DigiCamReview.co.uk have just posted the first review that I have seen of the very cheap and cheerful 3 megapixel Vivitar Vivicam 3760, which can be found in the UK for as little as £86.99.

“Image quality is average - the images have okay colour, okay detail (although they could do with a sharpen), low noise, and there is very little purple fringing. Image compression seems quite high based on the file sizes, but it doesn’t seem to cause jpeg artifacts. The macro mode is good (a bit better than average). The flash did cause problems when the subject was too close, causing highlight detail to be lost, and occassional colour problems. Auto white balance and metering seemed to be okay. The movie mode is good although a bit low-res compared to other cameras, and unfortunately lacks sound. The digital zoom is easily the worst I have ever seen, and should not be used on this camera.”

Website: DigiCamReview.co.uk - Vivitar Vivicam 3760

The Slovenian website Slo-Foto have just reviewed what is sure to be a popular digital camera, the 5 megapixel Canon PowerShot A95.

Website: Slo-Foto - Canon PowerShot A95 Review

Epson USA Press Release 11/10/04

Epson Pairs Most Advanced Pro Printer with Exclusive ColorBurst RIP to Launch Complete Printing Solution for Demanding Creative Professionals

LONG BEACH, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 11, 2004— Epson Stylus(R) Pro 4000 Professional Edition Features a Custom-designed PostScript Language Level 3 RIP by ColorBurst(R) that’s both PANTONE(R) Licensed and SWOP(R) Approved  

Epson America Inc. is expanding the capabilities of its most advanced professional-level photographic printer to deliver the highest level of performance and value. The Epson Stylus Pro 4000 Professional Edition combines the award-winning Stylus Pro 4000 printer with a custom-designed RIP from ColorBurst and Epson’s fastest Ethernet card for the premier printing solution for digital proofing, fine art and digital photography.

Featuring Epson UltraChrome(TM) Ink, the Epson Stylus Pro 4000 Professional Edition produces extremely brilliant, color-accurate, stable prints with repeatable results that are consistent from printer to printer. The unique PostScript Language Level 3 Compatible RIP developed by ColorBurst exclusively for this Epson printer is the first one that includes a full Pantone color library, so there is no need to convert Pantone spot colors to process equivalents, and is SWOP certified. Because this version produces contract-quality prints for final approval in-house, it saves designers money, enables them to set expectations for clients and facilitates the prepress workflow.

Cerious Software Press Release

ThumbsPlus 7.0 offers more features than any other digital content management software!

CHARLOTTE, NC, October 6, 2004 - Cerious Software, Inc. has released its full-featured ThumbsPlus v7.0 for Windows, one of the leading software solutions for digital content management for over 10 years, and well known on the Internet for the best customer support in the business! Unlike most competing products, ThumbsPlus is completely database-driven which allows sophisticated features such as: extensive search capabilities, search by similarity, user defined fields, image galleries, and management of offline disks, even across a local network.

ThumbsPlus 7.0 offers more features than ANY other digital image management software! Please read all about the new look and feel of ThumbsPlus as well as a list of the new features including 16-bit image processing as well as options for creating, handling and viewing alpha channels in 24-bit and 48-bit images. ThumbsPlus v7.0 has also added support for many other database programs such as Oracle, DBase, MYSQL and others.

Pantone, Inc. Press Release 11/10/04

PANTONE ColorVANTAGE Inks Expand Support for EPSON Wide-Format Printers; Wide-Gamut Pigmented Inks Now Support EPSON 2200, 4000, 7600 and 9600 Ultrachrome Printers

CHICAGO - SINESS WIRE) - Oct. 11, 2004 - Pantone, Inc., the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries for over 40 years, today announced the availability of PANTONE(R) ColorVANTAGE(TM) pigment-based inks for EPSON(R) Ultrachrome(TM) printers. Newly supported printers include the EPSON Stylus(R) Pro line of wide-format professional printers including the 9600, 7600 and 4000 models as well as the EPSON Stylus Photo 2200 large-format photographic printer. PANTONE ColorVANTAGE inks are already available for the EPSON Stylus Photo 1270 and 1280 and the EPSON Stylus Pro line including the 5000, 5500, 7000, 7500, 9000 and 9500.

