DIWA member Steves Digicams have published their initial impressions of the 8 megapixel Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT DSLR camera.

“It Many of the feature advancements and innovations on the EOS Digital Rebel XT digital camera are inherited from its EOS 20D “prosumer big brother.” Both cameras employ a Canon 8-megapixel, high resolution color CMOS image sensor, and provide the same effective angle of view, equivalent to 1.6 x the normal EF lens focal length. The consumer looking only at the fact that they are both 8-megapixel SLRs might not easily see the real differences between these two cameras. The 20D offers faster continuous shooting (5 frames-per-second (fps) vs. 3 fps) with a larger burst capability (23 frames vs. 14), more custom settings (18 vs. 9) and a rugged magnesium body. The Rebel XT was created for those migrating to digital that don’t want to lose the power or flexibility of a SLR system, but can’t justify the $600 higher price of the EOS 20D.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT First Look

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DIWA member Steves Digicams have reviewed the Canon PIXMA MP760 Multifunction Photo Centre, a new multifunctional printer which includes a Film Adapter Unit for 35mm film scanning, plus a a 2.5 inch colour LCD screen.

“As I said when we reviewed the Canon iP4000 (which also uses the ContrastPLUS 5-color ink system)—many people will wonder why there is a need for 6- or 8-color photo printers. Unless you are a real perfectionist or just someone who has to have “the best of the best of the best,” I feel that most consumers will be more than pleased by the MP-760’s print quality and colors. The vast majority of photo prints made today are 4 x 6” (aka Jumbo) prints and I defy most people to tell me the difference between one made by the MP-760 and another printed on the 8-color i9900. Even the borderless 8.5 x 11” prints I made on Canon Photo Paper Pro looked simply amazing.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Canon PIXMA MP760 Review

ePhotoZine have published their review of the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX APO IF HSM lens.

“With modern computer-aided design and manufacturing practices, complete dogs are becoming rare, but as this lens is aimed at professionals and high-end amateurs we expect the very. In our tests we found the contrast throughout the zoom range is consistently good and it’s virtually as sharp wide open as it is stopped down two or three apertures.”

Website: ePhotoZine - Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX APO IF HSM Lens Review

The Slovenian website e-fotografija have reviewed the 5 megapixel Nikon Coolpix 5600 that was announced at PMA in February.

Website: e-fotografija - Nikon Coolpix 5600 Review

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DPReview have just posted their review of the new Konica Minolta Z5 digital camera.

“In an increasingly crowded ‘super zoom’ market the DiMAGE Z5 offers a combination of features only matched by Panasonic’s FZ5 and FZ20 models. It’s fast and easy to use, offers reliable exposure and focus (save for some hunting at the long end of the zoom) and is excellent value for money. The image quality is by no means class-leading, but the saturated colors and generally good detail make for lovely prints at up to around 8x10 inches, though virtually all shots benefit from a little post-processing.”

Website: DPReview - Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 Review

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DIWA member and Norwegian website digIT.no have just posted their review of the Fuji FinePix S3 Pro digital SLR.

Website: digIT.no - FujiFilm FinePix S3 Pro Review

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DigitalCameraInfo have reviewed the 5 megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5. With a 12x image stabilized Leica lens, the DMC-FZ5 improves on the DMC-FZ3 by offering faster auto-focus and improved body design, as well as more megapixels.

“The Panasonic DMC-FZ5 makes some marked improvements over the earlier Lumix FZ3. The most notable is the larger 1/2.5-inch CCD with 5 effective megapixels and a Venus Engine imaging processor. The FZ5 still keeps the best features from its little sibling: the Leica 12x optical zoom lens, two modes of image stabilization, a full range of automatic and manual modes, and the same body size and shape. The FZ5 includes a lithium ion battery with a charger, a lens hood, a full suite of software, and other accessories. There are a few drawbacks, such as the small 1.8-inch LCD and loud zooming function, but Panasonic keeps this digital camera in consideration with a $499 retail price tag and flashy features like flip animation and sleep mode.”

Website: DigitalCameraInfo - Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 Review

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Tom’s Hardware Guide have published a brief but fascinating interview with Chuck Westfall, Manager of the Canon’s Cameras Technical Information Department.

“Is there a theoretical limit on megapixels? Does the consumer care about high pixel counts?

