Rollei MiniDigi TLR Digicam

Just another image toy without practical use ...

PhotographyBLOG has the original article.

Canto - Digital Asset Management with Cumulus - Products & Services

The most problematic test subject: confusing interface (the icons in the toolbar are admittedly coordinated with each other, but are barely distinguishable at first glance) and significantly worse performance compared to the competition (P2008 and P2004) and then there are also display errors. For example, the entire layout would get scrambled when using the scroll wheel of the trackball. Additionally, extracting information for keywords is not transparent without studying the manual. And the view switching options involve too many clicks for me - I want to be able to quickly and easily regroup my database contents according to different criteria. Here too, iView Media Pro wins hands down (P2004). IPTC photo data is also not read by default in Cumulus either; possibly the optional modules could help there. Of course, the option of different server sizes is good - for professional shops possibly the central criterion, more important than handling issues or greater learning curve. But I'm looking for a solution for an individual photographer.

Also good is the seemingly lower price at first glance. However, you pay for it through option packages - many features that are included with the competition are only available here through option packages. And the demo is only for the basic package and a few optional extras - so you can't test everything beforehand. This made it impossible for me to check whether Kodak RAW format is fully supported here. Which is particularly annoying since I would have been interested in this feature specifically.

All in all, Cumulus leaves me with a very mixed impression - perhaps Canto should let some fresh air into development and give the program a complete overhaul; it simply seems a bit baroque and cumbersome.

Here's the original article.

Extensis Portfolio - Digital Asset Management

Also a powerful media database. Nice is the option to support a server installation. Good also that it is a clean Mac OS X application. However, I find the user interface somewhat sparse.

A significant disadvantage is the small number of supported image formats - with my old DCS I'm stuck anyway, but other digital camera users will certainly miss one or another raw format.

Similarly, I find it rather disadvantageous that no information can be extracted from IPTC image data. Apparently only EXIF is supported - but professional cameras (especially the older ones) store image data in IPTC fields. All in all, I find iView Media Pro (see P2004) significantly better, especially the folder overview available in iView I find very intuitive. In Portfolio I have to work with searches and possibly then create collections from them - but these are static again, not dynamically adapting to new imports. Of course, this was only a quick test for me, so it's quite possible that some things are indeed possible, but the first impression is important to me - if I haven't used software for a long time (because I had no time for photography), I don't want to have to reread the manual...

Here's the original article.

Philips Fluid Lenses

Fascinating: liquid lenses for rapid focusing, modeled after the human eye.

Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) has the original article.

iView | Media Management Made Easy

In and of itself, excellent software for managing media data. However, the logic for which image formats are supported is somewhat very leaky. While all Kodak libraries are provided, which are necessary to access all Kodak raw formats, only a single format is supported - the format of the digital medium format back and the 14n. The old format, which at least generates around 10 models, is theoretically included in the supplied library, but is not supported by the manufacturer. Great attitude.

Definitely a sign that speaks against this software. Who guarantees that today's formats will still be in the software the day after tomorrow? This isn't about anything banal, where you'd be happy with conversion software, but rather it's about a media archive solution into which you'd certainly like to do long-term archiving of the images with their metadata. I consider the lack of support for older formats to be fundamentally wrong.

What absolutely convinces, however, is the ingeniously simple integration of keywords and other organizational features, the good support for IPTC and EXIF data, and the very fast display. Also the fact that it's a real Mac OS X application and allows drag-and-drop everywhere you'd expect it. All of this speaks in favor of this application.

Here's the original article.

iPoding | What's that in your pocket?

A disassembled iPod Mini proves that the drive is a Hitachi Microdrive. This makes the iPod Mini probably the cheapest source for 4 GB CompactFlash memory cards.

So if you have a digital camera with FAT32 support, you might consider buying an iPod Mini and looking for some tools...

(and of course report back on whether the card works without any problems)

Here's the original article.

Hartblei - Ukrainian manufacturer of medium format optics and cameras

dp-now.com - News - Epson shows retro-style Leica rangefinder-compatible digicams at PMA

A few more details about the Epson and Cosina rangefinder digi prototype.

Here is the original article.

ITmedia PCUPdate: Epson, worldwide first "range finder type digital camera"

I have no idea if this is real, but if it is, then that's incredible: a Bessa R2 retrofitted to digital by Epson!

Here's the original article.

