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October 27, 2005
[ REVIEW KODAK EASYSHARE-One ]
Price: $899
Rating: 3.5 stars
The low-down: The Kodak EasyShare-one is the first of a new type of camera to come on the market -- a digital camera with wireless connectivity built in.
First, the camera. It is a 4 megapixel 3x zoom camera with the Kodak Schneider Kreuznach lens. The 7.6 cm swivelling viewing screen is outstanding to look at and it is also a touch screen. The little icons on the screen are poked at with a stick that is stored on the side of the camera and looks like it will be lost in no time. Call us old-fashioned, but we wonder how many times you can physically poke a screen before it starts to show signs of wear and tear.
All the camera functions are good -- focus, white balance and response speed are fine. Movie mode is particularly impressive. However, that is not what this camera is about.
Kodak promise that you will get “email and online picture sharing without a computer” and “on-the-spot sharing of up to 1500 photos” plus wireless printing with the company’s wireless equipped EasyShare printers.
We have seen the camera demonstrated and all of these functions work. How? We are told that there are wireless receiver points all around the CBDs of the biggest cities. Via these nodes pictures can be sent to Kodak’s Gallery service for which they charge to store images. There is a short free trial period for new owners of the EasyShare-one.
However, when we tried the most elementary connection between the EasyShare-one and our home wireless network we could not connect. The camera scanned for networks and identified ours but when we entered the WEP security code number the camera rejected the connection. We tried every permutation of firewall and security setup and it would not connect. We could have phoned Kodak for technical assistance, but this option is not available to the normal customer so it would have been cheating.
The EasyShare-one also identified a wireless node in a city hotel showing that it does have promise for the peripatetic photographer.
Like this: The LCD viewing screen is superb. The fact that it swivels is a bonus.
Dislike that: The Kodak EasyShare-one goes against the company philosophy of making picture taking and processing simple. It is too difficult to use. And do you want to trust your picture storage to an unseen company in America?
Parting Shot: Wireless networking for data transfer is becoming a fact of life, but at the moment it suits nerds better than it does real human beings. A wireless digital camera is like a mobile phone -- it will become the norm when it can be turned on and expected to work without first fiddling under the bonnet.
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Posted by terry at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2005
[ HAPPY BIRTHDAY DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY ]
Digital photography turns 30 in December this year.
It was in December 1975 that Steve Sasson took the very first digital still photograph in the Kodak research laboratory in Rochester. From the first Heath-Robinson contraption to the mass acceptance of digital imaging is an object lesson in patient product research and development.
When the young Sasson demonstrated his first digital images he was reckoning on at least twenty years of development before it would be ready for the consumer market. The many elements of the mature digital imaging system were as yet not invented and in many cases not even imagined.
Sasson, who was in Australia this month to boost the launch of the company’s newest Wi Fi digital camera, the EasyShare-one, talked about the moment in late 1974 when his supervisor in electronics group of the applied research laboratory in Rochester came to him with an idea.
“He said that we had a project on the books which involved a new type of imaging device called a CCD, a charge coupled device. The CCD had just started to come out in late 1974 and he said it would be really great if we could get one of those and do some imaging with it.
“I said ‘Great. Let me start.’ I learned a little bit about what this imager was and I said we should try to build a camera. I had no idea how to do it but I knew that the raw materials would probably be available, so I formulated the task. We took a CCD imager from Fairchild, and it was very small by today’s standards -- 100 by 100 elements or 0.01 megapixels.
“It was black and white and the chips themselves came with a custom specification sheet with hand-written voltages because there were about 12 different voltages that had to be adjusted just right to get these things to work. They gave you the device and said: ‘This is where you start. And good luck.’”
It took Sasson a year to produce a camera that weighed four kilos. It took pictures at 0.01 megapixels and captured the image from the CCD digitally and stored it in on-board memory of 49,000 bits. The image was recorded digitally on an audio compact cassette. It took 22 second to record the image and then it was sent to a playback unit created from an old microprocessor which read in the tape, reconstructed the image, converted it to digital frame store and displayed it on a black and white television set.
