Dptips :. Digital Photography Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

Pentax has today posted a firmware update for its K100D digital SLR. Version 1.01 appears to contain one important update; support for SD-HC cards (SD type cards with a capacity of 4 GB or greater) and one minor update; focal length input into the Shake Reduction menu is now displayed accurately in Pentax Photo Browser 3. The firmware can be easily installed by loading the BIN file onto an SD card and starting the camera holding the MENU button (just make sure you’ve got fresh batteries).

Both Fujifilm and Olympus (the only two companies utilizing the xD format) have today announced a step up in capacity for xD card to 2 GB. The new 2 GB xD-Picture Card is twice as large as the current largest and utilizes Multi-Level Cell technology to pack so much storage into such a small package. This new card will be available in September, there’s currently no word on price.

Kodak has announced today a handful of new EasyShare cameras. The 7.0 megapixel EasyShare V705 Dual Lens and the 8 megapixel EasyShare C875 both feature a 5x all glass Schneider-Kreuznach optical zoom lens and a 2.5-inch LCD and the V705 also sports an additional ultra wide 23mm lens. Kodak has also announced two entry level cameras; the C743 and C433.

Kodak also introduces today the EasyShare G600 Printer Dock, which features a built-in handle, smart paper tray storage and battery for easy portability. Available from this month the G600 is capable of producing a high quality photo in just 60 seconds. The G600 features automatic Kodak Perfect Touch technology providing red-eye reduction and is PictBridge and ImageLink compliant.

Casio has today revealed an all new ultra-slim ‘Exilim Card’ series digital camera, the seven megapixel EX-S770. Sporting a new smoothed, rounded design and glossy finish it looks slick and expensive. The S770 features a three times optical zoom lens, a large bright 2.8″ LCD monitor, and 16:9 format MPEG-4 video capture. The S770 is 17 mm (2/3 in) thin and weighs just 127 g (4.5 oz) without its Lithium-Ion battery. UPDATE: Additionally Casio US has confirmed the already announced EX-Z70 and EX-Z700 will be available there.

Pentax has announced today the Optio W20.The replacement for the popular waterproof Optio W10, the W20 has been upgraded to 7 million pixels and adds a blur reduction mode. The W20 also features a 2.5-inch LCD, Face Recognition AF and a 3x zoom.

Just posted! Our Concise Review of the unique Panasonic DMC-TZ1; the world’s smallest 10x image-stabilized zoom camera. Whilst not what you’d call ‘pocketable’ (unless you have very large pockets), the TZ1 is considerably less bulky than its ‘SLR-like’ siblings (and their competitors), and, though it offers little in the way of truly manual control, it is packed with features. But is it any good? Find out what we thought after the link…

Sony has today announced a very interesting little device for recording the position where photographs are taken. The GPS-CS1 is a small (9 cm / 3.5 in) cylindrical device which you simply attach to a backback or belt loop and carry with you while you shoot, it records your GPS location and this information can later be synchronized with your digital images to provide a map of where your photos were taken. We assume it does this using date and time information stored in the image header (which obviously requires your camera’s clock to be synchronized). Interestingly the mapping solution is an online website with maps provided by Google Maps (it appears that the synchronization software will write the GPS location into JPEG EXIF headers).

Sony has today launched the colorful 7-megapixel Cyber-Shot DSC-T10 camera. The DSC-T10 features sensitivity up to ISO 1000, Sony’s Super Steady Shot OIS, a 3x Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens, 56MB of internal memory and a 2.5-inch LCD. It will be available to order from this month in a choice of colors - pink (yes!), white, black or silver.

Just posted! Our mammoth in-depth review of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100, Sony’s first digital SLR and first of their newly created Alpha line. The A100 represents the coupling of Konica Minolta SLR and photographic know-how with Sony’s electronics and engineering experience. The A100 is fitted out with a ten megapixel CCD sensor mounted on a CCD-shift ‘Super SteadyShot’ platform which provides in-camera Anti-Shake capability, it also has other unique features such as in-hardware Dynamic Range Optimization and Eye-Start AF. So dive into one of our longest reviews to date and see how the A100 shaped up.

