CameraLabs have reviewed the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens.

“Perhaps most impressive of all though were its geometry results. Due to their extreme coverage, ultra-wide angle zooms often suffer from significant barrel distortion. This was not the case with the EF-S 10-22mm though, which zoomed-out to 10mm, actually exhibited significantly lower barrel distortion than the EF-S 17-85mm did at 17mm. Zoomed-into 22mm, the lens exhibited virtually no distortion at all, which again is impressive compared to the obvious barrelling of general purpose zooms at the same focal length.”

Website: CameraLabs - Canon EF-S 10-22mm Lens Review

DIWA member and Norwegian website Digit.no have just reviewed the Olympus E-400, the world’s smallest and lightest DSLR camera.

Website: Digit.no - Olympus E-400 Review

Website: Read our Olympus E-400 Review

Latest Prices / User Reviews

CNET have reviewed the entry-level Canon PowerShot A460 camera, which offers a 2 inch LCD screen and 4x zoom lens.

“For a camera with a maximum sensitivity of ISO 400, the A460’s images were awfully noisy. We saw at least some grain on almost every test shot. Our ISO 100 test image looked like it was taken at ISO 200 on almost any other camera, our ISO 200 test image could have been taken at ISO 400, and our ISO 400 test image resembled one taken at ISO 800.”

Website: CNET - Canon PowerShot A460 Review

Kingston Technology have launched a special microSD card, with dual adapter bundle, which provides maximum compatibility of microSD Flash memory cards across multiple devices. Jim Selby of Kingston Technology commented “With microSD cards being used in many multifunctional handsets, Kingston saw an opportunity to create a very practical product - costing considerably less than buying three different memory card formats of the same capacity.” Consisting of a 1GB microSD card, a microSD to miniSD card adapter and a microSD to full size SD card adapter, the new microSD Dual Adapter Pack costs just £10.60 (plus VAT).

Capture One PRO and iView MediaPro are now available together as a special offer for $549, $149 off the total price if each application were purchased separately. Purchase now and you will be eligible for free upgrades to Capture One PRO version 4 and Microsoft Expression Media (the next generation products). A free guide detailing how the two programs can be used together is also available for download.

Regularly updated details of Windows Vista compatible colour management products can now be found on the Colour Confidence website. At the moment, only the PANTONE huey is suitable for use with the new operating system. “Until we can offer full, official verification of solution compatibility, our advice is not to use Windows Vista for colour critical work”, commented Geoffrey Clements, Managing Director of Colour Confidence.

AKVIS Sketch plug-in v.3.0 for Windows and Macintosh converts your photos into pencil sketches and watercolor drawings. Version 3 allows you to save user presets for subsequent use and adds compatibility with Windows Vista. AKVIS Sketch sells for $72, and there’s also a free trial with 10 days of fully functional use.

PMA 2007: FotoNation MTP-IP for mobile phones allows users to transfer large photos, movies, and audio files from mobile phones at speeds of up to 10 times faster than Bluetooth. A 3 megapixel cameraphone photo can be transferred to another mobile phone, a computer using Windows Vista, or other device at speeds of 0.3 seconds or less. FotoNation will be demonstrating the MTP-IP for mobile phones technology at PMA using Nokia N80 and N93 phones.

The number of consumer digital photo prints will increase from 13.2 billion in 2005 to 16 billion in 2009 according to a forecast from InfoTrends. “Household penetration of digital cameras will increase in the near term and then level out toward the end of the forecast period,” commented David Haueter. Ordering prints online and picking them up at retail as well as using photo kiosks will provide the most growth over the forecast period. Currently prints made at home account for the biggest share of the market.

The-Digital-Picture have just reviewed the Arca Swiss Monoball Z1 Ballhead.

“Unique to the Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 Ballhead is the aspherical ball. As the load on the head is moved away from center, the effects of gravity increase. To offset the higher gravitational effect, more ball tension is needed. Conventional ballheads require correcting tension control adjustments to be made. The Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 Ballhead, because of its elliptical ball, automatically adjusts to handle the off-center load. In other words, the tension automatically gets tighter as you move the load off-center. And it works as advertised. Very nice.”

Website: The-Digital-Picture - Canon PowerShot A550 Review

Bob Atkins has reviewed the Tokina 12-24mm F/4 lens, which will be of particular interest to DLSR owners. The Tokina 12-24mm lens is available now in a Nikon or Canon fit.