Konica Minolta Maxxum 7 Digital

Took quite a while for Minolta to enter the DSLR world.

At Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) you can find the original article.

Polaroid launches new Polaroid material

This is almost even more amazing than the announcement of the digital Leica M: Polaroid is bringing a new format for Polaroid film to the market that is specifically designed for medium format cameras. Old film backs can be adapted, or you can also get new film backs. Also included is the ingenious positive-negative material again (here as 85 film), with which you can simultaneously produce a positive and a negative using the instant image process.

Here's the original article.

Development Of Leica's Digital 'M' To Take About 2 Years

This is gradually starting to sound quite concrete. Until 2006, I still have some time to save up

Here's the original article.

Leica To Develop Digital "M" Camera - Source

Here are a few interesting rumors again:

• a digital camera with fixed focal length. Something like a digital CM?
• a digital M. The problems with the small distance between sensor and lens exit plane and the resulting issues from the flat light incidence on the sensor are supposed to be solved by a microlens array over the sensor.
• not so nice: job cuts. Something like that never sounds quite right.

The first is interesting for everyone who finds the previous digital Leicas either too un-Leica (D-Lux) or too bulky (Digilux 1 and 2).

But the second is absolutely stunning: a digital M.

I think this is something many people have been waiting for. And I think I know what I want to save up for now! Well, okay, first comes the Macro-M, but a digital camera that handles like an M and where I can use my M lenses, that would still be a dream.

Here's the original article.

Don't Try This at Home Kids...

It was bound to happen eventually: someone has hacked the firmware for the EOS 300D so that some of the 10D features that the 300D lacks are activated.

You can find the original article at PhotographyBLOG.

Minolta DiMAGE A2, Z2 and XG Rumoured

Minolta is showing once again how to mess with its customers and is teasing a Minolta DiMage A2, even though the A1 is barely more than half a year old. Very future-proof, I think.

At PhotographyBLOG you can find the original article.

DP Essentials #05 - Improving "Presence" in Digital Images

An interesting report by the author of QImage about the effect of mosaic CCDs (CCDs with Bayer pattern) on image sharpness. He describes a filter that applies different levels of sharpening based on color differences, thereby compensating for the sharpness differences between color ranges that result from color interpolation. Unfortunately, there is no software available for Mac OS X that offers a filter of this type. The original article can be found here.

Splasm Software - Brightness Control

Anyone like me who has a calibrated CRT monitor knows the problem: when you're not doing image editing, the monitor is set way too bright, especially as it gets darker. But you can't adjust the contrast control or especially the brightness setting — the calibration only works correctly if the luminance is set properly!

This little utility comes to the rescue: just start it and you get a small graphical slider with which you can adjust the screen brightness. Works splendidly. And as soon as you're working with images, you can stop it beforehand (and give your eyes some time to adjust, so your brain can adapt and everything doesn't look wrong).

Here's the original article.

Color management

A pretty nice introduction to color management and what it means. In typical Petteri style, a bit cheeky and humorous. My personal highlight: If you're shooting or converting to Adobe RGB. Adobe RGB pictures displayed on a non-colorspace-aware application or badly color-managed system will look wrong, wrong, wrong. The colors will be flat and gray. If you like them that way, fine -- but remember they'll come out bright and vivid if you send them to a competently run photo lab that prints from digital originals. To ensure flat and gray prints, use sRGB and make them flat and gray in your image editor instead.

Here's the original article.

Contax N Digital Review

That's a record, albeit a negative one: Luminous Landscape publishes a review of the Contax N Digital, which was discontinued in June of last year.

The test results are quite mixed, as they are with almost all other reviews of this camera. The main drawbacks are the AF system, power consumption, and image quality when using RAW format (noise and moiré) - however, image quality in TIFF or JPG is surprisingly said to be better.

Here's the original article.

MDR.DE: Starfotographer Helmut Newton Killed in Car Accident

His landscape photographs were more to my liking than his female nudes. But there was no denying that he was one of the great photographers of our time.

Here you can find the original article.

Reindeer Graphics, Inc. - Products

So the idea is already pretty cool: take multiple images with different sharpness and then combine them afterwards in software so that the sharp areas come together and thereby improve the overall sharpness of the image. However, 500 dollars is a bit steep, a decent tripod and a small aperture are significantly cheaper

Here's the original article.

