DIWA Press Release

02/14/2005 - DIWA (Digital Imaging Websites Association) discloses the secret behind its success story, the world’s most comprehensive and reliable testing procedure for digital imaging products. Not one, but a minimum of four randomly selected test samples are tested, each by individual technical experts, to find the real truth about a product’s performance. Get the inside story and be amazed.

Too many “tests and reviews” on the Internet are worthless, often misleading more than guiding the reader. Lack of expertise is a major concern, but also lack of time seems to be a frequent factor. Many so-called “reviews” are merely a transcript of the manufacturer’s own brochure, supplemented by some fancy words to please the industry and the advertising department.

DIWA Awards is an international organisation of digital imaging websites, all focussing on digital cameras and imaging tools. All member websites have highly skilled technical experts with a passion for photography, making reliable, unbiased tests and reviews. These are published on their local website, in their own native language and in their own editorial style. The core of the DIWA philosophy is to merge all these valuable test results into one final conclusion, to build a neutral, balanced picture of any given product.

DIWA Press Release

02/14/2005 - DIWA (Digital Imaging Websites Association) Awards is an international organisation of digital imaging websites, continuously publishing new product tests and reviews. Now, you can easily tune in to these reviews at the moment they appear on the DIWA Awards portal website. It’s an easy and free service to any digital imaging enthusiast.

The DIWA Awards website is a portal to some of the world’s most reliable and trustworthy tests and reviews on digital cameras. Now, a new feature is added to the DIWA Awards website, the RSS feeder. This handy feature is available via a free downloadable program, called the RSS Reader. It collects news in the background at user configurable intervals and warns with a little popup in the system tray as soon as a new story is published. You then click on the message to read the new DIWA review. It’s easy, it’s free and very useful.

The Spanish website Quesabesde have just reviewed the 4 megapixel Canon Digital Ixus 430.

Website: Quesabesde - Canon Digital Ixus 430 Review

Olympus 1 GB xD-Picture Card is announced ahead of the PMA Show 2005 which starts on Sunday. Olympus America have also introduced the MAUSB-300 mobile USB Reader/Writer. Insert an xD-Picture Card into the MAUSB-300 and you upgrade the card into a portable storage device.

Olympus America Press Release

Olympus Announces One Gigabyte xD-Picture Card And New Mobile USB Reader/Writer Exclusively For xD Media

USB Reader/Writer is an Inexpensive Way to Upgrade xD Card to a Portable Storage Device Capable of Sharing Images, Music, Video and Documents

Melville, New York, February 15, 2005 – Olympus today announced the release of a One Gigabyte xD-Picture Card™ and a new Portable USB Reader/Writer for xD media. As one of the world’s smallest storage media for digital cameras and digital voice recorders, the xD-Picture Card is now capable of holding an entire gigabyte of data, whether it’s digital images, video, music files, written documents, or presentations. When any xD card is placed inside the new stylish, compact MAUSB-300 Reader/Writer, data can go anywhere and be directly transferred quickly to and from a personal computer for added convenience.

DIWA member and Polish website Fotopolis have posted their review of the new 8 megapixel Nikon Coolpix 8800.

Website: Fotopolis - Nikon Coolpix 8800 Review

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TDK photo quality printable DVDs are launched, compatible with all leading brands of disc-printable inkjet printers. TDK photo quality printable DVDs have a unique coating and an extra large printing area. TDK’s Photo Quality Printable DVDs are available now in both +/-R formats.

TDK Press Release

Picture this – TDK introduces ultra-sharp, glossy finish, photo printable DVDs for that personal touch

Yet another DVD first from TDK: today it launches the first glossy, ultra-high resolution photo printable DVDs. Using TDK’s Photo Quality Printable DVDs, users can now customise their DVD collection with true-to-life, professional-looking photography and images.

TDK’s Photo Quality Printable DVDs are ideal for gifts, business presentations, or a novel archiving system for movies, music, images and data. For example, last year’s holiday video can be easily identified with a true-to-life, glossy picture of the family on the beach or a designer can produce DVD demos of his work with a piece of customised artwork on the surface of the DVD.

