Rangefinder Magazine
July 2005

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Digital Photography by John Rettie
Kodak Stops, Apple Switches

IT PROBABLY CAME as no surprise to most people when Kodak announced in May it was discontinuing sales of its two digital SLR cameras. This of course follows Kodak’s decision to stop producing its own medium-format digital back a year ago.

Grab one now—it’s the end of an era as Kodak has stopped producing its 14-megapixel line of digital SLR cameras.

Fortunately, Kodak is doing quite well in the consumer camera marketplace. In fact, according to some analysts, it is currently leading in sales of consumer point-and-shoot cameras, ahead of the likes of Sony and Canon.

It was obviously tough for Kodak to compete directly with Canon and Nikon in the pro market as it did not make its own bodies. If Kodak’s own image sensors had proven to be substantially better than those used by Canon or Nikon, one presumes it could have continued as a competitor; however, the 14-megapixel Pro SLR/c and Pro SLR/n cameras did not use Kodak sensors but rather sensors made by a Belgium company, which hardly made for a profitable business. It may also be an indication that the desire for full-frame size sensors is not as great as expected. Now that Kodak has abandoned this format, Canon is the only company with a full-size 35mm frame camera on the market.

It should be noted that Kodak is still making CCD image sensors in the four-thirds format used by Olympus, as well as large sensors for medium-format backs, so it will remain in the digital image business as a supplier.

In a way, the exit of Kodak from the professional end of the SLR business is sad since Kodak lead the way for many years when it was the only company producing digital SLR cameras. One wonders: If Kodak had been more aggressive in its pricing and marketing before the groundbreaking Nikon D1 appeared on the scene, could Kodak have grown its business more substantially so it could have maintained a viable business?

Although the cameras based on Canon and Nikon bodies cost an arm and a leg, they proved to be leading-edge digital cameras. At the time, Kodak’s pricing of up to $29,995 for a 6-megapixel camera body seemed to be more an attempt to maintain its film business than an astute move to build a large digital camera business. On the other hand, perhaps Kodak knew it could never hope to compete with Canon and Nikon, but planned, with those prices, on keeping the business going as long as it could with decent profit margins.

Of course, Kodak is not the only company having trouble transitioning to digital. Leica has run into trouble, and Kyocera has announced that Contax cameras are no more. At least Kodak is still in the photo business, which is more than can be said for Agfa, which has had to exit the traditional film business (although the company continues to produce products in the graphic arts business).

Apple Moves to Intel
Perhaps this news was even more shocking: Just as I was finishing up this month’s column, rumors surfaced that Apple was planning on abandoning the IBM PowerPC CPU in favor of using the Intel Pentium CPU.

It was fascinating reading the enormous number of blogs and comments by Mac fans on rumor sites. Almost everyone refused to believe such a move would happen. By now we all know it’s true. Steve Jobs, the charismatic Apple boss, announced just such a move at the Apple developer’s conference on June 6. It’s the day, some say, the Mac as we know it died.

For many years Apple has encouraged computer users to switch, as it proudly touted that the PowerPC was a faster and more advanced chip than the Pentium. Sadly it is not true, even as Microsoft has ironically adopted a version of the PowerPC chip for its upcoming new game console. (Perhaps that’s the real reason for the switch?)

Jobs demonstrated Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4) running on a PC with a 3.7GHz Pentium and said the majority of programs will be able to run natively on the Pentium through emulation without needing to be rewritten. He promised the transition to Intel chips, which will take place during the next couple of years, would be painless for users and not too painful for developers.

From an end user’s point of view there should be no difference in the way the Mac operates. After all, it’s not about the hardware but much more about the user interface and the operating system. Indeed, Jobs confirmed what has been rumored for some time—Apple engineers have been developing an Intel version of the Mac OS in parallel for over five years. He also disclosed that the next version of the OS will be called Leopard, when it appears late in 2006 at about the same time as Microsoft’s next update for Windows.

Apple says it will not be possible to run the Mac OS on a regular PC computer, even though they will be using the same CPU.

Fans of the Macintosh, which has always been different, are obviously concerned that the Mac may become just another PC. On the other hand, if the Mac OS can run on Intel-based PCs, it will be a tremendous benefit as it should allow Windows programs to run under the Mac OS with relative ease.
Whichever way one looks at it, this is a major switch for Apple and obviously has ramifications far beyond just the small percentage of Mac owners in the big scheme of things.

The shocking announcement was a disappointment. Some had hoped Apple would announce a major initiative such as a new media center for downloading movies—doing for Hollywood just what iTunes has done for music industry. Let’s hope that comes later.

