September 2004 news and reviews

Contax has today announced a lookalike of the SL300R T*; the four megapixel Contax U4R. The swivel lens camera has a curvier body and boasts a Carl Zeiss Vario Tessar 3x zoom lens and a 2-inch LCD. It will be available in October priced £399 (approx $595) and we're told that will include a 'fairly large' SD card of around 256MB. This will be updated when we receive more information.

We have just been handed a pre-production Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D digital SLR. On our way back from the show I've snapped a few samples for your viewing pleasure. Most of these shots were taken with a deliberately slow shutter speed to test Konica Minolta's Anti-Shake CCD stabilization system. And the results do look surprisingly good. We hope to bring you a more extensive gallery later in the week.

SanDisk has today announced a device that allows you display still images and movies on a television. SanDisk Photo Album (SPA) can take eight types of storage media as well as portable flash drives. One of the key features is that the SPA stores images in a format optimal for television viewing. The SPA comes with a remote control and will retail for around $49.99 (approx. €46).

SanDisk has announced three new card readers; the ImageMate 12-in-1, ImageMate 5-in-1 and the ImageMate CompactFlash. Each new reader has a one-touch transfer button and software for simplifying common tasks such as renaming and emailing files. All devices come bundled with image cataloguing program Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 Starter Edition.

SanDisk has today announced its new range of memory cards which double the performance speeds of its predecessor. Aimed at professionals, the new Extreme III range includes CompactFlash, SD and Memory Stick PRO media with the first two boasting read/write speeds of 20MB/sec, while the latter has 18MB/sec. SanDisk says its cards will work in extreme temperatures ranging from -13F (-25C) to 185F (85C). Integrated RescuePRO software allows photographers to recover accidentally deleted images or data. They will begin shipping in October.

SanDisk has quadrupled the capacity of its high speed Ultra II line of memory cards with an 8GB CompactFlash card. Also at the top end of the Ultra II range is a 4GB Memory Stick Pro and 2GB SD card. Each boasts a minimum write speed of 9MB/sec and read speed of 10MB per second.

SanDisk has announced the availability of its budget-priced Shoot & Store line of flash memory cards in Europe. The cards, including CompactFlash, SD, Memory Stick PRO and xD-Picture Cards, will be sold according to the number of images that can be stored as well as their capacities. The new range is aimed at new digital converts who want the convenience of leaving their flash cards with developers as well as those who don’t have the time or ability to download images to a computer. Prices are expected to range from around €10 for 32MB to approximately €15 for 64MB, both excluding VAT.

Olympus has today announced that it wil launch a combined digital camera, image viewer and music player called the m:robe early next year. Information is very sketchy at the moment with no technical spec available or images but Olympus says it has an 'eye-catching, minimalist design'. It is due to be released early next and the price is yet to be confirmed. The only other company to release a similar product is Fuji with the FinePix 40i in June 2000.

Ulead Systems has today announced PhotoImpact 10. Aimed at beginners, the update has a welcome screen which allows users quick access to tasks such as scanning, getting photos from a digital camera, browsing images or making simple edits. Some new high end features include an enhanced Lasso tool and Object Extraction Wizard for complicated cut-outs, a Touch up tool, live Histogram Panel display and enhanced High Dynamic Range (HDR) Engine. Other new features include a Basic Mode simplifies the interface and displays large, easy-to-recognise icons, revamped menu system, dockable and groupable panels, and a moe 'robust' Browse Manager.

Olympus today announced the second ever Four Thirds System digital SLR, the new E-300 (to be know in North America as the 'Olympus EVOLT E-300'). This digital SLR features an eight megapixel 4/3 size CCD, it has unique TTL Optical Porro Finder (mirrors instead of glass prisms) viewfinder which uses a sideways swinging mirror system. Although Olympus hasn't yet announced pricing we can derive from the specifications and design that this camera will be aimed at point lower than the E-1, in the consumer D-SLR market.

Three new lenses, a new digital SLR and to round things off a new more compact, more affordable flash unit, the FL-36. This flash is designed to work exclusively with the Olympus E series (Four Thirds System) digital SLR's and provides 1/8 step illumination control with both TTL and FP-TTL automatic flash metering. The FL-36 has a range of 12 - 36 m (depending on focal length) and has a field of view coverage of 8 mm (16 mm equiv.). The FL-36 will be priced at $249 in the US.

