Price: $480

Gorgeous

The low-down: This is a 10 megapixel camera with a 28–112mm (film equivalent) zoom lens, which is image stabilised. There is a 75mm LCD screen but no optical viewfinder. Construction quality is superb. Face area is slightly larger than a credit card and it is 20mm thick, so it will fit a pocket. But the weight is a surprise – 210 grams with the rechargeable battery inserted. So this feels like a well-built, rugged little camera. Controls are well laid out and there is good user control for essential settings, mainly through Canon’s Function key. There is the usual face detection and movie mode, plus a panorama assist mode for taking multiple images for merging into one using the supplied software. i-Contrast is an in-camera exposure correction for backlit faces.

Like: The most striking thing about this camera is its appearance. If there were a beauty contest for cameras the Ixus 870is would be a shoo-in. Focus is generally quick and accurate with good sharpness and resolution. Exposure and white balance are just OK. A 28mm focal length is always a boon.

Dislike: There is some noise visible at ISO200, but generally it is well controlled without too much obvious noise reduction. Images straight from the camera are a little soft but we found that they responded to sharpening in Photoshop. However any sharpening also tends to emphasise the noise effects. Dynamic range is not great, with highlights blowing out in contrasty subjects.

Verdict: We like this camera because of its superb design and construction, and we found that by sticking with an ISO setting of 80–100 we could get excellent results. Even at ISO400 the pictures are acceptable for standard size prints.

*

dpexpert is as patriotic as the next chap when it comes to love of a wide brown land girt by sea and so on. But there’s no getting away from the fact that when it comes to majestic snow capped mountains, towering over vast, placid lakes, the sunburnt country is sadly deficient.

For landscape photographers it is the mountains of Switzerland, Nepal and New Zealand that offer the best postcard opportunities. However, dpexpert has been seeking therapy for mountain envy by taking off for the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. They are not exactly the Andes or the Rockies, but they do have a rugged, colourful appeal.

We have some advice for the photographer travelling in the north of South Australia. Think seriously before setting off with a compact digital camera that has no optical viewfinder. Mrs dpexpert gave up in frustration when trying to take pictures in the bright desert sunlight. She couldn’t see a thing on the LCD of her Panasonic compact.

Of course dpexpert should have had the foresight to pack the LCD pop-out shade. We were not popular when she had to put her camera away in disgust.

For owners of cameras with filter threads, a polarising filter is de rigueur. The vivid skies and fluffy white clouds are best captured with the use of a polariser, and it also helps with the landscape features. A polariser cuts the reflected glare from stones and leaves and other flat, reflective surfaces and helps to preserve more detail in the rugged, rocky hills.

A decent telephoto lens of up to 200mm focal length is also surprisingly useful for getting a different perspective on the hills and valleys. We found that we were using our 70-200mm Sigma zoom more often than we had anticipated. And it goes without saying that such a lens is ideal for photographing the kangaroos and emus that are everywhere through the Flinders Ranges national park.

Our greatest pleasure has been in taking sets of exposures and merging them to panoramas in Photoshop, The topography of the ranges is ideal for creating long panoramas, the only caveat being that when you merge seven images into one widescreen marvel it’s hard to display on monitor or print. You’ll have to work that out for yourself.

The wide brown land is deficient in ancient ruins of castles and abbeys, but there are dozens – perhaps hundreds – of derelict farm houses around the Flinders, silent testimony to the unwarranted optimism of the pioneer settlers. Most are photogenic.

Owners of DSLRs should remember that changing lenses in dusty conditions is hazardous. When we remove a lens we make sure that the camera body is facing downwards and we swap the rear lens caps from one lens to the other as quickly as we can. We also carry a Giottos Rocket to blow out the dust bunnies that get past our protective lens changing technique.

Two words of warning: the roads are atrocious and the flies are appalling!

[There is a collection of photos from the Flinders Ranges and other parts of northern South Australia in the Gallery.]

*

Price: $600

Huge zoom range with compromises

The low-down: This is a 10 megapixel camera with what is claimed to be the world’s longest zoom – 26–520mm (film equivalent). Image stabilisation is by CCD shift. The electronic viewfinder is typical for superzooms. There is the usual face and smile detection. There are two macro settings with Super allowing focusing to 10cm. Images can be captured in RAW format. Burst mode will take up to 13.5 frames per second, but in a reduced image size. Memory is on xD cards or Micro SD – an adapter is provided. Power is from four AA batteries, either alkaline or NiMH.

