However today there is a teaser on canon website hinting for a new dSLR so this is no rumor! Could it be pointing to the 5D replacement (whatever they will call it) or more like a new 1D body ?

I have thrown the picture in Adobe Photoshop and played around with the curves to make the image brighter it looks like it has a built-in grip.

Check these links English & Japanese (I think)

What do you say ?

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It is all over the web Microsoft offered 44.6 Billions US dollars to buy Yahoo on Friday!

44.6 Billions US dollars and who is concerned the most? Flickr users!

Yes, It seems that Flickr fans are not happy at all about the news at all and they gather showing their malcontent and frustration doing what they know how to do best, UPLOADING IMAGES!

The just newly created group MICROSOFT: KEEP YOUR EVlL GRUBBY HANDS OFF OF OUR FLICKR already count 951 members 128 photos and 33 posts !

If you feel frustrated about the news we’re giving away a Smugmug PRO account

A small notice some pics there are not exactly “work safe” and contains bad language !

Via TechCrunch

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Its main new features are

• 12.2MP CMOS DIGIC III sensor: I wonder what a 12.2MP on a APS-C sensor, aren’t we pushing the technology a little to far?
• Auto Lighting Optimizer
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System: Nothing new here
• 3.0” LCD with Live View shooting: Expected
• SD/SDHC cards storage : What about those who previously invested in CF cards ?

Anyway the clear message in all this is that Canon is not about to provide us with in-body stabilization, they even list as a feature on the main page of the 450D “Image Stabilizer (IS) Lens support” and in the description you can read

…Offering correction up to four-stops and providing a more stable viewfinder image than in-camera stabilization, in-lens stabilization is the preferred choice of both amateur and professional photographers…

So if you are among the people who were craving for in-body stabilization looks like Canon just gave you a clear answer didn’t they !

The Canon 450D official web page and its sample gallery

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Flickr Stats released

If you are enjoying the beauty of a flickr pro account then quickly activate your stats. Flickr released today a new feature that will give you details statistics about your picture activities.

Picasa for Iphone
Well that’s what I can call a funny news Google just release a new version of Picasa ” ((“Google’s great and free photo organizer and editor”))” for iPhone and they don’t even offer a Mac OS version of it yet !!!

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They call it “SmugMungous”

SmugMug user interface is now intelligent enough to recognize the browser size and will dynamically resize your pictures and the whole interface so they fit without compromising resolution and quality.

Via | TechCrunch

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No need to switch websites anymore, here is how it looks like

Read more on flickr blog
is Yahoo on its way to buy yet another company ?

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Of course Nikon’s lens is “full frame” and have a picture angle of 220 degrees and that’s not something we should forget.

Press release

The Sigma Corporation is pleased to announce the launch of the new 4.5mm F2.8 EX DC CIRCULAR FISHEYE HSM lens. This autofocus circular fisheye lens has an angle of view of 180 degrees in all directions. It is exclusively designed for digital SLR cameras with the APS-C size image sensor. When used in conjunction with digital SLRs with APS-C size image sensors, it produces circular image within the frame. The F2.8 large aperture value produces a bright image in the viewfinder and allows photographers to take pictures in low light conditions, making it an ideal lens for Astrophotography and Aurora photography. Due to the quantifiable angle/area relationship it produces, this lens can be used for scientific and arts applications such as solid angle measurements of cloud distribution over the sky or vegetation distribution of the forest. The minimum focusing distance of 13.5cm/5.3inch and maximum magnification of 1:6 make it particularly useful for close-up photography. SLD(Special Low Dispersion)glass provides effective compensation of chromatic aberration. Sigma’s Super Multi-Layer Coating minimizes flare and ghosting. It is equipped with an inner focusing system that creates high definition and good image quality over the whole frame. The HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor)ensures fast and quiet autofocusing and allows full-time manual focus override by rotation of the focus ring.

More info

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16 billions pixels that’s about 1,600 times stronger than an image taken with the 10 million pixel digital camera can you imagine that?

Even experts are very excited about this since this high resolution computer image will allow them to examine and discover details about the techniques Da Vinci used in the 15th century like, for example, how he made the cups transparent, “something you can’t ordinarily see,” said Artioli.

This giant photo stitch project required 1677 images and a 2 quad core 64 bits computers with 16 GB of RAM and 2 Terabytes hard disk to compute.

Here are more technical details about the image

You can admire the picture at HAL9000

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Well it turned out that it is clearly stated on Apple website that the all beta versions of BootCamp will expire as soon as Leopard becomes publicly available and that the only option is to upgrade to Mac OS 10.5

This of course means that I will have to pay for the upgrade ” ((“Something I had not planned for”))”, so I did some research to see what other programs of mine will not work on the latest version of Mac OS here are a quick summary of my findings

• If you have any questions about Adobe Creative suite 3 support download this document from adobe’s website
• Leopard now supports RAW file from the canon 40D
• If you are still stuck with Adobe Photoshop 7 or earlier it won’t work with Leopard
• Some problems were reported with Adobe Lightroom version 1.2 specially with printing and Flash web galleries

Finally for all those used to Mac OS 10.4 here is a review from a new Leopard fellow and his, using his own terms, Minor Gripes List” ((“Original post at dpreview“))”

After one day with Leopard I did not find anything major to be angry about, but a few minor things which are a bit annoying. There are dozens of great things in Leopard – they are just not in THIS list. Please feel free to add to the list

- You have to carefully choose the background image to go along with the menubar (or use a tool to make it more opaque). I cannot think of a single reason why they made it translucent – if you have an application open full screen, the upper border looks distracting – it only looks elegant as long as the desktop is empty and no application is open.

