces Coolpix ring light! 06:12 EDT - Cool-Light SL-1 compatible with numerous Coolpix digital cameras... Macro photography fans with Nikon Coolpix 775, 88X, 9XX and 5000 cameras (or those of you planning on purchasing the just-announced Coolpix 4500) take note: Nikon has today announced a ring light designed... (More) Phew! Nikon week at IR - *Detailed* First Look posted for Nikon Coolpix 5700! 03:22 EDT - Nikon's stunning-looking 5 megapixel, 8x optical zoom digital camera in Dave's capable hands... This has been a heckuva week, no small thanks to Nikon USA! Last Wednesday, FedEx showed up with no less than four new Nikon cameras - The D100 (incredible SLR), and three new consumer models, the 5700,... (More) *Detailed* First Look posted for Nikon Coolpix 4500! 03:19 EDT - Dave tries out Nikon's just-announced update to the Coolpix 9XX line... This is the second of the new Nikon consumer models I tested, the update to(and most likely replacement of) the Coolpix 995. This model has the familiar swivel-body design of the Coolpix 9xx series, but... (More) Nikon announces new 8x zoom digicam! (UPDATED) 03:02 EDT - Coolpix 5700 couples the long reach of its powerful zoom with a 5 megapixel imager... Nikon Inc. has today announced its new Coolpix 5700 digital camera, sporting an SLR-style body (it actually uses an electronic viewfinder, a first for the company) along with a high-res 5 megapixel CCD... (More) Nikon announces new update to the 9XX series! (UPDATED) 03:01 EDT - Coolpix 4500 features a 4 megapixel imager, 4x optical zoom lens... Nikon Inc. has today announced its new Coolpix 4500 digital camera, which follows in the footsteps of the company's much-loved Coolpix 9XX cameras with their swivel bodies that make shooting at all angles... (More) Nikon announces Coolpix 2000 digicam! (UPDATED) 03:00 EDT - New compact digicam aims for simplicity and ease-of-use... Nikon Inc. has today announced a new addition to its line of Coolpix digital cameras in the form of the Coolpix 2000. A 2.0 megapixel model with 3x optical zoom lens, the new camera is designed to be... (More) Sony announces Cyber-shot DSC-P2 digital camera! (UPDATED) 01:00 EDT - 2.0 megapixel imager and 3x optical zoom lens get the picture in this new compact model... A second announcement today from Sony, the Cyber-shot DSC-P2 is similar to the simultaneously announced DSC-P7, but in place of that model's 3.2 megapixel imager and 14-bit A/D converter, this one has... (More) Sony announces Cyber-shot DSC-P7 digital camera! (UPDATED) 01:00 EDT - New compact model features 3.2 megapixel imager, 3x optical zoom lens... Sony has today announced a new digital camera for the American market, the Cyber-shot DSC-P7. Featuring a 1/1.8" 3.2 megapixel CCD imager and a 3x optical zoom lens, the P7 follows the company's tradition... (More) Thursday, May 23, 2002 Fuji prepares to launch new digicam! (UPDATED) 17:17 EDT - Japanese teaser presentation outlines a few specifications high-points for the latest FinePix... Fuji Japan has posted a teaser for a new digicam on its website, our friends at DigitalCamera.jp report. Details are deliberately vague at this point, but the presentation details several point of note:... (More) Wednesday, May 22, 2002 Full review posted for Kodak EasyShare LS420! 04:21 EDT - Dave gets hands-on with Kodak's stylish-looking ultracompact digicam... I found this to be an interesting camera, not for the features it had, but rather for those it *lacked* - and yet still managed to take very nice-looking pictures. No exposure compensation, white balance,... (More) Kodak announces new 2mpix digicam! 03:59 EDT - CX4230 extends the EasyShare system with new software, optional new camera dock... Eastman Kodak Co. has today announced a new digital camera that sees its EasyShare system revamped with new software and a newly designed camera dock. The Kodak EasyShare CX4230 zoom digital camera is... (More) Tuesday, May 21, 2002 Addonics expands flash reader family! 12:55 EDT - Two new DigiDrives and a PCMCIA DigiAdapter round out the company's offerings... Addonics Technologies Inc., formerly part of the Acer Group, has announced the release of several new flash-reader products aimed at offering compatibility with a wide range of media types. Of the three... (More) Monday, May 20, 2002 DPReview posts D100 samples! 21:06 EDT - Congratulations are due to our friends in England for posting the first sample images we've seen online from Nikon's upcoming digital SLR... Phil Askey, the man behind the Digital Photography Review website, has updated his preview of the Nikon D100 SLR digital camera with 25 images from a pre-production camera. These are the first images... (More) LetsGoDigital previews Optio 230! 