Sasson had no idea whether or not the device would work until that moment when the very first picture appeared. The reaction from his colleagues was a mix of curiosity and scepticism. “Who wants to see their pictures on a television screen?”
In 1975 it was impossible to foresee that digital would spell doom for thousands of Kodak workers whose jobs depended on chemical based photography. In fact Sasson credits the silver halide experts in the company with helping to develop the image rendering and compression technologies that would make digital imaging viable. It was not until the 1990s that they realised they were conspiring in their own professional demise.
The first Kodak digital cameras produced in 1989 were 1 megapixel pixel units built around Nikon SLR bodies with the processor carried in a pack hanging from the photographer’s belt. The Kodak DSC 1 cost $25,000. A few were sold. The following model, the DSC 2 with the electronics attached in a bulky addition to the camera body, had more appeal to photojournalists and sold about 4000 units at $15,000.
Sasson says that the belief that digital would never replace film was pervasive throughout the company in the early 90s, so when did the penny drop and the chemists start worrying?
“I don’t know if there was one Eureka! moment, but I would say that when I saw the image transceiver work in 1989, using jpeg compression, to send pictures out from Tiananmen Square, I knew it was going to happen. And it was going to happen by the mid 90s.
“It would impact the professionals first before the consumers. Not because of quality but because of cost. In 1991/2 we realised what was going to happen and we started a serious effort around bigger images … we were going after professionals who made a living using cameras and camera bodies.
“The bigger question was when it would really hit the consumer. And we never got a good handle on that. The reason being that there were so many other things that had to happen to influence the migration of the technology into consumers’ hands. The internet, broadband, thermal printing, inkjet printing. Without a clear vision of all of that going on it was impossible to predict when we would get to that point. You could argue that technically if you had 3mp and you could fit it in your pocket and you could store images reasonably quickly the consumer would be interested in it. But we found even when we got to that point, because it was based on a computer and the average person wasn’t really comfortable with computers at that time, that it was going to take a little bit longer for the ease-of-use factor to make it mass market acceptable.”
What camera does the father of digital photography use? A Kodak, of course and he is seriously thinking of updating to the little Kodak V550 (5 megapixels for $699). Steve’s ambitions are modest.
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Posted by terry at 04:36 PM | Comments (2)
[ REVIEW—PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-FX9 ]
Price: $769
Rating: 4.5 stars
The low-down: The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX9 digital camera has a 6 megapxel sensor and a 3x Leica zoom lens. The focal length of the lens is 35–105mm film equivalent.
The FX9 is small, with a face area the same as a credit card and it is 25mm thick. Construction is metal. There is a 50mm LCD screen which is the only viewfinder the camera has. As with all such pseudo viewfinders it is impossible to use in bright sunlight.
The camera has image stabilisation and in use the so-called Mega Optical Image Stabiliser works extremely well. A digital photography novice used the FX9 to take consistently good pictures indoors with the ISO set to 200 and without using the flash.
Exposure, white balance and focus are spot on and the camera is as responsive as a film camera with no suggestion of shutter lag.
The FX9 has switchable aspect ratios of 4:3 (the full sensor area), 3:2 (the proportions of a standard photo print) and 16:9 (the aspect ratio of a widescreen television). Pictures taken at 16:9 and dropped straight into a TV slideshow creation program produced excellent results. Only at 4:3 are the full 6 million pixels used -- the alternative aspect ratios are achieved by cropping the image in camera.
Movies taken with the FX9 are good enough to display on a large screen TV, but it is no substitute for a video camera.
Like this: The combination of Leica lens, image stabilisation and 6 mp sensor produces images with superb detail. The selectable aspect ratio is definitely an attractive feature for anyone interested in making TV slide shows.
