Philips advocate CMOS for tiny lower resolution imaging
devices, although this news may not have immediate imact on digital still
cameras any progress in this area will impact later. "With
our new SeeMOS technology, you will one day be able to make a video camera
no thicker than a pencil and about a centimeter long," said Theo Claasen,
chief technology officer at Philips Semiconductors (Eindhoven, Netherlands).
Claasen said the picture quality of the CMOS sensor "is excellent" at 640
by 480 pixels.
«
January 2000
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March 2000
»
February 2000 news and reviews
February 28
Steve
posts a review of Canon's Champagne S20, he says "Like the PowerShot
S10, the S20 is a super-compact, all-metal bodied camera that is ready to
easily take on life's little bumps and knocks. For a palm-sized camera the
3-megapixel images are simply gigantic and guarantee photo-quality prints
to 8x10" and beyond. Canon has got another mini-sized winner here. "
February 27
February 26
Ok, so it's not BlueTooth or WAP and it's really just a
press release by FlashPoint, but for me it's an indication of where all
digital devices will be in a year or two. The ability to connect seamlessly
to the internet and share data (pictures, video whatever) wired and wireless.
February 25
Ricoh
popped out two new digital cameras to coincide with CeBit. The RDC-7 sports
a slimline almost "Agfa look", a 3.34 megapixel CCD and 3x optical
zoom lens, it's being marketed as the thinking professionals digital camera
(just right for the execs briefcase). The RDC-6000 being a more typical
compact digicam look with a 2.14 megapixel CCD and no optical zoom.
February 24
Good news (Sony hopes) for the MemoryStick is that 19 more
companies have licensed its flash storage technology... Interesting are
the numbers of motor manufacturers (memory keyfob anyone?) Sony
Corp said on Thursday it added 19 companies including General Motors Corp
to a list of firms it has licensed to develop gadgets using Sony's Memory
Stick as a data storage device.
Casio
take on Canon at their own game with the similarly sized and styled XV-3.
This aluminium bodied 3.34 megapixel digicam looses out slightly to Canon's
S20 by havnig no optical zoom, the lens is fixed at 41mm (34mm equiv.)
with a 12 stage up to 3.2x digital zoom (but we all hate digital zoom).
Oh and it's also available in a very attractive pale (cyan?) blue case.
The
guys over at Imaging-Resource have just posted their Casio QV-3000EX review,
a camera which promises to be the first 3+ megapixel digicam to be available
for sale. Not only that but Casio seem to have an incredible offer of
$999 including a 340MB MicroDrive... amazing. Here's what Imaging-Resource
had to say: "Overall, we were very pleased
with the QV-3000EX. It offers the best image quality we've seen yet from
Casio, with a strong feature set at a very attractive price. (Particularly
given the inclusion of the 340 megabyte IBM MicroDrive!)"
February 21
Dramatic headline admittedly, a study of 700 digital camera
owners (not a huge number, perhaps I should run a similar poll here) found
that digital camera owners expect to capture 100% of their images digitally
by 2004. In that tight criteria I think alot of digital camera owners already
capture near 100% of their images digitally...
February 20
February 19
Exclusive: we bring you the first review of the 3.3 megapixel Canon PowerShot S20, a small yet perfectly formed digicam which produces impressive results and a true gain from its extra pixels. "Well, I loved the S10.. For me it was the first digital camera to have the quality of the best compact film cameras with great features, pocketability, image quality and a robust build. The S20 takes that to the next level with even better image quality..."
February 16
Olympus
Japan today announced water and dustproof cases for the C-2020Z / C-3030Z
(PT-005) and C-960Z (PT-006). These cases allow the cameras to be used in
otherwise inhospitable environments. They are waterproof up to 30m available
March - April priced at 19,800 YEN (US$180) and 18,500 YEN (US$170) respectively.
Cruising my normal news haunts I noticed this interesting
article which notes that Digital camera shipments by Japanese makers surged
81 percent in Oct-Dec based on the same period the year before, up to 1.94
million. By value shipments jumped 61 percent to 84.4 billion YEN (US$759
million).
February 14
February 10
Toshiba
Japan today announced the M70, their first foray into the 3 megapixel
race, a camera first seen at PMA2000 now headlines Toshiba's range with
a 3x Canon Zoom lens (35-105mm 35mm equiv., fast F2.0) uses SmartMedia
for storage and has full support for the shutterbug features of Aperture
and Shutter priority. Looks and specification (specifically the Canon
3x lens) cunningly similar to the Casio QV-3000EX.
