Photoclub Alpha

December 2, 2009 – DxO Labs is pleased to announce the immediate availability of DxO Optics Pro v5.3.6 for Mac bringing full compatibility with Apple’s latest operating system Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard, and adding RAW support for 15 new cameras:

Canon EOS 7D and PowerShot G11;
Nikon D300s and D3000;
Olympus E3 (Elite edition only), E-30, E-410, E-420, E-450, E-510, E-520 and E-620;
Sony A230, A330 and A380.
This new version for Mac also offers support for 255 new DxO Optics Modules, covering 46 cameras.

Availability and holiday season price

DxO Optics Pro v5.3.6 for Mac, both Standard and Elite editions, are immediately available from both DxO Labs’ e-store and selected resellers at an exceptional 30% discount until December 31, 2009:
Standard edition: £ 69 instead of £ 99 (or a savings of £ 30)
Elite edition: £ 139 instead of £ 199 (or a savings of £ 60)
DxO Optics Pro 6 for Mac is scheduled for release during the first quarter of 2010 and will be available as a free upgrade to customers who purchased version 5 after June 1, 2009.

www.dxo.com

My review of the Sony Alpha 550 was supposed to appear at the end of November, allowing one week abroad in good weather with plenty of subject-matter, in Tenerife. Sadly that trip had to be cancelled, and the Nikon D3S arrived for review on the day we were meant to have travelled. So, with far too much work to do on the D3S, I’m “going to press” here with my initial thoughts based on a fairly short time using the Alpha 550. There are 11 pages in this review, please use the Next Page navigation at the end of each page to continue reading.

PLEASE NOTE: this website uses a rating system where readers can rate the posts, like this review. This rating is NOT my ‘rating the camera’! I have read elsewhere that I ‘gave the camera 4.83 out of 5′ – that was the rating readers gave my review… sorry, this is very confusing, I had not realised how easily it could be confused. We have had the post-rating system for a long time and it’s a standard feature on many Wordpress based sites. I do not want to remove it (along with the ratings) so please accept this apology for incorporating a dangerously confusing ’star rating’ here.

In an unusual move, probably designed to cut down the work of rejecting submissions which fail to make the grade, the on-line picture library Alamy has published lists of cameras (by make) which will NEVER produce a file acceptable to pass their Quality Control. It includes all the Sony Cyber-shots ever made as far as we can tell! They say: “Check your camera – do NOT submit any images from camera models featured on the list below. Camera models featured on this list do not produce files that are capable of passing Alamy’s QC standards.”

I don’t have an Alpha 500 or 550 here yet, even though Photoclubalpha has been second in the Google search results for ‘Sony Alpha 550′ for some time and remains so as I write (the New York Times is first). That’s not bad for a Wordpress blog website which does NOT employ the services of the dozen or so ’search engine optimisation’ experts who contact us each week! Hopefully we’ll have a review camera very soon, preferably the 550.

In the meantime, a few samples have been posted on various sites which show the raw conversion engine of the camera/s (not necessarily the JPEG compression stage, as always seems to be assumed) has been radically revised. Sony call this ‘enhanced BIONZ’ and I think there’s a clue to how it has been enhanced in the relationship of Sony Europe and DxO Labs, the French company which specialises in in-camera process analysis and development.

ACCORDING to specifications revealed on a German site, the new Sony Alpha 500 will have a 12.3 megapixel CMOS sensor capable of providing Live View to the rear 3 inch medium resolution screen – with Manual Focusing at 14X magnification. The in-prism based Quick AF Live View is retained, giving a choice between two entirely different systems of Live View, Sony’s innovative and easy solution scanning the focus screen, and a critically accurate alternative for tripod work. The camera may sell for just €50 more than the Alpha 380 – or break the £500 body only barrier in the UK right from the start.

Sony’s September launch for 2009 looks set to include three new models – the Alpha 500, 550 and 850. The model numbers are confirmed by the usual backdoor leak, appearing in the registration database for SonyStyle USA in this case (Canada has been a past culprit, updating databases associated with their site before the product is officially released). However, only a few people know what these cameras will be, and they are limited by non-disclosure contracts.

Stock library Getty Images has added the Sony Alpha 900 to its rather restricted list of approved cameras – a very recent move, as it happened between the writing/research for my article appearing in the British Journal of Photography on February 18th, and publication. See: http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=840375

Following the review on dPreview – more than anywhere else – Sony’s extremely poor JPEG engine with its associated wide radius chroma blur and strong luminance smoothing noise reduction has proved to be a dog well capable of biting its master. Definitely a dog, anyway. But this performance is not what the camera can really achieve. In fact it’s perfectly capable of delivering good high ISO shots in typical situations.

DxO Labs today has announced the availability of DxO Optics Pro v5.3, a new release which includes support for the Sony cRAW format missing from previous versions. They also say that new RAW conversion technology “turns the promises of very high ISO (up to 25,600) into reality”.

OUR final production Alpha 900 body arrived on Saturday September 20th, and went along to photokina 2008 on Monday 22nd where it was used in a routine way – without flash – to take whatever pictures were needed for magazine reports. Sometimes it can be better just to use a camera on whatever difficult or poor subjects the world throws at you, than to devise impressive test situations.

Sony has released – without announcement – a new firmware version for the Alpha 700 which includes an OFF function for high ISO. This is presumed to be in advance of tomorrow’s press conference, where the Alpha 900 will be revealed. Journalists could be expected to ask questions about the NR, and the lack of firmware upgrades to the Alpha 700, and they have acted just in time for this launch and photokina to remedy the situation. Article with image samples and download links:

Nikon is holding a launch today (June 30th) in London, and presumably worldwide. Richard Kilpatrick is attending for Icon Publications Ltd. As at 1.30am Monday, no press release has been received from Nikon, so we can assume an embargo will be in place but news may be released around 10.30am Monday 30th (GMT).

The launch is expected to reveal a low-cost 12 megapixel ‘full frame D300′ based on the sensor used in the D3, with a D100-type body like the D300. It may also preview the D3X, a full frame 24.x megapixel D3-type body using the new Sony high resolution full frame sensor.

We had early information that Sony would launch new products in June, which now has one day to go. The 58 flashgun may have been the only launch for June. A possible clue to imminent roll-outs may be that new Sony point of sale cabinets have space for products which the dealers don’t yet have! The 24-105mm f/4 G SSM has already been leaked but we can expect two more key lenses in the wide angle and medium tele zoom ranges. Rumours of a June 30th launch may apply to the Nikon conferences, not Sony.

My bet is that the first we may actually see of some new items for sale will be in the window of Foto Gregor, Cologne, around September 23rd. We shall be at photokina from the press day on September 22nd – watch this space!

- David

The introduction of a £399 (street price, RRP £449) DSLR with 14.2 megapixels – with or without a useful type of Live View – should have been applauded by reviewers. It’s the single most important point about the camera. No other DSLR approaches this image size and resolution at such a low price.

Now that there are five Sony Alpha DSLR bodies in circulation, with many owners of the original 2006 Alpha 100 considering a replacement, the differences between this ur-Alpha and the 2007-8 generation of Alpha 700, 200, 300 and 350 need examining.

There’s a lot of controversy right now about whether or not the image structure of the Alpha 700 files at very high ISO – mainly 3200 and 6400 – is as clean as raw processed results from other comparable cameras like the Canon 40D (does not offer ISO 6400), the Olympus E-3 (does not offer ISO 6400) or the Nikon D300. At the heart of this is the way different raw processors handle file conversion, and most specifically, the current performance of Adobe Camera Raw 4.3.1.