“The Tokina 12-24mm f4.0 is a good lens. It’s sharp in the center and pretty good at the edges when stopped down a little. Corners are a somewhat soft wide open at 12mm, but sharpen up nicely by f5.6. Similarly corners at 24mm wide open are a little soft, but stopping down to f5.6 sharpens them a little and stopping down to f8 sharpens them a little more. Center sharpness is good at all apertures and focal lengths. Chromatic aberration is well controlled, flare resistance is good and distortion, though noticeable at 12mm, is low. Vignetting is slight and not likely to cause problems and is essentially eliminated by stopping down a stop.”

Website: Bob Atkins - Tokina 12-24mm F/4 Lens Review

PMA 2007: GE have announced aggressive plans to enter the digital camera market. Entry-level GE digital cameras will start with 7 megapixels of resolution and 2.5-inch LCD screens. Higher-end GE cameras will offer up to 12 megapixels of resolution and 3-inch LCD screens. A photo printer will also be included in the line-up. The new products will be distributd by General Imaging, a new, privately held company that serves as the exclusive worldwide licensee for the GE line of digital cameras and printers. Cameras will be available in North America from mid-April, whilst shipments to Europe and Asia are scheduled for later this year. The GE digital cameras will make their debut at the PMA show in early March.

Kingston 2GB microSD Flash memory cards give you more room to store and share music, video and data files between mobile phones and other digital devices. The new 2GB microSD card is priced at $59.99 and supplied with a standard-size SD card adapter.

Imagenomic plugins, which include Noiseware Standard and Pro, Portraiture and RealGrain, have been updated to support the latest software applications, hardware platforms and O/S releases from Adobe, Apple and Microsoft. Imagenomic’s latest plug-in releases are available as free upgrades to existing customers.

Micron’s new camera phone CMOS sensors have been developed using a tiny 1.75-micron pixel design and range in resolution from 5, 3 and 1.3 megapixels. The new sensors join Micron’s previously announced 8-megapixel image sensor, also developed on the 1.75-micron pixel. Mass production of all three sensors is expected in Summer 2007.

Lexar has today introduced a 133x speed-rated Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) flash memory card designed for professional and high-end amateur photographers. The Lexar Professional 133x 4GB SDHC card delivers a minimum sustained write speed capability of 20MB per second. Lexar Professional SDHC cards will be available in March, price to be announced.

CNET have reviewed the 7.1 megapixel Canon PowerShot A550, which has a 2 inch LCD screen, and 4x zoom lens.

“Canon’s PowerShot A550 is a simple, inexpensive 7-megapixel camera, and that’s all it wants to be. While it has some nice features, it doesn’t offer any outstanding, unique aspects that put it above any other camera in the field, and that’s just fine. Good performance and solid images are all a camera needs to succeed, and the A550 delivers just that.”

Website: CNET - Canon PowerShot A550 Review

DIWA member LetsGoDigital have reviewed the new Canon A640, which has 10 megapixels, a 2.5 inch LCD screen and 4x optical zoom lens.

“There are still some things that could be improved upon. Take the noise ratio at 400 ISO and higher ISO settings. They are good for a ten Megapixel camera, but not totally clean. The competition (aka Fujifilm) has shown that they can achieve great results in regard to reducing noise at high ISO settings with the Super CCD sensor. Not only Canon could learn a thing or two from them but most manufacturers should chuck a considerable portion of their research budget in this direction.”

Website: LetsGoDigital - Canon PowerShot A640 Review

Website: Read our Canon Powershot A640 Review

Canon A640 - Latest Prices / User Reviews

TrustedReviews have reviewed the new Canon EOS 400D (Canon Digital Rebel XTi in the USA), which offers 10 megapixels, a large 2.5 inch LCD screen and new integrated dust removal system.

“In terms of performance, the EOS 400D is everything we’ve come to expect from a Canon DSLR. It starts up virtually instantly, and in continuous shooting in fine JPEG quality mode it can rattle off 21 shots at an impressive 2.5 frames per second before it has to pause to write data to the memory card. Even then, the progressive buffer means you don’t have to wait until it’s finished processing every frame before you can shoot again. Even in RAW plus fine JPEG it can shoot at the same speed, although this time the buffer can hold only eight shots, and you have to wait a little longer before shooting again.”

Website: TrustedReviews - Canon EOS 400D Review

Website: Read our Canon EOS 400D Review

Latest Prices / User Reviews

It seems that all is not well with Windows Vista and metadata produced by digital cameras. CNET are reporting that if you edit a photo’s metadata through Vista or Microsoft Photo Info, then your digicam’s software may no longer recognise the metadata, or even worse, the photo itself. So far, Nikon, Sony and Olympus have issued Vista RAW codecs to solve this issue. I’m still using good old Windows XP, so have you installed Vista and ran across this problem?

Website: CNET - Metadata mangling in Windows Vista

Website: Microsoft Photoblog