The latest issue of Vivid Light Photography has now appeared online. The featured article this month is probably something that most of us won’t ever experience: “What Do You Say To A Naked Model?”! Other articles include an enthusiastic review of the new Fuji Astia 100F film, a look at digitally adding borders to your photos, and the excellently-written “Un-conceived Notions - Look Past the Expected”.

Website: Vivid Light Photography

It’s a quiet News day today (Fridays always are), so I’ve posted a new PhotographyBLOG article called “My First Photograph”, in which I share with you the image that first sparked my interest in photography.

“My First Photograph”
“I’m a relatively late-starter in the world of photography. I’m 28 years old and have only been interested in this wonderful hobby for about the last 2-3 years. So what made me become interested in photography?”

Now I want to know about you; what do you consider to be your first successful photograph, and how did you get interested in photography? After reading the article, I’d like you all to go and find the first image that you still fondly remember, scan it in, email it to me along with a brief story, and I’ll post them all on PhotographyBLOG.

Jason Sanford, who is the editor of storySouth, a US-based website that “showcases the best fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry that writers from the new south have to offer”, has let me know about their latest online photo exhibit. Called “Roadside Christianity”, the exhibit by photographer Joe York focuses on various Christian-themed images found along southern roads. This image is my personal favourite, just because of the idea that Jesus requires his own campaign head quarters… :-)

Website: storySouth - Current Issue

Casio have announced the QV-R40, a 4 megapixel digicam which has an amazing start-up time of one second and shutter-lag of 0.01 seconds - that’s a lot faster than my Canon 10D! DPReview is the only website at the moment that is reporting this story; they have the full press release and details of the camera here. There’s no word of a release date or price just yet, although the QV-R4 has an RRP of $499.

Website: Casio QV-R40 Press Release

Website: Casio QV-R40 Website

Imaging Resource posted a new review yesterday of the Sony Cybershot DSC-P32, a 3.2 megapixel pint and shoot digicam that sells for around $229.

“The DSC-P32 was pretty inconsistent exposure-wise, in some cases overexposing studio shots and in other cases significantly underexposing them. The amount of exposure variation was well outside what I’d consider normal, contributing to my poor rating of the camera overall.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Sony Cybershot DSC-P32 Review

Giraffes #7	Giraffes #8	Giraffes #9
Giraffes #10	Giraffes #11	Giraffes #12

Giraffes - 18 July, 9.30pm, Mile End Park


“A London premiere from international theatre ensemble Compagnie Off brings Giraffes to the heart of the East End. A night-time procession of life-sized giraffe puppets will cross Mile End Park, including the famous Green Bridge, accompanied by music and pyrotechnics.”




This is the second and final set of photographs from Compagnie’s “Giraffes” procession.




The Greenwich and Docklands International Festival culminates this coming weekend with Tattoo, “a surreal army of insects, elaborate costumes, giant mechanical structures and specially composed music”, and Raastay, “a series of incredible, large-scale pyrotechnic paintings, accompanied by a soundscape from Farzana Fiaz”.




Website: Greenwich and Docklands International Festival

The Fuji FinePix website is currently running a Macromedia Flash-based teaser on its website for a new digital camera, which will be officially announced on the 29th July (found via DPReview. The filename of the Flash movie is s5000.swf, which may be giving the game away about the actual name of the camera.

Imaging Resource were the first website to provide details about this new camera here. Apparently the new “will have a 3.1 megapixel SuperCCD HR CCD imager giving a final image size of just under 6 megapixel interpolated (2816 x 2120 pixels). It will have an electronic viewfinder, 10x optical zoom lens, 2.2x digital zoom, xD-Picture Card storage, power from 4 AA batteries, and will finally have the ability to shoot images in RAW mode.”

Imaging Resource have reported today that Fuji may be releasing two additional new cameras, the 53000 and 57000, details of which have been found on various Fuji websites.

Digital Secrets is a website that I’ve not come across before, but it seems to have been up and running for quite a while. They’ve just reviewed the Nikon 5400 digital camera (found via DCViews.