Like: The camera is responsive with reasonably fast focusing even at the longest extension. User controls are comparable with a DSLR. Noise is well handled. It is apparent at ISO200 but it is not made worse with intrusive noise reduction. RAW images are good and it is worth the trouble of conversion. The supplied software is not great but it gets you started in trying RAW mode. The image stabilisation is effective.

Dislike: The electronic viewfinder is dire. You would only use it in bright daylight when the LCD can’t be seen. There is very pronounced barrel distortion at the wide end of the zoom range which needs correction in software post-camera. Images at the extreme long end of the range are not sharp.

Verdict: Frankly we think the 20x zoom range is expecting too much. It involves too many optical compromises. In the middle of the zoom range resolution is reasonable but the extremes are plagued with distortion or diminished sharpness. There is an optional tele-converter that extends the range to 1200mm – Olympus say it is specially for bird photography!

*

We’ve said it before and no doubt we will say it again, when it comes to lenses there is nothing as sweet as a well-developed prime (fixed focal length) lens.

There is a zap and punchiness of picture taken with prime lenses that ordinary zooms, affordable by mortals, cannot match. Without the compromises in image quality that zoom mechanics and complex optics demand the mechanically simple primes generally have better resolution and contrast that results in sharper images.

We have been having a happy time in the company of two exceptional prime lenses – the Sigma 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM and the Tokina F2.8 35mm AT-X Pro DX macro. The Sigma is for use on either full frame DSLRs or with the reduced size APS sensor used on most consumer DLRs, and the Tokina is for APS-C sensor cameras.

The Sigma is a beautifully made, massive lens with a very fast ring-type ultrasonic focusing motor. It can be used on the entry level Nikons that do not have in-body focus drives. It has a RRP of $750, so it is more expensive than the competing lenses from Nikon and Canon.

[Portrait taken with Sigma lens on a Nikon D300]

The Nikon/Canon equivalent lenses are of fairly old design, made originally for use on film cameras. The Sigma is a totally new design, using complex glass mouldings that practically eliminate distortion and various aberrations that lesser lenses suffer from.

The angle of view is that of a 50mm lens on the full frame cameras and approximately equivalent to 75mm on APS sensors. We found it an ideal lens for portraiture even if it is a little shorter than we would normally use.

Sigma have paid attention to some fine details in the design of this lens. For instance the diaphragm is as close to a perfect circle as it can be made and this results in very smooth, attractive out-of-focus backgrounds (known as “bokeh”).

The Tokina (RRP $800) takes a different approach. It has an angle of view approximately the same as 52mm on full frame – in other words on an APS sensor camera this is what we would once have called a “standard” lens with what we also called a “normal” angle of view.

 [Portrait taken with the Tokina lens on Nikon D300]

Tokina doesn’t have a focus motor so it would be strictly manual focus on an entry Nikon. However, on other DSLRs it is fully automatic. And it uses Tokina’s push-pull clutch ring to change quickly from auto to manual focus.

This lens is a macro, focusing to 1:1. Manual focus, which we used often while taking pictures of the native flowers which are everywhere in abundance right now, is smooth and well damped.

These lenses are magnificent. Mount one of them on your camera and zoom with your feet and you will enter a new (or old, actually) world of sensationally sharp and brilliant images.

Price: $5000

Spectacular

The low-down: This is a high definition projector with a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, and an aspect ratio of 16:9. The inputs provided are two HDMI (high definition multimedia interface), component, S-video, VGA and composite. All functions of the projector can be controlled from the remote control. Maximum contrast is 50000:1 and there are presets for different ambient light conditions. The lens zooms to fit large or small screens but there is no keystone correction which means the projector does need to be straight on to the screen. The cooling fan is reasonably quiet.

Like: The resolution and colour fidelity are amazing. Some projectors are plagued by colour bleeding in areas of high saturation, particularly reds. The Epson preserves all outlines and produces a natural colour palette. There is no visible pixel grid as there is with lower resolution projectors.

