The Samsung F700 is a new mobile phone with a 5 megapixel camera with Auto-Focus. There’s also a 2.78 inch touch-screen LCD, full QWERTY keypad, HTML browser and support for Bluetooth. Price and availability of the Samsung F700 to be announced.

SanDisk have today introduced a 4Gb microSDHC card - the largest capacity of the world’s smallest removable flash memory card. The SanDisk 4GB microSDHC card can store more than 1,000 digital songs, 2,000 high-resolution pictures or up to 8 hours of MPEG 4 video. Retail release of the card is planned for later in 2007.

PMA 2007: Athentech Perfectly Clear Pro is a new 16-bit image correction software package specifically aimed at professional photographers. The pro photographer version of Perfectly Clear is based on the same algorithms previously available only under license to digital imaging manufacturers and software firms. Support for more than 80 raw file formats, a unique “soft” portrait setting, a vivid color setting and powerful noise reduction controls are included. Athentech have spent the last year working closely with some of the leading pro photographers in North America.

Longridge has a number of new mount cutters and accessories planned for 2007, to be unveiled at Focus on Imaging 2007 in the UK. A new multilingual DVD is now included with every Longridge Mount Cutting System, whilst the Longridge SprintMat is a section of laminated board that encourages the blade to continue in the straightest line possible. Longridge has also introduced its own bespoke blade. More new products will be announced at the show.

Manchester International Festival has together with the Imperial War Museum co-commissioned Official War Artist Steve McQueen to create a response to the second Iraq War. ‘For Queen and Country’ will be exhibited in the Great Hall, Central Library, Manchester, from 28 February – 15 July 2007. The project consists of a set of postage stamps featuring a photographic portrait of the individual men and women who have lost their lives in Iraq.

A new range of translucent, reverse print, vinyl and pop-up film products from ILFORD is aimed at professional photographers. The new professional range will go on sale in April 2007 and will be available in 17” - 44” rolls with a single roll minimum order quantity. The new product range is also compatible with the ILFORD STUDIO software.

Ricoh have released a new firmware update, 1.60, for the Ricoh R5 camera, which adds the following:

- Supports an SDHC memory card (upto 4 GB).
- Improved the stability at writing data on an SD card.

Website: Ricoh R5 v1.60 Firmware Update

Steves Digicams have just reviewed the Fujifilm FinePix F20, a 6 megapixel digital camera with a 3x zoom lens, ISO 2000 and 2.5-inch LCD screen.

“Our portrait results also turned out good. The F20 boasts a maximum flash range of 21.3 feet! (ISO Auto, at wide angle.) This is almost double that of your typical 6-megapixel model. I found the flash worked very well when shooting indoor portraits from about 6 or 7 feet away, using the telephoto end of the zoom range. I found the unit also worked well as a fill-in flash outdoors, producing good flash exposure and pleasing skin tones.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Fujifilm FinePix F20 Review

Website: Read our Fujifilm Finepix F20 Review

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ePHOTOzine have reviewed the Samsung Digimax L70, a 7 megapixel digital camera which features a 2.5 inch LCD screen and innovative nine button touch and click control pad.

“The great feature about the L70 is that it looks and feels a lot more expensive than it actually is. The front and main body are black matte metal, with lens is finished in silver and there’s a glossy black backplate around the LCD. The buttons on the top are easy enough to use, and the zoom rocker has a positive feel, even if the zoom does go in steps rather than smoothly, when small adjustments are requested.”

Website: ePHOTOzine - Samsung Digimax L70 Review

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ePHOTOzine have just reviewed the ultra-wideangle Olympus Zuiko Digital ED7-14mm F4.0 lens.

“If you own a 4/3rds system camera, this is the widest lens available and the only one that gets you into true ultra wide-angle photography. But it does so at a price! It does join the market as the widest corrected lens available for any crop camera and should be commended for that. The main problem is likely to be the inability to attach filters without a Heath-Robinson type bit of DIY.”

Website: ePHOTOzine - Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F4.0 Lens Review

Steves Digicams have reviewed the Sony W35 which offers 7.2 megapixels, Real Imaging Processor, ISO 1000 and a 3x optical zoom lens.

“The W35 is equipped with a very nice Carl Zeiss 3x zoom lens. Offering you a typical zoom range for a compact consumer model, 38-114mm in 35mm equivalence. This range provides adequate field of view for interiors and landscapes shots, while the moderate telephoto magnification is great for portraits and brings subjects a bit closer. The lens produced sharp results from corner to corner throughout the zoom range, with moderate amounts of barrel distortion at wide angle and pin cushioning at telephoto. Chromatic aberrations were well controlled, with very little purple fringing present in high contrast areas.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Sony W35 Review

The Canon iPF5000 is a 17” (A2+) large-format inkjet printer which has a new 12-colour full pigment ink system. Additional RGB colours ensure a wider colour gamut, and grey and photo grey inks ensure better graduation, reduced granularity and high colour accuracy and consistency. Jon Canfield finds out if the Canon iPF5000 lives up to its promise in our latest review.

