CNET have published their review of the Casio EX-S500, a 5 megapixel digital camera with a 3x optical zoom and a 2.2 inch LCD screen.

“The latest in Casio’s slim-jim line of card cameras, the 5-megapixel Exilim EX-S500 offers a 3X optical zoom and a number of features missing in its predecessor, the S100. They include a burst mode, MPEG-4 video capture, and the ever-important AF illuminator, rounding out this pocket camera’s generous feature set. Its photo quality doesn’t distinguish it, but if you’re not too picky about that, it’s definitely worth a look.”

Website: CNET - Casio EX-S500 Review

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Hama Press Release

Caseman – the new case brand by Hama - Forward – Fresh – Functional

Whether laptop, digital camera or mobile phone – high-tech products require protection—however that doesn’t mean they have to stick to traditional designs! In the Caseman range, Hama presents a new series which combines fashionable colours and designs with practical features. The Caseman range is divided into notebook, camera and mobile phone cases. All models are made of hard-wearing nylon in four fashionable colour combinations: grey-orange, black-brown, olive-brown and green-olive.

Celartem Press Release

onOne Software purchases popular line of productivity enhancement products for Photoshop and QuarkXPress.

Northampton, UK — July 29, 2005 — Celartem, Inc. and its company brands — Extensis and LizardTech — today announce the sale of its popular Photoshop Plug-ins and QuarkXPress XTensions to independent software developer, onOne Software. Products included in this purchase are pxl SmartScale, PhotoFrame, Intellihance Pro, Mask Pro, PhotoTools, and QX-Tools Pro from Extensis and the Genuine Fractals product from LizardTech. Extensis and LizardTech will continue to support these products until July 31, 2005 when onOne Software will take control of all aforementioned titles.

Celartem, Inc. is selling these products to refine its existing product lines focusing on digital content management and distribution — GeoExpress, Document Express, Portfolio, Font Reserve and Suitcase.

The 56th PhotographyBLOG Portfolio has been submitted by Chris Dixon.

“I was visiting a Tibetan refugee camp in Nepal hoping to get some video footage with a colleague, but a ban on video inside the monastery forced us to pull out still cameras. Stepping inside the main room to watch the young monks chant their morning meditations, we were struck by the ancient light that filters through ornate windows. The monastery is part of a long-established and relatively wealthy refugee camp in Nepal and most of these boys are sent by their parents at a young age. They are monks, but walking out the front door they play cricket, talk on mobile phones and are interested in Nike sneakers like most boys their age. That said though, there’s a lot we can learn from the spiritual discipline of even these young boys. The mindless entertainment and material fluff that we allow to crowd our lives is, in part at least, responsible for the void that westerners try to fill in their obsession for Tibetan Buddhism.”

Website: Chris Dixon

The Epson Perfection 4490 Photo, Epson Perfection 3590 Photo and Epson Perfection 3490 Photo scanners are announced today. The Epson Perfection 4490 Photo has a resolution of 4800 x 9600 dpi and 3.4 Dmax and can batch scan 35mm slides, negatives and 2¼” film. The Epson 4490 also features Digital ICE technology for dust and scratch removal from slides and negatives. The Epson Perfection 4490 Photo will be available in August for $249. The Epson Perfection 3590 Photo has a resolution of 3200 x 6400 dpi and features an Automatic Film Loader built into the top of the scanner lid. The Epson Perfection 3590 Photo will be available in August for $149. Finally, the Epson Perfection 3590 Photo offers the same software and capabilities available with the Epson 3590 Photo, with the exception of the Auto Film Loader. The Perfection 3490 Photo will be available in August for $99.

Epson USA Press Release

NEW EPSON PERFECTION SCANNERS OFFER ADVANCED FEATURES AT CONSUMER-LEVEL PRICES

Epson Perfection® 4490 Photo, Epson Perfection 3590 Photo and Epson Perfection 3490 Photo provide customers with the tools they need to quickly digitize, restore and renew classic photos at affordable prices

LONG BEACH, Calif., July 28, 2005 – Epson is introducing its newest scanners to the consumer market – the Epson Perfection 4490 Photo, Perfection 3590 Photo and Perfection 3490 Photo – each delivering its own set of unique and rich features for a variety of customers, ranging from the advanced amateur photographer to the Chief Memory Officer™.  Priced from $99 to $249, these versatile scanners offer everything a customer needs for restoring cherished photos, negatives, and slides, as well as completing other tasks and projects with ease.

MINOX DC 8111 is announced today. The MINOX DC 8111 is an 8.1 megapixel compact digital camera with a 3x optical zoom lens euivalent to 36-108mm and a 2.5” LCD screen. Price and availability of the MINOX DC 8111 to be announced.

Minox Press Release

The NEW MINOX DC 8111 moves compact digital cameras to a new era – 8.1 megapixels - all in an elegant, compact body

Boasting high quality digital performance the new DC 8111 from MINOX of Wetzlar is an 8 megapixel compact camera that sets a new direction in the combination of design, size, features and performance. A CCD sensor with a resolution of 8.1 million pixels, built into the elegant aluminum body, combines with the fast multicoated MINOCTAR lens to produce superb quality digital images. Add autofocus, a 3x optical and 5.1x digital zoom, automatic exposure and manual control and you have a fully featured compact and elegant creative digital camera.

