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Nikon Reportedly Recipient of Two Red Dot Awards

So, via Imaging Resource is a press release from Nikon talking excitedly about it’s two Red Dot awards. The Red Dot awards are some design awards that take the idea of design pretty seriously, appearance, ease-of-use, the ease with which one can pick it up and figure it out, etc..

Anyway, Nikon apparently won some awards for the Coolpix S1000pj point-and-shoot with the LED projector, and for the D5000 entry-level DSLR. Not that I can verify this independently, since Red Dot’s site hasn’t updated with this year’s winners. It does look like this won’t be Nikon’s first time winning a Red Dot, the D3 won one last year.



Olympus Posts Slew of E-PL1 Videos

Olympus, maker of tough, waterproof point-and-shoots and DSLR’s that I’ve been famously known to run under a sink and stand-on at parties, only to then photograph the onlookers, and co-pioneers of the mirror-less compact interchangeable lens camera frontier, sent us an email today telling us about their new YouTube video spots about their E-PL1.

These 11 short videos are aimed to help you all through the various highlights of the E-PL1, and to help explain what it offers over regular compacts (‘point and shoots”), or the full-blown DSLR boat anchors like I carry. So, if you’ve got a few minutes and an interest in one of the hottest new camera types in decades, why not hop over and watch a few?



P100, other Coolpix point and shoots announced

Today Nikon announced their refresh for the Coolpix line by adding the P100, L110, L22, and S3000, S4000, S6000, S8000 compacts. The P90 is to cede to the P100, and it looks like it’ll be a doozie of an upgrade. The Nikon Coolpix P100 will have a 10.3 megapixel back-lit CMOS sensor and a 26x optical zoom (26mm-678mm equivalent) Nikkor ED lens. It’ll also be able to churn out 10fps at 10MP, and near 120fps at 1.1MP. No idea how the 3200 ISO setting will perform yet, but maybe you won’t need to use it given the sensor-shift VR system. There’s a host of other software functions to make “minimal user intervention shooting” produce good looking pics. It’s also got a macro focusing distance of .4″, though no word on what the maximum reproduction ratio. Oh right, 1080p HD video is also on the menu.

If you’ve got to use AA batteries and don’t trust this new-fangled back-lit CMOS business, then step down to the L110 and take your pick between black and red. Your glass is 15x optical from 28-420mm (equivalent), supported by sensor-shift VR image stabilization and a max ISO of 6400. It also has the first ‘cyanotype’ color setting I’ve seen a manufacturer brag over. Ta da. It takes 12.1MP stills and 720p HD video (at 30fps).

The other AA offering is the L22, weighing in at 12MP with a modest 37-134mm equivalent focal range. The L22 has a ‘Big, Bright 3.0-inch LCD’ with an anti-glare coating and a maximum ISO of 1600.

The 000 (Tri-aught?) range of Coolpix this time around are the S3000, S4000, S6000, and S8000. The S3000 (for Style yeah) wields 12.0MP, a 27-108 equivalent focal range, a 2.7″ LCD, some firmware functions to correct for red-eye, florid, staggering friends who neither smile nor cease blinking, and a maximum ISO of 3200.

Next up is the S4000, which looks to succeed the S230 and put a 3.0″ touch screen in your hot, little hands for things like touch-shutter (which sounds like an alt-rock band who should be opening for Toad the Wet Sprocket) and touch-AF. Beyond that it records 720pHD movies, and sidles on up to 3200 ISO. It also has a cyanotype color mode.

The S6000 appears with 14.2MP, a 28-196 equivalent Nikkor ED glass lens, and spits 4fps for up to 45 frames in Sports Continuous mode. It also features the “make your friends look good without trying” firmware functions.

The S8000 crowns the Tri-Aught sorority with a 14.2MP sensor, 10x optical zoom with Nikkor ED glass (starts at 30mm equivalent), a 3.0″ VGA display at 921,000 dots, and Optical VR Image Stabilization and a close focus distance of .4″ in Macro mode.



Olympus’ New PEN: E-PL1

So, if you read any of the same blogs I do, you’ll have already read about this many times by now, but for those of you who haven’t, or just really want my input on the matter, Oly announced a third sibling in the PEN line-up today.

This new one, the E-PL1, is already being billed as “the affordable PEN,” although in fact it’s the most mainstream of the three that sets it apart. It adds a pop-up flash, and retains the E-P2′s wonderful support for that hot shoe-mounted EVF. The core specs remain in the usual ballpark: 12.3 megapixels on a 4/3 sensor, in-body IS, art filters, and 720p HD video (now with a dedicated record button. Ooh, shiny).

The major changes really are in the design, which doesn’t really sacrifice anything to looks (although a Mr Charlie Sorrel over at Wired seems to be of quite the opposite opinion), with this camera clearly being the true entry-level PEN we’ve been waiting to see ever since it became clear the E-P1 wasn’t gunning for a pro market.