This major switch by Apple is confusing for Mac users who might be contemplating buying a new Mac computer. It means the current G5 desktop computers and G4 laptops are at the ends of their life. If you can, it obviously makes sense to wait until the new “Intel” Macs to appear next year.

Fortunately, even normally Windows-biased reviewers seem impressed by Tiger, the newest Mac OS. It’s generally regarded as the most sophisticated and elegant operating system available. Now we know that it will run on Intel-based computers, there should be less resistance to using a Mac later next year!

	Epson’s P-2000 Multimedia Storage Viewer offers a high resolution screen for viewing captured images.

Epson P-2000 Storage Viewer
Epson has joined the ever-growing market for portable storage devices with an impressive model that is already proving popular with professional photographers. The P-2000 Multimedia Storage Viewer has a 3.8-inch display with sufficient resolution. It can be used to preview images far more effectively than the screen on the back of a camera.

Generally I like to download images straight to my laptop while traveling as I rarely need to transfer images from cards while shooting now that I have a 4GB and an 8GB CompactFlash cards.

In the past, I have not liked portable image storage devices without LCD screens because they are nerve-racking to use since there is no visual conformation that you’ve got usable images. The unit might confirm that files have been stored correctly, but unless one can actually see them, it’s difficult to trust the images have been safely saved.

For this reason I think it’s vital to have a display so one can visually check that images have been saved properly. However, most storage devices with displays have screens of such mediocre quality that it is difficult to do much more than just glance at images. On the P-2000 it’s also possible to zoom in to 1266 percent, making it a viable alternative to carrying a laptop while traveling, as long as you don’t need to do any editing. What’s more, it can read RAW images from most professional digital SLR cameras as well as JPEG files.

A friend of mine, Jim Ober from Trackside Photo, has stopped taking his iBook laptop on location. On a recent shoot on a set for a TV show, he recounts, the P-2000 was good enough for him to show images to an art director for approval while shooting. More recently I was with him while covering the Baja 500 off-road race. He could download over 7GBs worth of images from eight photographers while eating dinner in restaurant after the race. He then transferred the files onto a Mac back in the office.

He finds the time saved and the ability to immediately view images without needing to open a program on a computer well worthwhile. Like me, he is impressed with the P-2000 as transferring images from either a CompactFlash or Secure Digital card is easy. A new folder is automatically created each time or images can be copied to a named album on the P-2000. It took about six minutes to transfer 1GB of files from a CompactFlash card and barely a full minute to then transfer the folder through the supplied USB 2.0 cable to a PowerBook.

The P-2000 has a proprietary rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which seems to last for a fair amount of time. It also has an AC adaptor, but I wish it could also accept AA batteries as they are always available, and it would avoid the need for yet another separate charger and battery pack.

Like most storage devices of this caliber, the P-2000 will also play music and even short video clips stored on its 40GB hard drive. It is possible to also print out directly to selected Epson printers. Slide shows can be created and viewed on the screen or on a TV. Overall the $499 P-2000 is sufficiently useful. It could be used as a substitute for a computer if one did not need to do any editing or access the Internet. It only weighs 1 lb., so that’s an added bonus for anyone wanting to travel light.

Photoshop CS2 Workflow describes how best to create an efficient workflow for digital photographers.

Quick Book Review: Photoshop CS2 Workflow
Within days of the release of Photoshop CS2, updated Photoshop guides were hitting the shelves in bookstores. One of the first out of the gate was Photoshop CS2 Workflow by Tim Grey (published by Sybex, 290 pages, $39.99). It is a new book written specifically for digital photographers, and it describes in detail how to set up a structured workflow where you can optimize images consistently and efficiently after downloading them to a computer. It takes the reader step by step through editing, processing RAW images, retouching, making color adjustments, preparing images for printing and many other aspects such as how to use the newly upgraded Bridge file browser in Photoshop CS2. There is also a complete chapter on creating actions and batch processing to speed up workflows that require repetitive steps.

Tim Grey is a well known Photoshop speaker who now works for Microsoft. For this reason the book is tailored first and foremost for Windows users. This fact makes the book unique since most Photoshop books are written by authors working on Mac OS. Since Photoshop works identically on both platforms, this book can appeal to any photographer grappling with the most efficient way to process images in Photoshop after they have been captured.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 35 years, a computer for 25 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past 12 years. Readers can contact him by email at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.

Further Information:

P-2000
Epson America
3480 Kilroy Airport Way
Long Beach, CA 90806
(800) 463-7766
www.epson.com

Photoshop CS2 Workflow
Sybex Publishing, Inc.
1151 Marina Village Parkway
Alameda, CA 94501.
www.sybex.com