Dislike that: The absence of an optical viewfinder is a pity, limiting the usefulness of this lovely little camera.
Picture noise is noticeable at ISO200.
Parting shot: The Panasonic Lumix FX9 is expensive compared with other cameras in the same class, but it does have the image stabilisation which is uncommon in such a compact unit. For anyone wanting a point and shoot camera with some useful features the FX9 is highly recommended.
Posted by terry at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)
[ THE DIGITAL ROAD TO RUIN! ]
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a man -- or a woman for that matter --in possession of a good digital camera has only made the first payment on an expensive hobby.
After the camera comes the memory medium, the editing software, the printer, the portable image storage and the additional lenses for digital single lens reflex cameras.
Let’s start with the lenses. Imaging has just been in a distant city with some fine old buildings and was pleased to be carrying in the kit the new Tamron SPAF 11–18mm F4.5–5.6 DI II LD zoom lens. Most kit lenses with digital SLRs have a range around 18 to 70 mm, which allowing for the multiplying factor because a camera sensor is smaller than a film frame, translates into 28mm to 105mm film equivalent. That is not quite wide enough for architectural shots in narrow streets and not long enough to frame the tiger’s eye at the zoo.
The Tamron SPAF 11–18 solved the problem at the wide angle end of the range. This excellent lens comes in mounts for Nikon, Canon and Minolta cameras and is a bargain at $1100. Not cheap, but definitely a bargain for what it does.
This lens is specifically designed for digital SLRs with APS size sensors. It is not for full frame cameras, either film or digital. The optics are optimised for the particular demands of digital and the results are remarkable.
One of the problems with extreme wide angle lenses is a tendency to barrel distortion which renders vertical lines as bowed rather than straight. The Tamron exhibits little such distortion and, except where a vertical line is near the edge of the frame will never be seen.
Contrast is a little low with this lens which makes for subjective softness, easily fixed with a dab of Unsharp Mask in Photoshop. The lens sometimes hunts for focus even on reasonably contrast subjects. Apart from those quibbles this is an excellent lens.
We carried two Compact Flash memory cards with a total of 1.5 gigabytes capacity. That is enough for 450 images from a 6 megapixel camera with minimum jpeg compression. You think that should be enough? You reckon without the profligacy of shooting in Burst mode. With no-cost snapping there is no reason not to emulate the professionals -- take 20 shots in rapid succession and one is bound to be a masterpiece.
For fastidious types who prefer to record images in RAW format a 1 gig memory card can handle about 160 photos, storing in the RAW plus JPEG basic pairing.
With so many photos filling up the memory cards portable storage was called for and it was supplied by Epson in the form of their PhotoFine 2000 unit (RRP $800) that stores images on a 40 gig hard drive, reading direct from either a Compact Flash or Secure Digital memory card. Transfer is fast and the 95mm TFT viewing screen is a thing of beauty with resolution of 212 ppi -- more than double that of a typical computer monitor.
The PhotoFine also stores and displays RAW files from some popular cameras as well as movies in MPEG4 and MP3 audio files. Direct print from the PhotoFine and direct connection to a TV for slide shows of stored images is also catered for.
A new model, the PhotoFine 4000 with an 80 gig hard drive and additional replay features has just been released in some markets but is not being sold in Australia.
The only complaint we had about this wonderful device is that the battery drained fairly quickly and when files are being transferred to or from a computer via the USB connector a warning pops up to say that it must be attached to the power supply because if the battery runs flat during the process the PhotoFine could be damaged.
The viewing screen on the PhotoFine is so good that it is a reliable way to assess images on the run and to delete those that don’t make the masterpiece grade. Like the Tamron lens the Epson PhotoFine is an expensive bargain and a lot more portable (415 grams) than a laptop computer, its only real competitor. Money might not buy happiness but it certainly can make it easier to photograph and reproduce it.