February 7
This
very interesting press release from one of our sponsors, they'll soon be
providing free film developing, digitizing and storage on their website
along with the ability to take pure digital prints from that. "...announced
today a new service that enables photographers using 35mm and APS film to
receive free film developing, digitization, and storage through Ofoto.com.
With this service Ofoto will deliver the same convenience and ease of digital
photography to all people even if they prefer film photography."
Rob
Galbraith, probably one of the most respected professional digital photo
journalists gives his lean on the Fuji S1 Pro a camera at a low price which
promises to deliver much (6 megapixels), Rob was at PMA 2000 and handled
the camera, purely from a journalists point of view here's what he says
"During a demo, one Fuji rep went so far as to say that one potential
use was photojournalism. When challenged on this point, his response was
"Why not?" During another demo, a different rep, who was aware I was a news
photographer, pointed at the Nikon D1 hanging around my neck and said "you
won't need one of those anymore." Egads. The S1 Pro may be a good camera,
but lest you have any doubts, let me assure you that this is not a camera
built for pro photojournalists."
The
PalmPix is an add on for your Palm III, IIIe, IIIx or VII, it adds a 640x480
diigtal camera (CMOS imager) ability to your Palm, uses the Palm's screen
as a viewfinder / reviewer (although it does actually shoot in colour).
Each image requires 100KB of the Palm's memory (so it's better suited
to the newer higher capacity Palms).
The
guys over at Imaging Resource got the paws on Fuji's "6 megapixel"
S1 Pro digital SLR and shot a couple of samples (as they admit, in poor
circumstances, but noticeably very little noise on the ISO1600 image), they've
also posted an updated article on the camera along with some interesting
insight.
February 4
Hoorah! We've just gone through the 4,000,000 unique
visitors since January 1st 1999. Receiving over 600,000 unique visitors
per month (we're aiming for 750,000 in Feburary) means that the millions
will now roll off very quickly, so I'll only celebrate the big ones in
the future (5, 10 etc.) Thanks to everyone!!
Today
HP announced two new digital cameras: the 2.24 megapixel 3x Zoom (Pentax
Lens) PhotoSmart C912 (SLR look and feel) with manual controls and
TTL viewfinder and the 2.1 megapixel, 3x Zoom PhotoSmart C618.
Another interesting things about these cameras is that they feature Flashpoint's
Digita Operating System as previously seen on several Kodak DC2xx's and
Minolta's EX1500 range, the big advantage of Digita its support for an
in-camera scripting language. UPDATED: Also known
as Pentax EI-2000 & Pentax EI-200, pictures of the cameras from PMA
2000.
Canon
Japan has now confirmed what we've already seen, the development of an
EOS Digital SLR camera, the press release offers little more to what we've
already gleaned: a 3+ megapixel CCD, Canon-EF lens mount, Canon-EF lenses.
Expected "Sale Time" Autumn 2000. They also include a calendar
of dates when the reference camera will be exhibited.
Today
HP announced two new digital cameras: the 2.24 megapixel 3x Zoom (Pentax
Lens) PhotoSmart C912 (SLR look and feel) with manual controls and
TTL viewfinder and the 2.1 megapixel, 3x Zoom PhotoSmart C618.
Another interesting things about these cameras is that they feature Flashpoint's
Digita Operating System as previously seen on several Kodak DC2xx's and
Minolta's EX1500 range, the big advantage of Digita its support for an
in-camera scripting language. UPDATED: Also known
as Pentax EI-2000 & Pentax EI-200, pictures of the cameras from PMA
2000 - Thanks to the guys at Imaging-Resource.
February 3
Here's
an interesting article from AP on Kodak's new tie-up with HP to produce
digital photo machines to be installed in retail stores, you simply drop
off your memory cards (or other media one assumes) and get much higher quality
prints than can be achieved at home. The catch? a 4"x6" will cost
you 75 cents, considerably more expensive than online photo finishers.
As
rampant rumours bounce around the great halls of the Internet, Sony are
on the brink of announcing some new Mavica's.. the camera which should
be of interest to most is the FD-95 a 2 megapixel, 10x Optical Zoom (plus
2x digital), supports standard Floppy Disk and MemoryStick (using Floppy
Disk adapter) "upgrade" to the ever popular FD-91.
