The 38th PhotographyBLOG Portfolio has been submitted by Pranay Harsh.

“These pictures were taken during a trip to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in September, 2004. Most of the subjects are orchids found throughout the gardens. All the pictures were taken with a Canon PowerShot A80.”

Website: Portfolios: Pranay Harsh

Steves Digicams have reviewed the 5 megapixel Canon PowerShot SD20 Digital ELPH.

“Even though it’s tiny, we were pleased with the SD20’s ergonomics. Controls are well placed and your thumb falls naturally over the 4-way controller, Menu and Set buttons. Its Print/Share button allows for fast and easy printing to a PictBridge comparable printer or transferring images and movies to your PC. The menu system is easy to use, and as with almost all of Canon’s cameras, we love the Function menu. It allows you to quickly change setting for image size/quality, white balance, ISO, etc. Its 1.5-inch LCD is the only viefinder on the camera. Thankfully it’s a high-quality display that works great outdoors in bight sunlight, and when shooting in low ambient lighting it “gains ups” well. “

Website: Steves Digicams - Canon PowerShot SD20 Digital ELPH Review

The Hungarian website Index Digicam have published their review of the 7 megapixel Canon PowerShot S70.

Website: Index Digicam - Canon PowerShot S70 Review

Fujifilm UK Press Release 14/10/04

Fujifilm today announced that its UK photographic business divisions will be restructured to meet the needs of the changing market, effective 1 November 2004.

With the retirement on 31 October of two of the Company’s long-serving Directors, Graham Rutherford and Tony Lawrence, who currently head up Fujifilm’s Professional and Photofinishing businesses respectively, Fujifilm’s UK photographic departments will be reorganised, with both the Professional and Consumer divisions, and the Photofinishing and Equipment divisions, consolidating to form new Strategic Business Units (SBUs).

All professional, digital, and conventional film and camera products will be managed from Fujifilm’s London office, while paper, minilabs, technical and service will be handled from its Bedford premises.

Consumer Products Director, Adrian Clarke, has been promoted to head up both the London and Bedford operations as Director, Photo Imaging Group, while David Honey takes up the new position of Group SBU Manager in charge of the consolidated Photofinishing Products SBU.

Akam.no have just reviewed the six colour, 4800 x 1200 dpi Canon PIXMA iP6000D printer, which uses FINE (Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering) technology with 2-picolitre Micro-Nozzles and has card slots for all popular brands of memory card.

Website: Akam.no - Canon PIXMA iP6000D Review

Corel/Jasc Press Release 14/10/04

Corel Corporation Acquires Jasc to Extend Graphics Software Portfolio

OTTAWA—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 14, 2004—Recognized, Trusted Provider Of Graphics, Office and Personal Productivity Software Acquires Leading Imaging Software Vendor  

Corel Corporation today acquired Jasc Software, Inc., the award-winning developer of the Paint Shop(TM) family of digital-photography and image- editing software. A critical milestone in Corel’s ongoing growth strategy, this acquisition follows four consecutive quarters of profitability and a successfully completed turnaround since Corel was taken private in August 2003. The acquisition further extends Corel’s position as a powerful force in the packaged software industry, providing exceptional office and personal productivity and graphics products. Corel will now serve a combined base of more than 60 million customers worldwide with an extended software portfolio that combines innovative photo-editing and graphics-creation, vector-illustration and technical-graphics applications along with Corel’s popular WordPerfect line of products. The acquisition is expected to officially close by the end of October 2004.

Corel corporate headquarters will remain in Ottawa, Canada. Corel will maintain the former Jasc facility in Minneapolis for the Paint Shop family operations. Amish Mehta will continue to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of Corel Corporation. Several members of the Jasc senior management team will join Corel.

Corel will sell Paint Shop(TM) Pro(R), Paint Shop(TM) Pro(R) Studio, and Paint Shop(TM) Photo Album(TM) as stand-alone products, and will continue to provide worldwide service and support to customers under the Corel brand. In addition, Corel will actively support new R&D initiatives for the Paint Shop family, ensuring that the next generation of Jasc products will continue to flourish.

I have now received the UK press release for the Olympus Easy Imaging System that was announced yesterday.

Olympus UK Press Release 13/10/04

Setting your life to music
The Olympus m:robe - a musical memory maker

Today Olympus announce their intention to redefine the world of personal imaging and musical entertainment with the revolutionary m:robe concept.

