Microsoft has won over ally at camera maker Canon for HD Photo, an image format the software company is promoting as a replacement for the ubiquitous JPEG.
"I've been following the development of this new recording format for a long time, and my opinion of it is quite favorable. In my opinion, it's superior to conventional JPEG in every significant way," said Chuck Westfall, director of media and customer relationships, in an interview.
Westfall was quick to note that's his own opinion, not a company endorsement. "Canon has no official comment on HD Photo," he said. He is, however, a high-profile company representative who speaks at industry conferences and writes a column for a The Digital Journalist.
Canon is a key partner to attract. Analysis firm iSuppli estimates the Japanese company sold 20 percent of the 96.4 million cameras shipped in 2006.
News organization Reuters is working with photo editing powerhouse Adobe and camera maker Canon so changes to digital photos can be detected, Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said on his blog last week.
Reuters, the news agency whose image was tarnished earlier this year when a freelance photographer provided doctored photos of bombing in Beirut, wants to ensure such changes can be found.
"I am pleased to announce today that we are working with Adobe and Canon to create a solution that enables photo editors to view an audit trail of changes to a digital image, which is permanently embedded in the photograph, ensuring the accuracy of the image," Glocer said in the blog posting, a transcript of a December 11 speech at the Globes Media Conference in Tel Aviv.
"We sought a technical solution so that we had total and full transparency of our work. It's what we stand for. It's what we've always stood for. And we hope that it will provide reassurance to editors and consumers of our services," he said. "Transparency and truth are important to us."
The issue of trust is increasingly important in a "citizen journalism" world where the ordinary public, not just news professionals, supply content, he said.
"What does the future look like in a world in which the consumer has taken over the printing press, the dark room, the television studio? What does the result of a mashup of professional and "amateur" actually look like? And more importantly--is trust the victim in a world of millions of news sources--will we live in a world where truth is passed through a sieve of opinion and commentary?"
It's not an academic issue for Reuters. Earlier in December, it announced a deal with Yahoo in which people who post photos to the Flickr photo-sharing site, can tag their shots and submit them to Reuters.
Canon caused a ruckus among digital-camera enthusiasts when it announced this fall that its new PowerShot G7 lacked support for "raw" images. But the company now has offered an explanation for the move: increasing the number of megapixels led to more noise per pixel and meant raw was no better than JPEG.
The G lineage aims to please a more discerning crowd than the average point-and-shooter, and earlier members of the family could produce the raw files that many photographers like for their greater flexibility and subtle tones. When Canon dropped raw support in the G7, reviewers complained loudly, some speculating that the company was trying to protect sales and profits for its more expensive digital SLR (single-lens reflex) line.
"If the G7 had raw mode, I would buy one in a flash. As I wrote in this article's subhead--It Could Have Been a Contender!" said the Luminous Landscape, speculating that Canon was trying to protect profit margins on SLR cameras that still feature raw support. "Many features that made the G series stand out have been removed," including raw mode, said Digital Photography Review. Digital Camera Resources called the move a "dumbfounding downgrade," and CNET's own review opined, "Whoever at Canon decided to jettison raw-format support deserves a whack upside the head."
The PowerShot G7 has a 10-megapixel sensor compared to 7.1 megapixels for the G6. But the sensor itself is the same size, meaning that individual pixels in the sensor are smaller. Smaller pixels means it's harder to distinguish the signal from the incoming light from the random electronic noise in the sensor, said Chuck Westfall, Canon's director of media and customer relations.
"The net result is that even if the G7 offered raw image capture...there would be no discernible improvement in image quality compared to...superfine JPEG mode," Westfall said.
More specifically, a pixel on a Canon Rebel XTi SLR is 5.7 microns across, and on higher-end models such as the 5D with "full-frame" sensors the size of 35 mm film negatives, pixels are 8.2 microns wide, Westfall said. (A micron is a millionth of a meter.) A G7's pixels are less than 2 microns wide, in comparison, and therefore produce more noise and are worse at discerning subtle brightness differences.
"Do the math for surface area, and you'll see how much of a difference there really is," Westfall said.
The greater the surface area, the more light a pixel on the sensor can detect. For the record, here's the math: assuming pixels are circular, a 2-micron diameter means a surface area of 3 square microns. A 5.7-micron pixel has 26 square microns of surface area, able to capture 8 times the amount of light as a 2-micron pixel. And an 8.2-micron pixel has 53 square microns of area, able to capture 17 times the amount of light as a 2-micron pixel.
Update: This entry has been modified to reflect the fact that the 5D and the 1D Mark II N don't have the same sensor size. The 8.2-micron pixel size of Canon's 1D Mark II N is the same as that of the 5D, Westfall said. But the 1D Mark II N's sensor smaller than the full-frame sensor used in the 1Ds Mark II or the 5D.
Nikon likely will announce a new 10.2-megapixel digital SLR camera in 20 days, according to a teaser advertisement that appeared on the company's Web site Thursday.
This teaser appears on
the Nikon Imaging Web site.
The teaser appears on the Nikon Imaging Web site. Judging by the pixel count, the camera will be a replacement for the 6-megapixel D70s and lower end than the existing 10-megapixel D200.
The new model combines "quality and affordability to meet the demands of passionate photo enthusiasts," the teaser said. The teaser said "20 days to go," meaning an Aug. 9 announcement is likely.
Nikon's ad in Europe gives a more precise countdown with 19 days.
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