Casio has announced today the new 7.2 megapixel Exilim Zoom EX-Z700. With a 3x zoom, Casio’s Anti-Shake DSP and new BEST SHOT modes including an auto framing mode and a layout shot mode. The EX-Z700 also features a large 2.7-inch LCD with 1200cd/m2 brightness which is claimed to be visible on bright sunny days.

In a not-that-suprising move Google today announced a new web albums feature for their acquired photo management application, Picasa. The new feature, available currently only by invitation, enables quick and easy uploading of images from Picasa to a Google hosted gallery system, you get just 250 MB of storage free and for $25 a year can get an additional 6 GB of storage (ad free). Picasa Web Albums will no doubt be of interest to existing Picasa users but probably won’t be that attractive to new entrants or existing users of web sync’d software such as Phanfare.

DALSA Semiconductor has today announced that it has developed the worlds first sensor with a total resolution of over 100 million pixels. To be more specific this single sensor, developed for astronomy, has 10,560 x 10,560 pixels, 111 million in total. The active area of the sensor measures approximately four by four inches and has a 9 um pixel pitch. This sensor has been developed in conjunction with Semiconductor Technology Associates for the US Naval Observatory.

We have just updated our Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 preview to include a gallery of sample images from the camera. This brief gallery is intended to give prospective buyers a taste of the image quality they should expect before we complete our review. Note that we will of course add a second more comprehensive gallery in our final review.

Leica has announced that all new M system lenses will carry a new 6-bit code (painted in black/white dots) which will allow the upcoming digital M camera to identify which len is being used (up to 64 in 6-bit coding) and also to store this information in image metadata. As well as applying this coding to new lenses Leica has announced an upgrade service which allows owners of existing M series lenses to have the coding written onto each lens at a cost of 95 EUROs. The press release also hints that the new M series digital will appear in the second half of 2006 (at Photokina no doubt).

According to a story over at ScienCentralNews researchers at MIT are working on a new type of battery which is more like a capacitor than todays ‘chemical reaction’ battery. Typically a capacitor has a far lower capacity (by size) than a battery but researchers are using tiny nanotube filaments to increase the surface area within the capacitor to increase storage. These new ‘batteries’ could in theory charge in just a few seconds yet be the same size and capacity as todays rechargeable batteries, they may also never need replacing as they wouldn’t degrade in the way current batteries do.

We’ve seen this story reported in many forms on many sites but only truly accurately on Imaging-Resource. The reality is that HP are not recalling the R707 but have instead issued firmware which can prevent a fire hazard. If the camera was used with a non-rechargeable battery (such as a Lithium Duracell CP-1) and then connected to the AC adapter or docking station there was a potential for the battery to overheat and even catch fire. This new firmware resolves this issue.

Sony has today officially revealed the new Alpha DSLR-A100, a ten megapixel Digital SLR, the first to come out of the Sony and Konica Minolta marriage, with many similarities to the Konica Minolta 5D. The A100’s ten megapixel CCD is mounted on a CCD-shift Anti-Shake platform (now named Super SteadyShot) which delivers both image stabilization and Sony’s own form of dust reduction (by shaking the sensor at power off). There’s also a new image processor called ‘Bionz’ (hmmm) which delivers hardware based dynamic range optimization (with only a slight impact on performance). We have a full hands-on preview of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 available now.

Nikon has today announced the D2Xs, a subtly upgraded D2X. The key points of improvement are a larger 2.5″ LCD monitor, electronic masking of the focusing screen in high-speed crop mode, modified metering in high-speed crop mode, a longer lasting battery, black and white mode, Adobe RGB in all color modes, up to 3 custom tone curves, 1/3 step ISO boost options, in-camera trim function, image authentication system compatible and save/load settings between cameras.

As well as the D2Xs Nikon are also announcing two new software packages. The first is Nikon Camera Control Pro which is a development of Nikon Capture Camera Control, this new ‘Pro’ version compatible with Nikon Capture NX, other differences aren’t made clear by the press release. The second is Nikon Image Authentication (Windows only) which enables the verification of the authenticity of images captured with the D2Xs, it can report if the image information (metadata) or image data itself has been modified since the image was taken and is clearly aimed at the law enforcment, government, media and insurance markets.