The Olympus m:robe MR-500i

Comprising of a 1.22 million pixel digital camera, an image viewer and a music player all in one the m:robe MR-500i combines the energy of music with the power of pictures to bring your photographs to life. With the m:robe it’s easy to weave together images and sounds to make the difference between a picture and a memory - amazing adventures and experiences can be recorded in photo albums and combined with the tracks that evoke the mood of the moment - letting you view the special moments of your life while you listen to your own personal soundtrack.

The m:robe looks great too.  An eye-catching clean and minimalist design together with a distinctive touch pad control ensure it will be the next ‘must have’ buy for the style conscious consumer. The m:robe MR-500i is planned for release in early 2005

I have now received the UK press release for the Olympus Easy Imaging System that was announced yesterday.

Olympus UK Press Release 13/10/04

Bringing the photo album to life

The Olympus Easy Imaging System - store and print digital images on the go

13 October 2004. Printing and archiving digital photos whilst on the go just got easier.  There?s no need to lug a laptop around any more or wait until you get home to print or share pictures.  Thanks to the Olympus Easy Imaging System it is easy to take, share and store great digital pictures anywhere.

The Olympus Easy Imaging System incorporates a digital camera, home printer, hard disk drive and in the future a DVD burner.  It is astonishingly simple.  Dock the components together and a comprehensive, but ultra-compact digital photography lab is ready to go. It?s easy to use too - both the camera and printer are PictBridge compatible, so prints can be instantly developed out without the need for a PC.

With compact dimensions, the Easy Imaging System can be used and transported virtually anywhere making it is the ideal home or travel accessory. A contemporary, aesthetic design means it would not look out of place in even the most stylish living rooms.

Steves Digicams have enthusiastically reviewed the 8 megapixel Canon EOS 20D DSLR.

“Canon’s engineers had a tall order when designing the replacement for the venerable 10D - improve on a camera about which we said in our April 2003 review, “If you’ve been waiting for a reasonably priced, high performance dSLR camera your wait is over, the Canon EOS 10D is here!” A year and a half later, those engineers can be satisfied with a job well-done, having developed the 20D with improvements on nearly every facet of its predecessor while retaining the same $1499 street price the 10D carried at the time of its introduction.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Canon EOS 20D Review

PC Magazine have just reviewed the new Epson Stylus Photo R320 photo printer.

“The Epson Stylus Photo R320 ($200 street) fills a gap in the Epson line between the R200 and the R800. Like both of those models, the R320 is a photo printer that can print on printable CDs and DVDs. Its performance is on a par with the R200’s for both business applications and photos, but on output quality it comes close to matching the R800, even beating it for text quality.”

Website: PC Magazine - Epson Stylus Photo R320 Review

Check the Latest Prices for the Epson Stylus Photo R320

Write a Review of the Epson Stylus Photo R320

Bibble Labs have just released Bibble 4.0, professional image-manipulation software that provides the fastest, highest quality Raw workflow possible. Well, according to the makers anyway. There are 2 versions available, Pro ($129) and Lite($69), and support for Windows, OS X, and Linux. There’s also a trial version available if you want to “try before you buy”.

Website: Bibble Labs

eFotoGrafija attended the Sandisk press conference at Photokina, where perhaps surprisingly they “the most interesting data” out of all the conferences that they attended.

“Perhaps a different approach for those that don’t like figures… the “second” digital revolution will develop in three to four years compared to eight years it took digicams to become mainstream. All along you have to keep in mind the second revolution is going to be many times bigger than the first!

As I mentioned earlier, those that refuse to reconsider their priorities and accept the new trends will soon be forgotten. Many, photo labs included, should start making some changes in their business or at least start thinking about it seriously. Don’t get left out the second time around!”

Website: eFotoGrafija - Sandisk Press Conference

DPNow have an exclusive first look at the Lexmark P6520 All-in-One printer/scanner/copier, which is aimed at digital photographers rather than business users.

“Once again the good news is that, so far, the photo print quality from our sample P6250 has impressed us. We took an image from an Olympus C-60Z and printed it directly from a memory card onto an A4 sheet of Lexmark’s own premium quality glossy photo paper, using borderless printing mode.

