The winners of the August 2004 PhotographyBLOG Competition have now been decided. The theme for August was “Sports” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery. Here are the 3 winners:

1st Place
“hand off” by daniel?
View this entry

Judges Comments:
“Great action shot! Great lighting and exposure! Great facial expressions!”

“What a great moment to catch and the subjects expressions are wonderful.”

Prize: Photobird.com one-year subscription with 100 megabytes of storage space
Kindly donated by Photobird.com.
http://www.photobird.com

2nd Place
“Lone Wasp On The Fly” by cazmockett
View this entry

Judges Comments:
“Excellent photographer location! Puts you in the game. Was the photographer running along with them?”

Prize: 1 copy of Powerretouche Full Pro Pack
Kindly donated by Powerretouche.
http://powerretouche.com

3rd Place
“Dragon Fury” by vancefry
View this entry

Judges Comments:
“I like the composition of this photo and how it shows the team working together.”

1 copy of Digital Photography Hacks by Derrick Story.
Kindly donated by O’Reilly.
http://www.oreilly.com

Congratulations to the 3 winners and thanks to everyone who took part!

The September 2004 Competition is now open for entries. This is a monthly photography competition with a specific theme and prizes for the top 3 photos. The winning entries will be decided by a panel of judges. You just have to submit one photograph to the Competition Gallery that best interprets September’s theme, which is simply “Sunrise and Sunset”.

Nikon School Announces New Schedule For Popular Nikon School Photography Seminars

Three Digital Photography Courses Teach the Essentials to Photography Enthusiasts at All Skill Levels

MELVILLE, N.Y., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/—Nikon Inc. (http://www.nikonschool.com/), the world leader in photography, has released the new schedule for its popular Nikon School, one of the most comprehensive photography education and training programs in the industry. Nikon School seminars are taught throughout the country by renowned imaging experts. The three separate, one-day courses are designed to help digital photographers and business users of all skill levels better understand and improve the digital photography experience, including capturing, editing and sharing digital images. Whether the camera is simple or complex, new or old, digital or film, Nikon School has an appropriate course. The next Nikon School series will launch on October 2, 2004 in New York City, and visit more than 20 cities in the U.S. through June 2005.

“For more than 30 years, Nikon School has educated thousands of photographers in the creative picture taking process,” said Jerry Grossman, Vice President of Marketing for Nikon Inc. “With the expansion of digital imaging into America’s homes and offices, we recognize the need to educate photographers at all skill levels on how to get the most out their digital experience. Nikon School helps to make picture-taking come alive for more photographers, and brings enthusiasts together to explore new digital techniques and applications.”

Imatest LLC Press Release 08/09/04

Boulder, Colorado - September 8, 2004 -Imatest LLC announces the release of Imatest 1.0, a software package that measures the sharpness and image quality of digital camera images and digitized film images using inexpensive widely-available targets.

Never before has it been possible for photographers to measure the performance of their cameras and lenses with such accuracy and convenience. You had to rely on subjective judgments or published test results. Now you can perform your own measurements, simply and easily, by photographing a target and analyzing the results with Imatest software.

The technology website AnandTech has published a 12 page comparison of the new Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3 and its predecessor the Z2, which might help you to decide which model to buy (found via digicamera.net).

“Overall, we found the Z2 to perform better than the Z3 in relation to Auto WB in tungsten light. In our color reproduction test, the Z3 had a much stronger yellowish-pink cast than the Z2. Indeed, it performed worse than we could have imagined. However, both cameras did pretty well reproducing colors in tungsten light when we used the Tungsten preset or set the WB manually. That said, we noticed that the Z3 slightly underexposed all of our indoor image tests (including video).”

Website: AnandTech - Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z2 & Z3: What is the difference in performance?

Tom’s Hardware have posted their review of the 14 megapixel Kodak DCS Pro SLR.

“Products such as the Canon EOS 300D or the Nikon D70 have made digital SLR cameras accessible to the general public. Meanwhile, offerings for the professional market are limited. For example, there is not much beyond the Contax N Digital and the Canon EOS 1Ds in the pro sector. However, now that it’s technically possible to produce DSLRs that are no more bulky than traditional film SLRs, Kodak has come to the fore with its 14-million pixel monster, available in two models - the SLR/c (Canon mount) and SLR/n (Nikon mount).”

Website: Tom’s Hardware - Kodak DCS Pro SLR Review

DigitalCameraInfo.com have published one of the more technical reviews of the new 5 megapixel Sony DSC-W1 digital compact camera that you will find on the internet, using Norman Koren’s new Imatest program for some of their testing.

“For a point and shoot camera, the DSC-W1 is not proficient in auto mode. While the camera will read extreme lighting to produce a proper exposure, many of the images recorded in automatic ISO mode are fraught with noise and distortion. As the available light is diminished, the camera struggle to compensate and it results in increased noise levels. Fortunately, the DSC-W1 does contain manual ISO control, providing the user the opportunity to control the image clarity.”