PANTONE ColorVANTAGE is a family of premium pigmented inkjet inks and specially developed printer profiles to ensure optimal color performance. The inks are designed for applications that require the most accurate color reproduction and the widest possible range of color such as color photography, fine art reproduction and prepress proofing. A wide variety of profiles for fine art, proofing and photographic papers including Arches(R) Infinity(TM), Seiko Epson Corporation, Hawk Mountain Papers, Kodak, Mitsubishi, Moab Paper Company(TM), Premier Art(TM) and Red River Paper are available free-of-charge for registered users at www.pantone.com. New media and profiles are added regularly.

Acronis Press Release 11/10/04

Phoenix Global Software launches Acronis True Image 8.0 into UK retail.

Acronis True Image 8.0 delivers comprehensive workstation protection - the complete disk imaging, system disk backup, and bare metal restore for workstations and home PCs.

London - October 11, 2004 - Acronis, Inc., the technological leader in storage management solutions, has launched Acronis True Image 8.0, the latest upgrade to its expanding family of award-winning workstation and server disk imaging, backup, and bare-metal restore software. Acronis True Image 8.0 is the easiest, most convenient and intuitive disk imaging, backup and system restore software you’ve ever seen. It’s automated, wizard-driven operations make the backup and restore functions extremely to complete.

Acronis True Image 8.0 allows users to create the exact disk image of live workstations for a complete file and system backup, providing a comprehensive and cost-effective protection solution.  The disk image file includes amongst others, the computer data including the operating system, programs, software updates and patches, data files, configurations, preference settings, e-mails, pictures and MP3 files. After a fatal system failure, you can restore the entire drive contents to a known, working state or simply replace the lost or corrupted files and folders.

Based on the Exclusive Acronis Drive Snapshot disk imaging technology, Acronis True Image allows you to create an online system backup without the reboot to keep the system productive. The product provides the fastest bare metal restore dramatically reducing and, therefore your IT costs.

Serif Press Release 11/10/04

PAGEPLUS REACHES ANOTHER LANDMARK!

Serif celebrates the tenth release of its award-winning flagship package

Serif (Europe) Ltd - the UK’s leading independent desktop publishing, design and graphics software developer - today announced the launch of PagePlus 10, the landmark version of their hugely popular desktop publishing package.

PagePlus 10 (List Price £99.99; Upgrade Price £49.99*) is the exciting new version of Serif’s flagship desktop publishing package, extensively enhanced to offer everyone powerful desktop publishing features at an exceptionally affordable price. More professional than ever before, PagePlus 10 combines excellent support for multipage document publishing with Serif’s trademark ease-of-use, to offer a DTP package that’s perfect for every publishing task.

A much-requested feature, new BookPlus introduces capabilities for long document handling that no other package in this price range offers. Separate PagePlus publications are treated as individual chapters that can be assigned common attributes (such as text styles and colour palettes) from specified master publications. Plus, the advanced Page Numbering System applies differing or continuous numbering across publications, without needing to open them separately. A Table of Contents or Index can be generated automatically across multiple publications and inserted before or after any selected chapter, removing the laborious task of manual cross-referencing. BookPlus also outputs collections of publications to both print and PDF for highly flexible and efficient multipage desktop publishing.

Delkin Devices Inc. Press Release 11/10/04

DELKIN’S PORTABLE BURNAWAY COMBINES A CD BURNER, CARD READER & DVD PLAYER IN ONE DEVICE FOR A SRP £199.99

Delkin Devices Inc is now shipping the BurnAway portable combo media player.

The BurnAway is a versatile mobile CD burner that combines a number of today’s most popular digital electronic devices in one unit.

The BurnAway features a Slim Type DVD/CD-R/RW Drive, and works as a memory card reader, a digital slideshow player that shows photographs on TV and a DVD/MP3/CD player.

The unit operates independently of a computer and can be a lifesaver for traveling photographers looking for a quick and easy way to burn the contents of their memory card to a CD-R. Two built-in memory card slots support CompactFlash (I&II), Microdrives, SD, MMC, SmartMedia, Memory Stick and MS PRO. The BurnAway also supports XD cards with an adapter (not included).

