Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

Firmware Friday: Casio EX-H20G, Panasonic 14-140mm Lens, Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander

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Camera Firmware Update

Below you will find this week’s firmware updates.  Hit the manufacturer website links for more details and download instructions for the firmware.

Casio EX-H20G version 1.01 – “Adds a function that writes position log data saved in camera memory to a memory card (Output Log)” [Casio Website]

Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm G HD Lens version 1.4 – “Improved stability of O.I.S.(Optical Image Stabilizer) and AF(Auto Focus) in movie recording.” [Panasonic Website]

Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander version 32 – “Optimizes antenna hardware to increase range by up to 25%. Corrects the power range of the White Lightning X3200 1/4 power as displayed on the FLASH screen. The -3.7f Ws power rating of 640Ws lights now displays as 9.2Ws (previously displayed inaccurately as 49.2Ws).” [Cyber Commander Website]

 

Nikon DSLR Rebates for December 2010

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Nikon has refreshed and extended its DSLR and lens rebates through the remainder of the holidays.  Cameras included in the rebates are now the Nikon D3000, the new D3100, D90, D300s and the D700.

Up to $400 in rebates are available when purchased with qualifying lenses.  B&H Photo has the complete rundown on qualifying DSLR and lens combos here.

PhotoFast G-Monster X Drive USB 3.0 Review

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The PhotoFast G-Monster X Drive is a USB 3.0 enclosure for CF cards and 1.8″ hard drives.  Essentially, the G-Monster X Drive turns a CF card or micro-sized hard drives into an ultra-compact, high speed hard drive.

Recently, I added a USB 3.0 PCIe adapter and an external USB 3.0 hard drive to my desktop PC as a media drive for video editing.  So far, it has worked very well – with no discernable difference in performance from my internal hard drives.  I have since become a big fan of USB 3.0 tech and was glad to hear about the G-Monster X Drive from Photofast. [Read more…]

Red Scarlet S35 Renamed, Re-priced

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The yet-to-be-released, Red Scarlet S35, has been redubbed by Red Leader, Jim Jannard, as the EPIC Light.  As he puts it, the price and features have changed as well.

The Scarlet S35 was originally announced in late 2008 and was spec’d with a 5120 x 2700 resolution Super 35 sensor that would capture 5k footage at 30 fps (w/ 72fps burst rates).  The initial price point for the Scarlet S35 was $7000 for the body (brain) only and would be available in Canon, Nikon, Red and PL mount options.

No word on the revised specs or price; however, according to Jannard, we should know something next week.

[RedUser.net via PhotoRumors]

Firmware Friday: Sony A900/A850, Fuji HS10, Panasonic FZ100/FX700/FX75, Ricoh CX4

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Camera Firmware Update

Below you will find this week’s firmware updates.  Hit the manufacturer website links for more details and download instructions for the firmware.

Sony A900 / A850 version 2.0 – “You can release the shutter even when no lens is mounted on the camera (P/A/S/M and Auto mode). The range of the exposure compensation is expanded to ±5 EV (Before the update: ±3 EV). The following setting has been added to the continuous bracket and single bracket shooting functions: The exposure bracket can now be set in 3 EV increments and the camera shoots three images ([3.0 EV– +3.0 EV]). (Before the update: Up to 2.0 EV). The speed of autofocus has been improved. The improvement will be most noticeable when using a tele lens, however the effect is dependent on the shooting condition.” [Sony Website]

Fuji HS10 version 1.04 – “1. Custom white balance can be set correctly when an external flash is mounted. 2. On slide show mode, sound of movie recording data can be performed on the HDTV which is connected with the camera via HDMI interface.” [Fuji Website]

Panasonic FZ100 version 1.2 – “1. Image quality improvement of Motion Deblur in iA Mode 2. Performance improvement of autofocus in taking pictures while recording Motion Pictures” [Panasonic Website]

Panaonsic FX700 and FX75 version 1.1 – “1. Image quality improvement of Motion Deblur in iA Mode (FX70/ FX75/ FX700) 2. Performance improvement of autofocus in taking pictures while recording Motion Pictures (FX700)” [Panasonic Website]

Ricoh CX4 version 1.05 – “Modified the following phenomenon. 1. In the Night Landscape Multi-shot, when pressing the shutter release button half way, the camera shake warning symbol camera shake warning will not be displayed in the screen.” [Ricoh Website]

Cyber Week Continues with Deals on Tokina Lenses, Benro Tripod & More

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Amazon is pushing well past Cyber Monday with a whole week of deals on a variety of products.  Just browsing through today’s “Lightning Deals” – it’s serving up deals on the Tokina 16.5-135mm lens in Canon and Nikon mounts (starting at 9:20AM ET), a Benro tripod and monopod, with more to be revealed throughout the day.

If you aren’t familiar with Lightning Deals, they are limited availability products that are reduced in price (sometimes significantly) for only a short period of time (usually 1-4 hours if the stock lasts that long).  You can check them out on Amazon’s Cyber Week page and you’ll get a feel for how the deal system works.

New Compact Flash Specs Proposed by Sony, Nikon, SanDisk

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SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB CF Card

The future of camera memory cards may be a new CF card that offers transfer rates of 500 MB/sec and capacity in excess of 2 TB. The development of these proposed specifications were announced today as part of a joint effort among Sony, Nikon and SanDisk.

Nikon, SanDisk and Sony have submitted these high-powered specs to the CompactFlash Association in hopes of a future standardization of the format.  The new card specifications are based on a PCI Express interface (in order to achieve a 500 MB/sec transfer rate) instead of the Parallel ATA interface used in current generation cards.

According to the statement issued by SanDisk, Sony and Nikon, the new cards will be similar in size to existing CF cards.  Hopefully, that also serves as a hint that the new cards will do away with the pins inside camera, which are so susceptible to being bent.

Complete details of the announcement are below. [Read more…]