Olympus has today announced the 4 megapixel D-590 Zoom for the entry level market. The camera has no optical viewfinder (like the AZ-2) and a 1.8-inch ‘sunshine’ LCD, 8 scene modes, movie with sound and is PictBridge-compatible. Aside from the new curvy designs we've been seeing from Olympus, it has chosen to position an on/off slider switch on the front of the camera.

The sleek AZ-1 has had an upgrade in the shape of the 4 megapixel AZ-2 which is just over 2cm (less than an inch) wide and includes a 2.8x zoom lens. The rear of the camera is dominated by a large 2.5" 'sunshine' LCD said to allow better viewing in bright light and it has a minimalist design with very few controls and notably no optical viewfinder. It also boasts 13 scene modes and is PictBridge compatible. It will be priced £299 ($399) when it is launched.

Adobe Systems has today announced a new unified public format for raw digital camera files and a free software tool, Adobe DNG Converter, for translating raw photo formats into the new .DNG format, which is compliant with the Digital Negative Specification. There is no standard format for raw files, which vary between manufacturers and cameras. Digital Negative Specification will introduce a single format that can store information from a diverse range of cameras. An updated Adobe RAW File Converter adds support for DNG as well as several other cameras.

Three major manufacturers have announced an agreement to develop a set of storage standards to preserve digital photos on CDs, DVDs and other media. Konica Minolta, Fuji Photo Film and Eastman Kodak have formed the Picture Archiving and Sharing Standard (PASS) Group which aims to enable digital file compatibility with future playback devices. PASS wants to ensure that digital images can be retrieved from any digital device or storage medium in future

Lexar has today announced two new CompactFlash card readers, built with similar material to a digital camera, a Multi-Card Reader and single slot Card Reader. The two new Professional CompactFlash readers can be easily stacked and daisy-chained together for concurrent download of images. They offer read and write speeds in excess of 10MB per second, are available in USB 2.0 and FireWire format, and they support Lexar’s new ActiveMemory System. The four-slot Multi-Card Reader accepts Reduced-Size MultiMedia Cards (RS-MMC), Mini SD and Memory Stick Duo among numerous other media cards. The Lexar one-slot Card Reader replaces the Lexar JumpDrive Trio, and offers compatibility with Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital and xD-Picture Cards.

Lexar has today announced a new technology designed to optimize digital photography workflow and enhance productivity in the studio. ActiveMemory System will allow photographers to store the owners name and image preferences on the card as well as append images with copyright information. The new technology is already supported by Professional CompactFlash cards and new Lexar Professional FireWire ad USB 2.0 card readers. Of course, to use these cards you will need to an ActiveMemory-enabled camera, which has yet to be announced.

Yesterday we managed to get our hands on a pre-production Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, after a short run around Cologne we've mangaged to put together a sixteen image samples gallery from this sixteen megapixel digital SLR. Two things are immediately obvious, firstly that noise levels are impressively low at high sensitivities and secondly that less sharpening appears to be required that the EOS-1D Mark II. Oh, and there are a lot of pixels in a EOS-1Ds Mark II image!

According to a new study published by InfoTrends/CAP Ventures digital camera sales in Western Europe this year are forecasted to reach 24.2 million units which is a growth of 42% compared to 2003. This will make the European digital camera market the largest (in terms of unit shipments) in the world. This is very interesting news and supports what we have seen in the ever growing number of European visitors we receive here on dpreview.

Back in August Sigma announced an update to the Photo Pro software used to develop SD9 and SD10 RAW images for output to JPEG or TIFF, we did miss this announcement. There are several improvements and benefits in this new version including improved Automatic White Balance, SD9-specific color highlights fix, SD10-specific purple-fringing fix, Monochrome processing (including tinting), As-Shot WB and various Info window improvements.

