The finance website Forbes reported yesterday that Olympus’ net profits for the first quarter to June dropped 88.4% from a year earlier. The company blamed a dramatic decrease in digital camera prices for the fall.

“The average price of our digital cameras dropped by some 18 pct in the first quarter from the average price in the full year to March 2004… way above the projected 10 pct decline in the average price,” Olympus finance department manager Kazuhiro Watanabe said a press conference.

“Because of falling prices, combined with the deterioration of the product mix, stemmed from a shift of consumer interest to low-end models, and operating profit of our digital camera division dropped to almost zero in the first quarter.”

Website: Forbes.com - Japan’s Olympus Q1 net profit drops on falling digital camera prices

PC Magazine have published an article by David Cardinal, a professional photographer who runs the website nikondigital.org, which is an easy-to-understand introduction to the RAW image file format.

“The most common reason to shoot RAW is to handle tricky lighting situations. Getting the color right in a digital image is hard, and the automatic white balance setting on your camera does not always work. But instead of worrying about setting the white balance, you can make your best guess, shoot in RAW mode, then change the white balance of the images later on the computer.”

Website: PC Magazine - Photos in the RAW

A new article on Digital Outback Photo discusses image and data backup and briefly reviews a Windows program called FileBack, which automates the backup process.

“There is the irony about digital photos: They actually can last without degrading forever (even improve by better imaging software) and yet they are very volatile, many bits on some storage device (we won’t even touch the topic of the volatility of file formats here).

You have to protect your images against data loss. This means you need to backup your data and it is not bad to get a bit neurotic about saving your valuable images.”

Website: Digital Outback Photo - FileBack Review

UK website The Register have posted a reader’s experience with the new digital print kiosks from Kodak, which may have appeared recently in a Boots store near you. All seemed well - fast print times, good quality, kind-of-reasonale cost - until the reviewer went to leave the store:

“Anyway, onto the point of most concern. Having paid for my photos at the counter, i turned to leave the store, passing the kiosk again… only to notice the “Previous Pictures” button on the main display. Curious. I walked over and touched the button. Lo and behold, my photos. The kiosk copied them from my disk to print a copy… but you’d assume they’d be deleted afterwards. However, it seems they remain in a cache of some sort. Not all of my pictures were there, granted, but about half of them at least.”

Website: The Register - Reg reader tackles Kodak digital print booth

UPDATE 05/08/04: The Register have now published an update in which Kodak have responded to the concerns raised by the original article.

Website: The Register - Digital print booths: Kodak addresses your concerns

Samsung have unveiled a new 6 megapixel digital camera, the Digimax V6. The Norwegian digital camera website DigIT seems to have exclusive news about the new model at the moment. As far as I can make out, the V6 will have a 1/1.8” CCD, a 38-114 mm optical zoom lens and will be available in mid-September. More details when I get them…

Website: DigIT- Samsung Digimax V6

ShootSmarter.com have published a comparative review of several devices that modify the output from a flashgun, including the Sto-Fen Omnibounce and the LumiQuest #54-23, from a digital camera point of view:

“Gone are the days where you pull your flash out of your camera bag and point it directly at your subject and fire away. With digital capture your old straight ahead strobe setup will create spectral highlights that your digital camera chip cannot handle. By that I mean your highlights will be blown out and be completely void of detail. This is not what the bride ordered when she hired you the professional photographer or what she saw in her sister?s album when you were still shooting film. A light modifier will soften the quality of your strobe and produce a flatter, more even lighting that will now fit your digital camera?s short dynamic exposure range.”

Website: ShootSmarter.com - Digital Light Modifiers for On-Camera Flash

An article today on the BBC website, drawing on research by the UK magazine Digital Camera Shopper, reports that CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia cards all happily survived a range of tests designed to destroy them:

“Holiday-makers capturing precious memories on digital cameras need not worry about losing their snaps.

The memory cards in most cameras are virtually indestructible, found Digital Camera Shopper magazine.

Five memory card formats survived being boiled, trampled, washed and dunked in coffee or cola.”

