The new Nikon D300s is getting some raw-image support from Adobe.
(Credit: Nikon USA)Adobe Systems has released a test version of its Camera Raw 5.5 plug-in so Photoshop can handle raw images from the Olympus E-P1 high-end compact camera, Nikon's new D3000 entry-level SLR, mid-range D300s SLR, and Panasonic's DMC-FZ35 ultrazoom.
Raw images are made of data taken directly from cameras' image sensors without in-camera processing, and they offer more flexibility and higher quality to those willing to put up with the hassle of converting them to JPEG or other more universal formats with software such as Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom, Apple's Aperture and iPhoto, or Google's Picasa. But first, that software must be updated to support each new camera, since raw formats are proprietary and differ for each model.
Adobe released the new Camera Raw plug-in release candidate at its Adobe Labs site. Although there's no corresponding version of Lightroom, software engineered specifically for handling raw images, Adobe also issued a release candidate for its DNG converter 5.5 that can transform raw files from the Olympus, Nikon, and Panasonic cameras into Adobe's more digestible Digital Negative format.
The new software also corrects a problem experienced with "demosaic algorithms in the raw conversion process for Bayer sensor cameras with unequal green response," the company said. Demosaicing is a central step in raw conversion. In it each pixel records only data for only a single color of red, green, or blue, is interpreted so each pixel has values for all three colors. The checkerboard pattern of colors is called the Bayer pattern.
Update 10:30 a.m. PDT August 20:: I asked Adobe about what cameras are affected by the green issue in the demosaic algorithm, and Tom Hogarty, Adobe's Lightroom product manager, had this response:
"Sony, Panasonic, and Olympus are among the more popular camera manufacturers affected by this change. But the demosaic correction provides only a subtle visual improvement to the processing of those raw files."
Some might be disconcerted to find that older raw images might look different when they're opened again with software that uses an updated algorithm. For those folks, I recommend exporting a JPEG or TIF to bake in your editing settings for raw images.
For the rest of us, this illustrates one of the advantages of shooting raw: new algorithms can make photos you took earlier look better than when you first took them.
Adobe also made a related change with the addition of profiles to its raw processing software; these can make photos more closely resemble results from camera settings such as portrait, landscape, or neutral, and I use them by default these days. Improvements to noise reduction algorithms is another area that springs to mind where new algorithms could take advantage of faster PC hardware to produce better photos.
Having the camera make these processing decisions when it creates a JPEG is convenient and fine for the vast majority of people, but for photo enthusiasts, raw shooting benefits from steadily improving software and hardware.
The Olympus E-P1 with its small 17mm lens attached.
(Credit: Olympus)The Olympus E-P1 camera, a hybrid designed to combine advantages of both compact cameras and SLRs, is a welcome arrival in a digital camera market struggling to find new directions.
The small and light camera that debuted Tuesday features interchangeable lenses and relatively large sensor that endow SLRs with flexibility and higher image quality, but it's also got a small body of a compact camera. It has the potential to appeal to SLR owners who want something smaller and to compact camera owners who want something better, if Olympus can convince people to surmount a significant obstacle, price.
Like most hybrids--gaming laptops, for example, or bicycles with aspects of both road bikes and mountain bikes--the E-P1 sacrifices specialization for versatility. But the digital camera market is saturated, and the E-P1 is a promising member of a newer camera breed.
There are a handful of competitors with similar aspirations. Canon's G10, the newest in its G series of high-end compact cameras, is one example. Nikon's GPS-enabled P6000 is another, though, like the G10, it doesn't have an interchangeable lens. And Panasonic's G1 and GH1, which employ the same Micro Four Thirds lens and sensor standard as the E-P1, are probably closest.
The biggest knock against these cameras is price. Their relatively large sensors--especially those in the Micro Four Thirds cameras--cost a lot to manufacture, and fast electronics and high complexity just make things worse. Few people are willing to spend more than $300 on a camera, much less the hybrid cameras.
Brace yourself for some sticker shock. ... Read more
A correction has been made to this story. See below for details.
LAS VEGAS--Olympus has declared an end to the megapixel race.
"Twelve megapixels is, I think, enough for covering most applications most customers need," said Akira Watanabe, manager of Olympus Imaging's SLR planning department, in an interview here at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA). "We have no intention to compete in the megapixel wars for E-System," Olympus' line of SLR cameras, he said.
Instead, Olympus will focus on other characteristics such as dynamic range, color reproduction, and a better ISO range for low-light shooting, he said.
Increasing the number of megapixels on cameras is an easy selling point for camera makers, in part because it's a simple concept for people to understand. Even though having more megapixels can enable larger prints and enlargement of subject matter through cropping, adding megapixels comes with some drawbacks.
For one thing, smaller pixels can mean more noisy speckles at the pixel level and can reduce the dynamic range, so brighter areas wash out and darker areas become swaths of black. For another, images take more room on memory cards, hard drives, and Web servers, and cameras need more powerful image processors to handle them. And yesteryear's cameras already had plenty of pixels for making 8x10-inch prints, a size few people exceed.
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Olympus' concept model of a svelte compact camera using the Micro Four Thirds standard.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)LAS VEGAS--Olympus has set a ship date, albeit one with a lot of wiggle room, for its first high-end compact camera using the Micro Four Thirds technology.
The camera maker first showed a nonworking "concept model" of the camera at the Photokina show last September, and the same model is on display here at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) trade show. Now, though it sports a label, "launching this summer."
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Nikon's D3X is now supported by Adobe Lightroom.
(Credit: Nikon)LAS VEGAS--Adobe Systems has released the final version of Lightroom 2.3, its photo-editing and cataloging software, along with its close relative, the Camera Raw 5.3 plug-in to let Photoshop CS4 edit raw images from higher-end cameras.
