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Rangefinder
Magazine Digital Photography by John Rettie The annual PMA show has become history. In many ways it was not a particularly exciting event as there was nothing really new that had not been announced or unveiled previously. Upon reflection it’s clear that Canon stole the limelight in the digital camera arena with its $1499 street pricing for the six-megapixel EOS-10D. It seems to be a more than worthwhile upgrade from the D60 it replaces. Indeed it is probably correct to say that this is really what the D60 should have been all along. The lack of any news on a new digital camera body from Nikon surprised many people, yet the current models are holding their own quite nicely against the competition despite having been available for a year or longer. Rather than pre-announce a new camera before it’s ready for prime time it’s obvious that Nikon is waiting until it feels the next generation camera body is ready to go on sale immediately after being announced. If a company doesn’t have any products currently on the market, it does no harm to pre-announce details on new cameras as there is no fear of cannibalizing sales of existing models. This was certainly the case with Olympus. It chose to show a prototype of the upcoming 4/3 SLR camera under glass along with several lenses. Details were sketchy but in a discussion with a Kodak engineer it was revealed that the Olympus SLR will sport a five-megapixel CCD produced by Kodak. At the same time Kodak showed us a new 35mm-format size progressive scan interline CCD with some impressive specs, including the ability to display a live motion preview. Kodak would not divulge which camera company will use the 11-megapixel chip, but pundits were guessing Nikon. What with the Foveon chip, Fuji’s increased dynamic range chip and now a new chip coming from Kodak, there are certain to be greatly improved digital cameras arriving before the end of the year. Increased competition and improved yields will hopefully also keep prices down. However, Canon’s Chuck Westfall says that full 35mm-size chips will not be cost-effective for consumer (read under $2000) cameras for several more years yet. Aside from photographic gear, in my view the most notable product category that seemed to be making a bigger presence than previously was color laser printers. One display that really caught my eye was that of Images II from Lincoln, Nebraska. The company had a banner that displayed a 12x18 print with a sign that said it cost only 15 cents to produce. On close examination it looked to be pretty good quality, even though it was printed on plain office paper. What’s more it came from a laser printer. Redge Johnson, the company’s founder has developed Photo-Station, which is essentially a photo lab and printing press contained in a powerful custom-made PC. It can be hooked up to a film scanner for input or utilize digital images. Final output is through a Xerox Docucolor 12 laser printer. The whole system costs around $50,000 so it is aimed at high volume photo labs or photographers who want to provide complete services to event organizers or businesses such as a real estate agency. The printer can output onto a variety of card stocks as well as plain a paper, making its suitable for production of business cards and wedding invitations. The key to the printer’s output is the software in the printer that drives the RIP for the printer and processes the images. It also provides a variety of print packages suitable for wedding and portrait photographers. Although such a system is probably too esoteric for the majority of wedding and portrait photographers it does show that laser printers are capable of producing photographic quality images at high speed with low consumable costs. Based on what I saw from this high-end system, coupled with the almost identical quality coming out of $1000 laser printers I reckon the days of inkjet printers are numbered for all but the highest quality requirements. It is just not possible for inkjet printers to compete on speed or consumable costs. One engineer we talked with estimates good color laser printers will be on the market for around $250 within two years.
Canon Powershot G3 Camera With a four-megapixel CCD, the G3 is most comparable to the Nikon 4500 and Olympus C-4040. It’s much the same size although it looks less sleek and weighs more. The LCD screen on the back of the G3 can be turned out to the side and rotated through 180 degrees so the image can be viewed from a variety of angles and positions. Although it might be more flexible than the revolving body on the Nikon 4500, I found it less convenient to use. It takes a few milliseconds to move the screen and it cannot be held tightly. The Nikon on the other hand can be held with both hands for steadying at slow shutter speeds and can be rotated instantly. The Olympus falls really short in this area as its LCD screen can only be moved in one plane through about 100 degrees. Canon sells a couple of add-on wide-angle and telephoto converters. An adaptor has to be fitted first and the optical viewfinder becomes inoperable. As the regular 4X zoom covers a decent range (35–140mm equivalent) it seems superfluous to fiddle with lens converters. If you need the extra width or length you’d be better off using an SLR body, especially now that the EOS-10D is available for only $1499, just twice the price of the G3. Overall as one would expect, the G3 produces excellent image quality although there are the inevitable signs of chromatic aberration at the edges of some photographs. One area where the Canon seems to shine is in battery life as it uses the same BP-511 Lithium Ion battery pack as found in the D60 and other Canon cameras.
Solarism LCD monitor The display is slightly softer than the one on the AG Neovo, which I found less tiring on my eyes even if it made photographs look less dynamic. It did, however, suffer from a slight darkening in the corners, which is an all too common problem with LCD screens. For image editing this is not a big deal as you’re unlikely to have much more than menus at the edges. Although the angle of view is rated at 170 degrees, there does seem to be some shifting of colors as one moves away from the center. The Solarism LM 1711 is conventional in design with a silver plastic bezel. As it does not have the glass cover, which is a unique feature of the AG Neovo, it does mean there are less reflections. However I know only too well how easy it is to damage these fragile LCD screens. My sons broke an LCD monitor when one of them hit it with a pencil and it cracked and the display went crazy. On the whole I think I like the idea of a non-reflective pane of glass covering the LCD screen.
PhotoKit Plug-in In a departure from other plug-ins, PhotoKit appears under the Automate menu in Photoshop. From a user point of view it doesn’t make much difference but apparently this new Automate Plug-in allows increased custom programming. One of the key advantages of PhotoKit’s
tools compared to other similar actions
or filters is that the program automatically
creates
a new layer before it makes changes. This
leaves the original untouched so experiments
can be run with different effects without
worrying about
altering the original. The strength of
an effect can be changed by adjusting the
layer’s opacity and it can be run
again if it needs to be stronger. An example
included with PhotoKit shows how several
effects can be stacked
on top of each other to substantially improve
a photograph. John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 33 years, a computer for 23 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past ten years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder. |
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