20:15 EDT - Dutch website looks at 2 megapixel digicam with its unusual 3D image mode... Our friends at the LetsGoDigital.nl website in Holland have posted a "first impression" item based on a hands-on with Pentax's Optio 230, a 2 megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom lens that was first announced... (More) The ultimate slide-show tool? Movies from your digicam photos? Check this one out! 13:42 EDT - Dave tries out an innovative program that lets you bring a little more life into your still images... I came across this (Windows) application recently, and found it really interesting. There may be something like it out there, but this is the first of its kind that I've seen. It's Imagematics "Still Motion... (More) Friday, May 17, 2002 Update!: Sony DSC-P51! 14:21 EDT - Dave goes back for an in-depth look at a production-level model of Sony's 2mpix, 2x zoom Cyber-shot... I've finally gotten my hands on a production-level version of the Sony DSC-P51 camera I did a "first look" review of back in February. I've now shot a complete set of my standard test photos, analyzed... (More) EOS D60, EOS-1D directly compared! 13:33 EDT - Fred Miranda takes on the difficult job of putting Canon's popular EOS digital SLRs head-to-head... Fred Miranda, the professional photographer behind some excellent PhotoShop actions such as ISO-R (noise reduction), EdgeSharpen Pro (sharpening) and Highlight Recovery (exposure correction) has posted... (More) Thursday, May 16, 2002 Toshiba ships PDR-T10 digicam! 13:52 EDT - Touch-screen camera with interchangeable faceplates now available... Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. has announced that its PDR-T10 digital camera is now shipping in the USA. An unusual camera that we first described at the PMA 2002 show last February, the -T10... (More) Minolta Japan takes DiMAGE X underwater! 13:07 EDT - Polycarbonate housing keeps the diminutive camera protected from water and dust... Minolta Japan has announced a new accessory for its DiMAGE X digital camera, an ultracompact 2 megapixel model. The DiMAGE X is unusual in that it uses a prism to 'fold' the light path, allowing a 3x... (More) Wednesday, May 15, 2002 Nikon prepares to release new digicam! 15:17 EDT - Two weeks from today, the company will take the wraps off its latest digital camera design... Nikon Inc. has today posted a brief teaser heralding its latest digital camera which will be announced on May 29th, 2002. A shockwave flash presentation on the Nikon site doesn't give much away. As can... (More) C-720 Ultra Zoom: First samples online! 01:13 EDT - Our friends in Japan get yet another scoop with numerous sample-images from Olympus's latest long-zoom Camedia digicam... The Japanese Miscall website have posted the first photos we've seen from a development-level model of the just-announced Olympus Camedia C-720 Ultra Zoom digital camera. Unusually for Miscall, none of... (More) Contax Japan posts, withdraws N Digital samples? (UPDATED) 01:00 EDT - First three sample images from the upcoming digital SLR go on display, but only for a short time... Kyocera Japan has posted three sample images from its Contax N Digital SLR digital camera, our friends at the Digital Photography Review website report. The pictures are as follows: Indoor architectural... (More) Tuesday, May 14, 2002 Qimage Pro updated to v2.0! 17:16 EDT - Latest release of the popular Windows-only imaging utility improves printing, on-screen viewing and more... Mike Chaney, author of the Qimage Pro and Profile Prism imaging utilities, has emailed to let us know of a new release of the former. Qimage Pro 2002 v2.0 has a number of new features (from the official... (More) Monday, May 13, 2002 ThumbsPlus gets major update! 23:27 EDT - ICC profile and Canon RAW support join many other changes in the new release... Cerious Software Inc., the company behind Windows-only image database app ThumbsPlus, has announced the release of a major update to the program. ThumbsPlus v5.01 has many changes, including: Support... (More) Apple adds new features to iPhoto! 16:30 EDT - Macintosh-exclusive digital imaging program which was first announced last January gets an update... Apple Computer Inc. has released an update to iPhoto, its imaging utility which was unveiled at the MacWorld 2002 Expo in early January. iPhoto is in essence an image organiser / browser which also allows... (More) Saturday, May 11, 2002 Contax UK announces N Digital pricing, availability! 