Slightly muffled news this one, but a rumour from one of
my anonymous sources says that Olympus are working on a new digital SLR
"professional studio camera", it will use 3 x 1.25" CCD's
to produce a combined resolution of 4.2 megapixels. The camera is dubbed
SHD-S2.
As
rampant rumours bounce around the great halls of the Internet, Sony are
on the brink of announcing some new Mavica's.. the camera which should
be of interest to most is the FD-95 a 2 megapixel, 10x Optical Zoom (plus
2x digital), supports standard Floppy Disk and MemoryStick (using Floppy
Disk adapter) "upgrade" to the ever popular FD-91.
Interesting to note that the new HP digital cameras below
use Pentax lenses, in a separate press release FlashPoint "boast"
the use of their Digita operating system on "A new range of PENTAX
Digital Cameras". Pentax is the name used by Asahi Optical Co. Ltd.
of Japan. (This appears to be a joint venture between
Asahi and HP, each bringing their own expertise to the camera range).
UMAX,
better known for their excellent scanner range (I'm a big fan of the 2400S),
launch the AstraCam 1000, a budget-orientated, easy-to-use 640 x 480 digital
camera with 4MB of built-in memory, it has a convenient docking station
and best of all it's small and cheap (about the same size as Fuji's MXx700
range).
News
of two new Photo Quality printers from Epson has been around for a few
months but today Epson officially announced them in a press release (aimed
at the US market). The 870 and 1270 promise "First Real Photo Lab
Solutions For Digital Printing" with "...Delivers Look, Feel
and Now Longevity of Traditional Photo Lab Prints", there's alot
of excitement around these printers which should (if the Photo 750 is
anything to go by) revolutionize home photo quality printing. Add to this
the 875DC which has a built-in PCMCIA reader for printing of images directly
from flash memory cards.
February 2
My
good friend Rob Galbraith sent me an email pointing to his latest article
on choosing a CompactFlash (or just plain storage card) for pro digital
cameras, in his own words "I've posted a look at report called Selecting
a CompactFlash Card for a Professional Digital Camera that you and your
readers might find interesting."
This update fixes problems with Mac OS9 using Nikon View
2.x (Nikon Coolpix 700, 800, 900 & 950) and Nikon View DX (Nikon D1).
Fixes are stated as: "The NikonView2.x Updates
will support the Coolpix 700,800, 900 and 950 This updates corrects a system
freeze which would occur when attempting to access a mounted Coolpix Camera
The Nikon ViewDX Updates will support the Nikon D1 Digital Camera Only!
This updates corrects a system freeze which would occur when attempting
to access the D1 via a 1394 interface"
Sony
out to surprise us all (well those who didn't already know...) today announced
three new digital cameras the DSC-S70
(3.3 megapixels), DSC-S50 (2.1 megapixels) and DSC-S30
(1.3 megapixels). Each camera housed in a similar case (but rather
more traditional looking body than the F505) features a 3x Carl Zeiss zoom
lens, 2.5Hour Lithium batteries, USB and a TIFF mode... see inside for more.
[including samples from the S70]
February 1
This article caught my interest simply because we're creeping
towards that goal of 1,000,000 unique visitors per month. Press Release:
PhotoPoint.com's Popularity Surges to Record Levels Web's Largest Photo-Sharing
Community Ranked Among Top 500 Sites by Media Metrix, Eclipsing Fortune
500 Names.
Press Release: EZ Prints and Digital Camera Network Announce
Strategic Partnership, EZ Prints announced today that it has been selected
by Digital Camera Network (DCN) to provide e-photofinishing services for
DCN customers as part of DCN's recently announced "PC-free,'' "Shoot-2-Print(TM)
Solution
Displaytech will be exhibiting micro (0.19" diagonal)
LCD displays on their stand at PMA 2000, these displays are designed to
be used in viewfinder for video cameras, digital cameras and head-mounted
displays and produce a 320 x 240 (76,800 pixel) image.
January
carried on a tradition started over a year ago, building popularity of
the site. In January we saw some 590,375 unique visitors (just 10,00 shy
of the 600,000 mark.. half a days visitors!) with 4,155,951 page impressions
(yep, we've broken the 4,000,00 mark). Despite a dip at the beginning
of the month (Y2K and a generally quiet Internet) we continue to prove
the popularity and sucess of Digital Photography Review.
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