Sigma has announced their first Four Thirds System lens, the 18-125 mm DC Four Thirds lens. On a Four Thirds mount digital camera (the only one right now being the Olympus E-1) this seven times zoom lens provides an equivelant field of view of 36 - 250 mm. This lens is clearly the same 18-125 mm DC lens announced in May with a Four Thirds lens mount / communication protocol. This means that it's producing an imaging circle large enough for an APS-C size sensor.

Sigma has announced the EM-140 DG Ring Flash. Targetted at macro, medical and scientific applications the EM-140 DG can be configured to fire both flash rings (left & right) or just one depending on the look. It has a guide number of 14 and is is powered by four AA batteries. From a connectivity point of fview it is compatible with most modern TTL flash protocols including Canon E-TTL, Nikon D-TTL & i-TTL and Pentax P-TTL (as well as Sigma S-TTL).

Sigma has announced three new lenses designed for both film and digital SLR's. They are the APO Macro 150 mm F2.8 EX DG HSM (a fast tele-macro lens with a Hyper Sonic Motor), the 24-70 mm F2.8 EX DG Macro (a useful 24 mm wide angle zoom with a large maximum aperture and macro capabilities) and the 28-70 mm F2.8 EX DG (a compact standard wide angle zoom with a large maximum aperture).

Samsung is fighting hard in the compact digital camera market with the launch of six new cameras to be officially announced at Photokina. First is the 7 megapixel Digimax V70 which has a tiltable 2 inch LCD and MPEG4 movie capture. The Digimax A400 is a four megapixel compact, boasting a 2.8x optical lens, 2" LCD and 640 x 480 pixel video clips. The Digimax A5 and Digimax A6 which have resolutions denoted by the model name. And for the style-conscious among you there's the fixed lens five megapixel U-CA 501 and U-CA 505. More news as get it from Samsung.

It's final, or so we're told. Here is what Fujifilm are calling the official final press release for the FinePix S3 Pro, this comes ten days after we posted our own exclusive hands-on preview of the camera. We've used the specifications provided in this final press release to double check the specs page provided in our preview. Still no official pricing yet, I guess that will be saved for another announcement...

Leaked in some detail over the weekend we can now bring you full details of the 16.7 megapixel EOS-1Ds Mark II. Successor to the EOS-1Ds the Mark II maintains the 36 x 24 mm CMOS sensor (full 35 mm frame size), raises the pixel count by almost six million pixels, provides ISO sensitivity through to ISO 3200, faster continuous shooting (4 fps) with a large and improved buffer (32 JPEG, 11 RAW) as well as all of the changes we saw between the EOS-1D to EOS-1D Mark II. Additionally Canon has also announced the WFT-E1 Wireless Transmitter which supports 802.11b/g (WiFi) as well as tethered LAN for transmission of images directly back to a server. It will be priced £5,999 (UK), $7,999 (US) and €8,000 (Europe).

Canon has today announced its latest cutie in the shape of the PowerShot SD20. Available in four colours, it is Canon's smallest five megapixel camera to date. It's capable of shooting 180 seconds of video with sound, but lacks an optical zoom, offering only a 6.5x digital zoom. The all-metal camera weighs 100g and is said to be "half the size of many mobile phones". It will be priced $349.

Canon has today announced what it is calling a brother-sister pairing, in the shape of the PowerShot SD200 and PowerShot SD300. They are the first cameras to incorporate two UA (Ultra-high Refractive Index Glass Moulded (GMo) Aspherical lens) elements which has alllowed Canon to produced its smallest cameras to feature a 3x zoom. Both are SD compatible with the only main difference being the resolution; four million pixels (SD300) and 3.2 million pixels (SD200), priced €399 and €299 respectively.

Pre-Photokina 2004: Our show report pages are always a big hit and considering the number of Photokina products already announced we thought it was about time we activated our Photokina 2004 Show Report. It will enable you to stay informed about all the latest product announcements as well as getting live updates from the show floor once the show commences. We are expecting several more announcements in the next ten days which will be posted both on the front page of the site and linked from the 'New Product Index' page in the show report. (We recommend you bookmark the show report page).