Dislike: The owner’s manual is on a disc and must be read from a PC screen. We could not find any way to easily print it out. For a gadget costing $5000 this is inexcusable. There are also no connecting leads included, which seems cheap when modest cameras come with various connectors. And replacement lamps cost $500.

Verdict: Our interest in this projector is as a medium for viewing digital photographs. However, not many people will buy it to use only as a slide projector, even though the results are brilliant. So we tried DVDs, both high definition (in the Microsoft WMV/HD format) and standard resolution. We played the discs through the Windows Media Player and the results were spectacular. Even the low definition commercial disc projected perfectly with good resolution and colour. If you have the money and the space for a home theatre then this projector is a ripper.

*

And for the lucky few able to afford it we certainly recommend a high definition video projector, such as the Epson reviewed today. This is the way to go for the very best projected picture quality.

Most new cameras come ready for the new projection media. As well as the standard picture aspect ratios – the ratio of the length of the two sides of the image – most also provide for capturing in the widescreen TV ratio of 16:9.

So why not leave the camera set to 16:9 all the time? Well, therein lies a trap, because an in-camera 16:9 image is fine for a television or video projector but is hopelessly undersized for printing.

A typical 10 megapixel compact camera will have a sensor AR (aspect ratio) of either 3:2 or 4:3. Its pixel dimensions will be about 3600 by 2700 and, with care, it could produce output for printing up to A3.

Where there is a choice of 3:2 and 4:3 it may depend on your printing intention. A standard “postcard” size print is 15x10cm – 3:2. And an A4 print is 30x21cm – also 3:2.

For printing digital images the more information the better, so a camera set to record in JPEG should be set to Large/Fine. Then the image will be a compressed, large file. JPEG compresses the file in-camera by discarding some of the information that the compression algorithm determines is redundant or virtually invisible to the eye – so the file size will not be 10 megapixels, but something between 2 and 4.5 megapixels, depending on the detail in the picture.

When the camera is set to 16:9 for output to a high definition display device it sets itself to record an image 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels, the dimensions of an HD television. And the image is, by photographic standards, a low resolution 72dpi. The image size is around 930KB and to make a borderless 15X10 print from that file would mean throwing away a some of the information. Impossible!

What all this means is that we never use the 16:9 AR option in a camera, even when we intend to display the picture on a widescreen television. We want to be able to view the picture on TV but also be able to make a print from it. Therefore the AR of choice is always the native, highest resolution image that the camera can produce – normally RAW in our case, but where RAW is not an option then at least Large/Fine JPEG. Then, in Photoshop, we crop the picture to 16:9 with a resolution of 72dpi, and it is ready for any HD display device, and the original is kept as our “digital negative”.

*

Price: $129 (upgrade from v6 $99)

Small improvements

The low-down: This is Adobe’s cut-down “domestic” version of Photoshop, selling for several hundred dollars less than the full program but having enough image editing features for most amateur photographers. Not much has changed in the basics since version 6 – editing is still divided into the options of “full” for the serious, “quick”, for those who want automation and “guided” for the in-betweens. Many of the changes are to do with connectivity to image storage and sharing web sites, including Adobe’s own, which apparently is only available to US subscribers. In “full” edit mode there is one interesting new tool, called Smart Brush which is used to make skies bluer, local areas darker or lighter and it whitens teeth as well as adding lipstick!

Like: The most useful addition to version 7 is the inclusion in the Guided edit suite of an Actions player. Actions are automated routines, like macros in Word, that once created will automatically replay a sequence of editing steps. Until version 7 this has only been possible in a limited way, and it is still limited.

Dislike: The beauty of Actions in full Photoshop is that they can be user-created simply by recording the process. In Elements 7 Actions can be replayed but not created. That means that Actions must be sourced somewhere else – either from a friend with the full program or from Adobe’s Exchange (http://tinyurl.com/qbc2a) where Photoshop users share actions and plug-ins, usually free. However, if an action has processes in it that are in full Photoshop but not in PS Elements then it may not work. Presumably Elements 8 will include a recorder.

