September 2007

DSLR Photography & Imaging Workshop Will Cruise the Southern Caribbean
DSLR photography is the focus of an eight-day workshop cruise embarking from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to St. Maarten, St. Lucia and St. Kitts, in the Southern Caribbean, March 14-22, 2008. The workshop is the eighth in a successful series and is limited to 20 attendees who will participate in lectures, demonstrations and critiquing sessions. In addition to a thorough grounding in DSLR techniques, there will be hands-on sessions devoted to high dynamic range, panoramic photography, black and white printing, portraiture, close-up photography and more. Four pros will share their expertise with participants to bring them up to speed. Each workshop attendee will receive up to $1,000 worth of hardware and software gifts from participating sponsors, and those who do not yet own DSLRs will be able to borrow state-of-the-art DSLR cameras for use prior to and during the workshop. For further information visit: http://www.dpcorner.com/cruise or call 800-652-2267.
 -- Posted Friday, September 28, 2007 by chb

Sanyo HD700 - HD camcorder and 7.1mp camera
SANYO introduced the US$599 Xacti HD700, a pocket-sized, 720p high-definition digital camcorder. The HD700 is capable of recording both high-definition video in MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format and 7.1-megapixel photos to an SD or SDHC memory card. The HD700 has a 5X optical zoom (38-1900 mm equivalent) and 12X digital zoom, a rotatable 2.7-inch LCD, and comes with Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0. Super-macro lets you get as close as half an inch. How much video can you record on a card? Almost three hours on a 8GB card. [See detailed description of the Sanyo HD700] -- Posted Wednesday, September 26, 2007 by chb

Transcend's hyper-fast 16GB CF card
Transcend, a global leading brand in flash memory cards, rolled out its largest capacity CompactFlash product to date -- a 16GB (Type I) card with ultra-fast 133X transfer rates. Transcend's 133X CF card targets serious users who demand superior performance and reliability from their memory cards, including professional photographers, reporters and photography enthusiasts. -- Posted Wednesday, September 26, 2007 by chb

Review: Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate
Pinnacle Studio Version 11 Ultimate is a combination of Pinnacle Studio Plus Version 11 (US$139) with a variety of integrated professional level audio and video tools that go about as far as most amateur movie enthusiasts may want to take it. Yet, it's all simple and really made for home users, so don't be intimidated. If you do video, you need Pinnacle Studio 11. It's easy, it's powerful, it's inexpensive, and it handles the whoe range from importing ancient footage from old vidcams all the way to producing High Definition video, even on inexpensive DVDs. [Read review of Pinnacle Studio 11 Ultimate] -- Posted Wednesday, September 19, 2007 by chb

Cool new digicam features have one source: FotoNation
Each season, some cool new features are found in the lineups of the major digital camera makers. Amazingly, many of them licnse and use the same technologies. Example: Red-FotoNation's Eye and FaceTracker imaging technologies are installed in more than half of all digital cameras sold today. FotoNation Red-Eye Technology creates perfect red-eye free photos every time. FotoNation's FaceTracker face detection and tracking technology is used in 21 out of 48 new compact digital camera models introduced in the first half of 2007. FaceTracker automatically tracks the presence of a subject's face in the camera's viewfinder to assure properly exposed portrait photos that in are in focus every time. Boxes are drawn around each face to provide feedback of correct detection. Exposure settings are instantly applied, so that faces are never dark, even in poor lighting. -- Posted Friday, September 14, 2007 by chb

Digital photo frame market said to increase dramatically
According to IDC, global shipments of digital frames reached 2.8 million units in 2006, with an average selling price of just under US$170. IDC projects the market will grow to 42.3 million units by 2011, with US shipments representing over half all all units at that time. The growth rate in digital frames shipments will be driven by new features, larger frame sizes, and lower prices, IDC said. Our take: We have been reviewing digital photo frames since 1998. It is a great idea, but the frames were rarely up to par. Initially, the LCDs were small and barely visible. Today, the screens are larger and you can have WiFi and music and all sorts of features, but we still constantly run into problems, from file read errors to connection issues and so on. Digital frames must be rock-solid before they can succeed. -- Posted Sunday, September 9, 2007 by chb

Review: Casio Exilim EX-Z77
Casio updates the Z70 series with the Z77, a handy 7.2-megapixel camera with a 3X optical zoom, digital image stabilization, advanced face recognition (you can even train it to recognize specific faces!), and a switch to MPEG-4 H.264 video compression which results in smaller vid clip file size. There is a special YouTube video recording mode among the 40+ scene modes (some extremely useful) that makes uploading quicker and easier. This Casio is just full of tricks, and at a list price of just US$199.95. [Read full review of the Casio EX-Z77] -- Posted Tuesday, September 4, 2007 by chb