How can I tell? It’s the controls on the rear here. Gone are the “advanced” jog wheels, and enter a few buttons which leave it looking…. yup, like a modern point and shoot. Go ahead, click the image there to see them large. Again, and maybe it’s just my familiarity and love of the E-3 (itself widely known for having a friggin lot of buttons), but I’ll have to disagree with Mr. Sorrel’s assessment of this being a button-heavy mess here too. It’s controls are clearly designed to provide a smooth transition from high-end point and shoots.

Anyway, we’ll have more to come on this shooter soon, but, if you don’t need jog wheels and have been eyeing the Pen system waiting for a cheaper option, it looks like your time is finally coming.



Digital Photography School Gives an Intro to Creative Commons Licensing

So, it’s no secret that I lead a dual life–by day I’m the (not-so-) mild-mannered Roberts webmaster and head blogger. By night, I’m a practicing artist who’s probably slowly dying of some OMS-inhalation-related thing and almost certainly not getting my damage deposit back. So, the licensing of artistic works is something I’m concerned about a great deal off the clock, and for a lot of you I’m sure it’s something you worry about on the clock. I mean, cameras are used to make photography, yeah?

So, DPS has a short article about a service I actual use myself, called Creative Commons. Creative Commons gets thought of a lot as a sort of open-ride for people, signing away your commercial rights. And that’s not true. Sure, you can do that with Creative Commons, but you can not do that with them as well. CC works by asking if you want to allow commercial use, and then how you want to handle attribution. That’s pretty simple.

In the article, the author–Chris Folsom–says this little nugget, which I’ve been telling to friends, clients, and anyone who’ll listen for years:

Honestly, I don’t believe any licensing mechanism will keep people from stealing your images. If a photo is available to view on the internet, someone may use it regardless of whether you reserve all rights on the photo or not. Licensing your works under Creative Commons does not make it any easier or harder to infringe on your copyright.

And he’s pretty much right. I also don’t recommend watermarking images because people are going to use it anyway and a lot of reviewing professionals don’t want the image interrupted with your branding (I believe A Photo Editor has complained about this before). In the United States, artistic works belong to you the moment you make them anyway (for more details on the legal whatsits of that statement, and to find out how exactly it does work with cited statutes and not just ‘I’ve heard…”, go here: http://www.artlawteam.com/2009/09/articles/copyright-2/copyright-myths-debunked/ (if clicking that links gives you an error, highlight it, copy it, and paste it into your URL bar, their blog is having issues right now, but that’ll work).

So, CC s worth looking into, and Chris’ article below is a good intro. Give it a look, if you haven’t yet handled how you license your work.



Photo Quotage

Recently, it has become easier and easier to present anything that could be seen through our eyes in a photograph. However, I don’t really think a photograph can mirror reality; everything has multiple viewpoints, which depend on your personal insight, or your angle of view; perhaps what the photo shows us is something primal. I cannot deny that this is why photographs fascinate me so much. I like to intuitively find an image and let nature take its course.

-Chen Nong

More here: http://blog.sfmoma.org/2009/10/asian-photo-now1/



Oh, Lensbaby

The fine people at Lensbaby were kind enough to loan some of their new line to us during the months of September and October. I know I walked around with the 4/3 Composer for a few weeks and if you trundle over to our YouTube channel, you’ll see me fumbling with Derek’s E3, a Composer, and swappable optics.

More about the babies, and some pics, after the jump…
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Canon’s Rebel XTi Soon To Lose Status As Flickr’s Favorite Son

flickr-iphoneFlickr is basically the best baseline for what our market is you could ask for: completely voluntary, community-driven. It has only a couple biases, and they fortunately happen to be the same biases our online store operates by: consumer- (versus professional-) centric, and of course skewed towards the opinions of consumers who are also web-savvy.

Sounds like online shoppers to me.

Anyway, it’s been a big deal around the tech blogs that the long-time top camera on Flickr– the venerable Canon Rebel XTi–is soon to be displaced by a new most-popular camera– the iPhone. No, seriously. Mock them as many of us might, the camera phone is clearly arising as the new snapshooter of preference in the internet crowd. Interesting to note, and it means I’ll pay a bit more attention to Sony’s continual efforts in that arena (boy they love putting megapixels into anything that’ll sit still long enough for them to).

Rounding out the top 5 cameras on Flickr are two more Canon’s and the legendary Nikon D80. Flickr also breaks down statistics by point-and-shoot (Canon owns the top 5), DSLR, brand, camera hone, etc.. So, if you’re looking to see what’s popular in the Web 2.0 crowd, here’s your new bookmark: http://www.flickr.com/cameras/



Olympus E-P1 Reviewed (And Also, Reviewed)

Olympus’ ‘Digital Pen’ E-P1 makes a resurgence this past week with a couple notable reviews showing up. DPReview has of course weighed in with their usual detail-oriented approach (the gem of which is they reviewed the two lenses, for those wondering how the 14-42mm and 17mm pancake weigh in), and DCResource takes the other tact and reviews it from a day-to-day use standpoint. A lot of points are made that basically boil down to “it’s a consumer camera”, which I kinda shrug off because, well, it is rather consumer-oriented. As my design prof used to tell me “it is what it i.” I, personally, still dig what it is, and still remain confident the image quality bests my E-3 (if not the weather-proofiness).




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