Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

Free Links Friday

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Below are some of the best photography links from other sites that I came across this week. Enjoy!

20 Pointers For Running Your Business Out Of Your Home – What You Need To Know – Digital Pro Talk – David Ziser gives some practical advice that you need to know if you’re considering taking on clients in a home studio.

The Photoshop Anthology: 101 Web Design Tips, Tricks & Techniques – Sitepoint – It’s 278 pages worth of Photoshop goodness in a downloadable ebook.  It’s written for web designers; however, it’s packed with great information.  Best of all . . . it’s FREE, but only for a limited time.

A Commenter Calls SB BS… – Strobist – After being called out by a commenter, David Hobby gives a play-by-play of why Joe McNally needed to use 7 speedlights in a desert shoot.  Seriously, if you don’t subscribe to Strobist and you’ve own a camera, then you’re really missing out.  Here’s the link to the Strobist RSS feed.

Radiopoppers review – a trial-by-fire field test – Dreamtime Images Blog – Nathan Welton gives his account of the new Radiopoppers for long range and flexible E-TTL speedlight usage.

Hot at Photography Bay

Some hot news/rumors hit the front page here at Photography Bay this week.

Canon Working on Fuel Cell Powered DSLRs – Fuel cells for batteries in Canon DSLRs?  That’s what a recent Canon patent application says.  This post breaks it down.

Canon Spring Rebates 2008 – The Canon 5D, 40D and plenty of lenses have got big instant rebates for the taking.  See the full list and amounts here.

Weekly Specials at Adorama – The $10 spare batteries for the Canon 20D/30D/40D, cheap SanDisk Extreme cards and other deals are quite the bargain at Adorama this week.

 

More Rumors on Nikon D90, D10 & D3x

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Earlier this week, Thom Hogan had some more insight on the new releases from Nikon for 2008.  Specifically, he noted on his site that Nikon gave an indication of low projected unit volume in the coming year.  He noted that Nikon’s commentary on this projection was that Nikon would focus on “upper end” cameras this year.  Thom noted futher how this was consistent with the rumors of the Nikon D3x.  Still, Thom notes, that doesn’t rule out the introduction of a Nikon D90 or a mid-level Nikon D10.  Both of these models are certainly higher up the food chain than the Nikon D40/D40x/D60 that have pushed Nikon up in the market over the past year or so.

More from Photography Bay:

Nikon D3x

Nikon D10

Nikon D90

Photokina 2008

Canon Rebel XS / 1000D Specs Surface

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UPDATED: The Canon Rebel XS / 1000D has been announced (June 10, 2008)!  Please go to Photography Bay’s Canon Rebel XS/1000D page for more info.

Specifications for the rumored Canon Rebel XS have began to surface online. The rumored specs seem to confirm the replacement of the Rebel XTi/400D. Still no news on release date, but we’ll continue to bank on Photokina. Kamera & Bild is the first place to tout the specs for the new camera, which are supposedly as follows:

  • 10.1 MP CMOS
  • Digic III
  • 7-point AF
  • 3 FPS
  • 2.5″ LCD
  • Live View
  • Similar Menus to the 450D (but more simplified)
  • Weight 540grams
  • Cheap Price

For the latest news and rumors, check out Photography Bay’s Canon Rebel XS / 1000D page.

Nikon Coolpix P60 Review at ePhotozine

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ePhotozine has posted a review of the Nikon Coolpix P60.  The P60 is an 8 megapixel point & shoot camera with a 5x optical zoom (equivalent to 36mm-180mm on a 35mm format camera).  The P60 also features image shift Vibration Reduction (VR) and sensitivity range of ISO 80-2000.

For a couple of hundred pounds, this isn’t a bad camera. Better performances can be attained with other cameras, but you’ll more than likely have to pay more.

Olympus E-420 Review at Photexels

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Photexels has posted a review of the new Olympus E-420.

The Olympus EVOLT E-420 is a good choice if you are thinking of upgrading from your point-and-shoot digicam. It is compact and light and comes closest to working like a P&S: its Live View pretty much works like on your P&S digicam; and, it has AUTO mode, plus easy-to-use Scene Modes, that make it point-and-shoot easy to capture great photos.

For the latest news and reviews, check out Photography Bay’s Olympus E-420 Reviews and Resources page.

Canon Powershot A580 Review at PhotographyBLOG

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PhotographyBLOG has published a full review of the new 8 megapixel Canon Powershot A580. The A580 is the little brother to the Image Stabilized A590 IS. The A580 features a 4x optical zoom, the option of fully automatic or semi-automatic settings and 16 selectable shooting modes.

Image quality has also exceeded my expectations in terms of detail, colour accuracy, AWB consistency and centre sharpness. A well-exposed and properly focused ISO 80 shot will produce an excellent 30x40cm print, with ISO 800 still enjoyable at the common 10x15cm size.

Canon Working on Fuel Cell Powered DSLRs

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A patent application, filed by Canon, reveals technology that would effectively incorporate fuel cell technology in DSLRs and other small consumer electronic devices.  The United States Patent Application Publication Pub. No. 20080081236 can be found here.

As Canon points out it the patent claims, fuel cell technology is a bit of a tough cookie for small electronic devices due to uneven gas densities and variances in load currents, among other things.  For example, the mirror operation in a DSLR can cause sudden fluctuations in the load current, which is problematic for fuel cells.  However, Canon claims to have overcome this barrier in its fuel cell power system, “which is capable of counteracting the instantaneous fluctuation of a load current and [is] designed as a smaller lightweight system.”

The patent doesn’t reveal the what the fuel cell system will look like when integrated into a DSLR.  Maybe we’ll see some sort of battery grip integration in the first iteration, like in the MTI Micro image above.

On a (perhaps) related note, MTI Micro recently announced a partnership with an unnamed Japanese digital camera manufacturer to evaluate the use of fuel cells in digital cameras.  (See this report on Engadget for more.)  I’m just reading between the lines here, but maybe Canon is that “someone special” for MTI Micro.