April 2004 news and reviews

Iomega has today announced the availability of the new Iomega® Floppy Plus 7-in-1 Card Reader. Iomega’s new host-powered drive is ideal for photographers and mobile users, bundling a convenient 1.44 MB floppy drive with the seamless capability to read and write all of the most common flash media formats. The Iomega Floppy Plus 7-in-1 Card Reader is available now for $59.95 (U.S. suggested retail price).

Forgent Networks has today made good their 2002 claim to JPEG and their intention to pursue licensing revenue from companies who use it. They own United States patent 4,698,672 which covers the JPEG compression standard, this patent was created by Compression Labs who Forgent bought back in 1997. Over the last two years, Forgent's has generated $90 million from licensing the patent to 30 different companies. The camera companies include Canon, Kodak, Fuji, Kyocera, HP, Panasonic, Ricoh, Toshiba, Concord and software suppliers Adobe, Macromedia, JASC.

There is an interesting story today in the UK newspaper, The Independent, about the claims manufacturers make about the lifespan of their CD-R's. They are the easiest means of archiving digital photographs today, but if disc is useless after 2 years, perhaps another archival medium is required. If CD-R is still your chosen media, then purchase the best, record at the recommened speed for your drive, and store in a cool dry environment.

Just posted! Our full in-depth review of the eight megapixel Olympus C-8080 Wide Zoom. This camera combines a brand new five times optical wide zoom (28 - 140 mm) lens with a 2/3" type eight megapixel CCD. The C-8080 also sports a new body design and comprehensive control system. See how the C-8080 Wide Zoom performed in our tests and how it compares to the other four eight megapixel digital cameras currently on the market.

Olympus Japan today announced the three megapixel three times optical zoom AZ-1. This new ultra-compact camera appears to utilize a 'folded optics' lens design similar to the Minolta DiMAGE X series and the Sony DSC-T1, T11. The AZ-1 measures just 94 x 67 mm (3.7 x 2.6 in) and is 22 mm thick (0.8 in), making it approximately the same size as the Sony DSC-T1. The AZ-1 also comes with a cradle used for charging the camera's internal Lithium-Ion battery as well as providing USB and video out connectivity. This camera has not yet been announced outside of Japan and it's not clear at this stage whether this will become a domestic market only camera.

Eamon Hickey has posted a fascinating article on Rob Galbraith's website about the digital workflow employed by Sports Illustrated's team of photo editors and photographers shooting Superbowl XXXVIII. While amazing it also shows how far the workflow side of the process has yet to come, there's still a lot of disjointed work going on, even at the biggest names in the industry. Some fascinating quotes from this story, "Steve Fine is looking at two pictures every second. He's been keeping up that pace, with frequent short interruptions, for over four hours, and he'll keep it up for three more.", "In 2003, Sports Illustrated's photo department processed 1,028,000 digital photographs shot by staffers or freelancers under assignment. In 2004, an Olympic year, they estimate they will process closer to 3 million."

Dave Etchells over at Imaging-Resource has just posted his full reivew of the Nikon D70 digital SLR, "I'll save you the suspense though, and say right up front that I *really* liked this camera. Nikon really got just about everything right, offering a lot more features and capability than the Digital Rebel, at only a slight premium in price. And the lens that ships as part of the kit is a bargain too, at an incremental cost of $300 for a very nice piece of optics."

Kingston Technology has today announced the availability of a 1 GB CF Elite Pro card featuring the latest in high-density flash components. Kingston.’s newest 1 GB CompactFlash Elite Pro provides a low price per megabyte solution of reliable, high-speed media. The Elite Pro provides a write speed of up to 5.2 MB per second and a read speed of up to 6.1 MB per second. Kingston’s 1 GB Type I CompactFlash Elite Pro card has a Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of $349.00

Canon Japan has today announced a new black bodied version of the 'Kiss Digital' as it is known in Japan (EOS 300D / Digital Rebel). At this stage it's unclear whether Canon will make the new black body available in Europe (as the EOS 300D) or North America (as the Digital Rebel). Remember also that the Japanese market get the USM version of the EF-S 18-55 mm lens which is powered by a normal DC motor in the rest of the world. Personally I think the camera looks much better in black, the color Canon should have chosen right from the start.

Software: Roxio began shipping its new PhotoSuite 7 Platinum software today. Building on its predecessor, the latest release of adds multimedia slide show capabilities, professional level editing tools, and advanced Video CD authoring. PhotoSuite 7 Platinum offers tremendous value by including all the tools needed to capture, edit, create, organize, share, and preserve digital photos on CD or DVD in one package. PhotoSuite 7 Platinum will be available shortly in North American for a suggested retail price of $49.95 (US) or $59.95 (CND), and for download today.

Just posted! Our full in-depth review of a full production Nikon D70. The D70 is Nikon's first sub-$1000 digital SLR and now offers digital SLR buyers a new option other than Canon's EOS 300D (Digital Rebel). The D70 features a new six megapixel 'DX' size CCD sensor, Nikkor lens mount, quality black body and a wide range of manual features and controls. See how the D70 performed in our tests and how it compared to the EOS 300D (Digital Rebel).

There has today been an escalation of the patent war between Kodak and Sony, in what looks like a tit for tat response, Sony has filed a suit against Kodak alleging that they infringed 10 of Sony's patents related to digital cameras. "It's a very important technology resource for Sony and we feel that if any company is in infringement of them, we will take action," said Sony spokesman Gerald Cavanagh in Tokyo. Sony's latest suit involves patents related to electronic shutters for CCD's. Sony said its action was not a counter-suit and involved different patents than the suit filed by Kodak.