AgfaPhoto Digital Film is to be launched at the PMA Show 2005. AgfaPhoto’s new rnage of memory cards, dubbed “Digital Film”, includes Secure Digital, Compact Flash, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick and SmartMedia memory card formats, ranging from 64 MB to 1 GB in capacity depending on the particular format.

AgfaPhoto Press Release

AgfaPhoto launches storage media for digital cameras

Orlando, February 14, 2005 – At PMA 2005, AgfaPhoto is demonstrating a key element in its strategy for leveraging the boom in digital photography, and introduced a diverse family of flash memory cards for digital cameras called “Digital Film”.

“Our new Digital Film offerings are the latest step in our evolution as a leader in the worldwide digital photography marketplace,” said Bing Liem, President and CEO, AgfaPhoto North America. “They build on our solid reputation and long expertise as a provider of advanced digital lab equipment by extending our product strategy to now include digital image capture solutions.”

DCResource have posted their review of the new entry-level Olympus C-370 Zoom (this camera is known as the Olympus D-535 Zoom in the USA).

“I had high hopes for the Olympus D-535 Zoom. I was hoping that Olympus wouldn’t skimp on features to keep the price down. The results are mixed. Olympus did manage to put a 3X optical zoom lens and high resolution (but small) LCD display on the camera. At the same time, they took out useful features like white balance and an optical viewfinder, making the camera more frustrating to use than fun. The D-535 is a point-and-shoot camera—perhaps too much so. The menus are stripped down with nearly no options. The biggest omission is white balance controls; indoor photos will not turn out well since the auto white balance doesn’t do a great job. Outdoors, the photo quality is decent but not spectacular. Photos are a little soft, with some muddy details. Redeye was also a bit of a problem.”

Website: DCResource - Olympus C-370 Zoom Review

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Sony Nexelion battery announced - a new hybrid lithium-ion battery offering 30% more lifespan than conventional lithium-ion batteries. Recharge time has alos been improved, with 90% of the Nexelion battery’s capacity being recharged in approximately 30 minutes. The Sony Nexelion batteries will first be used in Sony Handycam camcorders.

Sony Press Release

SONY’s NEW NEXELION HYBRID LITHIUM ION BATTERIES TO HAVE THIRTY-PERCENT MORE CAPACITY THAN CONVENTIONAL OFFERING

Industry’s First Tin-Based Anode Battery to be Initially Used with Handycam Camcorders

With the growing demand for smaller digital devices with increased functionality, the trade-off-until now-has been battery life. Sony Corporation today announced the industry’s first hybrid lithium ion rechargeable battery. Dubbed NexelionTM the new battery utilizes a tin-based amorphous anode; translating into a 30% increase in the capacity per volume ratio compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, and will be commercialized initially as a battery pack for Handycam® camcorder products.

Instead of using graphite-based materials for the anode as found in conventional batteries, Sony incorporated a tin-based amorphous anode material where the lithium ion storage capacity per volume ratio has been increased by 50%, which increases the overall battery capacity by 30%.

Konica Minolta Europe and Konica Minolta have released a firmware update for the Dynax 7D and Maxxum 7D digital SLR camera.

V110 includes the following changes:

1. Added the remote storage function which can be used in combination with the DiMAGE Transfer software.
2. Speeded up its access to a memory card. This improvement shortens the writing speed to the memory card and USB data transfer speed. *Effect varies depending on the memory card.
3. Added enlarged display function in both the histogram display and the index display in playback mode.
4. Added luminance limit display function in the histogram display in instant playback.
5. Modified the “No memory card” warning indication.
6. Modified the following problems: - External flash fires with its full power in rare cases. - Camera freezes after self-timer recording in rare cases.

CNET have just reviewed the 5 megapixel FujiFilm FinePix E510 Zoom.

