The Norwegian website Akamera.no have just reviewed the Canon Bubble Jet i865 printer.

Website: Akamera.no - Canon Bubble Jet i865 Review

An article today on the BBC website, drawing on research by the UK magazine Digital Camera Shopper, reports that CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia cards all happily survived a range of tests designed to destroy them:

“Holiday-makers capturing precious memories on digital cameras need not worry about losing their snaps.

The memory cards in most cameras are virtually indestructible, found Digital Camera Shopper magazine.

Five memory card formats survived being boiled, trampled, washed and dunked in coffee or cola.”

Website: BBC news - Digital memories survive extremes

The second article in the “Tech Corner” monthly column, by Mike Chaney, over on Steves Digicams is a great look at the potentially thorny subject of colour management:

“It seems that the longer you stick with a particular hobby or profession, the more complicated things get. In digital photography, once you get past that initial thrill of being able to view, edit, and print your own photos, you start to become aware of subtleties like the fact that certain colors on your monitor don’t match what is printed. You do some research and it seems that there is something called “color management” or “ICC profiles” that can fix your problem, but the whole concept seems almost like snake oil, or worse… some foreign language only spoken by rocket scientists.”

Website: Steves Digicams - “Over the Gamut and Through the Woods “

In this week’s Sunday Morning Photographer column Mike Johnstontakes a tongue-in-cheek look at the many different types of 35mm lenses and their uses.

“Macros/micros:

Flowers, bugs, eyeballs, eyelashes, small products, tchotchkes. Dew-covered spider webs, frost patterns on windowpanes. Great hobby lenses, as macro photographers are among the only happy photo enthusiasts. Also much utilized by photography buffs who like to test lenses.”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: USES AND APPLICATIONS OF 35mm LENSES’

Today at 12 midday BST (British Summer Time), 3 names were randomly selected from the list of PhotographyBLOG Newsletter subscribers. The following email addresses have all won a great prize!

artblack at adelphia.net is the winner of a copy of ColorPlus!

Kindly donated by ColorVision Europe.
http://www.colorvision.ch/english/index.htm

joe at startins.freeserve.co.uk is the winner of a Lensbaby!

Kindly donated by Lensbabies.
http://www.lensbabies.com/

mat at honan.net is the winner of a copy of Ulead PhotoImpact XL!

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 for August will be starting very shortly!

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.

If you are not currently a subscriber, then what are you waiting for?!! Enter your email address to subscribe now.

The August 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 August’s theme, which is “Sports”.

Please make sure that you read the Monthly Competition Rules before submitting your entry. Note that you are only allowed to enter 1 photograph. The competition is worldwide and open to everyone.

You can now start submitting entries to the August Competition here:
August 2004 Competition

The July 2004 PhotographyBLOG Competition has now closed. The theme for July was “Patterns” - you can view all of the entries in this gallery.

The 1st / 2nd / 3rd place winners will be announced on Monday 10th August, and the prizes will be sent out shortly after :-)

The 23rd PhotographyBLOG Portfolio has been submitted by John Powell.

“Having been interested in photography for almost twenty years there have been many varied and interesting subjects, which have compelled me to capture them for all posterity. Choosing 15 images for this portfolio was a difficult choice. However, my final decision is to share with you a selection of images, which I have been working on this year 2004, a personal project, capturing the floral beauty of a typical English garden.”

Website: http://clik.to/dapa

Website: Portfolios: John Powell

Digital Camera Magazine have recently reviewed 4 digital cameras, including the 5 megapixel Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1 (pictured).

- Sony CyberShot DSC-T1
- Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX5
- FujiFilm FinePix F420
- Epson PhotoPC L-400

Website: Digital Camera Magazine

The technology website bios have just reviewed the very new CanoScan LiDE 35 flatbed scanner.

“The CanoScan LiDE is no speed demon either, taking a whopping 7m 55s to scan an A4 colour document at its highest resolution (36.6MB scanned file) and 2m 49s to scan a colour 6x4in. photograph (7.62MB scanned file). A black-and-white business letter (A4 size) took 29s to scan before it was ready for editing. A low price means compromises though and the scanner lacks support for a transparency module, film adapter, or even an automatic document feeder, so photographers and high throughput users should look at Canon’s F series or Epson’s Perfection line.”

Website: bios - CanoScan LiDE 35 Review

Photoxels have today reviewed the 5 megapixel Kodak Easyshare LS753, which was first announced back in January.

“The autofocus works very well. I like my AF to snap when I take macro shots and the LS753 does not disappoint. In Multi-Zone, the camera will favour a foreground subject to lock focus on even if the subject is not centered. The Framing marks turn into a red square to indicate where and when the focus has locked. You can change from this Multi-Zone to Center-Zone via the Menu, but this resets when you power off the camera.”

Website: Photoxels - Kodak Easyshare LS753 Review

Imaging Resource have just reviewed the 6 megapixel Casio EXILIM PRO EX-P600 digital camera.