Website: Canon iPF5000 Review

Rob Galbraith are reporting that the DIGITAL-MODUL-R 10 megapixel digital back for the Leica R9 camera has now been discontinued. In a low-key notice to US dealers (but not the press) Lecia are apparently “optimistic about the digital developments in the R System in the near future”. PMA in March is probably too “near future” for an upgraded version.

Website: Rob Galbraith

DxO Optics Pro, the software application for automatic digital image enhancement, and onOne Software’s Genuine Fractals, a Photoshop plug-in that produces high-quality enlargements from digital image files, are now available together for a limited time at significant savings.

DxO Starter + onOne Software’s Genuine Fractals ? $179 instead of $239 (£93 instead of £129)
DxO Optics Pro v4.1 Standard + onOne Software’s Genuine Fractals ? $199 instead of $309 (£109 instead of £171)
DxO Optics Pro v4.1 Elite + onOne Software’s Genuine Fractals ? $349 instead of $459 (£195 instead of £256)
(All prices are ex. VAT and sales taxes).

The new Lensbaby Creative Aperture Kit is for use with the Lensbaby 3G (pictured) and Lensbaby 2.0 SLR lenses. Points of light in out of focus areas of the photo take on the shape of the hole in the aperture disk. Photographers can fashion the blank disks into their own custom shaped apertures. The new Lensbaby Creative Aperture Kit is available now for $9.99.

At the CeBIT trade fair in March, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology will present a prototype dubbed aceMedia that independently and intelligently organizes photos when they are saved on a hard disk. aceMedia can recognize, for instance, whether a picture was taken indoors or outdoors, and whether it depicts a landscape or a man-made environment. Researchers have also developed Pocket-PC Photobrowser, a program designed for archiving large volumes of photographs on mobile hand-held devices. It creates a thumbnail of each photograph and analyzes its metadata, searching through thousands of photos in seconds.

shutter stories magazine is a new website that focuses on interviewing photographers and finding out what they have to say about their work. Founder Tomasz Trzebiatowski records conversations with some of the most interesting photographers that he knows, including Noah Grey, Jim Zuckerman and Yasuhiro Ogawa. Next up is an interview with Romanian photographer Irinel Stegaru.

“Photography is a strictly visual kind of art. In order to take a photograph, photographer is looking through the viewfinder of his camera. Later on, a viewer is looking at the photograph. It is all about looking and seeing. But what if photographers started talking about their images? I have always found it extremely interesting to listen to what artists have to say about their works. I am a pianist and I love to listen to other musicians not only playing but also talking about their music. The same applies to photographers. While looking at images of my favourite photographers I have been always wondering what they would like to say about them, about their work, about their ideas. And then, at some point, I decided to stop wondering. Instead, I started talking to them. That is how the shutter stories magazine has come to life. It consists mainly of my conversations with some of the most interesting photographers I know. I hope you will find my conversations with them interesting and inspiring. I surely do.”

Website: shutter stories magazine

HP today announced that its redesigned print cartridge packaging for North America will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 37 million pounds in 2007. This is the equivalent of taking 3,600 cars off the road for one year. Smaller, lighter packages with more recyclable and recycled content are now being used, allowing more cartridges to be be shipped per truck or freighter.

DCResource have reviewed the new Nikon Coolpix S7c, which offers 7 megapixels, a 35-105mm lens and electronic Vibration Reduction.

“The Nikon Coolpix S7c tries to be the ultimate ultra-compact camera. Offering a 7.1 Megapixel CCD, 3X Nikkor lens, a huge 3-inch LCD, Wi-Fi, and the two gimmicks du jour (face detection and high sensitivity mode), it does just about everything. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do them terribly well. The S7c is mediocre at best, especially with the tough competition out there. While the S7c has some nice features, there are better cameras out there for the money.”

Website: DCResource - Nikon Coolpix S7c Review

Website: Read our Nikon Coolpix S7c Review

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TrustedReviews have reviewed the new 8 megapixel Kodak Easyshare C875 digital camera.

“Image quality is very good, thanks to the 1/1.8in, 8.0MP sensor and an excellent Schneider-Kreuznach lens. Photographs have very good fine detail resolution and edge-to-edge sharpness, although barrel distortion at the wide-angle end is quite noticeable. Corner sharpness is good and there is minimal purple fringing or chromatic aberration. Exposure was usually accurate under normal conditions, although the limited range of aperture and shutter speeds did mean that some shots in low light were under-exposed. Kodak cameras have always had outstanding colour reproduction, and the C875 is no exception, with an extremely good natural look.”

Website: TrustedReviews - Kodak Easyshare C875 Review

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