“The famed CP5000 Wide Angle Coolpix broke new ground for Nikon. Wide lens zoom cameras were rare when it came out and now the Coolpix 5400 brings a new idea to digital photography; a decent zoom range wide zoom camera. The 28 to 112 (35mm equivalent) zoom optic on the 5400 is sharp, capable and very decently wide.”

Website: Digital Secrets - Nikon 5400 Review

One story is dominating the headlines in the photography world today. Nikon have confirmed what many people already knew (as it was leaked on several websites last week) by announcing their new DSLR, the Nikon D2H, along with a bunch of new lenses and flashgun. Aimed at the professional sports and press photographer, the D2H body-only has a suggested RRP of ?2,800.

There are a number of websites that have posted extensive in-depth looks at the new camera. Ian over at DP-Now.com was one of the first to post the news and his preview is well worth checking out.

Website: DP-Now - Nikon D2H News

LetsGoDigital have had the opportunity to actually use the camera; they’ve posted an impressive presentation, although you will need to have the flash plug-in installed to view it.

Website: LetsGoDigital - Nikon D2H First Look

And as usual the ever-dependable DPReview have got the scoop, posting a 5-page preview of the camera.

Website: DPReview - Nikon D2H Preview

Giraffes #1	Giraffes #2	Giraffes #3
Giraffes #4	Giraffes #5	Giraffes #6

Giraffes - 18 July, 9.30pm, Mile End Park


“A London premiere from international theatre ensemble Compagnie Off brings Giraffes to the heart of the East End. A night-time procession of life-sized giraffe puppets will cross Mile End Park, including the famous Green Bridge, accompanied by music and pyrotechnics.”




Question: How do you successfully photograph a herd of human-powered Giraffes that move at jogging pace in the near-dark and are lit up by spotlights and the occasional flare? When the vast crowds of onlookers rule out the use of a tripod? And when I haven’t got round to buying an external flash and have to use the pop-up one instead?




Answer: After trying for about 2 hours, I still don’t really know, but it was fun trying…

Petteri’s Pontifications have posted an extensive user review of the Canon 200mm f/2.8 L lens in conjunction with the Canon 10D. There are plenty of sample images and Petteri also tries out the lens with a Tamron 1.4x convertor.

Website: Petteri’s Pontifications - Canon 200mm f/2.8 L Review

DCRP have taken a look at the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1, a 3 megapixel digital camera with 3x, f/2.8 optical lens made by none other than Leica. All for an RRP of $299.

“The LC33 has very good photo quality, a nice design, good performance, and above average movie and playback modes.”

Website: DCRP - Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1 Review

You have two options when you want to want to make big prints of your photos. Either lower the dpi to obtain a larger print size and accept a loss of quality. Or try to interpolate up in size using Photoshop or another image editor, which can lead to artifacts and loss of sharpness.

SmartScale is a new Adobe Photoshop plug-in from Extensis that claims to be able to “Scale images up to 1600% with no discernable loss in printed quality”. You can preview different scaling options in real-time and refine the quality of your scaled image by controlling the overall sharpness, edge contrast and edge detail. At $199 it’s perhaps a little on the expensive side for home-users, and unfortunately there’s no trial version available to test it out.

Website: Extensis SmartScale

Website: Extensis

Meanwhile, the magazine Photography Monthly have reviewed the curiously named Pentax *ist in the August 2003 review. As well as giving the 35mm SLR camera a rating of 9 out of 10 and saying “the Pentax joins the Canon EOS 300V and Nikon F75 as the pick of the best sub-?300 SLRS”, they also contacted Pentax UK to explain the reasoning behind that strange name (to say the least). To quote:

“Apparently, it’s meant to be used as a suffix to describe the type of photographer who might use the camera. You can be a Pentax-ist - someone who loves using their Pentax. Or, an Artist, Specialist, Pictorialist, Perfectionist, Portraitist, Publicist…”

So now you know :-)

The Canon Powershot G5 was recently released, following on from the previous G3 model. A few PhotographyBLOG visitors wondered what happened to the G4 name. Well, it appears that guest Krishna was right when they said “In Japanese characters(kanji) numeral 4 also represents death/bad thing and hence is avioded in most of the version numbers of products”, at least according to the UK magazine Amateur Photographer.

