Price: $800

Astonishing value

The low-down: This 12.4 megapixel camera is the Pentax entry model, supplied with an 18–55mm (27–82 film equivalent) lens with image stabilisation built into the body. The medium resolution 70mm LCD doubles as the camera status screen. The body is small and construction is good with no squeaks from the plastic casing. We wonder about the durability of the screen printed control labels. The Pentax kit lens has a smooth zoom and focus movement, although focus could do with more damping. Auto focus is quick and accurate. Controls are well laid out and ergonomics are good. The viewfinder is bright enough for a penta-mirror. There is live view and movie mode (720 line in widescreen aspect ratio). The printed user manual is outstanding. Pentax’s high dynamic range function is included, combining three frames and processing a composite image with extended detail in shadows and highlights. It uses four AA batteries. It comes in a choice of four body colours.

Like: The feature list on this camera puts its competitors to shame. No one else has anything like the HDR expander. The ability to record RAW files in Adobe’s universal DNG format is a boon. Image quality is very good. Continuous shooting mode is up to nearly 5 frames per second.

Dislike: Only time will tell if the screen printed control labels rub off too easily. Mirror/shutter slap is unrefined.

Verdict: The K-x is remarkably well featured for the low price. Pentax make the competitors look like miserable penny-pinchers with their cut-down entry models. The beauty of this camera is that no user will be frustrated, wishing for this or that additional feature. There is nothing that any serious photographer could ask for that the K-x can’t do. For a young person dipping a toe into serious photography this is an ideal camera.

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Why, oh why, we ask, do people persist in buying by numbers?

Of course we know the answer -- because they feel that is all they can trust. The bigger the number the better the gadget, right? A 125 cm TV has to be better than a 100 cm telly, doesn't it? Regardless of the size of the viewing room or the quality of the picture, bigger must be better.

And if the bigger one costs less than the smaller one then it's not only better, you've got a bargain. Shoppers don't even stop to ask themselves why bigger should be cheaper than smaller when common sense would make you wonder if there is something else going on here.

Back when hi-fi systems were the gadget de jour average shoppers put more trust in the number of watts per channel than in what their ears told them, so the big number phenomenon is not new.

Let's take the case of cameras. The camera makers' research tells them that the average customer wants pixels, the more the better. They don't know what pixels are and they are ignorant of the physics of digital photography, but never mind that, 14 megapixels has to be better than ten any day.

A few years ago, when 8 megapixels was considered to be bordering on the absurd, Canon announced that they were pulling out of the pixel race. From now on the emphasis would be on the quality of the image rather than the number of light receptors on the sensor. Within months they were back in the race.

However, late last year a remarkable thing happened. Canon launched the successor to the G10, their top compact camera. We were pleasantly surprised that the new G11 sported 4 million fewer pixels than the camera it replaced. The G10 had 14 megapixels, the G11 has 10. Why would they do this? The answer is "the Panasonic LX3".

One year earlier Panasonic launched their top compact with a ten megapixel sensor and a very short range Leica zoom lens. It immediately won the admiration of camera reviewers around the world. Its natural competitor was the Canon G10 which was declared to be inferior to the LX3, solely because of the image quality difference.

Canon reacted by hurrying the G11 (and its sister, the S90) onto the market with fewer pixels and the move paid off. Canon is back at the top of the compact camera heap.

Here's the paradox. Both Panasonic and Canon make lesser, cheaper cameras with more pixels. Canon squeezes 14 million receptors onto an area about the size of a pinky nail in some of its cheaper cameras. No doubt many shoppers find it hard to comprehend why more should cost less, because they assume that if less is more then more must be a great deal more than more.

Next week we will answer some FAQs about sensors and pixels to assist the confused shopper in dealing with the seduction of numbers.

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Price: $400

Amazing Photoshop filters tool

The low-down: This image manipulation software installs itself under the Filters menu in Photoshop and provides an astonishing array of tools for conversion to black and white, enhancing warmth and brilliance, adding a glamour glow and softening skin detail, soft focus, adding film-like effects and grain, applying fog (both flat and graduated), adding a graduated colour filter, or graduated neutral density. It will add reflector effects, tones to black and white, remove colour casts, simulate a polariser and, as they say in the ads, many many more. The appearance of every effect is controlled with sliders for colour, contrast, brightness, strength and so on. There is a loupe section of the screen to show a small part of the original and the retouched image side by side.

Like: The effects are subtle and are added as a new layer in Photoshop so the intensity of the effect can be varied with the opacity slider. Parts of the effect can be erased if necessary before flattening the image. Since installing the software there has not been one photo of a female that has not had the skin softening filter applied. It takes away the relentless hardness of detail that is characteristic of a sharply focused digital image, leaving a softer, film-like final photo.

Dislike: At this stage there is no version for 64 bit Photoshop, although Nik promised on its web site that it would be available before Christmas.

Verdict: The price is going to be a major deterrent. This is not for the happy amateur snapper, but for the serious photographer -- particularly anyone interested in the art of portraiture -- this is a remarkably comprehensive Photoshop plug-in. Recommended without reservation.

[Go to www.niksoftware.com.au for more information about the Nik products.]

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Imaging's shelves groan under the weight of massive photographic books, but that hasn't stopped us adding a couple more since Christmas.

Books of photos by great photographers are an ambiguous inspiration. On the one hand they show what can be done and, in most cases, it is easy enough to work out how it has been done. On the other hand they are a temptation to be mere mimics of the masters. We fall for that temptation every time!

Photo Wisdom – master photographers on their art, compiled and edited by Lewis Blackwell (Hachette Australia www.hachette.com.au) is a massive collection of photographs and interviews with photographers in which they talk about their training, philosophy, inspiration and equipment.