The new software (available as a download for Windows and Mac OS X) supports Nikon's top-end D3X, an $8,000, 24.5-megapixel machine whose owners likely will usually prefer raw files for their flexibility and quality advantages over JPEG. Also supported is Olympus' new midrange E-30.
The Lightroom 2.3 update also fixed a number of bugs and adds support for eight new languages: Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese. Adobe made the announcement Monday just as the Photo Marketing Show (PMA) was getting under way here.
The Camera Raw software works with Adobe's flagship CS4 version of Photoshop, but also with the consumer-oriented Photoshop Elements 7, Premiere Elements 7 for video editing, and Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac OS X.
Compact-camera manufacturers have begun testing the waters with a wealth of high-end features as they search for new ways to gain revenue, market share, and recognition.
In earlier digital photography days, a camera with an extra megapixel of resolution, face recognition, or image stabilization could stand apart from the herd. But now that herd has grown larger, most folks who'll buy a digital camera already have done so, the economy has put consumer spending on ice--and camera makers are making some bolder bets with high-end features.
Among them: Nikon's built-in GPS support to record where a photo was taken, Casio's high-speed video, and the Micro Four Thirds camera system from Panasonic and Olympus.
Premium features aren't an easy sell. They tend to appeal to market niches rather than the mainstream. Early implementations are often rough around the edges. And it's hard enough to convince people to buy a new camera, much less one with the higher price of premium features.
But winning those customers can have a good payoff with better profit margins. And that's critical in this day and age. Market research firm IDC expects that after years of growth, the shipments of digital cameras will decline in 2009.
"It's crowded, and it's getting crowdeder," IDC analyst Ron Glaz said of the digital camera market. "We're anticipating that with the slowdown in economy and disposable income, we'll start seeing consolidation of the vendors." In other words, even though something in the neighborhood of 38 million digital cameras are sold annually, some companies will throw in the towel.
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Panasonic's DMC-G1
(Credit: Panasonic)Panasonic's $670 G1 and Olympus' $540 E-520 and $450 E-410--that show both the advantages and disadvantages of the Four Thirds standards the companies use.
The Four Thirds system governs image sensor sizes and the mounting mechanism for interchangeable lenses on the companies' SLR cameras, and the companies announced a new variation called Micro Four Thirds for smaller cameras that have SLRs' interchangeable lenses but not SLRs' "reflex" mirror, which directs light through an optical viewfinder before a shot is taken.
Four Thirds SLRs have a smaller sensor than lower-end SLRs from market leaders Nikon and Canon, which poses image quality challenges because there's less surface area to gather light. However, the sensor size is the same for Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds, which means that cameras using the latter have a much larger sensor than typical compact cameras have.
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Nikon D3X
(Credit: Nikon USA)Adobe Systems on Friday issued near-final release candidate versions of Lightroom 2.3 and the Camera Raw 5.3 Photoshop plug-in, software that can support Nikon's new top-end, $8,000, 24.5-megapixel D3X camera and Olympus' mid-range, $1,299, 12.3-megapixel E-30.
According to the release notes, the new Lightroom version also fixes a few bugs: a memory leak that could crash the software while people were making local editing adjustments to photos, a processing error handling smaller sRAW photos from the Canon 5D Mark II, a slideshow glitch, and problems uploading and burning files to discs.
Lightroom is designed for editing, labeling, and cataloging photos--in particular, the flexible but non-standard raw files from higher-end cameras. Adobe Camera Raw is used to handle raw files in the more general-purpose Photoshop software, letting people convert them into JPEG, TIF, or other more portable formats.
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The 55-200mm lens brought me close to this owl in Patagonian Chile, who obligingly didn't spook when I stopped and changed lenses. (Click to enlarge.)
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)Here's a frustrating combination: traveling and serious photography. At precisely the time you want to photography interesting new surroundings, you also don't want to be burdened with inordinate amounts of gear.
Olympus has one interesting answer to the conundrum, though: the E-3 (click here for CNET's full-on review). Its top-of the line SLR is rugged, waterproof, and when combined with the company's Zuiko Digital ED 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 SWD and 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 SWD lenses provides a flexible package that's portable if not actually lightweight.
I hauled the E-3 with those lenses and the Zuiko Digital ED 7-14mm F4.0 wide-angle zoom to Argentina for a month of vacation and was pleased with the performance. I had to lug the gear not only on the usual buses and city tours, but also in much more demanding conditions: two four-day backpacking trips with a three-year-old, Patagonia's uncertain weather, and serious weight-carrying constraints.
The result was good photos of people, flower close-ups, skittish wildlife, and beautiful mountains.
The gear costs about $1,950 for the camera and 12-60mm lens, $950 for the 50-200mm lens, and $1,400 for the 7-14mm lens.
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F. Mark Gumz, president and chief executive of Olympus Corporation of the Americas
(Credit: Olympus)Olympus has promoted F. Mark Gumz, president and chief operating officer since 2000, to be president and chief executive of the North and South American operations of the Japanese camera and optics company.
In addition, the company is changing the name of Gumz's division. Olympus USA, a holding company that represented all of Olympus' American operations and that employs 2,500 people, now is called Olympus Corporation of the Americas.
"His appointment will...help position the organization to better respond to customer needs, and his knowledge of Japanese culture and of our company makes him the perfect choice for CEO of this new company," said Tsuyoshi "Tom" Kikukawa, president of Tokyo-based Olympus, in a statement Tuesday.
Gumz worked for Olympus from 1977 to 1983 as vice president of Olympus Camera, the first American hired for the company. He left for 16 years of work consulting and doing other jobs, then returned in 2000 as president of Olympus America, Olympus said.
