Photoclub Alpha

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.

FUJIFILM UK Ltd. (Managing Director Hiroshi Saigusa) has announced that it is to increase prices on its range of photographic papers and films in the United Kingdom. The price changes are being implemented on a worldwide basis.

Adobe has released updates to Photoshop Lightroom and the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in, both available immediately as free upgrades for existing users. The releases provide added raw file support for nine additional digital cameras, including the Sony Alpha 200 (already supported by 4.3.2 whether they knew it or not), Alpha 300 and Alpha 350. Lightroom 1.4 also provides updated printer driver compatibility for Apple Leopard Mac OS X 10.5.

The Sony DSLR A200 is now on sale, following the end of Alpha 100 production. Although it is without any doubt the Alpha 100 replacement mentioned by Sony executives in October 2007, when they first revealed that the 100 was no longer being made, it is not an exact equivalent and represents a mixture of upgraded performance and simplified specification. Because it has gone in two directions at the same time, the A200 poses a problem for A100 owners.

AT THE Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, Sony has announced introduction of the new Alpha DSLR-A200 camera which has been the subject of some strange speculation but was known beforehand to be a replacement for the Alpha 100. This is the first time a DSLR has been launched to the world at this show, and Sony’s decision to do so sends a major signal out as to where they see themselves and the Alpha system in the marketplace. It is highly competitive in price and we have just ordered our body for £369 including VAT (£314 + VAT) plus £13 express shipping from www.sonystyle.co.uk. This is exactly the same price as we paid for our last Alpha 100 in summer 2006.

It’s the same on every web forum - if you post a digital picture which would be acceptable to a photo library or professional buyer, half a dozen grumpy one-liners will come out saying ‘That don’t look sharp to me’ or ‘there must be something wrong with your XXX’ (fill in D300, A700, E-3, D3, 40D as required). Then someone posts a hugely messed up image and people say ‘Wow! What sharpness!’…

Online trade photographic supplier www.photomart.co.uk is to hold a bumper day of photo workshops in its huge London showrooms on November 28, 2007. Billed as an “Anniversary Day”, the day-long programme of workshops is to celebrate the second anniversary of the opening of this major photographic venue.

Adobe has posted updates to Photoshop, Lightroom, and the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in, both available immediately for download on Adobe.com. The updates provide raw file support for 14 additional camera models and camera backs within Lightroom and Camera Raw, including the Sony Alpha 700. Links here.

FUJIO NISHIDA, President of Sony Europe, speaking at the Berlin IFA consumer electronics and technology show on August 30th, mentioned the Alpha system alongside Cyber-shot digital still cameras and Handycam digital video as part of Sony’s plan to introduce HD (High Definition Television) formats throughout. He held up the new ‘smile shoot’ Cyber-shot T200 with its ability to output playback of images in 16:9 format directly to Sony Bravia LCD TVs.

Here is one for all you film users in the UK –

Fujifilm Professional has announced details of a photographic competition held to celebrate the re-launch of Fujichrome Velvia 50. The winner will jet-off to Turkey on a photographic holiday-of-a-lifetime worth over £2,000.

Weybridge, 15 August 2007 - Sony technological innovation has once again been recognised by the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA). This year the EISA judging panel has made no less than four awards to Sony Europe in categories spanning home entertainment, digital imaging and in-car navigation. A fifth award was made to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for PLAYSTATION®3.

EISA Awards 2007-2008 have been made to Sony Europe for these products: European Green Television (Sony BRAVIA KDL-40D3000); European Video Projector (Sony BRAVIA VPL-VW60); European HD Camcorder (Sony Handycam® HDR-SR8E); and European Portable Navigation (Sony NV-U92T). PLAYSTATION®3 was winner of the European Media Center category.

“It’s immensely gratifying to have the skill and passion of our designers and engineers recognised by the world’s largest and most prestigious multimedia magazines association”, commented Fujio Nishida, President, Sony Europe. “At Sony we take pride in creating products that transcend their basic function to create an emotional connection with the user. This year’s award‑winning innovations are a perfect demonstration of this ‘Sony Spirit’ in action.”

EISA is the largest editorial multimedia organisation in Europe, with a membership of nearly 50 Audio, Mobile Electronics, Video and Photo magazines drawn from 19 European countries. This year’s award winners were selected after the deliberations of a judging panel comprising journalists and independent technical experts.

The 2007-2008 EISA Awards will be presented at a special Gala Event on September 1st, 2007.

This review from the Summer 2007 edition of Photoworld has been expanded here, and covers the Remote Release IR-1n kit along with third party remote triggers and flash synchronisation options for the Alpha system.

THE FIRST QUESTION anyone asks about the Sony GPS-CS1 device is whether it will work with their non-Sony digital camera. The answer is ‘yes’ but you may need to buy some extra software, as it only comes with software to link up to Sony Picture Motion Browser. If you can ensure that you buy the product sold as GPS-CS1KA it should include a copy of this software in full. If you buy the product coded only as GPS-CS1, it may have nothing apart from a patch-updater program you are supposed to use with your existing Sony installation. So make sure you know exactly what you are buying (there appears to be no price difference, and very few retailers are making any distinction between the two bundles). There seems to be no reason to continue offering the kit with the updater only.

YOU MAY want to learn exactly how I shoot the product photographs which appear in my own articles here at Photoclubalpha. I use a studio light table with an opal plexiglass transilluminated scoop. This is the method I have used now for over 25 years and it’s saved me a lot of time, and earned me a lot of money.

DxO OPTICS PRO 4.1 is the latest version of a clever raw file processor which includes lens lookup tables to auto-correct distortion, vignetting and chromatic aberration. It also lets you alter the look of Dynax or Alpha images so they match popular films - or other DSLRs by Canon and Nikon!

Here’s a thought for today, in the absence of Microsoft’s new Vista operating system. Don’t want to break the Dell which does all necessary PC stuff and seems happy on XP Home Edition, even if that makes people laugh. The last pre-Intel Mac OS and presumably the current Intel incarnation have a Find function in the ‘Finder’, not exactly analagous to Windows Explorer but the system’s interface for all operations and present no matter what you do.

This ‘Find’ function has been amended at some point to go right into the EXIF data

Shortly before the June 6th 2006 worldwide launch of the Sony Alpha digital SLR system the European press learned that major title editors would meet in Marrakesh for the unveiling of the Alpha 100. No-one anticipated being driven miles into the desert-like countryside of Oued Nfis for the experience of a night under canvas after witnessing feats of Berber horsemanship and a massive pyrotechnic intro! Read David Kilpatrick’s original report from the Summer 2006 edition of Photoworld magazine.

An old Japanese folk-tale, discovered in a book of oriental myths and legends, and translated from the original Ancient Sumo script by David Kilpatrick.

THERE WAS once a beautiful Geisha called Minolta (here real name was Chiyoko but she adopted the stage name of Minolta once her fame spread abroad). She had many rivals, and was courted by many suitors.