CNET News have an intersting article about the use of peer-to-peer technology (think Napster) for sharing digital photos. OurPictures is launching a new service which will allow you to swap pictures with other users on the OurPictures network.

“Our belief is that the desktop is the right place where a consumer wants to organize and manage their digital photos—not on a Web site,” said John Paul, CEO and founder of OurPictures. “If you have one photo you want a thousands people to see, that’s one thing. But a Web site is not the right place to place thousands of photos.”

Is this a great idea, or simply someone trying to make use of a problematic technology?

Website: CNET News - Point, click and swap—digital photos go P2P

Extensis Press Release 18/05/04

Digital Asset Management solution offers instant deployment, ease of use and affordability for workgroups and individuals.

Northampton, UK - May 18th, 2004 - Extensis Inc., today announced immediate availability of its leading Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution, Portfolio 7 and Portfolio Server 7 for Windows (Macintosh versions will be available later this month). Portfolio enables photographers, graphic artists and other individuals and workgroups - from those in small-to-medium sized organisations to multiple workgroups in global 2000 companies - to organise, retrieve, repurpose, and distribute digital files quickly. Portfolio Server also provides instant access to assets across the Internet and other wide area networks, opening the communication channel between distributed team members and partner networks, making asset management and collaboration easier and more efficient than ever before.

“Portfolio 7 marks a new direction for digital asset management,” said Kevin Hurst, vice president of Marketing for Extensis. “While most DAM solutions are expensive, difficult to deploy, and have a steep learning curve, Portfolio is extremely affordable, has an easy to learn interface and can be seamlessly deployed in a matter of hours into an existing workflow.”

Imaging Resource are reporting today that Olympus Japan have just announced a new Ferrari-branded digital camera, which is based upon the the ultracompact Olympus Camedia AZ-1 (first announced on April 19th 2004). 10,000 cameras will be sold worldwide.

Website: Imaging Resource - Olympus and Ferrari announce new digicam

Website: Olympus Japan Press Release

Sony Press Release 17/05/04

NEW SONY CYBER-SHOT CAMERA INSPIRES INNOVATIVE PICTURE-TAKING

300-Degree Lens Rotation Allows You Flexible Shooting Style

SAN DIEGO, May 17, 2004 - Sony, the market leader in consumer digital cameras, has blended the fun of a rotating lens with the speed and clarity of a five-megapixel Cyber-shot digital still camera in the new DSC-F88 model.

The F88 camera’s compact, all-metal body is fitted with an internal Carl Zeiss Vario Tessar 3X optical zoom lens that allows it to rotate 300 degrees, so you can see your pose in the camera’s 1.8-inch LCD screen before snapping the picture, providing you with a flexible shooting style.

Rob Galbraith is reporting that May 20th has been set as the date for the worldwide release of Canon’s Digital Photo Professional and EOS Viewer Utility software utilities. Digital Photo Professional is a new browsing and RAW file processing software for the EOS-1D, EOS-1Ds and EOS-1D Mark II. EOS Viewer Utility is the successor to the slow and cumbersome File Viewer Utility. Both programs will be made available free of charge.

Website: Rob Galbraith - Digital Photo Professional, EOS Viewer Utility coming May 20

H&M Systems Software Press Release 17/05/04

Latest Release of StudioLine Photo 2 Entices Full Spectrum of Photographers - From Amateur to Pro

More Image Editing Power, Smarter Camera Interface, RAW Added for Pros, Additional Designer Web Galleries, and Faster Database Response - All Top Off Latest Release

Upper Saddle River, New Jersey; May 17, 2004 - H&M Systems Software today introduced the latest version of its flagship StudioLine Photo 2 digital imaging software. It’s designed for photographers, stock houses, graphic artists, hobbyists, and those requiring the ability to edit, archive, store and manage digital images. This latest release, offering added photo editing power, a smarter camera interface, professional RAW format support, new designer web galleries, and faster photo database response time will benefit current StudioLine Photo 2 users, along with those desiring an economical, yet versatile digital photo tool. 

The Czech website Fotoaparat.cz have just published their review of the new 8-megapixel Nikon Coolpix 8700 digital camera.

Website: Fotoaparat.cz - Nikon Coolpix 8700 Review

FotoTime Press Release

FOTOTIME ANNOUNCES FOTOALBUM PRO 4.1 DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY SHARING AND MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

FotoAlbum Pro 4.1 new features including archiving, importing and exporting, Video FotoShows and EXIF updating

FotoTime, an online photo service specializing in sharing and organizing digital images, today announced the availability of FotoAlbum Pro 4.1. FotoAlbum Pro meets the needs of both casual users and photography enthusiasts alike by offering all the tools needed to organize and share digital pictures. FotoAlbum Pro 4.1 has many new features including archiving, importing and exporting, Video FotoShows, and EXIF updating. FotoAlbum Pro 4.1 is available at www.fototime.com.