The print had to be cropped a fair bit, but you can choose the area to be printed, both zooming and panning, using the printer’s preview screen. Printing time was just over seven minutes from the moment the paper was moved into position by the printer. That’s not fast - the fastest Canons can cover the same page in under two minutes and between four and six minutes is the norm for other printers, but the P6250’s performance is a huge leap forward compared to other Lexmarks I’ve tested. Lexmark claims a 6x4 photo can be printed in under 40 seconds.”

Website: DPNow - Lexmark P6520 Preview

The Norwegian website DigIT.no have published a review of the new Canon BubbleJet i9950 printer.

Website: DigIT.no - Canon BubbleJet i9950 Review

DCResource have reported that Sony has decided NOT to sell the Cyber-shot DSC-T3 in the USA, “citing continuing strong sales of the DSC-T1”. So because an older model is doing so well, the newer model is not being introduced! Sounds like you all need to stop buying the T1 now…

Website: DCResource - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T3 News

eDigitalPhoto magazine have just reviewed the new HP Photosmart R707, a stylish 5 megapixel digital camera (found via DigiCamReview.co.uk)

“The Photosmart R707 incorporates the IRISS (Intelligent Redeye Imaging Software Solution) technology, developed by Pixology Inc. (www.pixology.com) in collaboration with Texas Instruments. This system analyzes an image to detect and correct redeyes automatically, usually without affecting any other elements. The software also provides a preview of the areas that will be corrected, allowing the user to reject the suggested correction if it includes other subject areas.”

Website: eDigitalPhoto - HP Photosmart R707 Review

Wired Magazine have published an interesting look at the problem of keeping track of digital photos and several innovative ways of making the process easier.

“A digital camera is an enticement to take more snaps than you can keep track of. Why not shoot a few more pictures of Aunt Rose to see if you can get one that’s slightly more flattering to her - how to put it? - irregular profile. You don’t even need to carry a camera; you can squeeze off a stream of shots with your cell phone and send them to your inbox. With the price of digital storage plummeting even as our time seems to become ever more valuable, it’s cheaper to store the lot of them than to weed out the clunkers.

But having thousands of photos on a hard disk or DVD-ROM is the equivalent of throwing Bettmann’s images into the air and letting them flutter to the ground. Our only hope is that the army of engineers laboring in labs around the world can come up with a better way.”

Website: Wired Magazine - Point. Shoot. Kiss It Good-Bye.

MyFourThirds.com looks like an interesting site for all you Olympus E-1 owners out there, and for all the people who will buy the E-300 (pictured) when it’s launched. Billing itself as “The Photographic Community for the Four Thirds Photographer”, there’s already quite a bit of content there.

Website: MyFourThirds.com

Canon have released a new firmware version for the 7 megapixel Canon PowerShot S70. Version 1.0.1.0 contains the following fix:

Prevents E51 errors from occurring when making specific print settings.

Website: Canon PowerShot S70 Firmware Update

The winners of the September 2004 PhotographyBLOG Competition have now been decided. The theme for September was “Sunrise and Sunset” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 3 winners:

1st Place
“Fishing in the sunset ” by mates
View this entry

Judges Comments:
“Awesome composition, great color in the sky and sun.”

“Perfect postioning of the boat in the sun’s rays combined with strong colours equals a great image!”

Prize: 1 copy of Powerretouche Full Pro Pack
Kindly donated by Powerretouche.
http://powerretouche.com

2nd Place
“Evening Silhouttes” by arthury
View this entry

Judges Comments:
“Probably the moodiest and most evocative image entered this month.”

“Perfectly captures the feeling of the dying day.”

1 copy of Digital Photography Hacks by Derrick Story.
Kindly donated by O’Reilly.
http://www.oreilly.com

3rd Place
“Cavtat sunset” by nantel
View this entry

Judges Comments:
“Beautiful and rare magenta tint. Crisp reflections on the water, and good composition.”

Prize: Photobird.com one-year subscription with 100 megabytes of storage space
Kindly donated by Photobird.com.
http://www.photobird.com

Congratulations to the 3 winners and thanks to everyone who took part!

The October 2004 Competition is now open for entries. This is a monthly photography competition with a specific theme and prizes for the top 3 photos. The winning entries will be decided by a panel of judges. You just have to submit one photograph to the Competition Gallery that best interprets October’s theme, which is simply “Travel”.