Photo&Cameras

Click photo for more images of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T2.

Sony has introduced a new 8-megapixel point-and-shoot with 4GB internal memory and advanced photo-organizing functions for sorting and viewing shots that are stored on the device. The ultracompact Cyber-shot DSC-T2 is equipped with a 2.7-inch, 230,000-dot touchscreen LCD and an f/3.5-4.3, 38-114mm 3x zoom lens, and will be available in December for about $350.

The T2’s numerous photo-sharing features include the ability to display images in chronological order, in a calendar view, and by event. Photos can also be saved as favorites and then sorted into categories within the favorites folder for quick retrieval, and in-camera slideshows can include selectable transitions and music. The T2 can also output images to an HDTV with an optional HD component cable or HD cradle, and it’s loaded with Sony PMB Portable software, which allows it to publish photos and videos directly to online image sharing sites such as Flickr and YouTube.

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Corel Painter X is the latest release of Corel's advanced digital art studio software. The goal of this version is to continue to focus on the fundamentals of art technique, and theory, while adding new features that help artists achieve perfect compositions.

Corel Painter X is focused on four major groups. First are Commercial Designers who require tools to create their visions. Next, Entertainment Artists who need tools to speed their production time. Photographers have, in recent years, begun using Corel Painter to explore new avenues for creative work, and additional revenue. Finally, there are the Fine Artists who use digital as "just another medium" within the world of art.

What do you need to run Corel Painter X? Well Windows or Mac; 700 MHz or better (Intel Mac as well). 256 MB (512 recommended) Mouse or Tablet. 24-bit Color display with 1024×768 screen resolution. CD-Rom and around 350 MB hard disk space.

So what is new with this version of Corel Painter X?

• RealBristle Painting System – This heightens the responsiveness of the brush for the artist, and is a break through for digital painting. It allows the artist to more realistically replicate the interaction between the paint, canvas, and the brush. It really gives the bend, and splay look, as one would expect with a real brush; see the image below.

• Divine Proportion – Is a tool that allows the artist to arrange their canvas prior to drawing or painting. This technique has been used since 300 BC, and can be used to assist artists create visually stunning compositions. By using the tool, you can visually arrange the canvas in a precise formula, for more appealing images; see the image below.

• Layout Grid – There are three preset Layout Grids; Rule of thirds, 3×5, and 5×5, or the user can customize to any configuration of choice. This helps the artist arrange the canvas, or photo, prior to drawing, or painting. This helps layout the form so that they fit properly and look right on the page.

• Photo Painting System – This has been enhanced to make it easier for photographers to create beautiful paintings from photos. There are new enhancements to Underpainting; which prepares a photo for cloning (see the image below), Auto-Painting Palette for transforming a photo to a painting by automatically applying random paint strokes, and Restoration Palette: a mechanism for touching up a painting manually with one of two special brushes. I found these enhancements fun to work with. To show how easy it is, this image was created in about 15 minutes.

• Universal Mixer palette – This feature gives you more control over color selection when using Artists' Oil brushes, RealBristle brushes, or any other bristle type brush.

• Dodge and Burn tools – allow you to dodge or lighten overexposed areas of an image, and burn, darkening underexposed regions of an image.

• Photoshop Support – With Corel Painter X, the layer behavior is very similar to Adobe Photoshop, which now makes moving files between the two very simple. You can open Photoshop PSD files in Corel Painter X with layer masks, alpha channels, and layer sets maintained. This is something that, to me is very important.

• Printed User Guide – This is a 325 page in color, indexed user guide. It is in a large looped spiral bound format, so that it easily lays flat on the desk.

• Jeremy Sutton Training Videos – These are included with the purchase of Corel Painter X, and are from a well known Painter Master.

• Painter on the 'Net' tab in the welcome book that provides you to links to the Painter community, as well as online resources such as tutorials, tips and tricks, and special offers.

Added to all this is Universal Binary support which means that this will run on both types of Mac's; Intel- and PowerPC. There is a workspace manager that allows the sharing of customized workspaces. There is an enhanced color management system that retains setting between Corel Painter X sessions. Finally there is a new Secure Saving and Auto-Backup feature that gives more protection in case there is a power outage or system crash.

All in all Corel Painter X is to be a great product for the digital artist. It is fast for all the potential that is built in. From a photographer's perspective, I find that the features in Corel Painter X are useful, whether for adding touch up highlights, doing full paint conversions, or somewhere in between. While, there are many things that can be done easily, this is a complex program, and to get really good will take time and effort. That said, with the native file compatibility for Adobe Photoshop, I don't think that there is any limitation to what can be done with Corel Painter X.

From: feeds.blogcritics.org

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Our detailed in-depth review of the Canon EOS 40D. Sixth in line from the D30 announced back in 2000 the 40D features a ten megapixel CMOS sensor with Live View capability, a ‘14-bit’ image pipeline, six frames per second continuous shooting, a larger viewfinder view and of course a three inch LCD monitor. All joking aside the EOS 40D has a lot to live up to and a lot of competition coming its way, see how it performed and how it compares in our thirty page review.