Adobe Photoshop: Plugins for Adobe Photoshop - Lists of plugins for Photoshop

Photoshop plugins for professional photo retouching - Photoshop filters for 8-bit and 16-bit photo editing

RAW vs JPG © 2004 KenRockwell.com

A brainless comparison of JPG and RAW that apparently primarily relies on the author having no eyes in their head. JPG always has artifacts, unless it's saved as uncompressed JPG. But uncompressed JPGs are significantly larger than RAW, since RAW simply stores the sensor data (one color value per pixel!) instead of three color values.

Furthermore, he conveniently overlooked the fact that JPG only offers 8 bits per color channel, whereas RAW typically offers 10 or 12 bits per color channel - which preserves significantly more detail and offers higher dynamic range. Plus, you can then make far more adjustments to this data that don't destructively affect the information in the image.

But of course he only makes perfect images on the first shot and therefore doesn't need any later post-processing. However, the fact that even simple shrinking or enlarging of a JPG means decompression of a lossy compressed image combined with equally lossy recompression, with bicubic interpolation for the shrinking in between - he conveniently ignores that too.

Anyone who uses JPG directly in the camera instead of RAW has a fundamental problem: they're essentially throwing away their negatives and keeping only the first print, from which they then make further prints. No professional photographer would be so foolish with analog media, but apparently there are always people who think the basics of value preservation (which is what a professional's business is built on) don't apply to digital technology...

To his criticisms: my DCS 520 does 3.5 images per second. And that with RAW formats - it primarily only does RAW formats. In a burst it can handle up to 12 images. Newer cameras have similar numbers with significantly higher pixel counts (the DCS 520 only has 2 megapixels). JPG and standard TIFF can be produced in the background if needed - while the camera isn't currently photographing, it converts images. This way you have ready-to-send images available and still have the digital negative available.

As for file size: the negatives are under 2 MB, which isn't a problem with today's memory cards. The same applies to other camera systems with larger sensors; RAW formats are typically in the MB range roughly equal to their megapixel count, at most twice their megapixel count.

The inconvenience of conversion is also relative: an installed Photoshop plugin and I can open the negatives directly if needed. Then I can apply Photoshop's normal batch methods to them. Or I can convert the files using Photo Desk software, which only takes a few keystrokes. If he has to wait for conversion before continuing to photograph, that says less about the RAW format than about his complete inability to build simple automation scripts. And the latter is rather embarrassing for a so-called professional - after all, workflow efficiency is supposedly the alpha and omega of a professional, so you'd expect basic engagement with your tools. And as for the image content being the same in RAW and JPG, that guy is just blind. I deal with JPG frequently enough (for example, my image albums on http://leicaesk.de/ dynamically produce JPG from the original PNG files), the artifacts are clearly visible when you look at fine structures. A good example is ((deleted image, sorry, shut down the server it was on in 2007)) - just go to the largest view and look at the horizon where the wind turbines are. The image was captured directly as JPG; my Olympus E-100RS is just too slow when I shoot TIFFs and the camera can't do RAW. The artifacts around the wind turbines are clearly visible as streaks or shadows. With multiple recompression, the effects get larger. In RAW you have clearly defined contours there without the streaks.

Sure, RAW is proprietary format that needs special software to handle. Of course you should back up standard format files alongside your RAW files - for information preservation reasons TIFF is suitable, since you can use 16 bits per color channel there and color profiles find sensible use. The file size isn't unproblematic there, but the alternative would be loss of information you can never reconstruct again (except from the original negative).

What's certainly true is the speed of some RAW solutions: but that's a software problem. If it's too poor, you should simply consider whether this camera combined with that software is simply the wrong tool.

So my conclusion would be different: shoot RAW whenever possible. Choose camera system and software based on how efficiently this workflow is implemented and how meaningfully the features can be used. Test camera and software as a unit - especially if you want to make money with the tool, the whole chain should work. Petteri Sulonen is of the same opinion; he develops this further and gives good hints.

Here's the original article.

Review of the New HP Photosmart 7960

This appears to be a heading/title referencing a printer review from dp-now.com. As there is no additional Markdown body content provided beyond this link reference and title, here is what I'm returning:

Review of the New HP Photosmart 7960

Kodak Discontinues DCS Pro Backs

Ouch! The DCS Pro Back for medium format was an absolute killer piece, I looked at it with stars in my eyes at Photokina on a Contax 645. And now it's being discontinued. Really a shame. The flexibility of modern medium format systems like the Hasselblad H1, the Contax 645, or the Mamiya 645 AF is simply greater than with 35mm SLRs.

