In a never ending search for great resources on Digital Photography, I recently came across this one: The Digital Picture.  Now I'm a Canon guy, and it slants that way, so it suits my 'lifestyle'.  If you're from the Nikon camp, you might like to check out Nikonians. 

There's a great section with detailed reviews on just about every lens you could imagine (for a Canon SLR body).  Their reviews and ratings track very closely with preferences and suggestions that pro photographer friends of mine have made.  So I'll assume they're pretty spot-on here.

You can also find some nice tips for shooting, and understanding what your camera is actually doing.  All in all it's a very nice collection of information about Digital Photography.  Whether you're Canon or not, it's worth a peek and a read.

The Sony Alpha DSLR, soon to be released as the Sony Alpha 100,  will be a 10.2 megapixel camera with an amazing number of new features. These include EyeStart Autofocus, Depth of Field preview, one-touch selection of exposure shooting modes, High Speed Continuous Advance Shooting (up to 3 fps), Built-in Flash plus support for multiple flash modes, and more.

 All of this is contained in a package measuring 94.7mm x 133.1mm x 71.3 mm - a bit wider and larger than a tin of Altoids, and only twice as thick. The unit weighs in at 545 grams - a little over a pound - has a MemoryStick DUO adapter, and includes Image Data Converter SR v.1.1 and Picture Motion Browser software.

This won't come cheap, and won't be available in the U.S. right away. It's scheduled for release in Europe next month, with a price tag of 775 € (about $1000 USD).


Check out the full article for a feature list!

Have you ever downloaded photos from your camera and started reviewing them, only to notice a little dark spot showing up in the same spot throughout the catalog?  (Check out the photos from the sinking of the Oriskany - you'll see a similar spot to which I speak of.)  Yeah, it's happened to me, and it's really annoying.  

So it's time to check your glass - everything clear there?  Sensor time!  I always get a bit queasy when having to go anywhere near my Sensor, let alone completely exposing it for cleaning purposes.  Since it's essentially the brain behind your camera's abilities, the last thing you want is a scratch, or some piece of dust lodging BEHIND it.

Typically, cleaning options revolve around the blow method.  Puff some air in there and the debris goes whooshing away.  But what if it's something (dust I'll assume) that ends up getting lodged deeper into your camera's innards, as I just mentioned above?  Suddenly your problems are much larger than before.  

Enter Green Clean's touchless solution to the problem.  It sucks.  No really, it's a little vacuum action that actual SUCKS the debris away from the sensor and other sensitive parts of your camera.  There's even a filter to capture the dust and debris, to prevent it from falling back down and settling inside your camera body again!  Very cool.

Since it's nho bigger than a deck of playing cards, you'd think that the Fujifilm FinePix F470 wouldn't be big enough to hold a 6-megapixel CCD sensor, a new digital signal processor, a 3x optical zoom and a large 2.5-inch color LCD monitor. Well, it can.
Let's Go Digital has reviewed this lightweight wonder - let's see how they found it.

With its slim-line aluminum-finish body, the Fujifilm FinePix F470 gets the vote on the looks alone. But what about performance? The FinePix F47 offers an array of optimized automatic photography settings, allowing users to select 10 scene positions via the mode dial. The scene modes include the familiar “Portrait”, “Sport”, “Landscape” and “Night” settings, as well as more defined settings such as “Beach and Snow”, “Sunset”, “Museum”, “Party”, “Flower Close-Up” and “Text”. The Manual mode enables photographers to control the image quality at will.

The large 2.5-inch color LCD has an automatic gain-up that senses low-light and brightens to compensate. Live image from the LCD can be further brightened with a manual control, a big help when shooting in dimly lit places.

The 3x Fujinon lens has a focal length range of 35-105mm, typical of most cameras in its class, but FinePix F470 is able to produce good center sharpness throughout its zoom range. The downside is that it showed a noticeable amount of barrel distortion at full wide angle, but little pin cushioning at telephoto. Some shots have also exhibited chromatic aberrations, with purple fringing evident in high contrast areas. Well, that's not a good thing. But overall, the F470's shooting performance is up to par. The reviewer concludes:

The F470's shooting performance is good. From power-on till the first image was captured measured under just over 2 seconds. I was happy with the quality of the Fujifilm F470's 6M Fine mode. Indoors it produced pleasing portrait shots, with good flash exposure and natural skin tones, but the flash red eye reduction mode was only marginally effective. The F470's review mode is useful for field-checking your results, providing up to 4.4x magnification for critical examination.

 

If you're in the market for a digital camera that packs a lot of photographic power in a small, attractive package, you might take a look at the new EXILIM ZOOM EX-Z5 by Casio. With 5 megapixel resolution, a 3X optical zoom and a 2.5" display, it appears to have all an experienced shutterbug could want. On the other hand, it also features a number of handy "fail-safe" mechanisms for the novice.

