Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
Kingston has just launched a 64GB Class 10 SDXC card that touts a 60MB/s read speed and a 35MB/s write speed. The new card carries a rather steep retail price tag of $499.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll stick with using two 32GB cards until the price comes down a bit.
You can read up on all the specs of the new SDXC card in the press release below. [Read more…]
The Panasonic Lumix FX75 is a 14.1MP, slim point and shoot camera with a 5x optical zoom, covering an equivalent range of roughly 24-120mm. The FX75 can capture 720p HD video in AVCHD Lite format. It also features a 3-inch touchscreen LCD on the rear for a finger-friendly interface.
The Panasonic Lumix FX75 carries an initial retail price of $299. Check availability on Amazon.com.
More details in the press release below. [Read more…]
Panasonic has unveiled the Lumix G 8mm fisheye lens for it’s G-series Micro Four Thirds cameras. The new lens offers an equivalent focal length of 16mm on a full frame camera thanks to the Micro Four Thirds 2x crop factor.
No word yet on pricing or availability.
More details in the press release below. [Read more…]
The Pretec P240 USB 3.0 card reader, which is compatible with SDXC, CF and other memory card formats, is looking to be available around August 2010. USB 3.0 (or SuperSpeed USB) is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices, but offers 10x improvement in speed with a 5Gbps signaling rate when tied to USB 3.0 connections on both ends.
Pretec’s new 64GB SDXC card is a Class 16 card is also set to start trickling out soon. These products and more from Pretec will be featured at Computex Taipei, which starts today.
More details in the press release below. [Read more…]
Updated: Check out all of the recently announced cameras and other gear at the bottom of this page.
Photokina 2010 is set to take place from Tuesday, September 21 to Sunday, September 26, 2010 in Cologne, Germany. Photokina occurs every two years, and in 2008, 1523 companies exhibited at the show and more than 169,000 people attended the show.
Photokina is a trade show in which many new cameras, lenses and accessories are frequently introduced. Cameras introduced at or around Photokina 2008 include, the Canon PowerShot G10, Canon Rebel XS, Canon 50D, Canon 5D Mark II, Nikon D90, Nikon D700, Panasonic G1, Pentax K2000, Sony A900 and Sigma DP2. All the major camera manufacturers are typically in attendance and are rather high profile at Photokina events. Expect no less this year.
Camera features and formats haven’t seen a state of flux like we are currently seeing for quite some time. As a result, I don’t think that it would be unreasonable to expect big things from big players in the months and weeks leading up to Photokina 2010.
Sony has already busted out of the gate with a serious mirrorless camera system this year, leaving the two big camera makers, Canon and Nikon, to play catch up. The industry is seemingly waiting for these traditional camera manufacturers to bless this new format by entering into the field with a product of their own. The killer (as in entry-level DSLR killer) mirrorless camera hasn’t hit the market yet. Could Canon or Nikon deliver one this year at Photokina?
No one really knew what kind of potential that the Canon 5D Mark II had when it was introduced nearly two years ago. Now, with an abundance of short films, commercials and broadcast TV episodes under its belt, this market segment is a serious piece of the pie.
Canon is the clear front-runner; however, Nikon is sure to add 1080p video capture at some point. The next DSLRs in the Nikon line-up would be a perfect time to seize a piece of this still-yet-to-be-defined market segment. We know Sony is working on some AVCHD-capable DSLRs, so it wouldn’t be a big surprise to see these guys at Photokina 2010.
Enthusiasts have been dying for these cameras to break out to the mainstream manufacturers. It’s not a segment that’s necessarily hot, but has been rumored to be “coming” from a number of manufacturers for years now. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, or maybe enthusiasts will soon get their serious compact cameras with DSLR-sized sensors (instead of the handful of niche products currently on the market). Of course, the rise of mirrorless camera systems could be the death knell to these pipe dreams as well.
With Summer upon us, I will be adding new camera and gear announcements to this page on a rolling basis as we approach Photokina 2010. Expect any serious cameras or gear announced from now on to play a roll in manufacturers’ exhibits at this year’s Photokina. Feel free to bookmark this page for future updates, or check the front page of Photography Bay for regular updates as we approach September.
Stay tuned for the latest updates in the days leading up to Photokina 2010.
Here’s another round of reader photos from the Photography Bay’s Flickr Group. (And you guys just keep submitting better and better stuff!)
The SD15 was announced two years ago and has still yet to see a store shelf. It looks like it’s going to have to wait a bit longer too. Amateur Photographer recently learned that the SD15 has been pushed back until “the end of June.”
Perhaps Sigma should just go ahead and skip to the SD16?
While Sigma had a partially functional prototype available to handle at PMA 2010 when it was “reintroduced”, it was far from prime time. This is rather hard to believe since it uses the same 14MP Foveon X3 sensor used in the current SD14.
While Amazon will let you make an SD15 pre-order, I wouldn’t hold my breath that it’ll be in your hands by the Fourth of July.
Since we looked at the most wished for cameras last week, I thought we could see what the actual best sellers are this time around. Again, this is based on info available at Amazon’s digital camera page.
This is just a snapshot in time, as Amazon updates its bestseller list on an hourly basis. It does provide an idea of what’s important to people though.
Looking at the customer reviews, it’s easy to see why many of these are at the top, as all of the cameras have received overwhelmingly positive reviews. It’s also interesting to see $60 cameras and $800 cameras moving in nearly equal quantities. It’s a pretty diverse group.
I’m instituting a new practice today with regard to camera firmware. From now on, I’ll be consolidating firmware notices to a single post each Friday. If something really hot (like the 5D Mark II firmware 24p update) is announced, I’ll pass that along as it happens. Everything else will fly on Friday from now on.
Fridays are typically slow news days and so this seems like a good fit. We’ll try this for a while and see how it works.
Nikon Coolpix S230 firmware version 1.1. “An issue that, in some rare cases, prevented accurate recording of pictures taken in Night landscape or Dusk/dawn scene mode has been resolved.” [Nikon website]
Pentax Optio H90 firmware version 1.01 – Adds additional Eye-Fi SD card support and functionality. [Pentax website]
Pentax Optio I-10 firmware version 1.01 – Adds additional Eye-Fi SD card support and functionality. [Pentax website]
Pentax Optio W90 firmware version 1.01 – Adds additional Eye-Fi SD card support and functionality. [Pentax website]
Pentax X90 firmware version 1.01 – Adds additional Eye-Fi SD card support and functionality. [Pentax website]
Sigma DP2 firmware version 1.05 “Improved image quality at ISO400.” [Sigma website]
Sigma DP2s firmware version 1.01 “Improved image quality at ISO400.” [Sigma website]
