CPS PhotogBlog - October 2004

October 31, 2004

Here is Laura, a student at the University of Texas, who is considering pursuing a career in modeling. I hope she goes for it!

The Luminous Landscape has a field review of the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7d.

Steve's Digicams has a review of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ15.

2004 continues as a tough year on the photographic masters with the losses of Life staff photographer George Silk and commercial photographer Steve Steigman.

Medium format buffs will like the newly announced Mamiya RZ67 Pro IID.

Yardy is the father of Tre' (see below). This was taken right off the town square of Georgetown last month.

October 27, 2004

The Luminous Landscape looks at Visible Dust's sensor cleaning products.

Steve's Digicams has reviews of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX7, the Casio Exilim EX-Z50, and the Pentax Optio S5i.

October 25, 2004

Photographer John Rutter, who allegedly attempted to extort money from Cameron Diaz to prevent the release of soft-core photos taken when she was 19, goes on trial today.

Bob Atkins of Photo.net reports on PhotoPlus Expo 2004, held last week at the Javitts Center in New York. The Luminous Landscape has coverage of PhotoPlus as well.

A study by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows Iraq as the most dangerous place for journalists to work. Sixteen PJ's have died in Iraq since the invasion in 2003.

October 17, 2004

Photo.net has reviews of Nikon's new big, bad camera bodies, the Nikon D2X and the Nikon F6. They also have taken a look at the Konica-Minolta Maxxumm 7D.

The Luminious Landscape asks: Should workshops be fun? I can't see I've really attended any workshops, so I don't have much personal experience upon which to base things. I do think, however, that workshops should be primarily about learning. Personally, I think learning can be a lot of fun, though.

Steve's Digicams has a review of the Canon Powershot SD20 Digital ELPH.

October 10, 2004

This is Tre' in his fashion show debut, for Dillards in Barton Creek Mall last August. Tre' is represented by Acclaim Talent Agency.

Shutterbug covers the announcement of Corel Painter IX.

PDN takes a look at Lexar's Active Memory, which was recently announced at Photokina. In a nutshell, this is a small amount of memory that is reserved and not erased when the card is formated. Specific instructions can be held in this memory. This might be instructions from the camera manufacturer or perhaps requirements from a specific client.

Nikon guru, Thom Hogan, has a dream Nikon lens lineup. Of these, the only ones I might seriously look at would be the 24mm f/2 and the 200mm f/4 micro. In that order, probably. The 24mm would be nice to have on digital body, whose crop factor would mean I effectively have a fast 36mm. Nice lens for street photography and such. The 200mm micro is not something I need, but it would certainly be nice (my 105mm micro can do the job in most cases). Of course, I'd love to have some of the big Nikkor glass, but can't really justify it fiscally.

October 9, 2004

Here is Olivia, who has graced the pages of PhotogBlog before. I'm not sure why I pull this sort of look out of her.

Two new reviews from Steve's Digicams: one for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20 and one for the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ3.

October 8, 2004

Four to six weeks... That's how long my beloved D100 will be gone. In fact, it should be on the way to Nikon now. Apparently, the tab that locks the reflex mirror in place during image capture broke.

So, I'm now the proud owner of a brand new D70. It certainly has more of a consumer build than the D100 does, but in some ways it actually a better body than the D100. Shutter speed up to 1/8000th (1/4000th on the D100) and flash sync up to 1/500th (1/180th on the D100). The faster flash sync will be useful at times, although it's rare that I need a shutter speed over 1/4000th. The color matrix meter in the D70 is the same as the D1's, which is significantly better than that in the D100. This should be interesting to play with.

What will be annoying is that the D70 does not shoot uncompressed NEFs. I shoot NEFs to the virutal exclusion of other formats, and Nikon's compression is, unfortunately, not lossless. Of course, the other option with the D70 is JPEG, which is even worse. In any case, compressed NEFs will result in some loss of data in the images, particularly with highlights.

This also means I will have to update my copy of Nikon Capture Editor, as 3.5 does not know the D70 compression algorithm. Looks like they don't sell an actual upgrade, so I'll be purchasing the complete version once again. At least they've dropped the price from $150 to $100. Still, if you spend hundreds of dollars on a camera body, the least Nikon could do is include the bloody software you need for the thing.

October 7, 2004

Uggghhh... My beloved Nikon D100 developed the dreaded "Err" during a shoot tonight. So, it goes into Precision Camera tomorrow for repair. I knew not having a backup digital body might bite me in the butt. Fortunately, I had been budgeting for one in the near future. I may just push that up and get a D70 to use for however many weeks it takes the D100 to be repaired. Then I'll push the D70 to backup mode mostly, although I can see using two bodies during fashion shows: the first with my 70-200 and the other with my 24-85.

Britney shows her ire by tossing a soda at a paparazzi. If you're close enough that a pop princess can pop you with her pop, maybe you've invaded her personal space.

Photo.net looks at HP's red-eye reduction service. Basically, you submit your photos to them, and they fix them for free. Behind the scenes, it's an ingenious method of examining an immense number of photos with red-eye problems in order to improve their red-eye reduction software. Smart move, HP.

October 4, 2004

Canon has released a firmware update for the Canon EOS 20D.

October 3, 2004

IvyLynn is a model from a small town south of Texas. This was taken in the studio a couple of months ago.

Steve's Digicams has new reviews of the Casio Exilim EX-S100 and the Casio Exilim EX-Z55.

Rob Galbraith takes a look at Sensor Brush and Sensor Clean, products designed to remove dust from the sensors on digital cameras.

October 1, 2004

Richard Avedon has passed. It's been a hard year on photographers...

Vivid Light has a review of the Nikon CoolPix 5200.