“ISurprisingly low image noise for a prosumer 6-megapixel camera. As pixel counts have climbed, image noise has unfortunately increased as well. The result is that most 5- and 6-megapixel cameras these days show quite a bit more image noise than did their 3-megapixel predecessors of a year or two ago. The P600 does have show some noise even at ISO 50, but overall did better in this respect than I would have expected. - And anti-noise processing at low ISO levels appears to be quite restrained as well, helping preserve subtle subject detail. Overall, a good showing for a 6-megapixel prosumer digicam.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Casio EXILIM PRO EX-P600 Review

Imaging Resource have published their review of the new 5 megapixel Nikon Coolpix 5200 compact digital camera.

“Nikon’s Coolpix line of consumer digicams has always been well-received, appreciated for their image quality and ease of use. Lately, they’ve been finding success in bringing their technology into the consumer market, most notably with the very successful Coolpix 4300 and Coolpix 3200 models. The Coolpix 5200 continues that trend, bringing forward many of the user-interface innovations of the 3200 model, but upgrading the design with a 5-megapixel CCD and a trim, sleek all-metal case. For the most part, I found the Coolpix 5200 to be a good point & shoot camera.”

Website: Imaging Resource - Nikon Coolpix 5200 Review

“Taking Pictures for Profit” by Lee Frost is a book that is aimed at amateur photographers who want to try and sell their photos, either just to cover the costs of their equipment, or maybe to try and earn a living as a photographer. The author, Lee Frost, is a very successful UK-based freelance photographer, whose images are regularly published in many of the UK photography magazines. So will “Taking Pictures for Profit” give you a head start on the road to selling your photos? Read my short review to find out.

Website: Taking Pictures for Profit Review

The 22nd PhotographyBLOG Portfolio has been submitted by Johnny Liseth.

“I am a travel photographer and enjoy capturing snapshots of people and places in a daily setting. These images will hopefully increase our understanding of each other. Sometimes just capturing shapes or light pattern yields beautiful images. A good photo tells a story or pleases your senses or both.”

Website: http://members.cox.net/lisethphoto/

Website: Portfolios: Johnny Liseth

PC Magazine have just reviewed the SpyderPro monitor calibration device and Printfix bundle.

“The premise of PrintFIX is that instead of relying on a generic printer profile, you can create a color profile for each type of paper you use - including third-party papers. You can also create new profiles when you replace ink cartridges. PrintFIX uses a technique called closed-loop calibration. You first print a color chart using the printer and paper you want to create the profile for, and then scan it with the PrintFIX scanner. The software then closes the loop by comparing the scanned image with the colors defined in the chart, and it creates a profile for that specific combination of printer, paper, and ink.”

Website: PC Magazine - SpyderPRO/Printfix Review

Sigma has today announced the availability of two new flash guns, the EF-500 DG ST and the EF-500 DG Super (pictured).

Full details can be found at the following URLs:

http://www.sigma-photo.co.jp/english/flash/flash_500st.html

http://www.sigma-photo.co.jp/english/flash/flash_500super.html

Phase One Press Release 30/07/04

More than 25,000 professional photographers and enthusiasts benefit from working with Phase One’s C1 RAW workflow software every day. Therefore, it is with great pleasure that we introduce C1 LE RAW Workflow software for Mac. Now, for the first time, Mac users can enjoy the low entry cost that C1 LE offers to the Digital SLR enthusiast and low volume professional. C1 LE provides the highly regarded and never duplicated RAW Workflow that Phase One has developed over the past 10 years, along with the famous Phase One image quality.

C1 LE RAW Workflow software for Mac supports RAW files from the following DSLR cameras:

- Canon:
10D/ 300D/ Rebel/ D60/ D30
- Nikon:
D100/ D70
- Olympus:
E1/ E10/ E20
- Pentax: *istD. 

Addonics Technologies Press Release 29/07/04

Addonics Announces MFR (Multi Function Recorder) with DVD+/-R/RW—25-in-1 Digital Media Storage Appliance

SAN JOSE, CA (July 29, 2004) - Addonics Technologies today announced a portable digital media appliance that can perform 25 different functions for a wide range of applications. 

The new Addonics MFR (Multi Function Recorder) with a DVD+/-R/RW is a stand alone flash media backup system, DVD, digital photo and MP3 player as well as an external USB 2.0 DVD burner and flash memory reader/writer—all combined into one powerful portable peripheral that can be used for businesses, home, or even inside a vehicle.

The Addonics MFR DVD+/-R/RW can be used as a stand alone storage appliance (no computer is required) to do following:

- DVD+RW, DVD-RW, CD-R or CD-RW discs
- Connect to TV to use as a regular DVD player
- Use as a stand alone MP3 player
- Direct play back of the digital image in flash memory, DVD+/-R/RW and CDRW media onto TV or Projector

Breeze Systems have just released Downloader Pro 1.4. This simple but powerful tool enables photographers to transfer images to a PC at the touch of a button, renaming and storing them with file and directories names chosen by the user. It includes sophisticated handling of IPTC data, automatic lossless rotation of JPEGs and support for downloading from card readers and portable hard drives.

The new release is a minor update which adds support for downloading Kodak (DCR) raw files and includes a new “Downloads today” counter (token %R). This release also allows the date and time and owner string to be set for Canon PowerShot cameras connected to a PC using a USB cable.

Downloader Pro has been developed by Breeze Systems whose products include BreezeBrowser, DSLR Remote Pro and PSRemote. Downloader Pro runs on Windows and costs US $29.95. It is available on a 30 day free trial from Breeze Systems’ website www.breezesys.com.