I found the original article at PhotographyBLOG.

Images from the Kodak DCS 520

Nothing special, just my first test images from the camera.

Here you can find the original article.

Digital Secrets: How Spirit Makes Great Photos

If you're interested in how the digital cameras in the Spirit Rover are built, how many there are, and what distinguishes these cameras and imagers, you should read the linked article. It's very interesting that NASA took the sensible approach of fewer pixels with more area per pixel.

Here's the original article.

Digital Camera batteries - Source for compatible batteries for DCS 520

Tear Your iPod mini Open To Get The 4GB Hard Drive?

Cool. The mini iPod is the cheapest 4GB drive for Compact Flash ports. It might hurt to disassemble the iPod and rip out its innards, but anyone who wants a large drive for their digital camera might find one here ...

Of course, no one's taking responsibility for whether it actually works. But if someone tries something like this, they can get in touch with me to let me know if it works. I could still use an affordable large storage for my digital camera ...

You can find the original article at iPoding.

Voigtlander Bessa R2S R2C - Current rangefinder cameras for Contax and Nikon rangefinder camera lenses

Canon 100mm Macro USM vs Tamron 90mm Macro - Comparison between the Tamron 90mm and Canon 100mm macro

Canon UK - EF 50mm f/2.5 Macro - 50mm macro for Canon EOS - 1:2 and 1:1 with optional adapter

FM Software - Very good ready-made Photoshop actions for digital photo editing

Objective Test Overview - Comparative test of various macro lenses for Canon EOS

Digital Black and White

A very interesting article about digital black and white images and their processing. With good tips and tricks and pre-made Photoshop actions.

Here you can find the original article.

PanoTools plug-ins

Panorama Tools for macOS

Anyone editing panoramas under OS X needs this software. Finally, the integration of Panotools into classic OS X graphics programs (at least those that can use Photoshop plugins). Correct lens distortions, convert panoramas between different projection types, everything you need when you want a wide field of view.

Here's the original article.

LizardTech, Inc - Genuine Fractals - Genuine Fractals also has an LE version

Rob Galbraith DPI: Photo transmission from Kodak cameras nearing release - Send images from the Kodak DCS 520 via mobile phone

I'd be happy to help, but I need clarification. You've provided:

1. A blog post title/link in English
2. A German description

To translate the blog post body from German to English, I need the actual Markdown body content of the blog post. Could you please provide the Markdown content that needs to be translated?

For example, the body text that starts with something like "# Heading" or "Wie man eine Kodak DCS Batterie..." etc.

KODAK: Cleaning Imager Coverglass and Filters - Reinigung von Kodak DCS Chips und Filter

Kodak DCS 520 - Test report on version 3 firmware for the DCS 520

Photo.net Reviews HP Photosmart 7960

Interesting for Jutta since she is considering whether this might be a usable photo printer - so far she has a Deskjet 840c, which is not really optimal for the purpose.

At PhotographyBLOG there is the original article.

Original Manual Yashica FX 103 Program - Manual for the Yashica FX 103 Program

Adapters: Leica R or Nikon F to EOS  - Adapters for the Canon EOS system to attach other lenses. Also Contax MM!

Panorama freedom with gaps?

I hope this reasoning is more correct than the stuff in the FAZ, because if not, it would really be fatal for my photography websites ( Leicaesk and hugo.f-2.org). It's really bad that you have to think about this at all, because you can no longer be sure that common uses like photographing publicly accessible buildings or artworks are still covered by copyright law. At netbib weblog there is the original article.

Rollei 6008i Camera Review - Commentary on the Rollei 6008i - also reflects my opinion about the camera well.

Polaroid Dust & Scratch Removal - Excellent software for removing scratches and dust streaks from scans.

Stereo-Photography in Medium Format

Interesting pages about camera technology for making medium format stereo images. Price-wise, though, it's a bit more hefty than with 35mm film.

Here's the original article.

Fujifilm's 20 megapixels, at a price: Digital Photography Review

20 megapixels - not bad. The sensor size is also great at 5.2x3.7cm. Ok, that's still quite far from full frame (even medium format APS is 6x4.5cm), but already pretty nice. But 2.4 million yen is quite steep - after all, almost 18,000 euros.

Here you can find the original article.