Website: BBC news - Digital memories survive extremes

PC Magazine have just reviewed the SpyderPro monitor calibration device and Printfix bundle.

“The premise of PrintFIX is that instead of relying on a generic printer profile, you can create a color profile for each type of paper you use - including third-party papers. You can also create new profiles when you replace ink cartridges. PrintFIX uses a technique called closed-loop calibration. You first print a color chart using the printer and paper you want to create the profile for, and then scan it with the PrintFIX scanner. The software then closes the loop by comparing the scanned image with the colors defined in the chart, and it creates a profile for that specific combination of printer, paper, and ink.”

Website: PC Magazine - SpyderPRO/Printfix Review

Addonics Technologies Press Release 29/07/04

Addonics Announces MFR (Multi Function Recorder) with DVD+/-R/RW—25-in-1 Digital Media Storage Appliance

SAN JOSE, CA (July 29, 2004) - Addonics Technologies today announced a portable digital media appliance that can perform 25 different functions for a wide range of applications. 

The new Addonics MFR (Multi Function Recorder) with a DVD+/-R/RW is a stand alone flash media backup system, DVD, digital photo and MP3 player as well as an external USB 2.0 DVD burner and flash memory reader/writer—all combined into one powerful portable peripheral that can be used for businesses, home, or even inside a vehicle.

The Addonics MFR DVD+/-R/RW can be used as a stand alone storage appliance (no computer is required) to do following:

- DVD+RW, DVD-RW, CD-R or CD-RW discs
- Connect to TV to use as a regular DVD player
- Use as a stand alone MP3 player
- Direct play back of the digital image in flash memory, DVD+/-R/RW and CDRW media onto TV or Projector

The Mamiya RZ67 Pro IID digital medium format camera, which we featured a few days ago, has now appeared on the official Mamiya website.

The new camera features a MSCE (Mamiya Serial Communication for Exchange) connection to allow any MSCE compatible digital back to be used with the camera. The RZ-67 Pro IID will be available in August, costing around ?1300 / 2000 Euros.

Website: Mamiya Japan - RZ67 Pro IID

Press Release 29/07/04

EventCam(TM) to Use Ten Canon PowerShot S60 Digital Cameras to Capture High Resolution Interactive Panoramic Convention Images at One Point in Time

NEW YORK, Jul 29, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE)—NYTimes.com, Canon U.S.A., Inc. and Kaidan, Inc. today announced that they are using Kaidan’s EventCam(TM) and Immersive Imaging solutions to capture and publish 360-degree interactive panoramic images from this week’s Democratic National Convention in Boston and the upcoming Republican National Convention in New York City. EventCam(TM) uses ten Canon PowerShot S60 digital cameras to simultaneously capture a panoramic image. The PowerShot S60 is outfitted with Canon’s high-quality optics and comes equipped with a wide-angle focal length of 28mm, a useful feature for this environment. The images are available at NYTimes.com/conventions and require QuickTime Player for viewing (available for free at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/).

Wacom Press Release 28/07/04

Industry-leading imaging companies partner to educate and inspire digital photographers

Nationwide “Just Show Me How” seminar tour will showcase some of the best digital photography tools and techniques for advanced amateurs and professionals

Vancouver, WA, July 28—Leading digital imaging companies, including Extensis, GretagMacbeth, Lexar Media, Mirra, Nik Multimedia, and Wacom, are coming together to address a critical market need to educate digital photographers on the best tools and techniques for managing, enhancing and processing digital photographs. The Just Show Me How seminar tour, for advanced amateur photographers, is scheduled to begin in September 2004 and will visit 20 cities through December 2004. The Just Show Me How - Professional tour, for professional photographers, will visit 10 cities beginning in January 2005.
Digital photography has evolved over the past few years to the point where it provides photographers with more control and flexibility than ever before. However, it is also now more complex. While a well-informed photographer is empowered by the new possibilities, others face frustration, poor results, and lost images. Most photography seminars focus only on the traditional topics of capturing, printing, and editing images, but miss other important steps in the digital photography process. The Just Show Me How tour fills this major gap.