Website: DigitalCameraInfo.com - Sony DSC-W1 Review

Rangefinder Magazine is a photo magazine that unusally seems to publish most of it’s hard-copy content online. Consequently there are a whole range of articles that are too numerous to simply list here. Instead I’ll pick out one or two of my favourites and leave you to explore the rest. Profile: Andreas Gursky is a great look at a photography that I have admired ever since seeing a few of his large-scale photographs at Tate Modern, London, a couple of years ago - “Paris, Montparnasse” is one of the photos in the article. The Magic Hour is Larry Brownstein’s take on one of my favourite times of the day for photography - just after the sunset (he also likes just before the sunrise, but I’m not so keen on that!).

Website: Rangefinder Magazine

Nature Photographers Online Magazine has been updated for September with some new articles and an excellent cover photograph.

- Photos from My Back yard - A Photo Essay by Jim Erhardt
- Andy Rouse’s Shots of the Month
- Quick Tips for Better Nature Photography by Darwin Wiggett
- The Art of Communicating with Light by Darwin Wiggett
- Landscape Photography Composition - Part 1 by Guy Tal
- Wildlife Photography - Direction of Light by Jim Erhardt
- Using Reflectors and Diffusers for Macro Photography by Jim Erhardt

Website: Nature Photographers Online Magazine

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. When you see the name Carl Zeiss in conjunction with the word camera-phone, you know that this relatively new technology is coming of age. The legendary lens-maker is working in conjunction with Dialog Semiconductor to create camera phone modules. Roland Pudelko from Dialog Semiconductor commented “The battle for the next generation of camera phones will be decided by the combination of CMOS image sensors with innovative optics.” and “ten megapixel camera phones are…well within reach.”

Website: Reiter’s Camera Phone Report - Dialog Semiconductor, Carl Zeiss to develop camera phone modules

PC Magazine have published a bunch of photography-related reviews today, so rather than link individually to each one, here’s a handy list:

- Canon PIXMA iP4000 Printer
- Canon PIXMA iP3000 Printer (pictured)
- Canon PIXMA iP2000 Printer
- Canon PIXMA iP1500 Printer
- Kyocera Finecam SL400R
- Nikon Coolpix 4100
- Nikon Coolpix 3200

The 4th (and I think final) preview today of the new 5 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1 digital camera comes from Steves Digicams:

“A new hybrid record mode makes the most of the scene being captured by automatically recording five seconds of QVGA video before and three seconds after the still image is snapped, creating a more complete record of the sights and sounds of the moment. The video and still images are stored as two separate files, but played back as one in the camera.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1 Preview

The 3rd preview today of the new 5 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1 digital camera comes from Imaging Resource:

“The DSC-M1 is certainly an interesting concept, and while it still has some rough edges (particularly in terms of ergonomics and design, as I mentioned previously), it also has plenty of positives as well. While it isn’t designed to completely replace a camcorder, its relatively compact dimensions and light weight will make it much more likely to accompany you, than would be a separate digital camera and camcorder that would likely each be as large, or larger.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1 Preview

The Slovenian website eFotoGrafija have just published their review of the 8-megapixel Nikon Coolpix 8700 digital camera.

Website: eFotoGrafija - Nikon Coolpix 8700 Review

Sandisk Press Release 08/09/04

SANDISK AND AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE OFFER UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE PICTURES WITH PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS IN EXOTIC LOCATIONS

“Extreme Adventure Series” Lets Winning Bidders On eBay Travel to Six Locations Around The World For Hands-On Mentoring With Renowned Photographers; Proceeds To Benefit “Make A Better Place” Charity

Sunnyvale, CA, Sept. 8, 2004 - SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today announced that SanDisk and American PHOTO magazine will launch the Extreme Adventure Series, a unique opportunity for avid photographers at all skill levels to gain first hand experience by working one-on-one with some of the world’s most famous photographers in six ‘extreme’ locations around the world starting in 2005. Each travel package will be auctioned off with winning bidders traveling to Florida for Super Bowl XXXIX, Indiana for the Indy 500 Auto Race, Botswana for an African safari, France for the Tour de France, Canada for a polar bear expedition and an exploration to India.

The auction can be previewed at (http://www.ebay.com/americanphoto) and bidding will take place from September 10-20, 2004. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the Make A Better Place organization, a not-for-profit arts and education organization that promotes youth development and learning through community service and positive social change (http://www.makeabetterplace.org). In addition, each winning bidder will receive a 1 gigabyte (GB) SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash card, which is specifically designed for harsh weather and rapid-fire shooting.

DCResource have published their hands-on preview of the new 5 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1 digital camera.

“People probably won’t buy the M1 for its picture-taking abilities: they can get that elsewhere for less money. Instead, it’s for people who want to take higher quality movie clips with less of a hit on their memory cards. Since the M1 uses MPEG4, you don’t need a fast Memory Stick Pro card to record video at the highest quality—any regular Memory Stick Duo card will work. This new movie feature is called MPEGMovie4TV (versus MPEGMovie VX on other recent Sony cameras).”

