May 2003 news and reviews

Konica has recently put up a flash teaser on their Japanese web site, very much in the vien of Nikon with their Coolpix SQ earlier this year. It shows a number of Konica cameras through the years and ends with a sillouette of the new model with the promise of more information coming on the 6th of June. There are two very good samples linked from the page though, so I think again its a case of wait and see.

Nikon has today announced the new five megapixel four times optical zoom Coolpix 5400 (the Coolpix 5000's sucessor). The Coolpix 5400 is especially interesting because it offers a wide angle 28 mm equiv. four times zoom compared to the typical 35 or 38 mm equiv. Other noteworthy specifications include 1/1.8" sensor (the Coolpix 5000 used a 2/3"), ISO 50 - 400 sensitivity, up to 10 minute Bulb exposures and front or rear flash sync.. Available "Summer 2003" with a list price of $799. UPDATE: 5400 will get RAW "in Spring 2004" via a firmware update.

Lexar Media and SanDisk have today both announced support for the xD-Picture Card format, which was developed by Olympus, FujiFilm and Toshiba. Lexar Media will now be offering xD-Picture Cards
in Lexar packaging through many of its worldwide retail outlets and SanDisk have signed a 5 year agreement with Olympus to manufacture as well as sell xD-Picture Cards under the Olympus brand.

Lexar has recently identified a rare compatibility issue between some of their 32x and 40x Professional Series CompactFlash cards and Nikon D1x & D1h cameras. Under certain conditions, the cards can become corrupted resulting in a standard "CHA" error message on the camera's LCD display. The affected cards can be identified by the card's serial number located at the bottom edge of the card opposite the connector. Cards with a serial number ending with the last 4 characters of 4D8D or 6DB4 should be updated with the latest firmware.

Pentax has today issued an English (the previous was only in Japanese) press release about the delay of the *ist D digital SLR. "Due to a delay in the delivery of some components, the product launch has been pushed back to late August of this year. In the sales memorandum of February 27, 2003, the original date was announced to be sometime in June or July. Final specifications will be announced later." For their sake I hope they can hit this new target and not delay any further, having a flagship digital product is important and Pentax really need to prove that they can actually produce a digital SLR.

Phew! Perhaps one of the most exhaustive (and exhausting) reviews I've ever produced, our review of the fourteen megapixel DCS-14n spans no less than 24 pages, five of which are dedicated to comparing this camera to Canon's eleven megapixel EOS-1Ds. We've had our DCS-14n for some time now so I've had a good chance to evaluate the camera, and the various firmware versions which have flowed our way. And that's part of the problem, is the 14n actual finished yet? Dive into our review and see how Kodak's latest digital SLR stacks up.

Pentax Japan has today published a press release informing their customers of a delay to the availability of their new '*ist D' digital SLR which was announced at PMA this year. The *ist D was originally scheduled for sale in June 2003, this has now been moved to 'the end of August 2003' due to 'a delay in the procurement of material required'. While delays in the delivery of materials is something out of Pentax's hands it must be slightly embarassing after the fiasco of the previous Pentax digital SLR which was forever delayed and eventually cancelled.

Kodak may have to write off "tens of millions'' of dollars invested in a failed venture with Hewlett Packard, called Phogenix, that was making picture-developing kiosks. Kodak was counting on the mini-labs to catch up to Fuji Photo's five-year head start, instead it will now focus on a development agreement with Noritsu Koki Co. of Japan as its "core'' mini-lab.

Sigma has today posted (as promised) firmware v1.4.0.1302 and Photo Pro v1.1 (1302). The firmware has three major features; support for Lexar WA (write acceleration) technology, a bug fix for occasional hangs in long exposures, compressed preview images resulting in smaller X3F files. The new version of Photo Pro has a wide variety of fixes, the most important of which is improved JPEG output quality by using 4:4:4 downsampling (fully sampled chroma). UPDATE: Image quality comparison included.

Kodak has today announced an agreement to acquire Applied Science Fiction's film processing technology, Digital PIC™. Digital PIC is a non-chemical process for developing standard color negative film. It produces a digital image file that can be used to print photographs and be written to a CD. As a result, Kodak's will have the only kiosks capable of taking any input, including film, and giving the consumer the prints they want, in minutes.

Sigma has announced new SD9 firmware and a new version of Sigma Photo Pro will be made available for download next Wednesday, 14th May. The new firmware and Photo Pro combination deliver improved noise reduction, improved processing speed and the primary concern of SD9 owners higher quality JPEG images from Photo Pro. JPEG files from Photo Pro are now saved with the 4:4:4 down sampling when the quality is set to 7 or higher, the previous version of Photo Pro used 4:2:0 down sampling which could lead to loss of color resolution and odd color artifacts.

Fujifilm UK has today announced a £300 price reduction for their S2 Pro Digital SLR. To this day the S2 Pro remains one of my favourite digital SLRs with superb resolution and 'only Fujifilm do it this well' color. Will Rolls, Marketing Manager, Fujifilm UK said, "For consumers, two things have improved on the FinePix S2 Pro - firstly, it is now available more widely than before, and secondly, at a very accessible price. It is not the newest digital SLR on the market, but we are confident that it will easily outgun recent additions to this important category."

Aska Corporation, Japan has today announced the new CF32A 'Speed Over' PCMCIA CardBus CF adapter. Because this new adapter uses the high speed 32-bit CardBus interface it can deliver transfer speeds of 5 MB/sec (compared to the 1.2 MB/sec of the normal PCMCIA interface). This would no doubt provide welcome relief to Notebook users and photographers 'in the field' who often have to put up with slow image transfer performance. The CF32A is a PCMCIA Type II CardBus card and supports Compact Flash Type I or II including the IBM Microdrive. UPDATE: Japan only product.

Olympus America announced that it will reunite with photo visionaries Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen, original creators of the highly acclaimed Day in the Life series of photography books, for America 24-7, the largest collaborative photography event in history. A huge corps of digital photographers will shoot images for a digital time capsule representing life in America over the course of one week, May 12th-18th.

Maha Energy Corp., the maker of the PowerEx brand batteries and chargers has today announced their latest hike in AA NiMH battery capacity, now up to 2200 mAh. Just four months after announcing 2000 mAh AA NiMH batteries they have managed to squeeze an extra 10% (200 mAh) capacity into the batteries. 'As part of its global marketing program highlighting that “Not All Batteries are Created Equal,” indeed due to variation in design, quality control and rating, even identically rated batteries could have significant variation in performance as much as 30%.'

Kyodo News have posted an interesting story about Fujifilm planing to reduce its digital camera shipment outlook for fiscal year 2003 by 500,000, fearing it will become difficult to procure components manufactured in China due to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Company officials said Wednesday "Digital cameras are strategic products, for which demand has been rapidly expanding on a global basis, creating procurement difficulties for some components."