Dptips :. Digital Photography Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

PMA 2006: We’ve just posted the final version of our PMA 2006 Show Report. The show report covers 19 stands with over 230 images and 2,880 words (all produced and posted live from the show floor). In the five days of the show we received over 3.8 million visitors who read 14.6 million pages. We’ve also compiled our top ten new products (a few of which will probably come as no surprise). Overall we found this PMA to be a busy show with plenty of interesting news and a much more positive vibe in ‘backroom’ meetings. It was a noticeable step up from last year and bodes well for the year ahead and Photokina in September.

PMA 2006: Yesterday we got our hands on the Lumix DMC-L1 and had a detailed discussion with Panasonic executives and product planners about their exciting new digital SLR. The DMC-L1 is Panasonic’s first digital SLR, its design ethos is clearly clean, simple, functional and very ‘Leica like’. There are lots of touches in the design of this camera which make it more appealing that most other digital SLRs, these include the shutter speed dial and aperture ring (on the lens) which give very quick access to manual exposure creativity and encourage the photographer to experiment more. We also got the low down on just how much of this camera is shared with the Olympus E-330.

PMA 2006: Today HP announced its new A3+ Photo Printer, the Photosmart Pro B9180. With eight individual high capacity pigment ink cartridges that can print up to 80 A3+ prints, or 840 10×15cm photos. The B9180 is said to produce instantly dry, waterproof prints that resist fading for up to 200 years.

PMA 2006: SanDisk today announced some new higher capacity cards to add to its Extreme III line of flash cards. They include an 8MB CompactFlash, 2GB SD card and a 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo. The CF and SD cards have a minimum read/write speed of 20MB/sec and the Memory Stick PRO Duo 18MB/sec.

PMA 2006: Doubling the capacity of the Ultra II SD Plus card, SanDisk introduces today its 2GB version. The Ultra II SD Plus folds in half to reveal a high-speed USB 2.0 connector. The new 2GB card will be available from June.

PMA 2006: Today SanDisk announced the 4GB Ultra II Memory Stick PRO Duo card. The Ultra II card features a minimum write speed of 9MB/sec and a minimum read speed of 10MB/sec, available from March 2006.

PMA 2006: Sigma has announced five new EX lenses with Four-Thirds mounts for users of Olympus’ E-system SLRs. The lenses include three primes (30mm F1.4, 105mm F2.8 Macro, 150mm F2.8 Macro), a fast standard zoom (18-50mm F2.8) and a long telephoto zoom (50-500mm F4-6.3).

PMA 2006: Sigma has introduced its new APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG Macro HSM lens. The lens offers a minimum focusing distance of 100cm and HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor) for fast, quiet AF. It also contains two ELD (Extraordinary Low Dispersion) glasses and two SLD (Special Low Dispersion) glasses for better correction against chromatic aberrations. The multi layer lens coating also reduces flare and ghost.

PMA 2006: Panasonic has today announced the fruits of its new relationship with Olympus, the DMC-L1 Four Thirds System Digital SLR. Todays news is really just a ‘development announcement’ so doesn’t have any detailed specifications, however reading through what has been revealed so far this camera does appear to share quite a bit with the Olympus E-330 EVOLT. Another interesting revelation in this release is the confirmation that Panasonic developed the 7.5 MP Live MOS sensor (the same we assume as in the E-330). Other features incldue a shutter speed dial on the top of the camera, full-time live view (same as E-330), Secure Digital storage and a 2.5″ LCD monitor.

PMA 2006: Leica and Panasonic have today announced the first Leica Four Thirds System lens, which also becomes the first Leica Interchangeable Lens with Optical Image Stabilization. The Leica D Vario-Elmarit 14-50 mm F2.8-F3.5 ASPH lens provides an equivelant field of view of 28-100 mm on a 35 mm camera with a maximum aperture of F2.8 at wide angle and F3.5 at telephoto. It also features Optical Image Stabilization (a first on a Four Thirds System lens) and a mechanical aperture ring (another first). Overall this looks to be a very impressive high quality lens which will match the newly announced Panasonic DMC-L1 digital SLR very nicely.

PMA 2006: Olympus and Panasonic have been working together on the development of cameras utilising the Four Thirds System standard for interchangeable-lens DSLRs, and are showcasing the first fruits of the joint venture today at PMA. Olympus will show the recently announced E-330 camera which incorporates the jointly developed technology and Panasonic will show a prototype of the DMC-L1, its first DSLR camera. UPDATED: Press conference images added.

PMA 2006: Sony has announced a new photo storage hard drive unit that can store up to a whopping 80GB of images. The HDPS-L1 is about half the size of a regular DVD player and supports seven types of flash media cards.

Texas Instruments has introduced DaVinci Technology, optimized for digital still cameras offering the benefits of full software programmability with the performance of hard-wired solutions. It includes a new highly flexible processor and a software suite which simulates a full dsc system.

Pre-PMA 2006: Sony announce today not one, but two new H-series cameras to replace the popular Cyber-shot H1. Like the H1, both feature an image stabilized 12x optical zoom, manual, aperture and shutter priority modes and electronic viewfinders. New for the 7.2MP H5 and 6.0MP H2 are boosted sensitivity up to ISO 1000 (with Sony’s Clear RAW TM noise reduction technology) and - for the H5 - a large 3-inch screen.

Pre-PMA 2006: Sony is also adding a couple more models to the top of its W-series line with the Cyber-shot DSC-W100 and DSC-W70 featuring 8.1 and 7.2 million pixels, respectively. Both offer a 3x zoom, eye-level viewfinder and a 2.5-inch screen and the DSC-W100 also has a sensitivity up to ISO 1250. Both will be available in black or silver finishes.

Fresh (or rather not) off a flight from London the dpreview team are here in Orlando for the 2006 Photo Marketing Association Show. Tomorrow is ‘Press Day’, although the majority of the product news has already been revealed, and the show proper will open on Sunday morning. We’re now ready to bring you our live ‘from the show floor’ reporting as we do for all shows. Live updates will appear both on the front page and the Show Report page. So stay tuned for all that’s new from PMA 2006.

Pre-PMA 2006: Canon has announced a new series of A3+ professional-quality inkjet printers, comprising the PIXMA Pro9500 and Pro9000, aimed at professional photographers. The Pro 9000 features an 8-colour ink system and has a max colour print speed up to 15ppm. The Pro 9500 uses a 10-colour pigment ink system and a colour print speed of up to 8ppm. Both printers have a 4800×2400 dpi resolution.

Pre-PMA 2006: Canon has annouced the latest addition to its large format printer range, the imagePROGRAF IPF5000. This A2 (17-inch) desktop printer combines a high-density twin print head and FINE (Full Photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering) technology to produce ‘industry best image quality’.

Pre-PMA 2006: Samsung sneaks in a few new announcements before PMA opens its doors. Firstly we have the GX-1L, the second DSLR announcement from Samsung this year. The entry-level 6-megapixel GX-1L features a 2.5-inch LCD monitor, a pentaprism viewfinder and RAW mode.

Pre-PMA 2006: Samsung introduce its latest additions to the Digimax range today. The 8 million pixel Digimax L85 features a 5x optical zoom, a large 2.5-inch LCD, aperture and shutter priority modes and High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) that allows sharing of photos on HDTV.