Verdict: This software is excellent value for money, although the cost of a third party instruction manual should be factored into the price. Corel’s PaintShop Pro Photo X2 is a better featured, more serious editing program, but Photoshop is the universal imaging equivalent of Word. It’s a hard choice.

*

Spring is sprung and dpexpert has been out and about photographing as many native flowers as possible, while the season lasts.

Mind you, we don’t know a Westringia Longifolia from an Astartea Fascicularis, we just like the forms and colours of the indigenous flowering plants. And it’s the time of year when the Royal Botanic Gardens at Cranbourne and the Maranoa Gardens at Balwyn, not to mention some of the private gardens and shows that are open right now, are at their brilliant best.

The natives range in size from the spectacular clusters of eucalypt flowers and superb waratahs and banksias to the tiny, subtle flowers that are like coloured dust speckling the green shrubs. So this is macro lens territory if we are to capture the delicate beauty of the micro flowers.

There seems to be a misunderstanding abroad that any lens branded “macro” is a single purpose optic for taking close ups. Not so. A macro lens is usually, but not always, a prime lens that works as a general purpose lens, but also focusses very close when needed. Typically a macro lens will capture a same size, 1:1, image.

When focussed this close depth of field becomes an issue. While the distance between the front and back of a small bloom might look insignificant, relatively speaking it is huge. In order to increase the front-to-back sharpness of a flower picture we use a small aperture. We set the DSLR to aperture priority mode and set the aperture to f22.

Such a small aperture usually means long exposures. We don’t want to work at a high ISO because that runs the risk of noise – random black and coloured grain – affecting the picture quality. So, small aperture, long exposure, means a tripod is essential. And a remote release is handy for perfection.

Now we come up against another problem – wind. With long exposures the plants must be absolutely still. So choose your day carefully. The ideal day is still air and what Kodak used to call “cloudy bright” on their exposure guides. If you’re lucky enough to get a cloudy-bright day it is like having the best diffused studio lighting for your photography.

If, after taking all the care in the world with the photography, the photos look a little blah, here’s a tip given to us many years ago by a professional photographer pal. Photos are often flat when there is too much background detail making it difficult to focus on the main subject, and there is a fix for that. Try vignetting.

A vignette is a darkening of the corners and edges of the image, which is easy to do in any photo editing program that allows local burning. Just choose a big, soft brush from the brush palette and create a subtle ellipse of darkened area around the edges. It is amazing how it changes the way the eye immediately zooms in on the main subject.

There is a collection of photographs of Australian flowers, most taken with a Nikon D300 with Micro Nikkor 60mm macro lens, in the Gallery.

*

Price: $600

A big surprise

The low-down: This 10 megapixel camera has a Zeiss-branded 35–140mm zoom lens that is folded into the width of the body. The lens is covered with a sliding panel which also serves as a secondary on-off switch. The only buttons on the body are for power, zoom, shutter and review – all other controls are accessed through the touch screen. The face area is a little larger than a credit card and it is 16mm thick. With its attractive brushed metal body (in four different colours) it shouts “fashion accessory”. The touch screen controls are comprehensive and well laid out and intuitive. The 9cm LCD gets grubby quickly.

Like: The image quality is surprisingly good. Resolution is good up to ISO200 and noise is well controlled with no tendency to turn into ugly black blobs in shadows. Response times are fast enough and the implementation of the touch-screen control is about the best we have seen.

Dislike: Auto white balance is erratic, particularly in open shadows where the camera errs towards the amber end. We are developing a deep loathing of Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick which is expensive, unique to Sony and doesn’t work in any of our three multi-card readers. This means that picture transfer must be done by attaching the camera to a USB port. Ridiculous.

Verdict: This camera is a surprise. We took one look at it and thought: “Party fashion accessory” and expected nothing from it. However, behind the eye-catching, feminine appearance there lurks a decent camera. The touch screen goes beyond the gimmicky into the seriously useful, but we’re not sure that we could live with a camera that always looks smudgy with finger prints. As a compact camera that is designed to go anywhere, take up minimum space, and produce good images, the little Sony is at the front of the pack.

*

One of the hazards of this job is what we call “road tester’s snobbery”. You know how it works – reviewers of motor cars divide the world into real cars – from Germany – and rubbish. Once you start using the good stuff at someone else’s expense, even if it must be returned after testing, you tend to lose touch with reality.