Coincidentally, the Slovenian website eFotoGrafija have also published a comparative review of high-speed memory cards, this time Compact Flash, testing them in conjunction with the Canon EOS 1D Mk II digital SLR. The 100x speed Apacer Photo STENO ProII card is one of the 5 cards in the test.

“Manufacturers mark speed with X values, which indicates the speed 150KB/s. The larger the number in front of X, the faster the transfer rate should be. Few years old memory cards have 4x or 8x transfer rates and many new cards still maintain this speed. This is perfectly acceptable for average users shooting family or travel photos, where read and write speed are not so crucial. However when using cameras with more million pixels, more frames per second and longer video clips, we encounter first troubles. This is the moment when we need to consider faster memory cards.”

Website: eFotoGrafija - Compact Flash cards and transfer rates

The website Digital Media Thoughts have published a comparative review of 4 different high-speed SD memory cards, testing which one is the quickest and how that relates to its overall value.

“In the realm of flash memory cards, most vendors offer two or more types of cards: the regular version, and a professional version that’s said to be much faster than the normal version of the card. I always thought that those “high speed” memory cards were something you could only take advantage of if you had a high-end professional camera, and that the extra top-end speed was wasted when used in a PDA, phone, or consumer-level device. Imagine my surprise when performing a test on a Pocket PC and I saw different numbers when using a high speed Sandisk memory card! This prompted me to do some further investigating, so I created a simple test to see how several cards from top vendors measure up against each other.”

Website: Digital Media Thoughts - Memory Card Shoot-Out: Four 512 MB Secure Digital Cards Compared

Continued High Growth Rates in the Consumer Digital Camera Market Astound Industry

WEYMOUTH, Mass.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—July 27, 2004—Continued high growth rates in the consumer digital camera market are astounding industry vendors, who are waiting for the peak. InfoTrends/CAP Ventures predicts two more years of strong growth before sales peak. Consumer digital camera unit sales in the United States are forecasted to reach 22.8 million in 2004. This represents a unit growth of 42% over 2003, which showed 58% unit growth over 2002.

Factors that contribute to ongoing high growth rates include the growing market of first-time buyers (digital camera penetration is expected to reach over 40% of U.S. households by year-end), and the rate of digital camera users replacing or purchasing an additional digital camera.

“Digital camera users have a lot of incentive to upgrade to the latest crop of digital cameras, since many models introduced this year address several user complaints such as slow imaging processing and poor battery life,” says Michelle Slaughter, Director of Digital Photography Trends at InfoTrends/CAP Ventures. “Additionally, manufacturers are gaining more traction in the U.S. market with premium features, including larger color LCDs (2 inches and larger), ultra-compact and stylish designs, extended zoom models (over 3X optical), and digital SLRs.”

Lyra Research Press Release 27/07/04

Worldwide Revenue from Photo Prints Captured with Digital Cameras to Surpass $15 Billion by 2008; Lyra Projects a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 12 Percent

NEWTONVILLE, Mass.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—July 27, 2004—The growing popularity of digital cameras is increasing the number of digital photos taken and saved. This, in turn, translates into more digital photos printed at various locations including at home, in retail locations, and via online photo-printing services. In a new report entitled Consumer Photo-Printing Market: Where Digital Photos Will Be Printed, Lyra Research forecasts that revenue from photo prints captured with digital cameras will increase from $6.6 billion in 2002 to $15.1 billion in 2008, a compound annual growth rate of 12 percent.

“With home, retail, and online photo-printing options, where consumers choose to print their digital photos now and in the future is the key issue in this market,” comments Bob Palmer, director of Lyra’s Digital Photography Advisory Service. “This report looks at consumer behavior and deals with the key issues and trends driving the photo-printing market, which has become a dynamic segment now that digital cameras have reached mass-market appeal.”