“We have added many new and exciting features to FotoAlbum Pro,” said FotoTime Vice President of Marketing and Technology, Jeff Kelling. “A major need for our users is to ensure that their digital pictures are secure. That is why we added archiving to FotoAlbum Pro. FotoAlbum easily archives pictures to a CD/DVD along with album information, captions, keywords and other data.”

Imaging Resource have just reviewed the PowerShot SD110 Digital ELPH, which packs 3.2 megapixels into the smallest digital ELPH camera ever made with an optical zoom (a 2x zoom lens with a cross-section smaller than a dime). Estimated street price is $299.

“Excellent color. As I’ve become accustomed to with Canon cameras, the SD110 delivered excellent color throughout my testing. Colors were bright and accurate, although I did think that strong additive primary colors (red, green, blue) tended to come out a little oversaturated. The white balance system worked very well, although its Auto option had a lot of trouble with the incandescent lighting of my Indoor Portrait test. In that test though, the SD110’s Incandescent and Manual white balance settings did a very nice job. Skin tones were good, and it’s really hard to find much fault with the SD110’s color in any of the test images.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Canon PowerShot SD110 Digital ELPH Review

ePhotoZine are reporting that the price of Kodak’s dye-sub printer, the 8500 Professional Digital Photo Printer, has been cut by £100 in the UK. The new RRP is £699.

“The arithmetic makes great sense for photographers keen to increase their revenue at photo sessions and events. Now we have taken the decision to reduce the price by £100 we calculate that at an approximate cost to the photographer of just £1.00 per print, and at an average retail price of just £15 for an 8x10 with mount, the user can pay off the printer cost with just 50 sales - and that is achievable at just one wedding function”

Website: ePhotoZine - Kodak 8500 Digital Photo Printer

BytePhoto have reviewed the Olympus Mju 410 Digital camera. The Mju 410 is encased in a full metal body with a silver finish, offers 4 megapixels and a 3x optical zoom. The Mju 410 is the first Mju Digital model to feature TruePic Turbo, a new image processor which sharpens image clarity, contrast and colour for life-like results. Available now for ?299.99 (inc VAT).

“As a first impression, the Olympus Stylus 410 definitely looked sleek and stylish, the aesthetic details were worked out quite nicely in this model; for instance, the finish on the metallic body gave a shiny, modernized look to the camera as a whole. One of the first things I noticed was that Olympus removed the typical mode command dial, and digitized it and included it in the software. This, in my opinion, is a great move; not only does it clean up the exterior and organize it, it also simplifies using the camera in the dark and makes it generally easier to see the different modes.”

Website: BytePhoto - Olympus Mju 410 Digital Review

Website: Read my review of the Olympus Mju 410 Digital

Transcend Information Press Release 17/05/04

Taipei, Taiwan, May 17, 2004 /Various Agencies—- Transcend Information, Inc. releases the lifestyle enhancing JetFlash Digital Still Camera (JetFlash DSC) this month, May 2004. Easily fitting into your pocket, this digital camera combined with a USB flash drive, allows you to take pictures anywhere, anytime. 

With 640x480 pixel-resolution, photos will be easy to email and share with your friends. You?ll never again have to worry about finding the USB cable or card reader to download your images. Just plug your JetFlash DSC into an available USB port and you?re ready to download in seconds. The integrated lithium battery is also recharged via the USB port.

The bundled software, Photo Explorer 8.0, makes it incredibly easy to edit and arrange your photos. Weighting only 26g, Transcend JetFlash-DSC provides you another lightweight yet feature packed USB device.

Jasc Software Press Release 13/05/04

New Application Delivers Smart, Simple Tools for Digital Photos

Eden Prairie, Minnesota (5/13/2004) - Jasc Software, Inc. announced today the release of Paint Shop Photo Album 5 - Deluxe Edition, the newest version of their award-winning digital camera software. Sporting a completely redesigned interface that follows the digital photographer’s workflow, Photo Album 5 puts the tools users need to organize, enhance, share and protect photos at their fingertips.

By integrating seamlessly with users’ lifestyles, Photo Album allows them to share their photos using today’s most popular mediums, including e-mail, camera phones, scrapbooks, video CDs and printed pictures. By offering a variety of color, contrast and brightness options as well as tools to enhance photos with text, sound, frames, edges and borders Photo Album allows novices to create beautiful photos with a few mouse clicks.