“Consumers generally don’t care about really high megapixel counts. It’s the commercial studio that need to do double page spreads or 11 inch by 7 inch prints at 300dpi. We don’t think there will be a huge jump in megapixels, rather it will be incremental, like f-stops. The Canon 1DS Mark II is at 16 megapixels, our next camera might have 22 megapixels. “

Website: Tom’s Hardware Guide - THG Interviews Canon Cameras

MalekTips Press Release

400 Digital Camera Tips - Get More Enjoyment Out of Photography

(PRLEAP.COM) Knoxville, TN - Digital camera and computer help website MalekTips (http://malektips.com/camera/) today announced the expansion of its digital camera help library, now numbering at 400 tips. Bringing its total computer and technology tip count to over 2,300, MalekTips now has an increased number of articles on pertinent subjects such as digital camera purchasing advice, photo composition, and photo printing.

Nikon USA Press Release

Face-Priority Auto Focus Ensures That Faces Remain in Focus, Creating Memories as They Were Meant to be Captured

MELVILLE, N.Y., March 24 /PRNewswire/—Common shooting situations have continued to pose unique challenges to casual snap-shooters, like avoiding dark pictures and blurred subjects in portraits. Nikon engineers dared to ask, ‘How can we address these issues within the camera?’ The answer is a new suite of Nikon technology designed specifically for the Coolpix line of digital cameras that includes the proprietary Face Priority Auto Focus (AF), In-Camera Red-Eye Fix and the new D-Lighting feature. These technologies work together in conjunction with the camera to make it easier than ever to capture great pictures.

Nikon USA Press Release

PictureProject In Touch(TM) Allows Users to Share Photos Without Attaching Them in an Email or Uploading Them to a Website

MELVILLE, N.Y., March 24 /PRNewswire/—No more re-sizing digital pictures to send them to friends and family. No more emails with multiple photos attached. No more sending friends and family to sales-driven websites to view your photos. Nikon Inc. (http://www.nikondigital.com) today launched the easiest way to share photos—PictureProject In Touch. It’s Nikon’s new user-friendly solution to the most common issues digital photographers face when sharing pictures. PictureProject In Touch is a free desktop software application, available today via download on http://www.nikonnet.com and included with the newest version 1.5 of PictureProject(TM) image management software, which enables the fast, seamless and easy transfer of pictures between a sender and one or more recipients and can be viewed as full-screen slide shows with the click of a button.

DPNow have published a comprehensive review of the Sandisk Photo Album, a device that allows you to easily view digital photos on a TV.

“SanDisk’s designers have come up with an ingenious solution to this problem and it also makes your photos more accessible. TV screens are relatively low resolution devices, so it’s possible to reduce the resolution and increase the data compression of digital photos, making the file sizes smaller and much faster to load, without affecting the displayed quality on-screen. By using a second Compact Flash card slot on the rear of the SanDisk Photo Album, you have the option of archiving slimmed down copies of your photos to a CF card that can be left semi-permanently slotted into the Photo Album. In our experience, images can be reduced to around 60K in size, enabling a modest 128MB card to store over 2,000 TV-ready images.”

Website: DPNow - SanDisk Photo Album Review

Lexar Media Press Release

Jury Awards Lexar Over $380 Million For Toshiba’s Theft of Trade Secrets and Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Jury To Consider Punitive Damages Tomorrow

FREMONT, CA, March 23, 2005 – Lexar Media, Inc. (Nasdaq:LEXR), a leading marketer and manufacturer of high-performance digital media and accessories, today announced that after a six week trial, the jury found Toshiba Corporation (JP:6502) and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (PNK:TOSBF.PK) liable of breach of fiduciary duty and theft of trade secrets and awarded Lexar over $380 million in damages. 

The jury also found that Toshiba’s and TAEC’s actions were oppressive, fraudulent or malicious, which supports an award of punitive damages.  Evidence and argument will be presented to the jury tomorrow on the amount of punitive damages.

Thanks to Sanj for letting me know.

Canon UK Press Release

Canon, leader in photographic and imaging technology, is pleased to announce that two of Europe’s independent consumer magazines – UK’s ‘Which?’ and Netherlands’ ‘Consumtenbond-Consumentengids’ – have highlighted Canon PIXMA photo printers as the best available. This coincides with Canon taking the number one market share position in Germany for Ink Jet printers (Source Gfk Feb to Nov 2004).

