Digital Shutters

Nikon has confirmed rumors over the past couple of weeks by officially releasing Thursday its entry-level Nikon D40 digital SLR camera. It’s what I’d call a point-and-shoot DSLR, comfortable enough for novice photographers to use but powerful enough to offer SLR features.

Its price of $600 will make it affordable for serious amateurs on a budget. It comes bundled with an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor kit lens that’s also easy to use. Top it off with an optional $130 SB-400 Speedlite and you’re good to go, ready to take your place beside professional paparazzis.

The Nikon D40 is built on an ease-of-use philosophy: everything about it is meant to make it so much easier to use a DSLR, complexity is kept to a minimum, controls are easy to use, and menus are easy to understand.

Photo: Dave Etchells/Imaging Resource

But this is certainly not a dumb-down camera, says Dave Etchells of Imaging Resource. “The D40 is clearly all Nikon; its heritage is apparent throughout,� he says, adding that its novice-friendly features make this camera destined for greatness.

DPReview’s Phil Askey notes that the D40 follows on from the D50 but at a significantly lower price point and with a subtly different feature set. He also likes that fact that Nikon did not chase megapixels this time but concentrated on what makes a good camera: a decent viewfinder, short shutter lag and very short viewfinder blackout.

The hands-on previews are positive. Now, let’s wait for some production units to roll out for in-depth analysis of the D40’s image quality and actual user experience, including how its battery holds up.

Stay tuned.

nikon, d40, dslr, sb-400, speedlite, point-and-shoot, affordable

The Photoshop Guys are a jolly bunch trying to project a good-for-tv riotous image, but watch what they say, or in this case, what their guest says; it could mean money for you.

If you’re an aspiring wedding or portrait photographer, or simply an amateur who wants to know how the pros do it, you’d do well to catch David Ziser share his lighting expertise on Photoshop TV.

In the show, David demonstrates the use of a Quantum flash/receiver setup to illustrate his loop lighting pattern. What this does, he said, is put a highlight next to a shadow to add detail, depth, dimension and color saturation resulting in a dramatic improvement to the scene.

You’ll love watching David at work; it’s like catching dollar bills each time he speaks. Go catch him on Episode 55 of Photoshop TV while it is current and viewable for free; after that, it goes into archive and you’ll have to pay to watch it.

Photoshop TV is brought to you by the Photoshop Guys of the NAPP, National Association of Photoshop Professionals.

Go, see PhotoshopTV.com.

photoshop, tv, david ziser, lighting, photography, portrait, wedding, quantum

Can you make a statement with the color yellow? Can you express a passion with the color yellow? Can you take a picture with the color yellow in it and express a special story?

If you’re a photographer in Asia or the Middle East who can share your passion with the color yellow, there is a “Yellow to Me” Photo Contest 2006 that you can win.

Nikon and the National Geographic, who share the color yellow between them, are sponsors of this contest which runs up to December 24, 2006. Professional or amateur photographers may join, as long as they can express a story or capture a special moment with the color yellow in their photo. Go ahead, submit as many entries as you wish. You just might strike gold, who knows.

The “Yellow to Me� Grand Award and the Passionate Expression Award will include brand new Nikon D80s (two of ‘em) complete with the AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED lens, battery and speedlight plus a few more goodies from National Geographic.

The others will get a Nikon Coolpix S10, S8 and L5 compact digital cameras. Winners will be announced on February 5, 2007.

[Visit: NGCasia.com]

nikon, national geographic, photo, contest, yellow, d80

Its looks may not dazzle the eyes outright, but if you look closely enough you’ll find understated elegance in the design of Samsung X11 notebook.

The Samsung X11 is powered by a Core 2 Duo Processor 1.66GHz or 1.83GHz under the hood, and it ranks up there with the likes of Compaq Presario V3000 and HP Pavilion dv2000 as entertainment portables. But CNET Asia says the X11 might drop a notch in terms of features compared with both the HP and Compaq notebooks.

The Samsung notebook’s main selling point, however, is its exceptional thinness and lightness for a 14.1-inch mobile, according to CNET Asia’s Darius Chang. Its magnesium-alloy body weighs in at only 2.17 kg, with its 33 x 339.5 x 257.6 mm dimensions.

So if style and portability are important to you, the X11 is the way to go. With 1.66GHz and 512MB of RAM, the X11 costs $1,270. With 1.83GHz C2D processor and 1GB of RAM, it’s $1,460; both come with Windows XP Home.

And if you’re the germaphobe type, it might comfort you to know that there’s even an X11C model that has silver-nano techonolgy embedded in the palm rest and keyboard, which prevents bateria buildup for a more hygenic computing experience. (That sounds like Singapore, all right.)

[Via: CNETasia.com]

samsung, x11, notebook, core2 duo, silver nano, germs, singapore

We may look at digital photo frames as pretty photo viewers that can adorn our table tops at home displaying pictures of family and friends.

But in Hong Kong, the digital photo frame is also marketed as a useful business tool, calling the DPF an advertisement player. The business-minded Hong Konger finds its bright 7-inch TFT LCD screen a perfect canvas to display commercials because it can play MP4 movies, MP3 music and digital photos.

The AD700 accepts digitized inputs from Compact Flash (CF) cards, USB flash drives and hard disk drives. Very simple to use and virtually maintenance-free, this DPF can display in 16:9 or 4:3 video and photo formats on top of supermarket shelves, table-tops, showcases, cars, taxis and virtually anywhere else with business potential.

It even boasts of a theft-protection device, effectively preventing the player and CF card from being stolen.

[Site: AmberDigital.com.hk]

amber digital, ad700, digital, photo, frame, dpf, video, audio, mp3, mp4

Samsung has previewed its new DMB (digital media broadcast) TV to the public. Its name, or rather number designation, is LMD-10A51W. They have to think fast of a prettier name if they really want to push this thing with their intended women market.