Nikon has today revealed the sucessor to the D1X. The new D2X digital SLR has a 12.4 million pixel DX format CMOS sensor, by default the D2X can shoot at 5 fps, however it has an interesting 6.8 milion pixel option which reduces the sensing area (to a FOV crop of 2x) but increases the frame rate to 8 fps. Hence the D2X can be seen as two cameras in one, a 12.4 million pixel high resolution shooter and a 6.8 million pixel high frame rate shooter. Obviously the use of CMOS is new to Nikon but also new on this camera is a four channel read-out from the sensor and the ability to perform WB correction to the analogue data before it is digitized. Also new is the WT-2 wireless transmitter with 802.11 b/g support and wireless Capture Control (Nikon Capture 4.2).

Nikon has today announced a new 300 mm prime lens with a maximum aperture of F2.8 and Vibration Reduction. Following on from the AF-S 200 mm F2.0G VR announced back in May this new lens would provide an equivelant 450 mm F2.8 on a DX format digital SLR (such as the D2H or D2X). Also new on this lens is the Nano-Crystal coating used on the inside lens elements which are desgned to further reduce ghosting and flare. In addition it is also compatible with the TC II teleconverters (1.4x - 2.0x).

Nikon has today announced the eight megapixel ten times optical zoom Coolpix 8800. It becomes the first eight megapixel digital camera to feature a ten times optical zoom lens and also becomes the first consumer digital camera from Nikon to have Vibration Reduction, the stabilization system seen on some of Nikon's SLR lenses. Other features include a 1.8" flip-out and twist LCD monitor, higher capacity battery and USB 2.0. Internally it appears to be almost identical to the wide angle zoom Coolpix 8400 also announced today. We have had a pre-production camera for a few days and have produced a detailed preview, see inside. The 8800 will have an MSRP of $999 (£699) and will be available in the Fall.

Nikon has today announced the eight megapixel wide angle zoom Coolpix 8400, the successor to the Coolpix 5400. It features an all new wide angle 24 - 85 mm equiv. 3.5x zoom lens, a 1.8" flip-out and twist LCD monitor, an electronic viewfinder, a higher capacity battery and USB 2.0. Internally it appears to be almost identical to the 10x Coolpix 8800 also announced today. We have had a pre-production camera for a few days and have produced a detailed preview, see inside. The 8400 will have an MSRP of $899 (£649) and will be available in September.

Konica Minolta today put the final 'meat on the bones' and officially announced the specifications for the Maxxum 7D (Dynax 7D) digital SLR. Much of it is as we had guessed, a Minolta A-type bayonet lens mount, a 1.5x FOV crop 6.1 million pixel CCD, Anti-Shake, Pentaprism viewfinder, 2.5" LCD monitor, RAW, RAW+JPEG, sRGB/Adobe RGB, ISO 100 - 3200, CF Type I/II storage and a Lithium-Ion battery.

Another item as part of the official announcement of the Maxxum 7D is Konica Minolta's new image organization and editing application; DiMAGE Master. This optional purchase provides image management, examination, editing and enhancment and includes a wide range of RAW conversion options. Indeed Konica Minolta are clearly stating that RAW images converted through this new application will be better than JPEG's out of the camera thanks to advanced white balance correction and 3D Lookup Table color conversion.

To coincide with their official announcement of the Maxxum 7D Konica Minolta has also today announced two new lenses designed specifically for it. These are the AF 17 - 35 mm F2.8 - F4.0 (D) and the 28 - 75 F2.8 (D). Because of the 7D's 1.5x FOV crop these lenses will provide an approximate field of view of 26 - 53 mm and 42 - 113 mm respectively. No prices or availability for these lenses has yet been released.

The oddly-shaped digital camera-cum-cine camera Optio MX has be reincarnated with the MX4, which Pentax announced today. The new version ups the resolution to 4 million pixels while maintaining the 10x optical zoom. It has a 1.8-inch tilt and swivel LCD as well as a pop-up flash the height of which is said to reduce red-eye. It will be available in October.

Pentax has announced the lateset addition to its Optio range; the 5 megapixel, 5x optical zoom Optio SV. The Optio SV incorporates Pentax's Sliding Lens System which means a reduction in the length of the lens and also allows for compact dimensions of 28mm wide. It will be available in October.