By: www.dpreview.com

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PopPhoto.com’s Jack Howard, all 175 pounds of him, demonstrates the toughness of the new Olympus E-3’s magnesium alloy chassis. Click photo for more pictures from PhotoPlus Expo.

For a few days last week, the photo world was even more New York City centric than usual, as the annual PhotoPlus Expo trade show came to town. Most of the major announcements of the year happened prior to the show’s kickoff, but it did afford us a rare opportunity to get our hands on some of the hottest new products hitting the photography market.

Arguably the biggest announcement came just before the show on Tuesday Oct 16, as Olympus finally announced one of the worst-kept secrets ever, the Olympus E-3 DSLR. Delays, rumors, semi-official leaks, and internet chatter for years lead up to what can only be described as an impressive new king of the Four-Thirds system. The Olympus booth was busy, as they had a raised platform with lots of E-3s and long Zuiko glass for inspection by the Four-Thirds faithful, along with the curious photographers who shoot other brands.

Canon’s massive display was busy, with the demo counters being three and four people deep at times, with photographers clamoring for a glimpse of the new Supertelephoto lenses, the EOS 1D Mark III, The PowerShot G9, and if you were lucky, you may have gotten a glimpse of a pre-production EOS 1Ds Mark III. We were unable to pry loose much in the way of deep tech specs on the new lenses, but expect the 200mm f/2 to be similar in size and weight to the old 200mm f/1.8, and the 800mm f/5.6 shouldn’t be much bigger than the current 600mm f/4. No dates, weights, or prices were shared, but we bet you’ll see a lot of these lenses in the photo pits of next summer’s Beijing Olympics.

Most of the major showroom floor demonstrations, hosted by professional shooters of all stripes, were filled to capacity or overflowing. Nikon presentor Joe McNally in particular was packing them in. There were tons of Nikon D3s available for photographers to check out, along with the new Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S Wide-Angle Zoom-Nikkor Lens. There was also a lot of interest in the entry level Nikons, including the D40x.

Sony’s booth was busy, with people looking to see their newest DSLR, the Sony Alpha A700.

Over at Pentax, there was a decent crowd for every product demo, even though they haven’t had a major camera announcement in a while. But Pentaxians were still flocking to check out demos of the K10D and K100D Super.

Over at the Sigma, photographers of all lens mounts were checking out the big, long glass such as 300-800mm f/5.6 EX APO HSM AF DG. And, of course, the Sigma faithful were stopping by to chat about the SD14 DSLR with its unique Foveon sensor. We weren’t able to nail down a solid release date for the DP1, though rumor has it that it may be “soon.”

On the software side, Kevin Kubota’s tutorials on his actions were a big hit in a small space. OnOne’s PhotoTools and other software demos including PhotoTune — which quickly fixes skintones — were eye-catching and grabbing.

Vertus wowed us and the crowd with FluidMask 3, which quickly and easily isolates subjects for clipping and compositing. For the serious composite photographer and graphic designer, this is an amazing product.

At the Adobe stage, every software demo was overflowing its alloted theater. Lightroom sessions with Katrin Eisman seemed particularly mobbed.

Sandisk had a Ducatti racing bike on display to promote its high-speed ComactFlash cards, the 300x Ducatti Editions. Kevin Kubota had a superhero wandering the floor, and PhotoFlex had bathing-suit models (both boys and girls) from OneModelPlace for its lighting demos.

Lowepro intro’d some new compact camera bags in the Cirrus line, and there was a lot of interest in the Primus, which is 51% post-consumer material.

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DP Review has reviewed the Canon A570 IS where they give it a rating of ‘highly recommended’ and write - ‘So in conclusion, with the Canon A570 IS you get a nicely designed, responsive camera with more than enough features to keep most users - especially those wanting a little more manual control than is normal at this price point - happy. If you don’t mind it not being the fastest ’social’ snapshot camera in the world (the flash recycling puts paid to that), this is a perfect camera for anyone wanting real photographic control without paying through the nose. Its well balanced combination of image quality, functionality and handling (and not to forget value for money) means the A570 IS just about deserves our highest award.’

Source: www.livingroom.org.au

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Datacolor has launched a new line of color-management packages for photographers with the Spyder3Elite and Spyder3Studio kits. The company says the new products in its Spyder3 line will include the only colorimeter available that has a seven-detector color engine and an aperture several times larger than those in other devices, to increase accuracy and performance. Both the Elite and Studio packages provide display calibration hardware and software; the Spyder3 Studio kit also includes printer and print-media profiling tools.

Among the notable features offered by the new Spyder3 products are SpyderProof, a software tool that lets users evaluate calibration results with a before-and-after display; precise control over white point and gamma; fast recalibration via a new ReCAL option; and the ability to calibrate multiple displays to the same target. The Spyder3 software has a dual-mode interface to accommodate users with varying levels of color-management expertise and give advanced users control over all calibration parameters.

The Spyder3 display calibrator is more compact than the earlier Spyder2 device, and comes with a cradle that can be used as a tripod mount. It detects ambient light to increase the precision of calibration for CRTs, LCDs, and projectors, and keeps a log of light conditions.

