Photoclub Alpha

The press release from Sony this morning (Tuesday, January 5th) confirms the proliferation of entry-level bodies in the Sony Alpha DSLR range, and the continued emphasis on smaller cameras to suit upgraders from consumer digital cameras. While this leaves Sony in danger of being seeing as a Jack of one trade and master of none, and will not satisfy those waiting for an Alpha 700 replacement, it will no doubt increase market share and allow Sony time to create something worth investing in for later release.

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. A sponsor link appears before the end of each page – “Get camera lenses at Shopping.com’s affordable deals.” Our thanks to Shopping.com for spotting and sponsoring this review!

The Autumn 2009 (No 4 2009) issue of Photoworld mails out to subscribers on Monday November 2nd.

You can also read the edition on-line at YUDU – we have now changed the price for each individual edition to £2.50 (from £3.00) so that if you buy single edition access, a year costs exactly the same as a normal yearly digital subscription of £10. All YUDU subscriptions and sales support the Photoclubalpha website and forum. The price including the printed edition is £25 per year (worldwide).

Click to launch the full edition in a new window.

Each issue now has six sample pages viewable without purchase.

London. — October 22, 2009 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced Adobe® Photoshop® Lightroom® 3 beta software for Macintosh and Windows®, a public preview of new and improved functionality to be delivered in the next major release. Lightroom is the essential digital photography workflow solution, helping serious amateur and professional photographers quickly import, manage, enhance, and showcase all their images from one application. Available as a free download on Adobe Labs, Lightroom 3 beta delivers a preview of new tools that will be in Lightroom 3, including more intuitive importing, unparalleled noise reduction and sharpening tools and enhanced slideshow capabilities.. Adobe encourages photographers to test this early selection of new features and provide the product team with their feedback.

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.

Sony has announced the Alpha 500 and 550 today with an official release to all press. No press conference was held for the UK press and any advance information received has been given indivudally to journalists. There is a press event tonight in London but this is VERY specifically stated to be for trying out the new Cyber-Shot models at twilight. The official release follows.

ALL the current DSLRs made – whether by Canon, Nikon or even Sony with the A700 and A900 – state their maximum fps continuous shooting speed as being with NO autofocus, and NO exposure metering changes. There’s a lot of talk on forums about the 7fps of the new Alpha 550 – 14.3 megapixel CMOS APS-C with a good high ISO capacity – being in some way crippled because it has been made clear by Sony that this speed applies to a ‘lockdown’ of focus and exposure with the first frame. This is not surprising as it’s a quiet, mirror-up mode using the off-sensor live view to maintain contact.

Adobe’s Camera Raw Release Candidate 5.5, which introduces global corrections for all Bayer sensor cameras requiring a differential value treatment between the two Green channels, has a visible effect on the colour of Sony Alpha file conversions.

Tamron’s 18-250mm lens – later adopted by Sony – was so good that it really takes some effort to beat it. Sigma has put that effort in, but the cost is a very much larger and heavier lens. If all you got was some better performance, it might not be all that exciting. But you get potentially superior anti-shake through its built-in OS, and faster focusing with HSM, the Sigma equivalent of SSM.