Archos, Inc., a global provider of innovative handheld entertainment and storage solutions, introduced today the AVCam 300, the world’s first camera and camcorder attachment for a portable audio and video player. The AVCam brings together for the first time a 3.3-megapixel camera, MPEG-4 camcorder and player, MP3 recorder and player and massive hard disk. The AV300 series and AVCam are available today at Website: archos.com.

The world’s first combined 3.3 Megapixel camera, MPEG4 camcorder, MP3 recorder and USB 2.0 hard disk is here. All integrated seamlessly with the VIDEO AV320 or 340 from ARCHOS. 

The compact AVCam 300 is full of innovations that have been designed especially for use with the VIDEO AV300 series. A simple press-fit attaches the AVCam 300 onto your VIDEO AV320 or 340 allowing you to enjoy it’s many fantastic features:

- Unique combination of MPEG4 camcorder and digital still camera: within seconds you can switch the functionality of the AVCam 300 from camcorder to still camera. 
- 3.3 Megapixel (effective) CCD, matched optical system and advanced imaging technology for high resolution crystal clear pictures and video. 
- 10x digital and 3x optical zoom Ricoh lens
- Massive storage: 40,000 3.3-Megapixel photos*
- Camcorder to record up to 80 hours of MPEG4 video, QVGA (320x240) 20 f/s NTSC,  25 f/s PAL, with MP3 stereo sound. 
- Stereo audio recording and real-time encoding directly into MP3.
- View your videos and photos instantly on the large 3,8” built-in color LCD or on larger screen size by connecting your VIDEO AV300 series to any TV or monitor.
- Several program modes for automatic control of exposure, white balance and color saturation
- Ultra-fast USB 2.0 transfer of videos and photos to and from your computer. The VIDEO AV300 series contains a hard disk, that will be mounted as an additional hard disk when connected to a computer. This allows easy file management.

Website: Steves Digicams - Archos Press Release

Once again Steves Digicams are first off the blocks with a review of a new digital camera. This time they’ve reviewed the Fuji FinePix S3000 digital camera, which features 3.24 effective million pixels, 6X Fujinon optical zoom and digital movie recording. The S300 uses xD-Picture Card (16MB to 512MB) storage and its lens focal length is equivalent to 38-228mm on a 35mm camera. The list price for the S300 is $399.95.

“While most digicams in its price range offer a 3X optical zoom, the S3000 gets you twice as close to your subject with its Fujinon 6X optical zoom lens. This not only offers you more versatility in composing your shots, but it also adds significantly to the “fun” factor of owning a digicam. The lens produces sharp images throughout its 38-228mm (in 35mm equivalence) zoom range, but with noticeable pincushioning at full telephoto and barrel distortion at full wide-angle.”

Website: Steves Digicams - Fuji FinePix S3000 Review

Website: Read my review of the Fuji FinePix S3000

Perhaps of more interest to the average photographer than Luminous Landscape’s review of the Leaf Valeo 22 is the Digital Cameras Gift Guide 2003 from Photoxels, which recommends a digital camera for several different categories.

“This Holidays Season, give the gift that will always be welcomed and treasured all year round. Our editors have compiled their favorite digital cameras in four categories—Point-and-Shoot, Beginner, Serious, and Advanced—to bring you our Photoxels Editor’s Choice Digital Cameras Gift Guide 2003.”

Website: Photoxels - Digital Cameras Gift Guide 2003

Luminous Landscape has published its review of the Leaf Valeo 22, a 22 megapixel back for medium format cameras such as the Contax 645 and Mamiya 645 AFD. At $29,000 it may just be out of reach for the average photographer :-)

“In early November I was visited by Ilan Carmi, Leaf’s Product Marketing Manager. He had with him a Valeo 22 back designed for the Contax 645, and we spent one morning filming an interview with Ilan for the Issue #9 (Dec. ‘03) issue of The Video Journal. In this discussion we examined the Valeo 22 back and discussed its features and capabilities. We also had a broad-ranging discussion about the digital back and camera industry in general, and the future of large-sized imaging chips.”

Website: Luminous Landscape -  Leaf Valeo 22 Review

RE:CREATION, the UK?s biggest creativity awards programme has finally finished its UK tour and is now welcoming applications for its awards programme.

RE:CREATION?s 6 award categories are: Photography, Music, Fashion Design, Illustration/Design, Creative Writing and Film. Applications are welcome from anyone in the UK aged 26 or under and must be received by 12.1.04. Entries will be judged by a celebrated panel of experts including Rankin, Mary Anne Hobs, David Bailey and Julie Verhoeven. Category prizes have been specifically designed to give an enormous boost to each winner, giving them an amazing platform from which to launch their career!

