Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

Today's a day for Nikon announcements, starting with the Coolpix P700. The follow-up to the P6000 tries to counter the Canon G-series cameras with something... that looks like a Canon G-series camera. Sporting a 10 megapixel sensor capable of up to ISO 3200 without any trickery and 720p videos at 24 FPS, the camera boasts a 28-200/2.8-5.6 equivalent lens with VR as well as the very nice 3" VGA LCD screen (but no swivel, that's surely a miss on Nikon's part). Other niceties include a proper hotshoe, multiple manual controls (including an exposure compensation dial and a quick settings dial on the top along with two proper command dials), a microphone jack, the virtual horizon inlay for those who can't shoot a straight horizon and for some, an optical viewfinder. It's priced at US$500, and will be available some time later in September. Will this finally be the first decent Coolpix camera in a very long while? More photos after the break, and don't forget to check the preview at DPReview.com!

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Continuing with the Nikon news, the Coolpix S8100 updates the S8000 with a a CMOS sensor that lops a couple of megapixels down to 12 for hopefully better light sensitivity with ISO 3200 available (not that I would use that), a 1080p movie mode at 30 FPS in h.264, and a new 10 FPS burst mode that takes 5 photos. The rest of the camera remains the same, including the 30-300mm equivalent VR lens and 3" VGA LCD, clad in what I consider a pretty nice design. The camera will be out later this month, for US$300.

Rounding up today's announcements is the Coolpix S80, now with more megapixels at 14 (instead of less like the other two) and with a 3.5" multi-touch OLED screen. Personally the multi-touch thing is a bit of a waste until there're more applications for it (Android camera anyone?), but the OLED is nice. The rest of the camera is mostly the same, with a 35-175/3.6-4.8 equivalent (how boring) folded optics lens, 720P movie mode, and the same "light rendering" (drawing on your photos) thing that the S1100pj has. Coming later this month for US$330.

"Looks like we can take the guesswork out of today's leaked render, after all. A generous (and, as usual, anonymous) reader just sent us a handful of pictures of what appears to be -- quite convincingly, we might add -- the Samsung NX100 we've been eying since a low-res snapshot came to light last month."

Engadget's got two photos of the Samsung NX100, and it looks pretty much a reality. Pity there are only photos of the front; usually it is the back of the camera that will give more details on the UI of the camera. There's a little dial behind the shutter release, but I'm not sure if it is a full command dial or something else; it does look a bit awkward. Hit up Engadget for the rest!

"The Fuji FinePix HS10 ($499) is an SLR-style super zoom camera with a whopping 30X lens, a back-illuminated, high speed CMOS sensor, large articulating LCD display, full manual controls, and Full HD video recording -- to name but a few features. As of this writing, it's tied with the Olympus SP-800UZ for the "biggest lens" award (though the Olympus has a more telephoto-slanted 28 - 840 mm zoom range), but knowing camera manufacturers, that's bound to change soon."

Fujifilm, as one of the few camera manufacturers who do not have their own DSLR (their last attempt, the S5 Pro, use the D200 as its base), is one of the few who still makes a full featured bridge camera; large cameras (this is almost the size of a small DSLR) with full manual controls and the tactile controls to go with it; in this case, a rear command dial and a mechanical zoom ring. With DSLRs becoming cheaper and cheaper, bridge cameras are disappearing. The HS10 makes quite a few concessions to keep the price down: Its body is plastic, and lacks the solidness of the previous generations; the AF is not as fast, and startup times are slow. That said, there are some pretty good images to be had out of its 10 megapixel sensor if you choose to shoot RAW: Read the review to find out!

"The EasyShare M580 was launched last year at the same time as the 10x zoom Z950, and is the current flagship of Kodak's consumer M series. Considering its bargain price it's a well made and surprisingly well specified camera, with a 14 megapixel 1/2.3 inch CCD sensor, an 8x zoom Schneider-Kreuznach lens, a 7.5cm (3.0 inch) 230k LCD monitor and built-in optical image stabilisation, all wrapped up in a strong all-aluminium body."

Kodak's still around, churning out a variety of compact cameras (and struggling with a declining film business), and this one seems alright, despite Kodak having a lot of flops in the last few years. Despite that, it is rather generic, and like what I've mentioned before, does anyone still buy Kodak cameras? They must if Kodak is somehow keeping afloat, even though I don't see any advantages from a Kodak camera nowadays.

