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D-Link DIR-645 router review: Almost great

D-Link's latest Amplifi Whole Home Router 1000 (model DIR-645) almost makes an excellent router.

For one, living up to the Whole Home notion, the router offers great Wi-Fi range, possibly the longest I've seen in a long time. Secondly, it provides a great set of features, including Gigabit Ethernet (great for a fast wired network), guest networking, parental control, QoS, support for IPv6, and a very easy-to-use yet comprehensive Web interface. And finally it won't break your bank, either, with a street price of just around $90.

Unfortunately, it also comes with one major shortcoming, according to my trials.… Read more

D-Link unveils Amplifi family of networking products

Awhile ago, Cisco refreshed its E series of routers and switches. Today, D-Link introduced its own by announcing its Amplifi family of high-performance home networking solutions.

The company says the new products are designed to offer fast performance for even the most demanding connected homes. They include two routers (the HD Media Router 1000 with HD Fuel DIR-657 and the Whole Home Router 1000 DIR-645), a Wi-Fi Booster (DAP-1525) and three Powerline 500 products (DHP-500AV, DHP-501AV, and DHP-540). Though announced today, most of these products were first introduced during CES 2011

D-Link says that the HD Media Router 1000 with … Read more

Ultra-wide-angle lens for Pentax 645D

Today Pentax announced the smc D FA 645 25mm f4 AL SDM AW lens for the 645D digital medium-format SLR camera. This is the second lens in the 645D series, along with the smc D FA 645 55mm f2.8 AL SDM AW lens($1,100). The new D FA 645 25mm f4 is an ultra-wide-angle lens offering the equivalent focal length of 19.5mm in 35mm format terms. When mounted on a 645 film camera the new lens has an equivalent of 15.5mm. This is the widest of all Pentax 645 lenses.

The 25mm 645D lens, along with … Read more

High-end Pentax 645D camera heads to Europe

COLOGNE, Germany--How much room is there in the medium-format digital camera market? Pentax is hoping to find out by elbowing its way in with its 645D.

The company showed off the hefty camera at the Photokina Imaging show here this week. It's been for sale only in Japan so far, but at Photokina, Pentax announced it will go on sale in Europe starting in December.

"The 40-megapixel picture-taking mean machine, [which] delivers unprecedented image quality while offering top end control and user friendly handling, will be spreading its reach beyond Japan to invade European photography," Pentax said in a statement.

When Pentax launched the 645D earlier this year after years of on-again, off-again development, it downplayed its ambitions by saying the camera was chiefly for Japanese landscape photographers who have equipment from Pentax's medium-format 645 film camera days. But the company is taking a new tone with its aggressive statement about geographic expansion. It's also investing in work to ensure Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom can automatically correct Pentax medium-format lens issues, even before more mainstream optics have that support. … Read more

Pentax reshapes medium-format camera future

The medium-format market is mostly an obscure niche of the digital-camera industry. Prices are high, customers must have lavish budgets, and optics and sensor technology is different from the SLR realm.

Heck, most people hadn't heard of the brand names involved. Until now: This time it's Pentax that announced its entry into the market with a product called the 645D.

It's not going to rewrite the rules of photography. It'll be available only in Japan, at least for starters when it ships in May, it needs its own lenses, and it costs 850,000 yen--about $9,200. But there are enough interesting developments here that it's worth noting.

Medium-format cameras have been niche items for years, distinguished from SLRs chiefly by their larger of a film frame. Now that digital sensors are in and film is out, though, the comparative costs of medium-format cameras have surged, because making a large sensor is a lot more expensive than making a smaller one. Pentax's model uses a 40-megapixel Kodak sensor measuring 44x33mm, larger than a "full-frame" SLR that uses the 36x24mm frame size of 35mm film and a lot larger than the sensors in mainstream digital SLRs.

To go a bit beyond the press release, I recommend reading Luminous Landscape's interview with Pentax's Yasuyuki Maekawa about the 645D. It triggered a number of thoughts about medium format and Pentax's effort. … Read more