*** Run by Topshop and Dazed & Confused, re:creation have been holding special seminars and parties throughout the UK. They have provided a fantastic opportunity for up-and-coming film makers, musicians, photographers, journalists and other aspiring ?creatives? to get insider tips from top professionals.***

Entry forms can be found online attopshop.co.uk / confused.co.uk & @ all Topshop, Borders & Fopp Stores?

DCResource have posted a First Look at of a pre-production version of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1, which is due to be released in January 2004.

“If you take a stack of credit cards and pile them up to about 0.8 inches tall, you’ll have a good idea about the size of the DSC-T1. Sony was able to create an ultra-thin, 3X zoom camera by doing what Minolta has done for a few years now, with their DiMAGE X-series cameras. They place the lens elements down the body, rather than directly behind the lens opening. A prism redirects the light downward, which is where you’ll find the moving parts and the CCD sensor.

The T1’s body is all-metal, giving it a very solid feel. It’s also a little heavier than you’d expect. The important controls are also easy to reach.”

Website: DCResource - Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1 First Look

CNET have reviewed the HP Photosmart 735 digital camera, which has 3.2 megapixels and up to 15x zoom - 3x optical and 5x digital - from a Pentax precision lens for clear, crisp photo prints.

“If you don’t mind overly vivid colors, HP’s Photosmart 735 is a solid value. It offers a 3-megapixel resolution, a sharp Pentax 3X zoom lens, and a decent feature set that’ll please anyone looking for a simple point-and-shoot. Just be ready for a neon world. “

Website: CNET - HP Photosmart 735 Review

CNET have reviewed the Fuji FinePix A310, which uses Fujifilm’s new 4th Generation Super CCD HR with 3.1 million effective pixels and 6.0 million recorded pixels. The Fuji FinePix A310 currently retails for around $250 / ?250.

“Fujifilm’s FinePix A310 offers 3-megapixel resolution and a 3X zoom lens to folks looking for a snapshot camera that they can take anywhere. We liked the A310’s style and fairly compact size, but lackluster performance and mediocre images dampened our enthusiasm.”

Website: CNET - Fuji FinePix A310 Review

If you’re looking for an original, hand-crafted Christmas gift this year, then look no further than my extensive range of photographic prints. There are currently 723 different photos to choose from at markgoldstein.co.uk, covering categories as diverse as Travel, People, Urban, Landscapes and Macro.

All of my photographs are now available to buy as mounted prints in a variety of sizes, as well as unmounted prints. Mounted prints have a white window matt with a 45 degree bevelled edge and are mounted onto white card. They are ready to fit into a frame which should be the same size as the mount size. Unmounted prints will need to be matted and framed when you receive them.

The title of the photograph, the month and year when the photograph was taken, and my signature appear on the back of each photograph/mount. I can deliver to both the United Kingdom and Overseas.

markgoldstein.co.uk

markgoldstein.co.uk - Price List

The winner of the third PhotographyBLOG Photo of the Week contest is smslavin with his entry “The Day Ends”. There are no prizes as such for this contest, but the winning photo is displayed on the PhotographyBLOG homepage for a week, and the winner can display the Photo of the Week logo on their website if they wish.

The 4th Photo of the Week contest is now open.

This is a weekly photography challenge where you decide who the winner is by voting for your favourite photos. It’s an open contest with no set theme and you can enter as many photos as you like. Just make sure that you submit your photos to the current Photo of the Week Gallery.

Last week’s winning entry, “self portrait” by Hannah, has been viewed 789 times, so if you want to gain some exposure and publicise your photography, then winning the Photo of the Week contest is a good start :-)

Photoxels have today published their review of the Canon EOS 300D digital SLR camera.

“The EOS Digital Rebel simply bests the best of the prosumer digital cameras with its excellent resolution, virtually noise-free images at high ISOs, low-light capability, virtually no shutter lag for fast response times, excellent AF, easy to use dedicated buttons for less reliance on the MENU, and an attractive and affordable price point.

It should appeal to serious amateur photographers who are willing to put forth the effort to learn and master its capabilities, as well as to advanced amateur photographers who appreciate its excellent image quality and fast response times.”

Website: Photoxels - Canon EOS 300D Review

The software company FixerLabs has announced a new product called TrueBlur, which is designed to give a better blur effect than Photoshop’s Gaussian blur filter. Interestingly TrueBlur uses EXIF information (where present) to generate an accurate model of the lens optics.

