DSLR

U.S. women go for digital SLRs

Apparently all those advertisements saying you'll get better pictures of your kids with a digital SLR camera are paying off.

The primary digital SLR (single-lens reflex) user in the United States is a woman 51 percent of the time among those surveyed, according to new study results released Monday by the Photo Marketing Association. Among those households where women are the primary user, the average annual income is at least $75,000, and they're much more likely than most to have children under 6 years old.

"You can always find females among prosumers and photo artists, but … Read more

Bibble software gets new SLR support

Bibble Labs on Friday released a new free upgrade to its software for editing raw images from higher-end digital cameras, adding support for the Canon EOS-1D Mark III and several other models.

The new version 4.9.8 of Bibble Pro and Bibble Lite supports ordinary raw files from the high-end Canon SLR (single-lens reflex) camera as well as its new "sraw" format that's half the resolution and one quarter the file size of regular raw images.

The new version also supports the high dynamic range of the new Fujifilm Finepix S5 Pro, the lower-end Nikon D40x and Olympus E-410 and E-510 SLRs, … Read more

High-end Nikon SLR rumors heat up

A new spate of rumors are cropping up about a new Nikon top-end professional-grade digital SLR, the D3, with some asserting that a new camera will be announced this month and ship in August.

Many of the reports are cropping up on the Nikon SLR message boards of Digital Photography Review. One May posting cited French photo publication Reponses Photo as saying the Nikon D3 would have an 18.7-megapixel built by Sony and, in what would be a significant departure for Nikon, an image sensor nearly the size of a full frame of 35mm film.

A posting on Thursday … Read more

Olympus shows teaser for new SLR

Olympus has begun offering new teases about a new SLR (single-lens reflex) camera model, likely a successor to its top-end E-1 introduced in 2003.

Olympus' European Web site offers a cloaked view doubtless intended to agitate prospective buyers into a lather of anticipation.

Having just released new low-end models, Olympus no doubt is preparing to refresh its high end. Olympus showed off a prototype high-end SLR at the Photo Marketing Association trade show in March but said only it would be rugged, weatherproof, and shipping this year.

You shouldn't believe everything you see on the Internet, though. For example, … Read more

Olympus camera housings cater to the wet set

Olympus announced a divers set (Get it? Get it?) of waterproof camera housings Monday for underwater photographers using the company's latest digital SLR and a few point-and-shoot models. The housings protect the cameras at depths of up to 40 meters or about 130 feet.

The PT-E03 housing is designed for the lower-end SLR (single-lens reflex) Olympus Evolt E-410 camera, and the PPO-E05 can be attached to protect the new 14-42mm Zuiko lens. (Other existing PPO lens ports also are compatible, too.)

The company also announced underwater housings for four compact cameras, the SP-550 UZ model with an 18x zoom … Read more

Adobe updating raw-image converter for CS3

Adobe plans this week to update Photoshop's plug-in for importing and editing raw images from higher-end digital cameras, adding support for several new digital SLR cameras and improving noise-reduction and sharpening tools. Raw images are taken directly from a camera's image sensor without any in-camera processing, preserving more detail but requiring processing by a person into a more portable format such as JPEG; raw support is typically only available on higher-end cameras.

But the new version 4.1 of the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in tool works only with Photoshop CS3, the San Jose, Calif.-based company's brand-new … Read more

Report: new high-end Canon SLR imminent

Canon on Wednesday began shipping its EOS-1D Mark III, a high-end SLR (single-lens reflex) camera geared for photojournalists, photographer and consultant Rob Galbraith said on his blog Wednesday.

Galbraith quoted Canon spokesman Chuck Westfall as saying the 1D Mark III will arrive at dealer sites as soon as Thursday and that supplies should be steady after that.

The 1D Mark III is expected to cost at least $4,000 with no lenses. It's weather-sealed, can shoot as fast as 10 frames per second and has a new, more sensitive image sensor.

Digital camera shipments up 6 percent

Digital camera shipments increased 6 percent to 4.9 million in the first quarter of 2007, market researcher IDC said Wednesday.

Top leaders were Canon at 21 percent of the market, Sony at 16 percent and Kodak at 13 percent. Samsung jumped from 4 percent in the year-earlier quarter to 11 percent this year, propelling it to a fourth-place finish, IDC said.

Kodak fared better, with shipments increasing 5 percent--the first growth in five quarters, attributable to its emphasis on compact cameras costing between $200 and $300, IDC said. Nikon, though, didn't fare as well.

"Nikon was seventh … Read more

Buy a lens hood? Heck, print it for free

For those entering the realm of SLR cameras and their interchangeable lenses, lens hoods can improve your shots by screening out glare from the sun or other light sources. But those hoods, when not included with the lens, can cost tens or even hundreds of dollars.

But you can get them for free, as long as you don't mind a little arts and crafts action.

Paul Mutton's www.lenshoods.co.uk Web site has hundreds of lens hood designs available for free download as PDF files. Anyone can print the PDFs (preferably on thick, dark paper), do a … Read more

Pentax 'pancake' lens to hit full-stack status

Pentax's emphasis on compact SLR cameras and lenses yielded its "pancake" lenses, tiny lenses so thin they can be mistaken for the camera body cap that's put on just to keep the dust out.

The Japanese camera maker has released three such models, but it began showing a fourth here at the Photo Marketing Association trade show.

The new lens is a 35mm F/2.8 macro, said John Carlson, imaging systems product manager, in an interview here. He declined to offer details on price, availability date, or how closely the macro lens will be able … Read more