Lyra will publish Consumer Photo-Printing Market: Where Digital Photos Will Be Printed in September 2004. The report contains digital camera shipment and revenue forecasts through 2008 and estimates the size of the photo-printing market for digital cameras with details by world region. The report also offers suggestions for vendors on capturing a share of this burgeoning market.

June 25, 2004: DIWA Awards have recently been awarded to Canon Inc. for three of their high performance digital cameras. The PowerShot Pro 1 was awarded with a gold medal, in recognition of its overall qualities, performance and value. Two other Canon models, PowerShot S1 IS and EOS 300D, were both honoured with silver medals for outstanding performance. The awards are the results of comprehensive, independent reviews of different samples, made by a number of DIWA camera testing experts from Europe and USA.

The PowerShot Pro 1 qualified for the prestigious DIWA gold medal in the Advanced Digital Camera category, thanks to 8 Megapixel resolution, a powerful and high performance L-Series 7x zoom lens, hybrid auto focus, super macro and a multitude of user friendly, yet sophisticated features. The image quality proved to be among the best available, which makes the camera suitable for demanding amateurs and professionals alike.

Sony Press Release 19/07/04

NEW SONY MEMORY STICK MEDIA PRICING

SAN DIEGO, July 19, 2004 - Sony Electronics is making it easier and less expensive to capture and store high-quality digital video and high-resolution digital images by lowering the suggested retail price of Memory Stick PRO and Memory Stick PRO Duo flash media.

Beginning today the 512MB full-size Memory Stick PRO media will be priced around $180. The 256MB Memory Stick PRO card will be available for about $90. Memory Stick PRO media provides high-capacity storage for a variety of digital files. Sony has also reduced the price of its 512MB Memory Stick PRO Duo media to about $250 and the 256MB Memory Stick PRO Duo media has been reduced to about $95.

At one-third the volume and half the weight of a standard-size Memory Stick card, the tiny media is used in small digital devices, including cellular phones, wearable portable audio players and pocket-sized digital cameras. The Memory Stick PRO Duo media features all the same benefits of standard-size Memory Stick PRO cards offers.

SanDisk Press Release 20/07/04

SanDisk Extreme Flash Memory Cards Taken to ‘Extremes’ in Expeditions to the Sahara Desert and North Pole

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—July 20, 2004—Rugged Cards Capture Dramatic Images in Oppressive Heat and Sub-Zero Cold  

From the searing heat of the Sahara Desert to the piercing cold of the North Pole, two recent American expeditions have demonstrated that SanDisk’s Extreme(TM) line of digital photographic flash memory cards can withstand brutal temperatures to safeguard precious images, even when humans are pushed to the limits of physical endurance.

Designed for harsh weather and rapid-fire shooting, SanDisk Extreme cards, with their rugged construction and fast write and read speeds, have become the flash memory cards of choice for many outdoor photographers and adventurers. They have been tested to operate in climates that range from a low of -13 degrees Fahrenheit (-25 degrees Centigrade) to a high of +185 degrees Fahrenheit (+85 degrees Centigrade). But in the past two months, they have been subjected to some truly “extreme” environments.

LaCie Introduces Largest and Fastest External Hard Drive: The 1.6 Terabyte Bigger Disk Extreme

Professional choice for video/audio editing and imaging
Largest storage with up to 1.6 terabyte capacity
Fastest throughput for optimal editing
No setup required with build-in RAID 0 array

PORTLAND, OR (July 2004) - LaCie expands its Extreme line of external hard drives with the Bigger Disk Extreme: up to 1.6 terabytes of storage with the fastest speeds on the market, available worldwide summer 2004. The Bigger Disk Extreme performs up to 50 percent faster than first-generation FireWire 800 drives*, pairing ultimate capacity and throughput to accommodate the editing needs of video and audio professionals.

“The Bigger Disk Extreme truly breaks barriers of both size and speed,” says LaCie Senior Product Manager Olivier Mirloup. “With burst transfer rates reaching up to 85 megabytes per second and unrivaled 1.6 terabyte capacity, this drive is designed to support multi-stream audio and video editing in a variety of formats.”