PCWorld have just published a comparitive roundup of what they consider to be the top-10 advanced digital cameras. There are a few strange choices in the list…

“The 8-megapixel race is on: Canon, Nikon, and Olympus join Sony in offering high-end consumer models with 8-megapixel CCDs. So far the Olympus C-8080 is our pick of the group (we’ve yet to test the Canon PowerShot Pro1), with top-notch image-quality scores and easy-to-use controls. Nikon’s Coolpix 8700 produced photos as fine as the C-8080’s and has a longer zoom range, but it’s harder to use. In the “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it” category, Leica’s classic-looking Digilux 2 is designed for the purist photographer. Its unique feature: a built-in bounce flash.”

Website: PCWorld - Top 10 Advanced Digital Cameras

Kodak have today announced that Lexar Media will be their exclusive source for digital memory cards, and that they will sell Lexar cards rebranded with the Kodak name. The types of memory card include Secure Digital (SD), Mini-SD, CompactFlash and other digital recording formats.

“In a statement, the companies said they had joined forces in order to “gain a larger share of the market for removable digital memory products” and noted surging demand for digital cameras, cameraphones, music players and other consumer electronics that use removable memory cards to store data.”

Website: Yahoo News - Kodak Names Lexar Memory Card Provider

The winner of the 24th PhotographyBLOG Photo of the Week contest is gav_davies with the entry “Who’s the Daddy!!!”. There are no prizes as such for this contest, but the winning photo is displayed on the PhotographyBLOG homepage for a week, and the winner can display the Photo of the Week logo on their website if they wish.

The 25th Photo of the Week contest is now open. This is a weekly photography challenge where you decide who the winner is by voting for your favourite photos. It’s an open contest with no set theme and you can enter as many photos as you like.

Click here to read the Photo of the Week Rules.

Please note that this is the final round of the Photo of the Week contest in its current format. I will be changing the rules for next week’s contest - more news later this week.

The 10th PhotographyBLOG Portfolio has been submitted by Pete Nicholls.

“Originally from England, Pete Nicholls emigrated to America in 1961. Combining a life-long interest in photography and nature, he began photographing the natural world in 2001. Much of his photography has been done without leaving home, in fact, this series of images were all captured without leaving home.

Back in his younger years as a member of the armed forces while stationed in the far east, he purchased his first 35mm camera, a Petri 7s. During his tour in the far east, he studied photography and shot several thousand slides, developing many of them himself in a photo lab on the base. After his tour was over, photography faded and was overtaken by other life events and interests until receiving a 3 megapixel camera from his wife in 2001. This re-kindled his interest in photography and has resulted in over 10,000 images being taken with Olympus, Minolta, and Canon cameras. He continues to study the art and looks forward to spending his retirement years with camera in hand.

He maintains an internet presence at http://vividprints.com”

Website: Portfolios: Pete Nicholls

Steves Digicams have published a preview of the Canon PowerShot S60, a 5 megapixel digital camera with a wide-angle 28mm-100mm lens and a new thin body.

“The 5-Megapixel PowerShot S60 camera is equipped with a redesigned 3.6x zoom lens that goes from a wide-angle focal length of 28mm to a telephoto of 100mm (35mm film equivalent). This new lens features an Ultra high refractive index, which makes it thin and compact. The Ultra high refractive index Aspherical (UA) lens allows for a 28mm wide angle zoom while increasing image quality and slimming the body of the camera for a sleek design.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Canon PowerShot S60 Preview

Luminous Landscape have published a new article by Dutch photographer Stefan Heijdendael called “From Digital to Analog, and Back”, which explores a minimalist approach to developing your photographic skills.

“So here’s some free advice from a novice in the digital arena to novices in the field of photography. And of course it is Hans who brought me to this advice. Restrict yourself. Forget about tweaking, and try to get the most perfect frozen moment in time, which will serve as a good base for a print. How? If you don?t want to spend a lot of money, go to a second hand photo store and go look for a basic single lens reflex. There are thousands for sale, and they cost little.”

Website: Luminous Landscape - From Digital to Analog, and Back

Imaging Resource have just reviewed the new 3.2 megapixel Canon PowerShot A75.

“As I mentioned at the outset, Canon’s PowerShot A70 topped the charts in Canon’s sales last year, outstripping all other camera models. - And for good reason: The A70 offered a rich set of features and excellent image quality at an attractive price. This year, the PowerShot A75 appears poised to follow in the A70’s and A40’s footsteps.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Canon PowerShot A75 Review