Neocamera just posted a review for a book entitled The Photographer’s Eye. This book by Michael Freeman is one of the few photography books devoted exclusively to composition. More than any improvement in camera gear or technique, photographic composition contributes significantly the the success of a photograph. Unfortunately, composition is possibly the most difficult aspect of photography to teach. Nearly every photography book devotes pages or a chapter to it, but this only skims the surface of this complex topic. Anyone trying to improve their composition could benefit from reading this book.
Archive for January, 2009
Photographer’s Eye Book Review Posted
Sunday, January 18th, 2009Ultra-Fast Ultra-Compact Digital Cameras
Sunday, January 11th, 2009Casio just introduced two ultra-fast ultra-compact digital cameras. Normally, ultra-fast and ultra-compact are considered more-or-less opposites, but this time Casio has produced ultra-compact digital cameras that can shoot continuously faster than any DSLR ever produced. Combine that with a shutter-lag of virtually zero and we finally have ultra-compact digital cameras that will not miss a moment.
First up, Casio’s flagship ultra-fast ultra-compact, the Casio Exilim EX-FC100 with a 9 megapixels CMOS sensor, a stabilized 5X optical zoom lens and a 2.7″ LCD in a 0.9″ thin body. This camera can shoot 6 megapixels images at 30 FPS. It can also record 720p HD movies (1280×720 30FPS) and faster lower resolution movies at up to 1,000 FPS. Shutter speeds range from an amazingly fast 1/40,000 to 4 seconds. The zoom has a rather narrow 37-185 mm coverage. Aside from these standout features, the Casio FC100 is a mostly point-and-shoot digital camera. Exposure is always automatic with -2 to +2 EV of exposure-compensation. Focus has 4 modes: normal, macro, infinity and manual, which is something not present in most ultra-compacts.
Second is the very ultra-compact Casio Exilim EX-FS10. This one sports the same 9 megapixels CMOS sensor as the FC100 but brings a non-protruding 3X optical zoom lens and a smaller 2.5″ LCD to fit in a body 0.64″ thick. It retains the high-speed abilities of its bigger sister model, shooting 6 megapixels images at up to 30 FPS, high-definition 720p movies at 30 FPS and very-low-resolution movies at up to 1,000 FPS. Shutter-speeds run from 1/40,000s to 4s. Aside from the shorter zoom range, the FS10 does not have image stabilization compared to the FC100. Both these cameras have an ISO range from 100 to 1600, which is quite standard these days. It is highly interesting that these are one of very few non-DSLR cameras to feature CMOS sensors. This is the key to providing digital cameras with high-speed shooting capabilities since CMOS sensors can be read much faster than CCD sensors.
Once there is a sensor which can be read at high-speed and high-resolution at the same time, possibilities greatly expands. In the case of these two Casio cameras, this ability is used to continuously buffer up to 24 images. Zero shutter-lag is obtained by storing the image read from the CMOS sensor at the exact time the shutter-button was pressed. Normally, shutter-lag occurs because it takes time to press the shutter and the camera to react to this action. In the case of continuous read-out from the sensor, it just becomes a matter of storing the right image. The difference with other ultra-compacts is that the LCD preview, which is read at up to 60 FPS, can only be read at low-resolution, typically between 0.3 and 1 megapixels. These low resolution images are not kept by the camera because their resolution is too low to be useful.
These two cameras will be available in March 2009, with a suggested retail price of $399 for the Casio Exilim EX-FC100 and $349 for the Casio Exilim EX-FS10.
Olympus Takes Back The Ultra-Zoom Crown From Kodak
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Just after Kodak announced an uncharacteristic high-end camera with a fixed 24X optical zoom lens equivalent to 26-624mm, Olympus launched the SP-590 which sports a 26X optical zoom lens, equivalent to 26-676mm. The greatest thing about these two cameras is that they both start at 26mm which is rather wide. Being both advanced ultra-zooms, they feature full-manual controls and image stabilization, something quite needed when you shoot at the long end of such zoom lenses.
While I’ll say that more zoom was for years one of the most frequent user requests at Neocamera, when cameras with 18X optical zoom came out, we stopped hearing about it. At 26X optical zoom, it seems more like a race between camera makers than user requests. Just like with megapixels, zoom factors are easy to compare numbers and 26X is bigger than 24X which is bigger than 20X. Marketing being marketing, I am certain we are going to hear about this often! The main difference is that with megapixels, based on sensor size we know that diffraction is a limiting factor for increases in resolution to result in increased image details. This limiting factor does not exist for optical zoom. So, while we expect higher power zoom to be of lesser quality, physics do not tell us that it has to be that way.
At the same time as the top ultra-zooms push the limits of zoom factors, the same technology applied to small cameras is very attractive because there is still room for ultra-compact and compact digital cameras to have more useful zoom ranges. Olympus also introduced today an ultra-compact with a 10X wide-angle optical zoom, equivalent to 28-280mm. This camera, the Olympus Stylus 9000 brings a range from last year’s compact cameras to today’s ultra-compacts.
Nikon Coolpix S60 Full-Review Posted
Sunday, January 4th, 2009Just last week, Neocamera posted its full-review of the Nikon Coolpix S60. This ultra-compact digital camera, while being just under 1″ thick, packs a widish 5X optical zoom lens, equivalent to 33-165mm in 35mm terms. Although its 10 megapixels resolution is pretty much average, its 3.5″ LCD is the largest among digital cameras. The most unique aspect of the Nikon Coolpix S60 is its almost entirely touch-driven interface. Nikon definitely gets credit for innovation here, so go ahead to the full-review to find out how the S60 does.
Affordable Wide-Gamut LCD Display
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009While large LCD displays have been dropping in price rapidly, affordable high-quality display have remained pricey until very recently. NEC now has the Multisync P221W which is a color-calibratable 22″ LCD with 98% coverage of AdobeRGB color-space and a native resolution of 1680×1050. Its suggested retail price is $549 USD.
A wide-gamut monitor such as this one is essential for digital photographers to see the most possible colors. Most modern LCD displays show less than 80% of standard color-spaces like sRGB and AdobeRGB. While color calibration helps many monitors, it cannot make them show colors outside of their gamut. There exists several monitors which cover 98% or more of AdobeRGB and sRGB color-spaces but their price is most often quite high.
While I remember reviewing the absolutely amazing NEC Multisync LCD2180WG-LED which had a retail price of $8000 USD and covers 110% of sRGB, 107% of Adone RGB and 103% of NTSC, it now retails of a much more affordable $1600 USD. This was also the world’s first 10-bit-per-channel LCD display, although now there is another one by HP. This capability allows it to display more color variation than any commercial LCD available. Sadly, it will only do so once software and graphics cards also catch up.
Neocamera uses a 30″ NEC Multisync LCD3090WQXi which covers 98% of AdobeRGB and 102% of NTSC. This is a large monitor which requires Dual-Link DVI output to run at its optimum resolution of 2560×1600. A slightly smaller and lower resolution version, the 26″ Multisync LCD2690WUXi runs at 1920×1200 and goes for $1200 USD, instead of $2400 USD for the 30″ version. Note that because of the size and resolution differences, the 30″ has a higher pixel density of 100dpi. For those who do not have access to NEC displays, Eizo also has a good selection of wide-gamut displays from 22″ to 30″.
All the NEC displays mentioned here can be calibrated to different precisions, from 10-bits to 14-bits per pixel component. These models optionally come with a SpectraView color-calibration solution which is perfectly matches to the monitor and supported by the manufacturer to maximize the probability of successfully calibration the displays.