15:15 EDT - British bundle for the N Digital will contain different items to that in Japan... We have been in contact with Kyocera Yashica (UK) Ltd. regarding our previous news item regarding the Japanese pricing and availability for the Contax N Digital, a single-lens reflex digicam that uses... (More) Friday, May 10, 2002 YarcPlus beta 1.7 adds EOS-1D support! 13:48 EDT - Currently in beta testing, the latest release of the Windows-only Canon RAW-file converter now supports Canon's top-of-the-line digital SLR... Michael Tapes and Bruce Henderson continue to regularly release new beta versions of their Canon RAW-file converter YarcPlus. The current release, v1.7 beta 2, adds support for Canon's EOS-1D digital camera.... (More) Outback Photo unveils 'Fine Art Photo Handbook'! 13:32 EDT - Uwe and Bettina Steinmueller offer help and advice getting 'fine art' results from your digital camera... Our friends over at the Digital Outback Photo website have launched a pretty large project aimed at helping readers use their digital cameras to create 'fine art' photos. Covering the entire process from... (More) InfoTrends predicts brighter future for online photofinishing! 02:14 EDT - Consolidation and past failures mean the remaining players can have bigger slices of a gradually growing pie... InfoTrends Research Group has published a new report, the "2002 Online Photo Services Forecast", looking at the current and projected situation for the online photofinishing marketplace. As might be expected,... (More) Thursday, May 9, 2002 Contax Japan announces N Digital ship-date! (UPDATED) 15:04 EDT - Specifications get refined slightly as the long-awaited digital SLR with its full 35mm frame-sized sensor approaches Japanese launch... Kyocera Japan has today posted an announcement in Japanese on its website regarding plans for the upcoming Contax N Digital SLR digital camera. First described to the Japanese market in July 2000, the... (More) Wednesday, May 8, 2002 Light & Motion offers CP5000 underwater housing! 11:03 EDT - Take the Coolpix 5000 along on your next dive with the Tetra 5000 housing... Light & Motion Industries has announced a new underwater housing designed for Nikon's Coolpix 5000 digital camera. The Tetra 5000 Underwater Housing, which will ship this summer, features a cast and machined... (More) Olympus announces C-720 UltraZoom digital camera! 10:00 EDT - New model updates the C-700 UltraZoom with a 3 megapixel imager and a slightly shorter zoom lens... Olympus has today announced a new digital camera following on from its Camedia C-700 UltraZoom series, the Camedia C-720 UltraZoom. Featuring a 3 megapixel CCD imager and 8x optical zoom lens, the camera... (More) Olympus announces D-550 Zoom digital camera! (UPDATED) 10:00 EDT - New model updates the D-510Z / D-520Z with a 3 megapixel imager... Olympus has today announced a new digital camera following on from its Camedia D-510 Zoom and D-520 Zoom series, the Camedia D-550 Zoom. Featuring a 3 megapixel CCD imager and 2.8x optical zoom lens,... (More) Tuesday, May 7, 2002 Crucial expands flash lineup! 16:24 EDT - Micron subsidiary expands flash lineup with 256MB, 512MB CF; 16-64MB MultiMediaCards... A press release from memory upgrade supplier Crucial Technology, a division of Micron Technology Inc. subsidiary Micron Semiconductor Products Inc., announces that the company has added several new form... (More) Maha solves the proprietary battery dilemma! (UPDATED) 00:55 EDT - Which do you go for - the ultimate battery life, or the lower cost that competition brings? Thanks to Maha Energy, now you don't have to choose... Traditionally, users of digital cameras with proprietary batteries have had to offset the potential battery-life or size advantages they can bring with the added cost of having only one source for extra... (More) Monday, May 6, 2002 Ritz acquires CameraWorld.com! 18:13 EDT - IR partner continues its growth, picking up the Internet property of another well-known retailer to add to its portfolio... A press release today announces that Ritz Interactive Inc. has acquired CameraWorld.com, the Internet website of Portland-based retailer CameraWorld. Well-rated by its customers on sites like ResellerRatings.com,... (More) Sunday, May 5, 2002 The IR Driver Project Phase I is Now Online! 01:56 EDT - Lost that CD or just want an updated version? Newsletter Editor Mike Pasini is your new connection for digital imaging drivers and manuals... I can't count the number of emails I get from people wanting to know why their digicam stopped working with Windows Me, XP, or whatever. Or the number from people who've just lost the CD that came with... (More) Eastman Kodak prepares low-cost dye-sub! 01:43 EDT - At $1,095 list, the Kodak Professional 8500 Digital Photo Printer could offer competition for Olympus' popular P-400 dye sublimation printer... Eastman Kodak Co. will soon begin shipping a new dye-sublimation printer, an anonymous source tells us. The Kodak Professional 8500 Digital Photo Printer looks to be aimed squarely at Olympus' Camedia... (More) Friday, May 3, 2002 Bibble v3.0 released! 