Photography

Yahoo has changed its Flickr Pro premium service into a subscription plan, a modest but reasonable change that I hope presages bigger adjustments to compete better against new photo-sharing rivals.

Flickr, a fixture in online photography, has lost luster as alternatives such as Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and 500px have advanced the state of the art and attracted millions of users. Flickr is shucking old baggage as part of a promise of new vitality in 2012, though. And although the new Flickr Pro pricing scheme is hardly a dramatic new course, at least it shows somebody's at the tiller.

With … Read more

With the latest smart phones and cameras, I'm constantly taking photos, everywhere I go! Having all of these photos at my fingertips is great, but I'm the worst at organizing these thousands of photos, which makes it even worse to share with friends and family. The thought of going through thousands of photos and trying to figure out which photos to edit, resize and share, all seem like a nightmare. Then I discovered pcPhotos. I haven't had much time to play around with it just yet, but I'm intrigued and at 92 percent off, I'm … Read more

Tamron and Kenko Tokina, two third-party lens manufacturers, have thrown their weight behind the Micro Four Thirds alliance, helping Olympus and Panasonic during a major shift in the camera industry.

Olympus and Panasonic were the early entrants to a new class of interchangeable-lens cameras much more compact than traditional SLRs. They're both members of the Micro Four Thirds partnership that governs image sensors and lenses, meaning that Micro Four Thirds lenses can be used on either company's camera bodies.

The new membership, like that of third-party lensmaker Sigma before, means photographers can expect more variety for Micro Four … Read more

Photographer Stephen Oachs didn't go to Kenya to take product photos, but he might have gotten a doozy anyway--shots of an unreleased but highly anticipated Canon SLR.

It's not clear what exactly Oachs found, but he posted photos of the apparent Canon SLR on his blog for those who want to take a guess. The usual caveats about prototypes and other uncertainties apply, of course, but it's definitely possible that he stumbled across a prototype of the Canon 5D Mark III.

The design looks in many ways similar to a Canon 7D, a 2009-era SLR released after … Read more

Olympus looks set to debut a new compact, high-end camera model whose OM-D name capitalizes on the company's old camera brand.

Olympus teased about an "OMG" camera in recent ads, emphasizing the O and M letters, 43 Rumors reported. And it more recently trademarked OM-D, the site said, adding a February 8 launch, a $1,100 price tag, and a March date for worldwide shipping.

In the film days, Olympus' OM line was one of the majors in the SLR (single-lens reflex) world--indeed, I learned photography with my first camera, an OM-10 I used for many years. … Read more

Mamiya Digital Imaging and Leaf Imaging, two Phase One-controlled brands in the medium-format photography market, have become one.

With the new Mamiya Leaf brand, the two camera specialists will join product development and support activities, the companies said today.

Medium-format photography has been reshaped dramatically through the transition from film to digital. Using larger frames of film let photographers capture higher-quality imagery, but correspondingly large image sensors come at a much higher price.

Medium-format cameras traditionally came with removable camera backs, and Copenhagen-based Phase One and Tel Aviv-based Leaf make digital versions that would attach to camera bodies. Tokyo-based Mamiya … Read more

In a decision inauspicious for XQD, SanDisk is skipping over the new memory card format for high-end cameras.

"At this time, SanDisk has chosen not to productize the XQD format," SanDisk spokeswoman Wendy Vlieks told CNET News late yesterday.

The ringing non-endorsement is particularly notable since SanDisk helped create the format in the first place.

The comment also means that XQD--developed by the CompactFlash Association (CFA) as a successor to CF cards--currently lacks support from the two top-tier flash card makers. The other, Lexar, was noncommittal about XQD last week: "As a leading CFA member, Lexar has … Read more

It's flash card season at CES (especially given the shutterbug boost by the conjoined Photo Marketing Association show), and SanDisk has a contribution with high-capacity mid-range SDXC cards.

The two SanDisk Extreme models, 64GB and 128GB, can transfer data at 45MBps. That's less than half the speed of the company's top-end Extreme Pro line of SD cards at 95MBps, but it should be good enough for many photographers and videographers.

The high capacity comes with a price premium--prices for the cards are $200 and $400--but could be useful for those shooting lots of video or traveling away … Read more

Adobe Systems has responded to complaints about its Creative Suite upgrade prices with a new option for customers who bought earlier versions of the software.

The company, which plans to release its CS6 software bundles in the first half of 2012, had offered upgrades only to those who'd bought CS5 or CS5.5. That raised a ruckus, especially after Scott Kelby, president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, griped about the upgrade pricing in an open letter.

Adobe's now changed course with an upgrade offer for CS3 and CS4 users, too. That offer, though not yet detailed, … Read more