AP say on page 28 of the 19th July issue that “the truth behind the leap from 3 to 5 is one based on cultural superstition - in Japan, the number 4 is considered unlucky. This is because the pronunciation of 4 - “shi” - is the same pronunciation as death. This is the reason why the EOS range jumps from the EOS 3 to EOS 5, and why the latest IXUS digital compacts bucks the trend of the IXUS v2 and IXUS v3 models by becoming the IXUS 400. Indeed, to find a Canon camera with a model number 4 you have to look back as far as the 1950s to the Canon IV.”

So now you know :-)

By the way, Amateur Photographer loved the Canon G5, awarding it a rating of 92% and summarising “In short, the five-million-pixel camera market contains a lot of good cameras, but very few exceptional ones. The Powershot G5 must certainly be counted among their number and is arguably the best that we have seen so far.”

Chasseur d’Image have beaten everyone to the punch (maybe by breaking any embargo that is in place) by posting images of Nikon’s new DSLR, the Nikon D2H, and also some new Nikon lenses and a flash unit. Chasseur d’Image are saying that the new Nikon will cost around 3900 Euros, and that the camera will be available in November…

Website: Chasseur d’Image - Nikon D2H First Look

Website: Chasseur d’Image - Nikon D2H First Look (Google Translation)

Digital Camera Resource has posted some larger sample images from Sony’s new 4-colour filter CCD, which was announced on Wednesday.

Website: DCRP - Sony CCD Samples

The Technical Image Press Association (TIPA) have just announced their awards for “The Best Photo Products in Europe, 2003-2004”.

Why should you be interested? Well, in TIPA’s own words “When the TIPA Awards logo appears in an advertisment, a leaflet or on a product packaging, you can be sure that it deserves it. TIPA editors judge on quality, performance and value criteria that are very important to the end user. Buy a product distinguished by a TIPA Awards logo and you can be sure you are buying the very best.”

Here are some notable winnners:

Pentax *ist: Best 35mm SLR Camera
Olympus 4/3 Digital System: Best Innovative Technology
Sony Cybershot DSC-V1: Best Digital Prosumer Camera
Canon EOS 1Ds: Best Digital SLR System Camera
Epson Perfection 3200 Photo: Best Flatbed Scanner
Minolta Dimage Scan 5400: Best Film Scanner
Epson Stylus Photo 900: Best Photo Printer

To see the full list, visit this URL:

Website: TIPA Award Winners - 2003/4

Imaging Resource have reviewed the 5 megapixel Pentax Optio 550 which retails for $599.

“The Optio 550 well deserves its place at the top of Pentax’ digicam lineup. With a 5 megapixel sensor and sharp 5x optical zoom lens (with an optical viewfinder as well), the 550 delivers sharp, high-resolution images with excellent color and tone.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Pentax Optio 550 Review

Epson have announced 2 new additions to their range of flatbed scanners. The EPSON Perfection 3170 PHOTO scanner costs $199 and the EPSON Perfection 1670 PHOTO $129. Both scanners will be available in August.

“The EPSON Perfection 3170 PHOTO is the best choice for an image-driven individual who is looking for a premium quality scanner at an extremely affordable price. This scanner delivers outstanding results with its true 3200 hardware dpi resolution, 48-bit scanning and its built-in slide and film strip adapter for conveniently making duplicates or enlargements from 35 mm slides and negatives, and even medium format transparencies.”

“The EPSON Perfection 1670 PHOTO scanner is perfect for home or office environments with its economical price and ease of use. This scanner delivers resolution of 1600 x 3200 dpi for capturing and reproducing images with incredible detail and accuracy. This scanner also utilizes easy, four-button automated scanning and offers a convenient built-in 35 mm slide and film strip adapter for scanning multiple slides and negatives.”

Website: Epson Press Release