"You're looking at Canon's new 4k "Multipurpose" concept, a wondrous amalgamation of still and video cameras pumping 60 frames per second at 4k resolution out of an 8 megapixel 2/3-inch CMOS sensor. Yep, we said 4k video, approximately quadruple the resolution of 1080p. We had a chance to go hands-on with the prototype at Canon Expo 2010, and believe us when we tell you that it's really, really sharp, both in terms of hardware and the images it produces."

I have to wonder if this is the trend of cameras to come, will terrabyte storage be enough? I remember when GMail first came out with 1GB of storage. For email, it may still be enough for a lot of people, but 1GB is enough to handle just a few minutes of 1080p video. Of course, if Canon ever did release a beauty such as this, one could always make use of YouTube's new 4k video support! One day though, I am certain that camera phones will be capable of this, and we will see an explosion of high definition... everything!

"Artensoft today [Aug 31, 2010] introduced Artensoft Photo Mosaic Wizard 1.0, a software tool specifically designed to let anyone create a mosaic picture from hundreds of smaller tile images. The program offers a simple wizard-driven interface that allows the beginner to create the first photo mosaic project in a few minutes, without opening a manual."

The good folks at Photography Blog picked up on Artensoft's press release for their new "Photo Mosaic Wizard 1.0," which joins their existing "Photo Editor" application, both of which are intended to combine power and ease-of-use at reasonable prices ($49.95 each, USD, for non-commercial use). The Mosaic Wizard looks like it could be a lot of fun to play with, although no mention is made of how long it might take to assemble a complete work, which may well be very large, as the more photos you start with the better the resulting mosaic will look. For example, the picture on the left above was assembled from 500 "pieces," whereas the one on the right used 2000 pieces - and ended up at 11600x10000 pixels and a 17Mb file size! Fortunately, Artensoft provides a trial version of each of application, so you test them out for yourself, as well as a Gallery of mosaic samples.

"Datacolor, a global leader in color management solutions, today announced SpyderLensCal, a reliable method of measuring the focus performance on camera and lens combinations that delivers razor-sharp focusing using modern DSLR autofocus micro-adjustment."

Datacolor, a company who makes a range of solutions for colour workflow purposes, has announced a product to help with calibrating your autofocus DSLR lenses. This is somewhat like the products from LensAlign, but far cheaper: At US$59, it's cheaper than the LensAlign Lite by $20, and more than $100 and $200 less for the regular and long lens kits of the LensAlign. Still, it does look far more simplistic than the LensAlign version, but since I have not tried them, I have no idea if a simpler and cheaper product can do an equally good job here. The SpyderLensCal will ship sometime in the middle of September 2010.

"Olympus has announced a special "all black" kit for their E-P2 Micro Four Thirds camera, and also released two new lenses while they were at it."

So Olympus has announced what essentially is a vanity kit for their E-P2 camera, and more interestingly, two new lenses. The new all-black kit doesn't come with the detacheable EVF, which I find more important than having all black accessories, but hey, I guess vanity has a price, and in this case it is a grand.

The two new lenses are telephoto zooms; there's the US$300 40-150/4-5.6 (to mimick the now very standard consumer 70-300mm zoom) and the US$900 (!) 75-300/4.8-6.7. While Olympus touts the latter as the smallest "600mm" lens, I can't help but think that for the price and the slow aperture, Olympus has made one too many compromise in making it smaller, but not small; compare Nikon's new 55-300/4-5.6 at 3.1" by 4.84" against the Olympus at 2.76" by 4.57". The Nikkor needs to make space for the VR motors as well as cover a larger imaging circle, and costs less than half the price. This is probably why all manufacturers are scrambling towards mirrorless I guess; potentially cheaper construction yet higher sale prices! Photos of the lenses after the break. Read more...

"Canon Inc. announced today that it has successfully developed the world's largest CMOS image sensor, with a chip size measuring 202 x 205 mm. Because its expanded size enables greater light-gathering capability, the sensor is capable of capturing images in one one-hundredth the amount of light required by a professional-model digital SLR camera."

Well, looks like Canon is off on some showy announcements; in preparation for Photokina showcases, I guess. 20cm by 20cm is in the range of the large format territory: The 8 x 10 format in this case. 4 x 5 sheet film cameras are already big enough as it is (even a "small" Graflex Speed Graphic fully setup is still bigger than most DSLRs), so if a camera actually gets made from this, it is going to really big. I can hear the large format enthusiasts dreaming about what they can do with this though. Strangely Canon makes no mention of megapixels this time.