Among these are the "Easy Mode," which prevents the user from accidentally changing settings (if you've ever taken a close-up picture with the long-distance lens or forgotten to set the flash, you'll know what this means). This camera also features an "Anti-Shake" Digital Signal Processor, so if you're trying to take that perfect shot without a tripod, you won't have to worry too much about a blurry image. The Auto Macro function keeps your pictures in focus, and - for those of us who have forgotten to remove a lens cap or open the shutter - the  Quick Shutter function.

One of the neatest features of the EX-Z5, however, is its ability to literally restore old and faded photos. This instrument has its own "Revive Shot" function that allows the photographer to capture old photos straight out of an album and use the EX-Z5's own digital restoration capabilities to bring old favorite snapshots back to life.

The EX-Z5 will be available in Europe and North America starting at the end of this month.

About a month ago I mentioned that I had found some pretty cool new camera bags from a company called Kata.  Well since then I purchased the T-212 torso bag and have had a chance to use it a bit. 

I grabbed the bag from Amazon for around $65 before shipping.  When I got it, it was larger than I expected, though that's a good thing considering I plan to use it for my dSLR and a couple lenses.  The bag's harness fits comfortably, and connects at your left shoulder, left waistline, and right waistline.  The adjustments are easy and make for a customized fit.  I prefer it a bit loose, so it hangs down a little lower in front of me.

The padding on the front is very robust, yet based on the design, it expands very effectively to accommodate your gear.  Inside, there's a zipper-style divider that allows you to turn the compartment into 1 instead of 2 spaces.  With the divider up, I found it a bit snug to fit my camera body with a 50mm lens on one side, with an extra lens and hood on the right.  Your kit may vary.  There are also 2 smaller sleeve style pockets for holding you keys, money, media cards, pens, paper, etc. 

All in all, I like the pack.  I wore it during a 4 hour shoot recently and it remained comfortable and accessible the entire time.  I'd say it is a bit on the small side, but Kata has just released a larger model - the T-214 - that costs around double.  Or, if you need a lot more space, the T-212 is part of a 'system' that Kata offers with many of their bags.  This 'system' allows you to interconnect various models of their bags, so you can piece them together - effectively creating a body armour sort of look with your photography equipment strapped all over you.

If you're looking for a new - and functional - camera bag, I'd recommend giving Kata's products a look.  They'll most definitely have some bag to fit exactly what you're looking for.  And so far, the quality is definitely there in my experience.

DigitalCameraReview.com has a review up of the new Pentax A10 digital camera. The Pentax camera is packed full of features in a very compact frame. The 8 megapixel camera touts a ton of features including a CCD-shift image stabilization mechanism, a 2.5 inch LCD, and 3x optical zoom. Does the camera live up to the expectations?

The reviewer does a great job in testing the camera inside and out. He goes into a lot of detail about the cameras various functions and features. He notices that out of the box, the camera needs to be tweaked. The pictures are over-saturated and underexposed, thankfully, with the camera's advanced settings you can fix these issues. Overall, the camera is great for point and shooting, but the battery life is not up to par with other cameras in the category and the settings need to be tweaked for optimal picture quality.

Sony Cybershot DSC-H2 still has the ergonomic profile as its predecessor but this has 6.0 megapixels. This camera has also been slimmed down to a merely 490g. Even though lightweight, it still has 12x optical zoom. This also features Sony's "Super SteadyShot" optical image stabilization, for users (like myself) with unsteady hands on which this camera will less likely blur from zooming.

This camera has a high ISO 1000 sensor sensitivity that surpasses other digital compacts so that it will be able to capture clearer pictures in low lighting conditions. Sony has also incorporated a Clear RAW noise reduction technology to keep image noise to a minimum.

Sony Cybershot DSC-H2 is recommended for travelers because this is light and yet still has a lot of functionality and produces good image quality. Sony Cybershot DSC-H2's retail price is $400.

The Nikon Coolpix P3, released in February of this year, is one of only a handful of cameras available that integrate 802.11 standard WiFi for simple and fast transfer of photo's between devices. Along with a handful of "exclusive" features such as, of course, the wifi, vibration reduction, auto lighting adjustment, face focus mode and more.

The P3 gets a plus for the fantastic LCD, it's 8.1 megapixels, good noise and vibration removal system and a few other aspects of the camera, but has a poor battery life and poorly located flash.

The P3 is available now and retails for around $450.


You can read the in-depth review below.

The folks over at the Digital Camera Resource Page have posted up their review on the latest camera in Sony's 2006 Series range. The Sony Cybershot is capable of 6 Megapixel photos and retails in at a very affordable $249.

Sony's DSC-W50 boasts a wide range of useful features, including 3X optical zoom lens, VGA movie mode, high sensitivity mode (resulting in more blur free photos) and other point-and-shoot operations.

The review discusses several issues, including the core box contents (which include the camera, charger, wrist strap amongst over things), battery life comparison to similar models, provided software (such as the interesting 'CyberShot Viewer' capable of on-the-fly slideshows and much more), the camera design, dimensions/weight comparison to similar models, and an overall tour of the camera with images illustrating how powerful the camera is and the video mode in action (including a sample movie).

From personally reading the review, I'm very impressed by the amount of things this smart camera is capable of, it really comes across as a worthwhile purchase.

You can find a link to the full review just below..