- Bluetooth support is gone from Address Book! You can no longer send SMS or dial using a supported BT phone from Address Book. Bad Apple!

- The sidebar icons in Mail and Finder are miniscule. They are already hard to distinguish on a regular display, on a 30″ CD (with more viewing distance) or the 17″ MBP with high resolution option, they are about indistinguishable from fly cr@p. I cannot see an option to make them bigger in either application.

- The new all blue folder icons for standard folders under Home are dull and the visual clues are insufficient, you have to read the folder label to know what they contain. Even worse – they are not in line with the sidebar icons in the Finder, even if they refer to the same folders. Who invented that?

- The download stacks folder will always show the icon for the last downloaded file type. Well intended, I agree – but confusing. You cannot really tell that this is the download stack with some icons.
- No support for Airport Extreme disks in Time Machine.

Cheers,
Uwe

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In short Computational Photography seems to be the new Abode dream that will allow us, photographers, to “re-”focus any image instantly in the digital darkroom.

This process requires a combination of special lens and computer software

The lens in question looks pretty much like an insect’s eye, and is capable of capturing a scene from different angles at the same time.

This means that the user can simply change the focus plane of the picture AFTER the picture is taken and transfered to the computer.

Sounds impossible ? Well I advice you to take a look at
this video it is pretty impressive.

Although I don’t think we’re very likely to see this tool on the markets soon, but it is an eye opener about what tomorrow’s photography might be like.

Audioblog.fr via Physog.com

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In brief the Diana is a Chinese film point and shoot plastic camera as “bad as it gets”

It has a fixed speed shutter 1/50s or 1/100s for higher end models.
It has just three selectable apertures: usually f11 f13 & f19.

Summarizing the wikipedia
The design of the Diana incorporates a lens that produces an image circle which only marginally covers the diagonal of a film frame. This marginal coverage field produces images with often pronounced vignetting. The poor quality of the plastic meniscus lens results in generally low contrast, odd color rendition, chromatic aberration, and blurred images .

But this is not all… the Diana leaks light inside so you have some orange halos on the film border, and it only accepts the hard to find 120 film taking pictures at 4X4 cm…

We all agree that those are not the most tempting characteristics ever, however some photographers have intentionally used these “defects” to produce photographs with interesting or artistic effects. Some have even used retouching techniques in Adobe Photoshop or other software to mimic the Diana pictures.

After being discontinued for 35 years (even in the 70s it was considered outdated) Diana camera is back for the ”old film look lovers” suggested price is 50$ anyone takers ?

thank you Toni Abi El Hessen for the head ups

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I’ve recently been sent more details about this photography contest so here they are

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE’S ONLINE SITE LETS VISITORS CHOOSE TOP READER-SUBMITTED PHOTOGRAPHS Monthly Winner’s Photograph Will Appear in Print in National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic magazine’s Web site, www.ngm.com, has launched an online version of the popular “Your Shot” page, where National Geographic photo editors feature two reader-submitted photos in the magazine every month.
Currently, both photographs are chosen by editors at National Geographic.
Starting in October, Web users who visit www.ngm.com will have the power to choose one of the reader-submitted photographs that appear on the magazine’s “Your Shot” page.

Online, the feature is called the Daily Dozen. Visitors can go to www.ngm.com to view a group of daily top-12 images shot by amateur photographers. Images for the Daily Dozen are chosen from photographs submitted to National Geographic by photography enthusiasts from around the world (go to ngm.com/yourshot for details on how to submit a photo).

Each week, visitors to ngm.com can vote on a gallery of images from the prior week. At the end of the month all votes will be tallied, and the photograph with the highest cumulative ranking will be published in an upcoming issue of National Geographic magazine. Viewers can vote for each week’s images one time only.

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1. ADIDAP taking again submissions for POTW

But since it seemed that all over internet forums people were “mysteriously” getting their hands on the EOS D40 mainly people living in Honk Kong.

But here today I was surprise to notice that Amazon(aff) changed the availability of the Canon EOS 40D on their website to “In stock soon”. So it looks like it will be hitting the mass market much sooner than expected.

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In fact, apart of the full sensor, the Nikon D300 seems to have inherited most of the features of the brand new Nikon D3 and is expected to hit the market this coming November with a price of $1800.

Let’s take a look at the key features

* 12.3 megapixel
* Self-cleaning sensor
* ISO 200 – 3200 (6400 with boost)
* Shutter with 150,000 exposures life cycle
* 51 points auto focus
* Auto-focus tracking by color
* Six frames per second continuous shooting
* 3.0″ LCD monitor
* Live View

More about the Nikon D300 at dpreview

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Let’s take a look on the most important features of this new digital camera

* First ever Nikon DSLR with a Full-Frame
* 12.1 megapixel
* ISO 200 – 6400
* Shutter with 300,000 exposures life cycle
* 51 Auto Focus sensor points
* Auto-focus tracking by color
* up to 11 frames per second
* 3.0″ LCD monitor
* Live View

Please read more about the Nikon D3 at the source of this article dpreview

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