When it comes to image editing software we really part ways with the real world. It’s all Adobe Photoshop here, mate. Industry standard. What we neglect to mention in our blithe throwaways about Photoshop is that it costs $1100 for CS3 and will cost more for the new CS4. For the average photographer this is as silly as buying a Ferrari to do the weekly run to the supermarket.

There are cheaper, good alternatives –the Toyota Corollas of imaging software – such as Paintshop Pro Photo X2 or Adobe Photoshop Elements (version 7 is just released). For under $200 you get just about everything you need.

Better yet, for the proletarian snapper, there are some free programs worth considering. Irfanview (www.irfanview.com) and Xnview (www.xnview.com) are fine picture viewers with reasonable editing controls.

Google’s Picasa 3 beta (picasa.google.com) is worth a look. The image manipulation controls work surprisingly well and as a cataloguing program Picasa is nearly as good as Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom. Picasa searches the system to compile a complete catalogue of images which can then be tagged with identifying words for quick and comprehensive searches. So, if you tag all the pictures of your cat with the word Tiddles the next time you want a picture of the moggy just type “Tiddles” into the search box and all his pictures are displayed in a nonce.

However, if you want a no nonsense free alternative to Photoshop then consider the Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program). This open source software is available for Linux, Windows and Mac and the latest version is 2.6 (www.gimp.org/downloads/)

Gimp is not for the faint-hearted but it repays users for their persistence. Anyone with a feel for Photoshop will quickly find their way around the unusual interface with its three floating panels. Gimp was once strictly for Linux geeks but it is now more user-friendly. And as it’s free you can take it for a spin to see if it suits your editing needs.

The Layers metaphor works much as in Photoshop. The various controls, such as Curves, Levels, Hue and Saturation, Sharpness etc are all identical in operation to the Adobe program. There are some idiosyncrasies and it does have a tendency to freeze. There is a section in the on-line user manual dedicated to getting Stuck and Unstuck. Windows and Mac versions are more likely to get stuck than Linux.

Printing controls are not as well developed as they could be and the on-line Help is clunky. So, the Gimp is not as flash as Photoshop, but given the $1100 price difference you can use the money you saved to buy a decent single lens reflex.

* 

Price: $770

Well evolved super zoom

The low-down: This 10 megapixel pseudo SLR is the latest iteration of the Panasonic superzoom (Leica-branded lens with 27–486mm focal length) The lens has very effective image stabilisation and is sharp at all focal lengths. The electronic viewfinder is not great but the LCD screen is a fine resolution 6.7cm and the EVF is better than no viewfinder at all. There is both a high degree of automation and also a suite of full manual controls, so both point-and-shooters and serious photographers are catered for. Controls are logical and well laid out and the printed user manual is clear and comprehensive. Auto focus is fast and accurate at all focal lengths. There is face detection and auto focus tracking of moving subjects.

Like: The lens is magnificent. The effectiveness of the image stabilisation is simply sensational – hand-held photos taken at full zoom extension, equivalent to 486mm, are amazingly sharp. Image quality at ISO speeds up to 200 is very good. ISO400 is OK and 800 is just usable.

Dislike: Unfortunately if you opt for the Intelligent Auto function you won’t know what ISO speeds the camera is choosing until after the event. Auto white balance is poor and the camera is easily fooled under artificial or mixed light sources.

Verdict: This camera is a pleasure to use. The bad old days of intolerable shutter lag in all-in-one superzooms are well behind us – the Panasonic is as responsive as any compact camera. It can’t match a true SLR, but it is priced against the low end entry SLRs, so when it comes to choosing a camera the advantages of the FZ28 are bulk and weight and the fabulous lens. Usually when testing a superzoom allowances must be made for image deterioration at the longest focal length, but the FZ28 combines excellent glass and clever image stabilisation with precise focusing for no-compromise results.

Panasonic FZ28 at 486mm focal length, handheld.

*

Can this news report be true?

“Only one commercial lab in the world, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, is listed as still processing Kodachrome. Eastman Kodak now makes the slide and motion-picture film in just one 35mm format; and production runs ­in which a master sheet nearly a mile long is cut up into more than 20,000 rolls occur at least a year apart.”