That’s right. It’s for women, although at first glance, we just can’t discern any gender bias on this one. Why, I want one too. Since when did TV become for women only?

The LMD-10A51W DMB TV has a 10-inch LCD screen, perfect for viewing that afternoon soap (Oh, so that’s why it’s for women. But I love soap, too). The really cool feature of this DMB TV is that you can connect an external hard disk to this and it becomes a PMP on which you can view your photos and videos.

[Via: AkihabaraNews]

samsung, dmb, tv, LMD-10A51W, PMP, photo, video

Consider this when you start thinking about what gifts to give for the holidays: a photo book. Not just a Christmas card, a photo book.

Is it expensive? Nah, starts at only $10. Is it difficult to make? Nah, software creates it for you.

How do I make it? Go to printmyphotobook.com and follow their simple instructions, and you’re there.

By the way, it’s not just for the holidays. It can have business applications too. It makes for good presentation.

And because the final product looks and feels like a coffee table book, you can actually enjoy its nice layout and classy printing at home, with your very own pictures.

Site: PrintMyPhotoBook.com]

print, photo, holiday gift, coffee table, book, personal

We featured the Archos 604 Wi-Fi here a few days ago, together with its sibling the 604. It’s out in the market now and CNET has got a production unit of the Wi-Fi version that they reviewed.

James Kim, who we recognize from his days with Leo Laporte on the now defunct but personal favorite TechTV (remember TechTV?), did a really good job of scrutinizing the 604 Wi-Fi, from enumerating its nifty features that earned it an excellent 8 out of 10 points, to uncovering its less-than-stellar shortcomings.

The verdict: the 604 Wi-Fi is close to being a great PMP device. Kim said “the 604 Wi-Fi is seemingly the answer to many mobile users’ idealistic dreams. Video, music, and photos packed into a compact multimedia powerhouse, with a screen big enough to surf the Web effectively. The device is impressive.â€?

Among its topnotch features: the awesome video playback, good touchscreen experience, removable battery, built-in kickstand and speaker, and vibrant widescreen display. For a hundred dollars more you can get the optional DVR station which allows you to record from TV or other video sources. Why, for another $150 more you can have this “plug-in mini-cam� which essentially turns your 604 into a hard-drive based videocam.

It’s called the Archos Helmet Camcorder and it gives you on-the-go recording capability to shoot your next worldwide YouTube hit.

But the Archos 604 Wi-Fi has its shortcomings, alas. 30GB is not exactly capacious these days; you have to buy optional kits to record audio and video; bundled accessories are kinda weak; and a few other minor quibbles.

The major gripes however pertain to its processor and surfing speed. For a device this feature-packed the processor used is sluggish. And the Web-surfing, while acceptable, is more of a click-and-wait experience. And don’t forget: with Wi-Fi on, some gremlins gonna sip your juice faster than you can say WTF.

[Via: CNET]

archos, 604, wi-fi, pmp, video, photo

Many people are just so shy they’d wither in front of a camera. Seventy per cent of women and half of all men asked said so. They’d rather do other things or be some place else than have their picture taken.

So, what’s that got to do with Fujifilm’s Face Detection (FD) technology? Nothing.

They just want to steer you towards the direction of their website for you to hear their pitch on FD tech, which they say, they invented. Is that bad?

Not at all. Because if you can wade through some fluffy stuff (“think happy thoughts� in front of a camera), a lot of things said there could be quite useful. For instance, professional photographer James Ferrara’s advice to raise the subjects’ chin just so, to add some sparkle or catch light in their eyes is useful.

Tip #7 even encourages you to be assertive to ask for take two if your driver’s license photo is not to your liking. And did you know that the Fujifilm FinePix S6000fd and F31fd cameras can actually take two shots in succession – one with the flash and one without – so you can choose which shot is better?

By the way, Fuji’s face detection algorithm is meant to help you take better pictures of people. It senses the triangle formed by a person’s two eyes and a mouth to tell the camera that you’re taking a picture of a person, so the camera appropriately adjusts its settings to focus on the person and not the faraway background and deliver the correct skin tones.

[Site: FujifilmFDtech]

face detection, fujifilm, finepix, s6000, f31fd, camera, shy

Adobe has teamed up with the National Association of Photoshop Professionals to launch a new website, “Adobe Lightroom Killer Tips,� to provide resources to professionals who are trying out the new software.

If you’re into photo editing, tweaking digital pictures as a hobby or profession, there’s this free software from Adobe Labs that you can try out, if only to try to understand the digital photography workflow and the RAW imaging format that’s starting to become popular among serious amateurs and professionals.

It’s called Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, or simply Lightroom. It’s born of the Photoshop tradition, only more specifically attuned to the requirements of acquiring, processing and managing digital photographs, with an emphasis on the RAW digital format. While Adobe Photoshop has grown over the years to become the all-encompassing highly successful image editing suite that it is today, Lightroom seeks to fill a specific niche in digital photography occupied by the photographer who has recently acquired a digital SLR camera; in short, it’s a photographer’s software.

And while the 18-year-old Photoshop has become an 800-pound gorilla in image editing, Lightroom is no chimp. The 18-month-old Lightroom has features that streamline the importing, organizing, processing and presenting of digital pictures, most useful to the photographer whose library of digital pictures is continually growing.

Lightroom as of today is a work in progress. The current version is Beta 4.1 and Adobe wants you to be part of its development by trying it out and providing feedback to Adobe Labs.

Adobe Lightroom Beta 4.1 is free to download until the end of February 2007.

adobe, photoshop, lightroom, killer tips, imaging