TrueBlur is available in both PC and Mac OS X versions and is designed to be used with Adobe’s Photoshop and Elements. It costs $27 and there is a free trial version available to download.

Website: TrueBlur

A new version of Qimage, a popular image viewing/printing software program, has recently been released. Version 2004 is the first major upgrade this year and now offers the ability to crop each individual print without the need to crop images, highlights the most compatible print size(s) when thumbnails are selected, and has higher quality thumbnails. Click the link below to see the full list of new features.

Website: Qimage 2004 Feature List

Digital Outback Photo have posted their first impressions of the Nikon D2H DSLR in the form of a diary; check back regularly to read what Uwe and Bettina think of Nikon’s new DSLR.

“The D2H is designed for speed and as such the resolution is limited to 4MP. But even the D1H served journalists well at 2.7 MP. So the 4MP is matching the Canon 1D and will be enough for most journalistic work. There will be always a tradeoff between speed and resolution (but we still expect Canon come out with a follow up to their 1D as next year are the Olympic games).”

Website: Digital Outback Photo - Nikon D2H First Impressions

Version 3 of Neat Image, a digital filter designed to reduce visible noise in digital photographic images, has just been released. It’s a free upgrade for all registered owners of a previous version.

The new features and improvements in Neat Image v3.0 are:
- Improved noise reduction engine with increased processing speed
- Neat Image now works 2.5 times faster on a standard PC and even faster on HyperThreading or multiprocessor systems!
- Profile Matcher
.. to automatically select a device noise profile most suitable to process the input image
- Variant Selector
.. for easier optimization of filter settings
- Photoshop CS compatibility
- Improved graphic user interface (available on Windows XP)
- Several other improvements and bug fixes
Please see the history of changes for more details

Website: Neat Image

A Digital Eye has posted the second part of their 2003 Holiday Shopping Guide, which is basically their recommended digital cameras for a particular price bracket. This time they recommend digital cameras in the “$400-$500 compact point & shoot style digital camera” category.

“Overall, if we were offered a choice of cameras for free, one being a 3 megapixel camera on the one hand, and one being a 4 or 5 megapixel camera on the other, we would take the higher resolution camera almost every time, especially if its between the same manufacturers two models. We think noise issues for family photo needs are a minimal issue, as most prints and/or Web resized images simply will not show the noise that theoretically can be seen when an image is looked at full size or enlarged in a program such as Photoshop by a highly critical eye. In addition, it is possible that some 4 megapixel cameras you may consider below will actually have less noise then really cheap alternative 3 megapixel cameras that are out there to also consider.”

Website: A Digital Eye - Holiday Shopping Guide Part 2

In this week’s Sunday Morning Photographer column Mike Johnston lusts after the latest DSLR from Nikon:

“The reason I like the idea of the D2H (I haven’t laid eyes on one yet) is that it seems to have all the qualities I like in all kinds of cameras - foremost among which are superb responsiveness and a big, bright, clear viewfinder. Shutter lag is supposedly a mere 38ms, which is fantastic even for a film camera, with a total mirror blackout of 80ms. This thing must be sharp as a razor. As Homer would say, wooo-hooo! “

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: Camera Envy: the Nikon D2H

Sanyo have announced a new addition to their range of dye-sublimation printers. The DVP-P1 printer applies a coating over the ink layer to give prints outstanding resistance to light and moisture and a print life of 100 years. The DVP-P1 prints out a true borderless 6x4 inch photo in about 40 seconds. The DVP-P1’s easy-to-use controls are set in the front panel, along with a large 2.5” x 1.8” LCD - you don’t need a computer to use it.

Website: Sanyo- DVP-P1 Digital Photo Printer

German website Photoworld.de have posted their review of the Pentax Optio 33WR, a compact 3-megapixel camera with a 2.8x optical zoom and a weather resistant case.

Website: Photoworld.de- Pentax Optio 33WR Review

Steves Digicams have posted their review of the Panasonic DMC-FZ10 Lumix ultrazoom digital camera.

“The most prominent feature of the FZ10 is its 12x Leica Vario Elmarit zoom lens, with a focal length coverage of 35-420mm in 35mm equivalence. That’s a lot of lens by anyone’s standards especially when the vast majority of other digicams only have 3x zooms. Anyone who has used a digicam with a long focal length zoom knows that these lenses really add to the overall “fun factor” of using a camera.”

Steves Digicams - Panasonic DMC-FZ10 Lumix Review