Website: DCResource - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1 Preview

Lexmark Press Release 08/09/04

Lexmark changes the game for photo printing at home

Two new devices bring home the power and simplicity of retail photo kiosks

Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE: LXK) today introduced two products that dramatically change the at-home photo printing experience.  The result of exhaustive research, focus groups and user testing, every aspect - from innovative industrial design and enhanced performance to unique, value-added bonus features - will simplify the digital photo printing process for busy families.

Kristy Holch, a Group Director at InfoTrends/CAP Ventures observed, “Consumer photo printing has not quite kept pace with the proliferation of digital cameras.  Consumer comments reveal the causes, such as too many steps in the printing process and lack of time.”

The Lexmark P915 Home Photo Printer and the Lexmark P6250 Home Photo Center All-in-One are persuasive alternatives to products from other printer manufacturers and challenge the appeal of photo kiosks at large retail outlets.

Lexmark Press Release 08/09/04

Lexmark All-in-One redefines document management and distribution for SMB professionals

—The X7170 All-in-One integrates hardware and software functionality to give SMB professionals a productivity edge—

Lexmark International today introduced the Lexmark X7170 All-in-One featuring exclusive Productivity Suite Software - the latest addition to the company’s line of Small & Medium Business (SMB) products. Designed to make life easier for busy SMB professionals, the X7170 can dramatically cut administrative time, helping businesses be more productive.

Lexmark’s new X7170 All-in-One offers small business owners a one-stop shop for easily faxing, scanning, printing and copying documents, and with the new Lexmark Productivity Suite Software, an easy-to-use method to move information between the paper and digital worlds.

“The Lexmark X7170 All-in-One offers printing, scanning and faxing capabilities together with a complete document management solution,” said Giovanni Giusti, Managing Director, Lexmark UK. “Having all of this functionality tied together with our easy to use document management software allows owners to spend less time managing their documents and more time managing their business.”

Shooters Press Release 08/09/04

DigitalPro 3: Award winning digital image management software now includes image cataloging

Pro Shooters releases DigitalPro 3 for Windows, the first true business solution for digital photographers’ image workflow

Portola Valley, Calif. - September, 2004 - Today Pro Shooters LLC, released DigitalPro 3 for Windows. New with Version 3 is a fully integrated image cataloging system tied directly to its award-winning image management system. No longer do photographers need multiple applications to manage their digital workflow. DigitalPro3 handles the entire process, from loading images off cards, reviewing, renaming, captioning and filing. With DigitalPro’s image catalog users can quickly retrieve images based on categories, keywords, captions or shooting data. For editing DigitalPro 3 integrates seamlessly with Adobe Photoshop, Nikon Capture, or the user?s choice of photo editor.

Unique to DigitalPro 3 are:

Real-time Cataloging while browsing, Unlimited size Catalogs
End-to-end color managed workflow
Integrated support for Photoshop CS Batch Raw processing
Raw+JPEG mode allows quick image handling for Raw+JPEG shooters

DigitalPro3 has already received a 2004 Editor?s Choice award from American Photo magazine and is showcased in their July issue.

Despite being announced less than 12 hours ago, A-Digital-Eye have published a hands-on preview of the new 5 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1 digital camera.

“As discussed earlier we have been using the new M1 for several days now and have found it to be a very fun camera. The camera appears to take the same very high quality 5 megapixel images still images that we found in the DSC-T1 released earlier this year. What we were very pleased to find was the very quick camera operations. The M1 does have a very fast focus and shutter lag, which helps insure you get the image at the moment you want. We also noticed that flash images were looking good, and to our eye looked a bit better then we recall on the T1.”

Website: A-Digital-Eye - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-M1 Preview

Website: A-Digital-Eye - News

Express Digital Press Release 08/09/04

EXPRESS DIGITAL’S PHOTOREFLECT.COM SITE FOR PRO PHOTOGRAPHERS REACHES 13,000 STOREFRONTS

Compelling Photos Attract 850,000 Unique Visitors per Month

PhotoReflect.com Grows 50% a Year
Storefronts Gross Over $1 Million Per Month for Pro Photographers

ENGLEWOOD,  CO - September 8, 2004 - Express Digital, the leading provider of digital imaging software, e-commerce and lab solutions to professional photography businesses, today announced that its PhotoReflect.com site for pro photographers www.photoreflect.com has hit a high of 13,000 professional photographer online storefronts, reflecting the growing International market for online photo services for pro photographers.? PhotoReflect.com continues to grow rapidly, adding more than 1,400 new storefronts each quarter and showing more than a 50% growth year over year.
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Express Digital pioneered the on-line professional photography marketplace with its creation of PhotoReflect.com in 2000.? PhotoReflect.com is the Internet storefront of choice for the professional photographer.? It is a simple and affordable digital solution that allows the photographer to create new revenue streams and grow their business.?
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