“The Fujifilm FinePix E510 digital camera packs 5 megapixels and a handful of advanced features into a sturdy and efficiently designed silver body. With its many tweakable priority modes and a pop-up flash, the E510 aims for the snapshooter who wants a camera to grow with. However, below-par performance and several image quality flaws severely limit the E510’s overall effectiveness.”

Website: CNET - FujiFilm FinePix E510 Zoom Review

Check the Latest Prices for the FujiFilm FinePix E500 Zoom

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Sandisk 1-gigabyte miniSD memory card is announced, aimed at the mobile phone market. The Sandisk 1Gb mini SD card will cost $99.99.

Sandisk Press Release

Large Capacity Ideal To Store Digital Music, Video, and Photos On The Latest Mobile Phones

Cannes, France, Feb. 14, 2005 – SanDisk® Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) today announced that it is doubling the current capacity of its popular SanDisk miniSD™ card to 1-gigabyte (GB)*. The miniSD card is used in a growing number of mobile phones with multimedia capabilities such as digital cameras, music players, video recording and playback, games and more.

“The 1GB miniSD card provides a level of storage that significantly enhances the features and usability of these full-featured mobile phones,” said Nelson Chan, executive vice president and general manager of SanDisk’s consumer and handset business. “For example, with a 1GB card you can store approximately 16 hours of MP3 songs, record up to several hours of MPEG-4 video or take more than 2000 digital photos on a 1-megapixel mobile phone. With that level of capability, consolidating music, video, digital camera and other key features into the mobile phone platform is much more meaningful and powerful.”

Olympus have released new firmware updates for their E-300/Evolt and E-1 DSLR cameras.

E-300 Version 1.1 Firmware:
- [AUTO] of the white balance setting has been improved to better accommodate subjects containing yellows.
- Highlighted parts appeared pink when the color space was set to [Adobe RGB] and [CUSTOM WB] was set to a low color temperature. This situation has been improved.
- Battery consumption during sleep mode has been improved.

E-1 Version 1.4 Firmware:
- The S-AF speed in low luminance conditions has been improved.
- AF accuracy under fluorescent lighting has been improved.
- Images shot with the E-300 (TIFF, RAW, SHQ) can be displayed normally.
- New high speed CompactFlash cards are supported.

Website: Olympus Japan - Olympus E-300 and E-1 Firmware Updates

Hamrick Software Press Release

Used extensively by professional photographers, film processing labs and consumers around the world, VueScan 8.1.30 offers an enhanced, user-friendly interface with support for raw files for 109 digital cameras, and support for more than 400 scanners, including all Canon and Epson scanners

PHOENIX, Feb. 14 /PRNewswire/—When a married couple became embroiled in a bitter argument over the poor condition of the pictures in their wedding album, they didn’t go to a marriage counselor, but to Professor “A.”

Owned and operated by Alec Fromm, Professor “A,” based in Mississauga, Ontario, is an independent training service for Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. Alec agreed to help the couple restore their wedding memories. Even though a “professional photographer” took the pictures, Alec determined that the black & white and color 35mm negatives were underexposed and improperly processed for the types of film used. How could this marriage be saved?

Alec turned to Hamrick Software’s, VueScan, the award-winning program that lets users easily produce better looking digital images from color snapshots, negatives, slides, and documents. Using VueScan, Alec was able to capture the film data at a level that allowed him to manipulate the images to a point where the output was astounding, when compared to the original prints.

PicaJet.Com Press Release

PicaJet.Com Releases PicaJet 2.4

PicaJet 2.4 puts Picasa to shame.

Two years after entering the photo organizers market, PicaJet has created quite a stir, with some folks calling it “Picasa killer” or “Swish Army Knife of photo albums”.  But, all the hype aside, PicaJet’s success lies within a simple strategy on concentrating on few important features, rather trying to be many things to many people.  As Gregory Anderson eloquently put it in his October2004 article in Smart Computing, “unlike many other digital imaging programs, PicaJet focuses on doing one thing and doing it well.”