Fujifilm FinePix S9500 Zoom is announced today. The Fujifilm FinePix S9500 Zoom is a 9 megapixel digital camera with a 28-300mm lens with twist-barrel zoom control. The Fujifilm S9500 features Fujifilm’s brand new 5th generation Super CCD sensor with Real Photo Technology and offers an ISO range of ISO 80 - ISO 1600. The Finepix S9500 also has a new tilting 1.8” LCD screen, 30fps movie mode with manual zoom capability and a RAW format for uncompressed and unprocessed images. The FinePix S9500 Zoom will be available from UK retailers in August 2005, price to be announced. This camera is known as the Fujifilm FinePix S9000 Zoom in the USA.

Fujifilm UK Press Release

Fujifilm FinePix S9500 Zoom: DSLR approach, with a flexible attitude

Fujifilm’s new ‘bridge’ camera marries high end image quality with a lens so good, you’ll be glad it’s not removable

Fujifilm today announces the launch of the FinePix S9500 Zoom, a new model that marks the point where compact digital cameras and digital SLRs meet.  Aimed at amateur and enthusiast photographers, the FinePix S9500 Zoom features resolution good enough to challenge entry-level digital SLRs.  It combines this with a range of features that enable a level of photographic flexibility more often associated with compact digital cameras.

Fujifilm FinePix E900 Zoom is announced today. The Fujifilm FinePix E900 Zoom is a 9 megapixel digital camera with a 4x optical zoom lens equivalent to 32-128mm and an ISO range of ISO 80 to ISO 800. The Finepix E900 Zoom features Fujifilm’s new 5th Generation Super CCD HR sensor with Real Photo Technology and a 2” LCD screen. Available in black with metallic silver trim, price and availability of the Fujifilm FinePix E900 Zoom are still to be announced.

Fujifilm Press Release

Fujifilm FinePix E900 Zoom: the power-packed compact

Highly specified compact armed with nine megapixels, high sensitivity and super-fast response times in a pocket-friendly body

Fujifilm today announces the launch of the FinePix E900 Zoom, the latest addition to its highly specified ‘E’ series range of digital cameras.  This new generation compact is the first of its kind to deliver 9.0 million pixels, and offers a 4x optical zoom and a sensitivity range of ISO 80 to ISO 800, ensuring this feature-laden model is always ready for action - whatever the photographic conditions.

Fujifilm FinePix S5600 Zoom is announced today. The Fujifilm FinePix S5600 Zoom is a 5 megapixel compact digital camera with Fujifilm’s new 5th Generation Super CCD HR sensor with Real Photo Technology. The Fujifilm S5600 has an ISO range of 64 to 1600 and boasts a 10x optical zoom lens. The FinePix S5600 Zoom will be available from UK retailers in September 2005, price to be announced. This camera is known as the Fujifilm FinePix S5200 Zoom in the USA.

Fujifilm UK Press Release

Fujifilm FinePix S5600 Zoom: evolution of a bestseller

Powerful zoom camera improves on successful Fujifilm formula with Anti-Blur Mode and lightning fast response times

Fujifilm today announces the launch of the FinePix S5600 Zoom, the third generation of its powerful, mini SLR-style digital cameras with long zoom lens.  Packed with features, including 10x optical zoom and Anti-Blur Mode, the FinePix S5600 Zoom is an impressive reworking of its popular predecessors.

Canon Optura 600 and Canon Optura S1 camcorders are announced today. The Canon Optura 600 produces 4.3 megapixel still images and offers features like Auto Exposure Bracketing, Continuous Shooting Mode and control over metering mode and scene modes. The Canon Optura 600 Mini-DV camcorder will be available in September for an estimated selling price of $1,099. The Canon Optura S1 has a 2.2 megapixel CCD sensor and built-in image stabilization. The Canon Optura S1 Mini-DV camcorder will be available in mid-September for an estimated selling price of $799.

Canon USA Press Release

Two New Canon Optura Camcorders Offer Best of Both Worlds with Stylish Designs and Premium Video and Photo Capability
 
LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—July 28, 2005—Canon Optura 600 Model is World’s Smallest* 4.3 Megapixel Camcorder; Canon Optura S1 Camcorder Offers Two-in-One Functionality in a Trend-Setting Design  

Customers can double their pleasure with the newest two Canon Optura Mini-DV camcorders which offer stunning digital video and still performance in stylish form factors that beg to be held. With the new Canon Optura 600 camcorder users get high-quality 4.3-megapixel image reproduction for crisp video and photos in a sleek but elegant design. For customers looking for a stylish but compact camcorder with great video and still image capability that’s a snap to use, the new 2.2 megapixel Canon Optura S1 model is designed just for them. The Optura 600 and Optura S1 models are the smallest* 4.3 megapixel and 2.2 megapixel camcorders, respectively, on the market.