Not surprisingly several of the photographers talk about the challenge of making something unique in a medium where billions of photos are being taken every day with the ubiquitous digital camera.

Jill Greenberg, who takes stunning portraits of animals and humans, says: "You have to work very hard, try to develop and hone your own vision, find something that is personal to you. With all the photographs that are being made daily, it may seem impossible to make something that stands out, but you have to do it."

Many of the photographers in the book still work with film. Joel Meyerowitz gives an interesting rationale. "With digital it is a negative asset that you can immediately see what you have got...When you only have film in the camera and you start to shoot something, a small event is transpiring in front of you. Well, you move closer and keep pushing...only focusing on the event. But with digital I have noticed so consistently that photographers take a picture and then look at the back to see what they've got, while the event is still going on."

Nude Photography–the art and the craft by Belgian photographer Pascal Baetens (Dorling Kindersley www.dk.com) delivers what the title promises -- a comprehensive guide to photographing the human body.

Baetens' introductory essay on the history of photographing nudes is a good guide to sorting out the various categories from the coyly allegorical works of the 19th century up to the explicitly erotic photography of Playboy and its ilk. In between there are categories of pictorial, surrealist, scientific, fashion and feminist.

Our preference is for the portrait category where the nudity is a secondary feature of a photograph that captures the personality of the subject. The August 1991 Vanity Fair cover photo of a naked and pregnant Demi Moore (by Annie Leibovitz) is a good example of portrait nudity.

The most helpful section of the book is the "Photographers' Gallery" where splendid examples of the art are illustrated with one particular picture, followed by a detailed photo essay on how the picture was made. This is accompanied by a selection of each photographer's works. Australian photographic partners Lyn Balzer and Tony Perkins are featured in this section.

Altogether two valuable additions to the photo book library.

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Price: $500

Competent compact

The low-down: This 12.1 megapixel compact camera is fitted with an image stabilised 28–112mm (film equivalent) lens. It is very small with a face area about the same as a credit card and a mere 20mm deep with the lens retracted. It will fit in any pocket. Construction quality is good. The Function control set is a small variation on the classic Canon layout, giving reasonable user control in P mode. There is face recognition and Blink detection that warns when the subject’s eyes are closed. (This gets Imaging’s Most Useless Doodad Award). High definition movies (720 lines) are promised, but it depends on your definition of definition. The 6.75cm LCD is the camera’s weak point.

Like: The images from the camera are generally good, although there is a tendency to over-expose low contrast subjects and the under-expose those in brighter light. Resolution and focus sharpness are excellent with very fine detail preserved and no worrying noise reduction effects, at least a ISO speeds up to 200. Macro performance is very good.

Dislike: The LCD is a poor affair, giving only an approximate review of the captured image. Fortunately the image that appears on the computer monitor or in print is much better than the LCD would lead us to expect. Flash performance is poor with weak illumination and weird colour casts. Dynamic range (the ability to keep detail in shadows and highlights) is not great, no doubt due to the excessive number of pixels.

Verdict: The little Canon can take good pictures, but the poor flash performance means it is no party camera. The lens and the image processing are good, but the user experience leaves something to be desired because of the LCD. The 28mm wide angle end of the zoom is a boon for tourists.

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Last week Samsung at last unveiled the long-awaited NX-10. The company has shoe-horned most of the internal workings of a digital single lens reflex into a compact(ish) body, going down the path pioneered by Panasonic in replacing the reflex viewfinder with an electronic affair.

We had a chance to handle a pre-production model before Christmas, but release of information was embargoed until last week. As the general concept and shape of the camera was already well known the point of the embargo was moot.

2009 will be remembered as the year in which the camera companies tried something new – better images from less bulk. First came Panasonic with their G1 and GH1 (the G1 with movie mode added) Micro Four Thirds pseudo-SLRs. These well made, slim twins were an immediate success, although we felt that the electronic viewfinders left something to be desired and were certainly no match for the traditional mirror and prism.

Later in the year Olympus launched the E-P1, the cute retro styled camera, again built around the Micro Four Thirds sensor the company shares with Panasonic and uses in its DSLRs. This time the only viewfinder is the LCD.

Panasonic followed with the GF1 which can be bought with an add-on EVF; not to be outdone Olympus followed with the E-P2 – essentially an E-P1 with an add-on EVF.

Then in November Ricoh launched their clever version of the compact interchangeable lens camera with the GXR. Ricoh’s solution to the fully competent camera in the compact body is to incorporate the lens and sensor into an interchangeable unit. This means they can offer either a full APS-C sized sensor, as used in most consumer DSLRs, or the smaller compact camera sensor, to be used in one body.

Samsung’s approach has been to create a compact pseudo-SLR, about the same size as Panasonic’s twins, but with the larger APS-C sensor. The advantage of this system is in potential image quality. The disadvantage, compared with the Micro Four Thirds cameras, is that the lenses must be larger.

This flurry of innovation and size reduction by the camera companies is spurred on by the belief that there is a potential customer in the shops looking for single lens reflex image quality in a compact body. This customer is deterred from buying a traditional DSLR by its bulk, its mass, its ostentation and its perceived complexity. The putative customer is moving up from a compact into something better, but not as grand and excessive as a Canon 1d MkIII.

The Samsung NX-10 could be the camera they are looking for. It can be set to auto-everything and left to its own devices, just like a compact, or the user can keep complete control. It is rugged and well made, so it is not light, and that is good – unless you want to carry it in a pocket. We are impressed by what we have seen. We will do a review of the camera soon.

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