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Posted by terry at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2005
[ PATTERNS WITH THE CANON 350D ]
MELBOURNE ARTIST, JULIE SHIELS, has been out and about in Sydney with her new Canon 350D compiling a folio of striking abstract patterns found in the city environment.
Julie's own web site, I Love St Kilda, is her on-going tribute to the Melbourne suburb in which she lives.
Go to the Gallery and Julie's album >>.
Posted by terry at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2005
[ CAMERAS and personality types ]
dpexpert gets requests from all over the world for advice on buying cameras. We never cease to be amazed at the effect of the Internet. Being of advanced years we still think that it was the will of God that a transglobal written communication should take a month or two to make the round trip. However, we digress…
Anthony emailed from Hong Kong asking for advice on buying a digital single lens reflex. We gave the usual advice. 1: you get what you pay for. 2: they are all good so you can indulge brand prejudice. 3: if you already have a film SLR with additional lenses then buy a digital SLR that will take the lenses in your kit.
Anthony wrote back to say that was all very well, but there was no way he would buy a Nikon. Nikon owners, he told us, are rude, aggressive, arrogant snobs. He would be happier with Canon because Canonites are warm and decent people. [Shades of Apple vs PC perhaps?]
Anyway we told him that we are nice, kind, considerate and humble persons here at casa dpexpert and we own a Nikon D70. On the basis of that Anthony decided to give Nikon another chance and he is now happy with his symbol of arrogant status.
We have been told that in Asia Nikon has the same cache as BMW and Mercedes. Status-conscious Asians wouldn’t consider any other brand. Hence the association with snobs.
Which got us thinking -- how much does personality and perception of the “meaning” of cameras play a part in the purchasing decision? Kodak boast that they are number one with women customers, suggesting that Kodak is from Venus and Nikon is from Mars. In which case where do Pentax, Olympus, Sony, Panasonic and Canon come from?
We are collecting opinions on this. Please zap us yours >> right here!
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Posted by terry at 04:37 PM | Comments (1)
[ FATHER OF THE DIGICAM PAYS A VISIT ]
Steve Sasson with a mockup of the world's first digicam -- the 0.01 megapixel Kodak prototype.
STEVE SASSON, the man who made the world's first digital camera in Kodak's Rochester laboratories, was in town last week to boost the launch of the company's new Wi Fi camera, the EasyShare-one.
It is almost exactly 30 years ago, in December 1975, that Sasson displayed the first picture from a digital imaging device on a black and white TV screen.
We will put Sasson's full account of the development of digital imaging here in the next few days, but what really hit home to us was the attitude of Kodak to R and D. It is impossible to imagine any Australian company kick-starting an expensive research and development project that everyone involved knew would take at least 20 years to become a profit making commercial product. And, of course, there was no guarantee that it would ever work.
The sad part of the story is how the silver halide chemists cooperated in developing digital imaging without ever fully realising that they were working themselves out of a job.
More in the next few days ...
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Posted by terry at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2005
[ HERE’S YOUR DIGICAM MR DE MILLE ]
Why do almost all digital still cameras take motion video pictures? Because they can, that’s why.
It’s a function of the electronic shutter used in consumer digicams that makes moving video possible. Digital single lens reflex cameras can’t do this trick because they have mechanical shutters that don’t move fast enough.
The promise of a video recording facility in a basic digital camera excites some potential customers. They really do think that they are getting two cameras for the price of one.
Pentax, a couple of years ago, marketed one of their models, the Optio MX, as a 2 in 1 camera. Even its shape suggested a hybrid, being a little bit like a video camera and a little bit like a still camera. With a 3.2 megapixel sensor it ought to have been able to deliver images on a par with a good videocam but it was constrained by limitations other than sensor density. In the current Casio range the EX-P505 is marketed as a hybrid camera even though it looks like a tiny SLR.
