If you are looking for a great 13×19 inkjet printer deal, you better hurry! The current promo on the Canon PIXMA Pro 9500 and Pro 9000 are ending on January 17, 2009. These printers can make a beautiful print from good photo paper. The Pro 9500 has a $200 rebate on the printer and if you couple it with a Canon Digital SLR camera like the EOS 40D or 50D, you get $400 back! The Pro 9000 has a $100 rebate on the printer and $300 back if you couple it with the 40D or 50D. Quite a deal! Makes the Pro 9000 only $200 after rebates. These are great printers. I own a Pro 9000 and have used it for over a year now, and I love the print quality! They are quiet, fast, light on ink usage, and the heads don’t dry out easily.
› posts tagged ‘50d’
Focusing Screens
Among the more interesting and most under-mentioned digital camera accessories I can think of are focusing screens. Pick up your DSLR real quick and put it to your eye. Depending on your brand you’ll see different things, you might see nothing, or maybe you see a few AF areas marked out. What you aren’t seeing is the very finely textured screen that lets you discern focus through your viewfinder.
In the modern age of auto-focus this is the most versatile way of doing a focusing screen. It allows for focus points anywhere in the frame, and provides bright, clear viewfinders. But, for people who prefer manual focusing (like for macro work), the old split-prism focus screens of the film age are missed. 
Those of you who used film know what I mean, but for those of you who joined us in the digital age cameras used to have a circle in the viewfinder with a dark ring around it and it was split in half. The line through the center would divide subjects and if they weren’t in focus they wouldn’t line up, which made confirming focus pretty darn easy.
What a lot of people don’t realize in a lot of modern DSLRs, including several Canon digital SLR cameras, Nikon digital SLR cameras, Olympus digital cameras like my E-3, and more have available alternative focus screens.
Some of these screens are just even more precise “matte” screens, but some have grids etched (for making sure straight lines are, ya know, straight), and hey, some of them even have the split prism functionality.
So, you might take some time and look into it. Odds are, the way you currently see through your DSLR might not be the only option you have.
Good news for Apple and Nikon P6000
The big gripe has been RAW compatibility for the Nikon digital camera P6000. Up until now, the RAW file was only supported by Windows, or the new plug-in for Photoshop on the Apple platform.
Today, Apple has released the new RAW update 2.3 for iPhoto ’08 and Aperture 2. The new update supports RAW files for the Canon EOS 50D, Nikon D90, Sony Alpha A900 and the Nikon Coolpix P6000.
This is big news for Apple users. I have heard a lot of complaints about compatibility for the P6000. This should address a lot of those issues.
This Isn’t Official
This isn’t official, or at least it hasn’t been confirmed as such with us yet, maybe I’ll have a chance to check here in a bit, but I picked this up on the DPReview forums and found corroborating info at Engadget and Gizmodo. It’s the fairly long-awaited mid-level Olympus digital camera, reportedly called the E-30, designed to slot in between the E-3 and the E-520, and compete against the 50D Canon Digital SLR camera and Nikon’s D90 digital SLR camera.
Again, I have no official news of this, so I’m with-holding my own comments on it until Roberts gets official word. But, it’s nice to see the announcement scuttle isn’t yet over for the year.
Creative Auto
One of the things my Dad is always calling me and asking about while he’s shooting is how he sets the camera to have more or less in focus. So, this little feature on Canon’s new 50D caught my attention far more than the new DIGIC IV processor or the 15 megapixel sensor: Creative Auto.
Basically, you put the camera into this mode and it gets really easy. Want more in focus? Slide the Background slider around. Too light? No worries, slide the exposure slider. It’s all right there, no technical terms needed. A nice new feature for Canon digital SLR cameras, for sure.
New Canon Digital SLR camera announced!
Canon announced their new Canon Digital SLR camera today. The EOS 50D digital SLR. Looks like the new EOS 50D will have a 15 MP CMOS sensor, 3.0 inch LCD, and an HDMI output so you can view your images on a high definition display. They also are bringing an 18-200 I.S. lens as well.
I don’t know when they will start to ship these out, but I bet it won’t be too long. There is a waiting list starting today here at Roberts. If you would like to be added to the list you can do so by clicking here and putting EOS 50D in the subject line. Be sure to put your name and phone number in the body of the email. We will contact you as soon as they become available.
I have not seen one of these in person yet, but you can read the hands-on review at dpreview.com.
Airshow Wrap-Up
So, I was going to do this before now but then I got buried under computer problems, updating our homepage, and Canon’s surprise announcement of the 50D this morning. But, I’ve got a moment now, and I’d like to talk briefly about this past weekend’s airshow experience.
Now, I’d never been to an airshow before, so I’m not nearly as seasoned a voice as Chuck is, and I won’t be talking much here about the show itself (although I will mention that while the F-22s were neat, I vastly preferred the acrobatics of the older showplanes.)
For those of you who somehow missed the details, Roberts was out there by the flightline, and reps from Sony, Nikon, Canon, Bogen, and MAC Group were out there to show off equipment. So, if you’d been dying to try a top-of-the-line Canon digital SLR camera or any Bogen Manfrotto tripods, there were plenty going around.
But, this year’s is over now, and if you missed out, why not check out our new Flickr, freshly loaded with shots from the show? If you did make it out, we’d love to host some of your shots on our Flickr (don’t worry, we don’t want to use them for anything commercial, and you’ll of course retain your copyrights to them.)
So, to visit our Flickr, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29881616@N08/
If you’re interested in having your pictures up there, go here for more information: http://www.robertsimaging.com/airshowgallery.jsp
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