LaCie / Hitachi Press Release

LaCie and Hitachi Collaborate to Deliver Industry’s Largest Capacity External Storage Solutions

500GB Hitachi Deskstar Hard Drives Provide Advanced Features and Renowned Quality

PORTLAND, OR (July 2005) – LaCie and Hitachi, two pioneers of innovative hard drive technology and design, today announce a collaboration to deliver three external hard drives with record capacities for both consumer and enterprise users. LaCie selected 500GB Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 hard drives for its 2TB Biggest F800, 500GB Ethernet Disk mini and 2TB Bigger Disk Extreme storage solutions. Hitachi has incorporated a number of unique design features that make its 500GB hard drive well-suited for use in digital video editing, multi-drive RAID storage and numerous other high-bandwidth applications.

Pretec Press Release

Pretec Introduces 4GB SD Card, e-Disk II, and Reduces Price for 12GB CF Card

FREMONT, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—July 27, 2005—Pretec Electronics Corp., the inventor of iDisk Tiny and CU-Flash, the smallest USB flash Drive in the world since 2003, has released 4GB SD card today, the largest capacity of SD card in the world.

Pretec 4GB SD card is the newest addition of its high speed line of 133X SD card, from 256MB to 4GB, with access speed up to 20MB/s, the fastest SD card in the world so far conform to SD 1.1 specification. Constructed with 65 nano-meter 16Gb SLC NAND technology, which is typically one order of magnitude better reliability and 200%-500% faster than MLC NAND. Pretec 133X 4GB SD card is available now for customer sampling with unit price of $699 each; mass production is scheduled by next month.

Canon has announced another quarter of rising profits, boosted by sales of colour laser printers and digital SLR cameras like the 8 megapixel Canon EOS 350D / Digital Rebel XT DSLR (pictured). Sales rose 7.3 percent to 912.5 billion yen in the three months to June 30th. “Canon’s cost structure is impressive and it can stand the price pressure that other companies can’t,’’ John Yang, an equity analyst at Standard & Poor’s in Tokyo.

Website: Bloomberg - Canon 2nd-Qtr Profit Gains on Printer, Camera Sales

Another month, another report of falling digital camera sales and losses, this time courtesy of Sanyo. Sales of digicams and mobile phones fell by 12.2%, prompting the Japanese firm to announce 14,000 job cuts on July 5th.

Website: MSN News - Sanyo reports loss on mobile phone, digital camera sales

DIWA member and Czech website FotoAparat.cz have just published their review of the Canon Digital IXUS 700 digital camera (also known as the Canon PowerShot SD500 Digital ELPH).

Website: FotoAparat.cz - Canon Digital IXUS 700 Review

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ePhotoZine have just reviewed the HiTi 641PS dye-sub printer printer.

“Having said that, the print quality is excellent. The 641PS prints at 403dpi, which is claimed to be the equivalent of 6400dpi inkjet printers and produces good saturation and excellent definition. The technology used produces prints that will resist fading long after an inkjet has paled into insignificance and the over coating supplies a finish that won’t smudge or run as soon as a drop of water touches it.”

Website: ePhotoZine - HiTi 641PS Review

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CNET have taken a look at the new Kodak Easyshare Printer Dock Series 3 compact photo printer.

“Prints emerge relatively speedily, taking between 1.5 and 1.7 minutes per photo. The Series 3 dock’s photos displayed typical dye-transfer smoothness, broad tonal scale, and rich colors. There was lots of detail in highlights and shadows, but diagonal lines did showed stair-stepping. The composite blacks (formed by combining the cyan, magenta, and yellow colors; there is no black panel in the dye-transfer ribbon) were dense and neutral. Flesh tones were pleasing, and we detected the faintest of blue casts in the whites of some prints.”

Website: CNET - Kodak Easyshare Printer Dock Series 3 Review

The Norwegian website Akam.no have published their review of the waterproof Pentax OptioWP digital camera.

Website: Akam.no - Pentax OptioWP Review

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PhotoHobby.net published a preview of the new entry-level Konica Minolta Dynax 5D digital SLR camera that was announced last week.

“Picture quality between 7D and 5D is no virtually difference. I’ve tried both camera using JPEG Extra Fine setting. With the same scene, JPEG file from both camera has almost identical in size. With closer look, there is no way to tell the different between the 2 cameras.”

Website: PhotoHobby.net - Konica Minolta Dynax 5D Preview

The-Digital-Picture.com have reviewed the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L Tilt-Shift lens, which is mainly used for architecture and wide landscape photography.

“The Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L Tilt-Shift Lens is not stellar in terms of sharpness. I found it to be the least sharp of the three Canon TS-E lenses. It is somewhat soft wide open, getting decent at f/5.6 with continuing improvement through f/8. Even so, I found it to be on par with the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L Lens at similar apertures. The TS-E 24mm may have a slight advantage at and beyond f/5.6. The TS-E 24mm was somewhat sharper in the corners, but still showed some extra corner softness wide open (on a full frame body). Sharpness decreases as the lens is tilted - and decreases more rapidly as the lens is shifted. Remember that sharpness isn’t everything.”

Website: The-Digital-Picture.com - Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 L Tilt-Shift Lens Review