Casio EX-Z750 Exilim Zoom and Casio EX-Z57 Exilim Zoom are announced today by Casio USA. The EX-Z750 has a 7.2 megapixel CCD sensor, large 2.5-inch LCD screen and offers a battery life of 325 shots. The EX-Z750 will retail for $449.99. The EX-Z57 has a 5 megapixel CCD sensor, massive 2.7-inch LCD screen and has a battery life of 400 shots. The EX-Z750 will retail for $399.99.

Casio USA Press Release

NEW STYLISH EXILIM ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERAS—NEW FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS IMPROVE FUN AND EASE-OF-USE

EX-Z750: 7.2 Megapixel, High Quality Movie, Manual Photography
EX-Z57: Large 2.7-inch Liquid Crystal Display, Extended Battery Life

DOVER, NJ, February 15, 2005 – CASIO, Inc., in conjunction with its parent company, Casio Computer Co., Ltd., announced two stylish additions to its popular EXILIM® ZOOM series. The new EX-Z750 is equipped with an astonishing 7.2 megapixel imaging element and an array of high-tech features, while the new EX-Z57 boasts a large 2.7-inch liquid crystal display.  Both cameras will be available at retail in April, MSRP is $449.99 for the EX-Z750 and $399.99 for the EX-Z57.

Eastman Kodak Company and T-Mobile Press Release

KODAK Mobile Service teams with T-Mobile to offer first Pan European online picture sharing service to customers across Europe

T-Mobile Customers In 3 European Countries Will Be Able To Share And Print Their Pictures On The Go Like Never Before

London, 14 February.  Eastman Kodak Company and T-Mobile, one of the world’s leading mobile telecommunications companies, today announced a Pan-European partnership to provide a co-branded service enabling online picture sharing to T-Mobile customers in 3 European countries. With an April 2005 launch in the UK, Germany and Austria, the T-Mobile/Kodak Co-Branded Service will be an easy to use method for customers to upload, organize and store multimedia content from their mobile phone or via the internet as well as share and print images taken with their camera phone. Launches in The Netherlands and the Czech Republic will follow later in the year.

Auspiciousdragon.net have just punlished a detailed review of ColorByte’s ImagePrint RIP software for Epson printers.

“Then I stumbled across ImagePrint somewhere on the web. A UK retailer was offering to ship demonstration copies (fully functional but with the word “demo” across the centre of prints) which reduced the risk. It took just a few colour and then mono prints to convince me. The whole problem of colour management had gone. I got what I saw on the screen. The whole problem of gray neutrality had gone. Monochrome prints were perfectly neutral without me having to do anything other than push the print button. The whole problem of monochrome prints appearing to be different colours in different lights was reduced to nitpicking proportions (yes, in extreme cases you can produce a shift but you have to really try. In all normal viewing conditions there is no shift).”

http://www.auspiciousdragon.net/Photography/Articles/photoarticle%23003.html

Globetechnology have published a review of the new 5 megapixel Panasonic DMC-FX7.

“It seems natural to want to use ultracompacts with one hand, and some designs are more amenable to that than others. The FX7 is a middling performer in that regard. I found the little chrome badge on the front was placed a little too high to be effective as a finger stop, plus it’s a little too easy to accidentally move the function thumb wheel when gripping the camera. It might have been better to move the thumb wheel — which apart from the position is a very functional design — to the edge, since you have to shift away from shooting position and look down at the top of the camera to see the icons anyway.”

Thanks to Sanj for the link.

Website: Globetechnology - Panasonic DMC-FX7 Ultra Zoom Review

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The online edition of the Independent ran an interesting story yesterday on photography and how it is viewed in the United Kingdom. Having lived in London myself for a few years and now living in Paris,  it’s quite startling to see how much more the French are into photography as an art form, with lots of galleries and a constant cycle of exhibitions. So it’s good to read that the Photographer’s Gallery in London is moving to a bigger home in Soho.

“Hopefully photography will finally have the same status as it has in Europe and North America. Britain is quite unique compared with our European neighbours in how we don’t ‘get’ photography. This will be very good for London and will secure the city as a place where contemporary culture is seen and made.”

Website: The Independent - How photography in London got a glossier image