New high-resolution cameras need additional memory to accommodate larger file sizes, making the BurnAway a perfect solution for quickly clearing memory cards on the go so you can keep shooting.

Thanks to a problem with my shiny new wireless connection, I’ve been unable to connect to the internet today, never mind update PhotographyBLOG. Apparently workers outside who are busy digging up the road sliced through some important cabling. Or some such excuse.

Anyway. I’ll get on with stuff now :-)

Today at 12 midday BST (British Summer Time), 7 names were randomly selected from the list of PhotographyBLOG Newsletter subscribers. If you are one of the winners, you will already have received an email from me ([email protected]). In order to protect the winners’ email addresses, I’m not going to publish them here.

One person has won a £100 Bags of Love Voucher.
Kindly donated by bagsoflove.co.uk.
http://www.bagsoflove.co.uk

Three people have each won a copy of Digital Photography Expert Techniques by Ken Milburn.
Kindly donated by O’Reilly.
http://www.oreilly.com/

Three people have each won a copy of Ulead DVD PictureShow Digital Camera Suite.
Kindly donated by Ulead Systems.
http://www.ulead.co.uk

If you haven’t won anything, then don’t worry, as a brand new contest will be starting soon!

To have any chance of winning, you must subscribe to the PhotographyBLOG Newsletter.

Every Saturday of each week you will receive a Newsletter containing the lastest digital and film photography stories from the United Kingdom and around the world. It also contains the latest news from the PhotographyBLOG website. You can choose to have the Newsletter delivered to you as either a HTML or text version.

If you are already a subscriber, you do not have to do anything to enter this competition. Your name will automatically be entered in the prize draw.

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Rumours are circulating that Apple will introduce a colour version of the iPOD in the next couple of months which will have a colour screen and a video-out port so that you can carry your photo collection around with you (found via gizmodo).

“After three years of being synonymous with “digital music player,” Apple’s iPod will widen its horizons and gain photo-viewing capabilities within the next 30 to 60 days, highly reliable sources tell Think Secret.

The new iPod, which will sit at the top of Apple’s fourth-generation line-up, will pack Toshiba’s new 60GB 1.8-inch hard drive, a 2-inch color liquid crystal display, iPhoto synchronization, audio/video-out capabilities, and will sell for $499.”

Website: Think Secret - 60GB iPod to pack photo-viewing features

PCMagazine have recently reviewed the budget Epson Stylus C66 4 colour printer, which was first announced in the UK back in June.

“If you care about output quality more than anything else and you’re on a tight budget for purchase price, the Epson Stylus C66 ($70 street) may well be your printer of choice. It offers among the best overall output quality of any ink jet, period.”

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1668297,00.asp?p=2

Steves Digicams have published a review of the new Panasonic DMC-FZ20 digital camera, which has a 12x optical zoom lens from Leica.

“We were pleased with the overall image quality when using 2560x1920 (5- megapixel) Fine mode. With its 12x zoom you can get close to the action, even at the other end of the football field. The autofocus system and lens produced consistently sharp results, although there’s some loss of sharpness at the edge of the image when using its telephoto capabilities. Our outdoor images were consistently well-exposed and richly saturated right out of the camera, but you can override the degree of sharpness, contrast and saturation using the camera’s menu system.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Panasonic DMC-FZ20 Review

The second review today of the new 3 megapixel, 12x optical zoom Panasonic DMC-FZ3 digital camera is courtesy of Steves Digicams.

“Ergonomically the FZ3 is a well-designed camera. It has a good secure feeling in your hands. The controls are easy to access and clearly labeled as to their function(s). The camera is much smaller than you would imagine, it is only slightly larger than an average sized hand. The FZ3 features both an LCD and EVF (Electronic ViewFinder.) The EVF is a miniature color LCD monitor located in the eyepiece that is magnified and made to have the users eye very close to it. This is a high-resolution EVF with very good color rendition and there’s a diopter adjustment to match the user’s eyesight. Both displays worked well.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Panasonic DMC-FZ3 Review

Vincent Oliver over at Photo-i has now completed his interactive review of the new Canon PIXMA iP8500 printer.