The $279 Spyder3Elite and $599 Spyder3Studio will be available in November 2007. For more information, go to Datacolor’s Spyder3 Web site.

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Our review of the Canon PowerShot A570 IS, one of a whole batch of new A series compacts launched earlier this year. The A570 IS is a keenly-priced, fully featured 7MP camera with a 4x stabilized zoom and a wide range of photographic control on offer. Sounds like a bargain, but is it any good? Find out after the link…

Simon: You’ll notice some new names appearing in the credits of some of the reviews we’ll be posting from now on. We’re in the process of training our new reviewers and they’re currently working with me on clearing some of the compact camera backlog. Be gentle with them

By: www.dpreview.com

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Pocket Lint reviews the Kodak EasyShare V1253 and writes - “The Kodak EasyShare V1253 comes across as an average 12 megapixel camera from Kodak. While we are impressed with some of the images, we can’t but help that if you are a party goer, you will be disappointed with the performance and the images the next morning. We also don’t like the fact that to benefit from this camera the most, ie use the full 3-inch screen, you have to shoot in 9 megapixels not the full capable resolution of 12.”

Source: www.livingroom.org.au

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Getty Images Photographer Jeff Hutchens isn’t new to traveling the world with his camera. Currently in his late 20s, the Washington, D.C.-based freelance photographer spends an average of eight months out of the year on assignment.

Last February, Getty Images, the agency representing Hutchens, proposed that he join CNN as the still photographer for their “Planet in Peril” documentary series; later that month Hutchens found himself on a plane to Brazil.

The four-hour documentary series “Planet in Peril” deals with global issues effecting people around the world. From global warming melting ice in Greenland to the rapidly increasing population in India and China to poachers causing the extinction of entire species in Africa, CNN set out to bring attention to Earth’s threatening environmental issues and hopefully spur action.

Working with CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper, Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin, and CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta, along with a pair of videographers and producers, the group traveled to 13 countries on five continents over the course of six months. While the same reporters and crew didn’t make it to all 13 countries, Hutchens traveled with the group to all but Greenland and the Carteret Islands.

With only a few days to prepare before the first leg of the trip, Hutchens relied on his past experience to get things together for their journey to Brazil. After meeting with CNN in New York, he quickly returned to D.C. to pick up a last-minute journalist visa for entry into Brazil before flying to Miami a few days later to meet up with the rest of the crew at the airport.

Living conditions in Brazil were anything but glamorous; luckily Hutchens knew what to expect and had brought a hammock along on the trip. It wasn’t only the living conditions that made things uncomfortable. While in the South American country, Hutchens picked up a parasite that took four doctors and two and a half months to get rid of.

Despite the difficult living conditions, Hutchens loved the free reign that CNN gave him to work the way he felt most comfortable. “I just really loved the creative freedom that I was given on this project,” he said. “That’s what really makes a photographer happy, no matter what the conditions are.”

Hutchens’s hammock came in handy several times when staying in remote areas, including while traveling in the central African country of Chad. “For a few nights, the places we had to sleep were so foul in some ways that I ended up stringing up a hammock between two land cruisers,” he said.

The crew slept in a variety of environments depending on location. From living in tents in Madagascar to a plush luxury hotel in Bangkok, after long tiring days, Hutchens found a way to sleep just about anywhere.

With breaks several weeks long between some shoots, Hutchens was able to continue working for other clients. Occasionally he would stay abroad after the rest of the crew returned home. All told Hutchens spent approximately 74 days shooting and traveling with CNN from when he began the project in February until its completion in late July.

Of all the places Hutchens traveled to while working on the project, his fondest memory came from Alaska. “I got to hold a baby polar bear which is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “I was holding this 25 pound baby polar bear that basically started snoring in my arms.”

Hutchens said that working on the project really opened up his eyes to the horrific conditions facing some parts of our planet. One part of the project focused on the effect of pollution in countries such as China. He said that one woman the group spoke to was a widow whose husband died while living in a “cancer village,” which was polluted by a Chinese mine. “It can be fairly sobering to see those things personalized,” Hutchens said. “Any time that you see any level of human-controlled suffering, it’s always hard and it always hits you in some way.”

Hutchens said one of the biggest crises he witnessed was the shortage of water in central Africa. “It’s disturbing in general to see global impact on a very practical level and to see very distinctly, areas that are being absolutely affected by it,” He said. “The biggest thing was in central Africa, really looking at the water shortage there in general and how different climactic factors are effecting that. To see how people are trying to cope with that.”

“Planet in Peril” airs Tuesday, October 23 and Wednesday, October 24 at 9PM ET.

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Our concise review of the Canon SD870 IS (or IXUS 860 IS if you live in Europe). The replacement for the popular SD800 IS has the same versatile 28-105mm wideangle zoom but ups the resolution to 8MP and screen size to a whopping 3.0 inches - and throws in a few new features to boot. Find out if SD870 IS improves on its well-respected predecessor after the link…

Simon: You’ll notice some new names appearing in the credits of some of the reviews we’ll be posting from now on. We’re in the process of training our new reviewers and they’re currently working with me on clearing some of the compact camera backlog. Be gentle with them

By: www.dpreview.com

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