The most obvious restraint on a dual function camera is that digital still cameras use expensive memory cards as the image storage medium. Videocams use cheap tape or recordable DVD. A relatively inexpensive tape may hold an hour or more of video. An expensive 1 gigabyte high speed SD memory card will only fit 10 minutes of video at top quality -- and “top quality” is 640 by 480 pixel images at 30 frames per second.
dpexpert has tested the video mode in a number of cameras -- Pentax, Kodak, Fujifilm, Casio, Nikon, Canon and Panasonic -- and is inclined to view it as a gimmick that is relatively cheap to incorporate into any still camera. Picture quality is poor on a standard television screen. It is more acceptable at reduced area on a computer monitor.
Sound quality is always inferior, so it is best to think of digicam video as silent movies. Some camera functions are locked off when the video recording mode is selected. On most cameras autofocus, focal length and exposure are set and locked when the first frame is exposed.
However, the movie record function does have some applications. We have shot some beaut spontaneous clips of family events. Little video clips of holidays and family milestones can be emailed and as more and more people join the broadband the size of the video files can increase. And these little videos are ideal for including in PowerPoint presentations.
A word of warning: different cameras record video in different formats and PowerPoint is very choosy about the format it accepts. Nero is a good program for converting video formats, although finding one that a particular version of PowerPoint will accept can be a trial and error process. AVI1 seems to be acceptable to most versions of PowerPoint.
As we know from recent events digicam video is also ideal for on-the-spot recording of catastrophes and low resolution clips are now a regular feature in TV newscasts. One 20 second disaster clip will probably pay for your camera.
If you are a blogger -- and who isn’t these days? -- it is possible to insert small video clips by using a video host service. Audioblog provides such a service for streaming video and they have a video tutorial on the web site that shows how to upload the movie direct from the camera’s memory card and then insert the link into the body of the blog. The service costs U$50 a year after a free 7 day trial.
The attraction of the digicam video is that it is usually spontaneous, although no doubt someone somewhere right now is working on a scripted and acted epic shot entirely on a pocket digital camera. We look forward to the Ben Hur remake shot entirely on a Canon or Nikon digicam.
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Posted by terry at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)
[ REVIEW—FUJIFILM FINEPIX F10 ]
Price: $699
Rating: 4.5 stars
The low-down: The Fujifilm Finepix F10 is a 6.3 megapixel camera with a 3x zoom lens. Construction is all metal and reassuringly rugged.
In face area the F10 is slightly larger than a credit card and it is 30mm thick which makes it a little bulkier than cameras in this class. It is a pocket camera for the commodious pocket.
The F10 has two modes, auto and M. In M some of the shooting parameters are selectable, such as ISO, exposure compensation and white balance.
The F10 won the European Pocket Camera of the Year award and also a similar prize from the Digital Imaging Websites Association and both citations mention the excellent sensor performance. It is very rare -- perhaps unique -- for a camera in this class to have an ISO range from 80 to 1600. What is astonishing about the F10 is that even at ISO 800 there is no objectionable noise. At 1600 noise becomes a problem, but it is still useable.
The image quality -- exposure, focus and white balance -- is outstanding. There is something about this camera that makes it stand out in a crowded field and it may be Fuji’s Super CCD sensor that is a cut above the rest.
Like this: The beautifully detailed, accurately coloured and smooth images would be applauded coming from a digital single lens reflex. To get this output from a go-anywhere, point and shoot little camera makes a chap reach for superlatives.
We like the fact that the aspect ratio can be varied from 4:3 to 3:2 -- the correct proportions for standard prints.
Dislike that: It is such a pity that this wonderful camera is let down by being bereft of an optical viewfinder. As always with LCD screens we found ourselves in situations where we were shooting blind. The LCD screen is large and high resolution, but it doesn’t work in bright sunlight and is utterly useless when the subject is brightly backlit.
Parting shot: The Fujifilm Finepix F10 almost perfectly fulfils its function and promise. It would merit 5 stars if it were not for the viewfinder issue. As it is the camera is highly recommended. We were sorry when the time came to send it back.
Posted by terry at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)