Launched in mid 2004, Canon’s PIXMA range of photo printers surprised the market with contemporary, stylish design combined with industry leading 1 and 2 picolitre droplet size, producing photo prints that are in many cases superior in quality to that produced by traditional high street photo labs. Since the PIXMA range launch, Canon’s market share has grown by 34%.

FotoTech Press Release

Introducing the first British digital photo frame

FotoTech is proud to launch the first British-made digital photo frame; the 15” Brilliance Digital Picture Player. This cool new electronic product is designed to resemble a picture frame in appearance, yet houses a built-in media card reader which plays all your digital images, movies and digital art on a bright 15” TFT/LCD high resolution display - the intelligent solution to displaying all your favourite images without covering walls and surfaces in traditional picture frames.

Lifestyle technology such as the digital photo frame will change the way we view our happiest memories.  No more struggling with the photo-printer or putting aside a day to file photos in an album.  The DPP-15 will display your photos for you in a continuous slideshow of vibrant, high resolution images on its LCD screen.  And when you get tired of a particular selection you simply change the slideshow to suit your mood.

Photo.net have published their initial impressions of the 8 megapixel Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT DSLR camera.

“It looks very much like the image quality of the Digital Rebel XT is up to that of the EOS 20D. It’s also evident from using the Digital Rebel, that it’s a Rebel, i.e. a camera aimed at the consumer entry level, while the 20D is clearly aimed at the more experienced and serious photographer. Ultimately in many respects the cameras will be capable of yielding almost identical results, it’s just that doing it with the 20D will be a little easier. Of course there are things the Digital Rebel doesn’t do as well. It has a slower frame rate, a smaller JPEG image buffer, a lower capacity battery, the AF system is different and, as mentioned, the viewfinder is smaller. However for many people saving $400-$500 will make up for all those things. Personally, I’d buy the 20D, but that’s just me. Many people will buy the Digital Rebel XT and be very happy with it.”

Website: Photo.net - Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT Initial Impressions

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creativepro.com have tested 3 noise reduction software programs - PictureCode’s Noise Ninja, Fred Miranda’s ISOx Pro Photoshop action and nik Multimedia Dfine - to find out which one is the most effective.

“In this overview, we’re going to take a look at 3 packages side-by-side, evaluating them for their ability to handle images produced by a digital SLR. Because digital SLRs have much better noise response than lower-end digital cameras, they typically require much less noise reduction. Unless you spend lots of time regularly shooting at high ISO with your SLR, you probably find that you only occasionally need to employ a noise reduction technique, and so want a simple, quick-and-dirty, fix. All three of these applications are well suited to users who only occasionally need to process a noisy image, as well as users who want to make noise reduction part of their everyday workflow. In addition, all three work on either Macintosh or Windows.”

Website: creativepro.com - Framed and Exposed: Quiet Those Noisy Images

Photographer Petteri Sulonen has published an extremely detailed guide to cleaning the sensor of a digital SLR camera using cheaper alternatives to commercial sensor cleaning brushes.

“On the other hand, there’s a far greater variety of artist’s brushes in the right material, shape, and size available. Go to any halfway-decent art-supply store, and look for synthetic brushes. You’ll find easily a half-dozen varieties that look approximately right. The trouble is, in all the art stores I visited, the bristles are always sized together for transport. For an artist this doesn’t matter, since the size dissolves when you dip it in water—but for this purpose, it’s extremely important to get all the size out, not just most of it. This is certainly possible, but an unsized brush is clearly preferable to one with size in it.”

Website: The Pixel Sweeper - A cheap alternative to the Sensor Brush

Imaging Resource have published a brief user report on the new 8 megapixel Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT DSLR camera.

“Now, I’ve placed this camera into the hands of several women, and they all love it. I can see why, as several of the women who have smaller hands have no trouble finding a comfortable home for their thumb, palm, and fingers; just like it was made for them. Even my wife, whose hands aren’t that much smaller than mine, really liked the grip, and the Digital Rebel XT’s light weight, button arrangement, and overall feel were just right (she was fairly familiar with our Digital Rebel, by the way, so this is an informed opinion).”

Website: Imaging Resource - Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT User Report

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The German website PhotoWorld.de have reviewed the 8 megapixel Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200 digital camera, which incorporates anti-shake technology and a swivelling LCD monitor.

Website: PhotoWorld.de - Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200 Review

Website: Read my Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200 Review

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