No more Kodachrome? The colour film used by every photographer over the age of 50. The film we had to send back to Kodak for processing in their secret chemicals. The film that launched a million slide nights. No more!

Well, we haven’t helped. The possums have taken over the darkroom where we used to print from Kodachrome slides onto what was then called Cibachrome. Now the colour enlarger sits on top of the cupboard and the processing tanks and drums roll around inside. These days we have swapped the darkroom for the Lightroom. To be precise, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.

Lightroom 2 has just been released and it is a big improvement on version 1. However, the underlying concept is the same – to give digital photographers a complete cataloguing, processing, printing and display suite in a single application.

We tended to use Lightroom 1 as a front end to Photoshop CS3 or an alternative to Adobe Camera RAW, but Lightroom 2 is such a complete editing application that most of the time there is no need to re-open files in Photoshop.

The depth of control over image editing in LR2 is astonishing. Where in LR1 most adjustments to images were what Adobe calls “global” – that is they affected the entire image – LR2 offers “local” effects. Using a brush metaphor it is now possible to paint specific areas of the image with changes to exposure, sharpness, brightness, contrast, saturation and skin smoothing. And every edit is non-destructive, leaving the original image unaltered with the edit information stored in a “sidecar” file. Even after an image has been edited and closed the full history of the edit process is preserved and it is possible to return to any point in that history when the image is reopened.

Lightroom 2 is far too complex and multi-layered to begin to describe all its functions here and therein lies one small problem. This is not an intuitive application and no one is going to work out how to use it just by poking around on the surface. You need a guide.

We bought Scott Kelby’s Lightroom 2 book for digital photographers. Sadly it won’t be published here until next year, so there is no alternative to buying from the US on-line.

Kelby’s style is a mix of stomach churning cutesy blah and absolute clarity and comprehensiveness. Because of the latter we forgive the former. It is an excellent tour through the complexities of Lightroom. We can say that without this book we would be sitting here staring at the Lightroom screen and wondering where to start.

A pal with Photoshop CS3 asked if he really needs Lightroom 2. Does LR2 do anything that Photoshop doesn’t? Kelby’s book is a good place to find an answer to that question, so before spending $540 on the program try the book for USD45.

*

Price: $1850 with 18-105mm lens.

Brilliant

The low-down: This 12 megapixel DSLR takes two features of the D300 – the CMOS image sensor and the 75mm high resolution LCD screen – and fits them into what is, in effect, the D80 body. Naturally there is live view and, the big surprise, there is movie mode, a first for DSLRs. (Canon has since matched this feature). Movie format is suitable for replay on HD TVs – 720 lines in-camera interpolated to 1080 for transfer. Camera essentials such as viewfinder and ergonomics are the best. Continuous shooting speed is 4.5fps. The supplied lens is optically above average for kit lenses and covers a useful focal length range and has in-lens image stabilisation. Focus is fast and quiet. The in-built flash can operate as the “commander”, controlling Nikon SB600/800/900 speedlights off-camera. Active D lighting increases dynamic range in high contrast situations – one professional of our acquaintance leaves this turned on all the time in his D3. Image storage is on SD cards.

Like: The low light capabilities of this camera are similar to the D300, which means ISO1600 is the new ISO400. The image quality at high ISO settings is breathtaking with very little noise evident in even the trickiest bits of open shadow. Nikon make low light photography a joy with the discrete focus-assist lamp, much better than the pop-up flash arrangement used by most competitors.

Dislike: Presumably it is in the camera firmware and doesn’t cost anything, but does a serious DLSR really need to have a slideshow creator, with music, built in?

Verdict: This camera is a joy to use. It feels right in the hand. The bright viewfinder displays all the shooting parameter information. The image quality is spectacular. Even the instruction manual and menu system speak quality and careful attention to the photographer’s needs. When the D90 was introduced to a room full of cynical camera reviewers recently the announcement of the price brought a small muttering from the crowd. So much camera for, relatively speaking, so little money. And that’s the full RRP. Highly recommended.

*

Chez Imaging is a bit of a photographic museum, cluttered with cameras and lenses and doodads from the days of film.