20:27 EDT - Major overhaul of the popular imaging utility which was previewed last month by Digital Outback Photo is now available... Bibble v3.0, the latest Windows release of an excellent imaging utility created by Eric Hyman, is now available for download. This is a major update, with many changes, including the following: Live Options.... (More) Minolta DiMAGE S404 review updated with results from full production model! 17:11 EDT - 4 megapixel, 4x optical zoom digicam review updated with final conclusions... This update has certainly been a long time coming, apologies for the delay! I first reviewed Minolta's DiMAGE S404 back at the beginning of February, and am only now revisiting the product with a full... (More) Luminous Landscape offers EOS D60 field report! 00:11 EDT - Canon's much-desired update to the groundbreaking EOS D30 in the hands of capable photographer Michael Reichmann... Michael Reichmann, the man behind the excellent Luminous Landscape website, has posted a great field report on Canon's EOS D60 digital camera detailing his opinions and experiences from using it in the... (More) Thursday, May 2, 2002 PhotoPoint: Deadline extended! 23:34 EDT - The end of the story looks to be nearing (finally) as members get one last chance to retrieve their photos... An email from Ron Smith of the Free Republic website, who's contacted us numerous times in the past regarding the ongoing situation at bankrupt online photo site PhotoPoint.com, alerted us to the fact... (More) HP ships PhotoSmart 812! 18:21 EDT - Company's first 4-megapixel camera now available in the US market... Hewlett-Packard Co. has revealed in an article posted by David Becker, Staff Writer for CNET News.com that its PhotoSmart 812 digital camera has just begun shipping in the USA. We first told you about... (More) Steve's Digicams DMC-LC5 review updated! 17:35 EDT - Traditionally-styled 3.9 megapixel, 3x optical zoom digicam gets the "Steve Sanders treatment"... The good folks at Steve's Digicams have now finalised their review of the attractive DMC-LC5 digital camera, which was posted as a first-look in early March. Unfortunately, as with its sibling the DMC-LC40,... (More) Steve reviews Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC40! 17:11 EDT - Digicam fails to impress Steve Sanders due to image quality question-marks... Steve Sanders of the Steve's Digicams website has today posted a full review of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC40 digital camera, a 3.9 megapixel model with a 3x optical zoom lens and a distinctive 'blocky'... (More) Phil examines FinePix S602Z! 16:53 EDT - Digital Photography Review's verdict on the 3.3 megapixel, 6x optical zoom digicam with its third-gen SuperCCD... Phil Askey over at the Digital Photography Review website has now posted a full review of the Fuji FinePix S602 Zoom digital camera, concluding: "The S602 Zoom is a good example of a well thought out and... (More) DPReview tries out the Nixvue Vista! 16:30 EDT - Phil Askey gets hands-on with the successor to Nixvue's popular Digital Album... Our friends at the Digital Photography Review website have posted an in-depth look at the Nixvue Vista, an update to the company's prior 'Digital Album' model. The Vista (Visual Storage Album), which... (More) Wednesday, May 1, 2002 Epson announces new wide-format photo printers! 10:50 EDT - Stylus Pro 7600 and 9600 bring UltraChrome inks to much larger media... Epson America Inc. has today announced two new additions to its lineup of wide-format photo printers, in the form of the Stylus Pro 7600 and 9600. Both printers are almost identical with the exception... (More) Review posted for Canon S200 Digital ELPH! 00:57 EDT - The "little brother" to the already tiny PowerShot S300. 2 megapixel CCD, 2x zoom, movies with sound, ultra-small. In last year's lineup, I greatly preferred Canon's PowerShot S300 over the slightly smaller S110, because I felt the latter's user interface suffered from too few buttons, making menu navigation awkward.... (More) Review posted for Kodak DX3700 00:55 EDT - A 3 megapixel fixed focal length "one button" camera in Kodak's super easy-to-use "EasyShare" line. This is one of the more stripped-down models in Kodak's EasyShare line, with a three megapixel CCD and a non-zoom lens. It certainly is easy to use, there are literally *no* adjustments to make, so nothing... (More) Return to: Current News Archive Index