"Sony's latest interchangeable lens cameras, the SLT Alpha A33 and A55 represent a significant technological milestone - not just for Sony but for the enthusiast camera market as a whole. The company has rejected the traditional DSLR design and instead created a hybrid that, like a compact camera, is from the ground up built around live view, but one that is also capable of offering full-time DSLR-style phase-detection autofocus. The combination means they can offer features such as phase-detection AF during movie recording and extremely fast continuous shooting rates (10 frames per second on the A55), previously unthinkable at this price."

Sony's finally done something interesting and different with the SLT cameras with their pellicle mirrors; instead of having the mirror reflect a minor portion of the light to a optical viewfinder, it instead uses the light for a phase detection autofocus system. This allows Sony to implement a viewfinder that is larger and brightter than that of their previous live view attempts, allows for AF with all lenses in the Alpha lineup, while using the more time-tested phase detect AF system. DPReview liked the camera plenty much, and the new 16.2 megapixel sensor looks good.

We now have three systems on the market for live view AF; Sony's implementation, Panasonic's improvements on the traditional contrast detection system, and Fujifilm's hybrid AF system. It should be interesting to see which method is the more successful one, both technically and commercially.

The evolution of storage usually goes something like this: the medium gets a lot of attention when it's young, then as it grows older, it typically becomes a commodity that we care less about. Think of the early years of hard drives: moving from 40 MB to 80 MB was a massive improvement, and it was a big day when the first 1 GB drives hit the market. But now? We hardly bother to yawn when a 3 TB drive is announced. Sure, there are some stand-out drives (Western Digital's Raptor line for instance), but for the most part, hard drives are the forgotten technology inside your computer. SSDs, however, are still a young technology: performance improvements, capacity enhancements, and cost drops are still exciting enough to get a geek's heart going.

Flash memory falls somewhere in between those two; from a digital photography perspective, Flash memory storage has become so cavernous that the average person never needs to think twice about running out of space, unless they're shooting 1080p video alongside their still photos. There's still a bit of excitement left in the performance realm though, and SanDisk is at the forefront of pushing faster Flash memory. Their line of Extreme SDHC cards for instance are Class 10 performance, and claim up to 30 MB/s (200x) read and write speeds. They also cost a fair bit more than other brands. I set out to answer a fairly straight-forward question: was it worth it, from a practical standpoint, so shell out the extra money for a SanDisk Extreme SDHC card? Read more...

Canon Inc. announced today that it has successfully developed an APS-H-size CMOS image sensor that delivers an image resolution of approximately 120 megapixels (13,280 x 9,184 pixels), the world’s highest level of resolution for its size.

Canon had a 50 megapixel sensor 3 years back that did not go anywhere, so this is more proof of concept, like what car manufacturers like to do. It's probably not going to be seen in any commercial product, and I doubt it will have any great high ISO or dynamic range capabilities, but it's a reminder that this is what sensors can go up to, if anyone really wanted it to go that far.

"SANYO... introduces a new Full HD (1920 x 1080 30p) Pocket-Size Dual Camera, model VPC-PD2BK, with embedded software for easy use and sharing on social networks. The camera is the only one of its kind that offers Full HD video recording, 10 MP photo shooting, and 3x optical zoom in a stylish form factor that is about the size of a deck of cards."

Although it veers somewhat toward the larger and heavier side of the pocket camcorder market, Sanyo hopes to capture your interest - and part of your spending money - with their new VPC-PD2BK "Dual Camera," by promising an enticing mix of photographic features in addition to the long list of video features that most competitors offer. This model has not been released yet (it is due in September 2010, with a list price of $169.99 US), so it may be a while before full reviews show up, but the specifications look promising, as Sanyo has included a 10.7MP CMOS sensor that is larger (at 1/2.33 inch) than that found in many competing models, to go along with its 3x optical zoom lens and a built-in flash (for still photography only). Alas, it does follow the pocket camcorder norm of having only digital image stabilization - but there is only so much technology that can be packed into what is still a small form factor, at least at this price point.

"Announced jointly by Olympus Imaging Corporation (President Masaharu Okubo) and Panasonic Corporation in 2008, the Micro Four Thirds System standard has rapidly grown in popularity. Now, support for the standard is expanding with the decision of COSINA CO., Ltd to join the Micro Four Thirds System standard. To coincide with this announcement, the company is releasing interchangeable lenses compliant with Micro Four Thirds System standard."