The colour head enlarger, once the pride of the darkroom (now a store room and possum refuge) sits on the cupboard unused. We look at it from time to time and remember the toxic hours spent in the dark, making test strips to determine exposure and check sharpness. We don’t have to do that any more.

A visitor spotted the enlarger the other day and asked: “How do you enlarge a digital image?” He hadn’t thought of it before. But when domestic printers routinely handle up to A3+ paper (329X483mm) it is a reasonable question. After all, a 12 megapixel camera image at 300dpi (probably higher resolution than the printer requires, but that is another matter) measures 241X363mm. And if the image is cropped then the degree of enlargement increases. So, how best to do it?

Simply resizing the image in Photoshop or Paintshop Pro in a single hit will not do the job. Crude enlargement softens the image and, in extreme cases, causes pixelation.

There are commercial applications that handle digital image enlargement, the best known of which is Genuine Fractals, for both Win and Mac. (http://tinyurl.com/4vp2tl) This does an excellent job but it is expensive at USD160.

Fred Miranda claims that his Stair Interpolation Photoshop plug-in makes a better enlargement and costs a more realistic USD25. (Win and Mac www.fredmirands.com/shopping/ ) We have used Fred’s plug-in (at first it was an Action) and been well satisfied.

Miranda’s approach is to start with a well-known characteristic of digital enlargement and to automate it. In its most basic form anyone can do it, so there might not be any need to spend money at all.

When a digital image is enlarged in ten per cent increments the tendency to blur and soften is hardly discernible, even up to extreme degrees of enlargement. The technique described here applies to Photoshop, but it can be adapted for Elements or for Paintshop Pro.

Starting with the open image go to Image/Image Size and change the Document Size line to Percent. Then type 110 into the Width box, the height will auto adjust. Make sure that Scale Styles/Constrain Proportions and Resample Image are all checked.

Next change the Resample Image method to Bicubic Smoother and press OK. The image is now increased in size by ten per cent. Because it would be tedious to go on doing this over and over (although in Elements there’s not much choice) the steps should be recorded as an Action and assigned to a function key. The Action then sits in the Actions palette and is simply run over and over with a repeated single key stroke until the degree of enlargement required is reached. Easy and cheap and very effective.

It is important not to sharpen the image until the enlargement process is complete. The difference between enlarging and reducing image size in Photoshop is that for reduction the resampling method is Bicubic Sharper (“best for reductions” says Adobe) and for enlargement is Bicubic Smoother (“best for enlargements”). Then, once the enlargement is complete, a discreet application of Unsharp mask may finish it off nicely.

*

Price: $1000 with 18-70mm lens.

Interesting camera, poor kit lens

The low-down: This 10 megapixel DSLR is a sub-$1000 camera in basic kit form. Construction is acceptable with plain plastic much in evidence. It comes with the Sony 18-70mm kit lens and can also be bought in a two lens kit with a 55-200mm tele zoom. The lenses are slow and rough in operation as well as being optically unimpressive. However, they are cheap! There is effective in-body image stabilisation and dust removal. The LCD screen is articulated and will swivel through a front/back axis but not sideways. The viewfinder is cramped and dim, which is average for this level camera. Image storage is on expensive Memory Stick or inexpensive CF card. The implementation of live view is excellent.

Like: This camera has two stand-out features – the swivelling LCD screen and the live view function. Although the LCD is relatively small and only moves through limited angles it is wonderful for overhead and low level shooting. And this is the first DSLR with live view that works pretty much as it does on a compact. You just point and shoot. Focus is fast and fairly accurate and there is no double-clunk as on other SLRs with live view.

Dislike: JPEG images straight from the camera are soft. We suspect that this is not a camera fault but a lens issue. We would strongly recommend buying the body plus one of the excellent Zeiss lenses that Sony offer as an option – expensive but good.

Verdict: This camera will appeal to customers moving up from a compact because the live view arrangement will feel immediately familiar. But can anyone explain why holding a heavy DSLR at arm’s length makes more sense than using the optical viewfinder? We feel that image quality is not up to par, even shooting RAW, mainly because of the indifferent performance of the lenses. Compared with the Canon 1000D and the Nikon D60 the Sony stands out in features and falls behind in kit lens quality.