“When I first saw the ip8500 in July my immediate reaction was wow! This was going to be the printer that set the standard for the next generation of inkjet printers. The sample prints we were shown were a mixture of red motorbike shots and red autumn leaves. The prints jumped off the page, I had never seen such deep reds from any inkjet printer before. Little did I know at the time that this over saturated red would also cause problems. Putting aside the colour issue, the actual print quality is nothing short of outstanding. Micro detail is well rendered, in fact better than my eyes can actually see. The banding that was once a problem with so many inkjet printers can now be safely forgotten about.”

Website: Photo-i - Canon PIXMA iP8500 Review

Michael Reichmann has published a great article about developing your own personal photographic vision and ultimately “learning to see”.

“Possibly the biggest curse of the digital photography revolution is that it has excessively focused photographer’s attention on technology, rather than vision. We now have tools that allow us to take very sharp pictures indeed, but a sharp photograph of a fuzzy concept is of little interest or value to anyone.

Why then do the majority of photographers, magazines and enthusiast web sites concentrate almost exclusively on gear, secondarily on technique, and hardly at all on how to see? The answer is simple - it’s easier.”

Website: Luminous Landscape - Learning to See

DCResource has justreviewed the new 3 megapixel, 12x optical zoom Panasonic DMC-FZ3 digital camera.

“While not as nice as its big brother (the DMC-FZ20), the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ3 is a very good choice for an ultra zoom camera. The two biggest features are its lens and optical image stabilization system. The 12X optical zoom lens has a maximum aperture of F2.8 throughout the zoom range, unheard of in the digital camera world (aside from other Panasonic models, that is). The lens isn’t quite as nice as the one on the FZ15 and FZ20, though, as it exhibited vignetting in several of my photos. The FZ3’s image stabilizer helps reduce the effects of camera shake which can blur your pictures both indoors and outdoors while taking advantage of that powerful zoom.”

Website: DCResource - Panasonic DMC-FZ3 Review

Bob Atkins has followed up his translation of an interview with one of the Canon directors, Mr. Iwashita, with a look at some of the other Canon interviews that have been published on the web recently.

“What I get out of all this is the impression that the technology is still evolving and technology is still the limiting factor in camera development, even at the high end where cost isn’t so much of a factor. My guess is that maybe in a few years it will be at a point where Canon can offer a single high speed, full frame camera. which is as fast as the 1D, but with 1Ds (or better) quality.”

Website: Bob Atkins - Canon’s Digital Plans Part 2

CNET urce have just reviewed the Pentax OptioMX digital camera, which features 3.2 effective megapixels and 10X optical zoom to capture still images and high resolution (VGA) full-motion movies on MPEG-4 format with zoom capability.

“It may not be the Holy Grail, but so far no one has figured out how to successfully squeeze high-quality photo- and video-recording into a single compact device. The Pentax Optio MX mostly succeeds because it doesn’t try to be supersmall, and its specs aren’t overly ambitious. In this case, you really do get what you pay for: a 3.2-megapixel digital camera, a VGA-resolution 30fps MPEG-4 camcorder, a 10X optical zoom, a swiveling 1.8-inch LCD monitor, and a selection of shooting modes that function much as you would expect with a full-size digital camera or camcorder.”

Website: CNET - Pentax OptioMX Review

Minox Press Release

A Digital Milestone - The MINOX Classic Camera Leica M3 now with 4.0 Megapixels!

The digital classic camera Leica M3 from the optical and miniaturization specialists MINOX of Germany, has now become a classic of a very special kind on the digital camera scene where it continues to excite many end users, dealers and press alike. “Finding a niche in the constantly growing and increasingly competitive digital camera market” was, according to MINOX General Manager, Thorsten Kortemeier, the “major goal” set by this traditionally minded company based in Wetzlar. This has been effectively accomplished by MINOX with their digital replica of the Leica classic camera in its ultra miniature format, which now boasts the attractive feature of 4.0 megapixels, providing the user with sharper recorded images and with even more detailed rendition. Naturally, the latest model from MINOX maintains the highly respected and traditional company values of features and fine mechanical precision built into the most compact design.

Although unusual, the MINOX Digital Classic Camera Leica M3 is both easy to use and ideal for those getting started in the field of digital photography and want classic convention rather than high-tec.