This is a nice announcement. Cosina has been on both scales of the lens manufacturing business, making some absolute cheapies that most photographers will never touch, but have also created great high quality lenses in their Voigtlander line, whom they purchased the rights to the name sometime in 1999. I have their 125mm f/2.5 APO Macro lens in F-mount, and it has been absolutely great to use. Having Cosina onboard the Micro Four Thirds system is great as it means there will be proper wide prime lenses for Micro Four Thirds users; current adaptations means most lenses end up with a 35mm focal length equivalent of 30 to 60mm - hardly wide at all! This Nokton will never have been available at the focal length of 25mm if not for Cosina making the lens dedicated for Micro Four Thirds. DPReview has the links to the official press release of the Cosina announcement and the lens.

"MISSISSAUGA, ON., August 26, 2010 – Canon Canada Inc., a leader in digital imaging, rounds out its Summer product introductions with four new L-series lenses and two new accessory extenders for professionals and advanced amateurs. Leading the introductions, the EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye USM lens* is the world’s widest fisheye zoom lens, providing professional photographers and cinematographers with a unique optical tool for capturing 180º angle-of-view shots on all EOS Digital SLR cameras. Photographers looking for a broad focal length range with excellent image quality will enjoy the Company’s first L-series 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, the new EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens*, delivering outstanding sharpness, contrast and colour fidelity in a compact, lightweight form factor."

The most interesting lenses among the lot of the new Canon lenses, are the 8-15/4L and the 70-300/4.5-5.6L. Fisheye lovers, rejoice! An 8 to 15mm zoom fisheye is here, so you can pick all the different ways you can distort the world in your photos.. Also some nice news for Canon users, is a 70-300/4-5.6L zoom lens. The 70-300s have usually been cheap telephoto consumer zoom lenses, but they have been used by pros for their light weight and compact size. Now that there's an L version of the lens, quality should step up, while mostly retaining the size and the weight. What is lost is the cheap price: US$1,500 is almost as much a 70-200/2.8 L USM lens. The other announcements include an update to the f/2.8 superteles; the 300/2.8 and 400/2.8, as well as the 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters. Press release and images of the other lenses after the break.

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"Canon has unveiled the EOS 60D mid-level DSLR, replacing the EOS 50D. However, following the launch of the EOS 7D, the 60D has been repositioned in the market, so isn't a simple upgrade to its predecessor. Instead the 60D is a smaller camera featuring an articulated screen and plastic body shell and utilizing SD memory cards. It combines the 18MP CMOS sensor and 1040k dot 3.0" LCD from the EOS 550D (Rebel T2i) with the AF system from the 50D."

The 60D is a the latest in a long line that stretches back from the D30, and in a way it returns to its roots as a mid-range DSLR camera. While 50D users will probably want to upgrade to something like the 7D or even the 5DII, the 60D is a compelling purchase for those who want something a little more advanced than the 550D, while not spending too much. It's certainly a nicely specified camera, and while smaller, the grip certainly looks more usable than the on on the 550D!

Product Category: DSLR LCD Screen Protector

Manufacturer: GGS

Where to Buy: Ebay sellers

Price: $15 to $20

Supports: Currently available for Nikon D3/D3s, D700, D300/D300s and D90; for Canon, it's the EOS 1DIV/1DsIII, 5DII, 7D, EOS 40/50D, and EOS 500/550D (Rebel T1i/Rebel T2i)

Pros:

• Hardened glass resistant to scratching
• No worries about air bubbles like soft plastic protectors
• Easy to clean

Cons:

• Does not cut down glare
• The other two protectors are stick-ons and feel a little superflous
• Canon DSLR users might not like their version of the product

Summary: LCD screen protectors have come a long way since they first came along with PDAs, but they always have been pieces of plastic stuck onto the screen. GGS brings something new with their glass protectors, and the newest version is even removable. How does it fare? Read on! Read more...

"The Sony A550 is a mid-range 14.2 megapixel DSLR camera offering enhanced Live View, Auto HDR functionality and high-speed continuous shooting capabilities. Slotting in above the A3- series cameras and below the A700, the Sony Alpha A550 employs a new Exmor CMOS sensor for better low-light images with an increased ISO range of 200-12800. The A550 offers 7fps continuous shooting when using the optical viewfinder or 4fps in Live View mode using the 3 inch tilting LCD screen, while the new Auto HDR mode promises to capture a huge range of shadow and highlight detail in landscapes, interiors and other scenes."

PhotographyBLOG has a pretty positive review of the Sony a550, but it is baffling how a review of a camera does not dock more points for it having a crappy viewfinder. I wonder if the tech specifications are that good to overcome what is essentially the main interface to taking photos. I struggled with cameras like the Nikon D70, and the Sony DSLRs with their live view implementation is worse; it really is like looking through a straw. I think Sony knows the issue as well, hence the pellicle mirror a55 and a33 cameras, as well as the NEX cameras.