Photoclub Alpha

The Sony Alpha division is sponsoring the British Journal of Photography’s Vision09 show which takes place in London on November 27th.

Vision09: The Essential Event for Pro Photographers
Come and learn from the world’s leading experts
Vision in association with Sony Alpha

Picture © Eugene Richards/Reportage by Getty Images

British Journal of Photography is delighted to announce its second key speaker for its November show, Vision – Europe’s only event dedicated to aspiring and early career professional photographers.
Eugene Richards will be flying in from New York to speak at Vision on 27 November, where he will be joined on the day by Martin Parr – giving visitors the chance to see two of the biggest legends of photography under the same roof on the same day.

Known for his uncompromising documentary work, award-winning books and critically-acclaimed short films, Richards will present an exclusive insight into his latest project, War is Personal, together with his first major colour series, The Blue Room. Among his numerous honours, the American has won the W Eugene Smith Memorial Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Leica Medal of Excellence, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the Olivier Rebbot Award from the Overseas Press Club, three Canon Photo Essayist Awards, and the Robert F Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Journalism Award.

Vision’s unique one-day event features a packed programme of talks, demos, seminars and portfolio reviews.  Located at the Business Design Centre in the heart of London, Vision provides inspiration, information and essential ideas to help aspiring professionals and early career photographers get their careers moving.  Many of the industry’s leading manufacturers will also be there to showcase their latest products and services.
With an emphasis on creative cutting edge, and focusing on effective tools and solutions to further photographers’ businesses, Vision is this year’s don’t miss photography event.

Sony Corporation today announced the development of a highly efficient wireless power transfer system that eliminates the use of power cables from electronic products such as television sets. Using this system, up to 60 Watts of electrical energy can be transferred over a distance of 50cm (at an efficiency of approximately 80%, approximately 60% including rectifier).

Sony Corporation today announced the development of a single lens 3D camera technology capable of recording natural and smooth 3D images of even fast-moving subject matter such as sports, at 240fps (frames per second).  This technology combines a newly developed optical system for single lens 3D camera which captures the left and right images simultaneously, together with existing high frame rate (HFR) recording technology to realize 240fps 3D filming.  Sony will demonstrate a prototype model incorporating this technology at “CEATEC JAPAN 2009”, to be held at Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba city, Japan, from October 6th.

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.

SONY puts two 10.2 megapixel consumer digicams on the market in September 2009 using the back-illuminated Exmor R sensor. This CMOS sensor architecture takes the ’sandwich’ which forms the light-sensitive pixel wells, and reverses it so that the side previously used for connections now faces the image-forming light. This change allows more light to be captured, resulting in improved high ISO performance. So far, the Exmor R technology has only been used in video cameras and this is the first appearance of it in still cameras. The cameras can shoot at 10 frames per second.

My Sony Alpha 380 was supposed to arrive before July 13th according to SimplyElectronics.net – via Amazon – claiming UK despatch of 2-10 days delivery after debiting my card on July 6th from a July 3rd order. Well, it didn’t arrive by July 21st, and after some email exchanges I have apparently obtained a refund for the charge they made for an item they did not have (though this was still showing as ‘processing’ in August). Warehouseexpress.com had got the A380 plus 18-55mm kits  by that time, for £10 less, and delivered in 24 hours. Update August 9th: under a month later, the warehouseexpress kit price has fallen by 10% (£50) to £548 inc VAT.

Sony has come up with a zany idea to overcome problems in their reputation for high ISO and low light capability – showcase cameras, including the Alpha range with its legendary high ISO noise reduction, by shooting an essentially unphotogenic subject in almost non-existent light. But they are picking exceptional locations to do so. Sony Europe is currently obsessed by football, which for two decades Canon has claimed as its own territory.

LONDON UK, June 22, 2009 – Eastman Kodak Company announced today that it will retire KODACHROME colour film this year, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon.

Sales of KODACHROME Film, which became the world’s first commercially successful colour film in 1935, have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to other, newer KODAK films or to the digital imaging technologies that Kodak pioneered. Today, KODACHROME Film represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak’s total sales of still-picture films.

OBERKOCHEN/Germany, 15.04.2009.

Carl Zeiss today announced that its Camera Lens Division will extend their successful collaboration with Sony Corporation for a further 5 years. Taking full advantages of their competence both companies agreed to cooperate even closer in developing and commercializing new imaging devices in the future.

Tamron Co., Ltd (Mr. Morio Ono, President), a comprehensive manufacturer of optical products with its head office in Saitama City, has announced the development of the SP AF60mm F/2.0 Di II LD (IF) MACRO 1:1 (Model G005), a life-size macro lens designed exclusively for digital SLR cameras with APS-C size image sensors* that offers a fast maximum aperture of F/2.0. (Text here is directly from their press announcement).

There is a white paper by Sony Semiconductor on the imaging processing which I think is in the HX1, http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/cx_news/vol55/pdf/featuring55.pdf. I assume it is the IMX-032 CMOS sensor (http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/cx_news/vol55/np_imx032cqr.html) mated to a CXD4109AGG image processing chip. There seem to be some interesting techniques employed, multi-plane synthesis to combine several frames for low light and HDR capture.

With the IMX-032, it is interesting to note that the on-board programmable gain amplifier has a gain value of up to 18dB or a factor of 8, so if base ISO is 80, then maximum “analogue” ISO is 640. If we compare the IMX-032 versus Sony’s first column ADC CMOS chip (IMX-017), the IMX-32 has an 11.8% better photo-electron efficiency per unit area (2300e per 1.75 micron square pixel compared to 4500e per 2.5 micron square pixel). Might be a sign that Sony is improving the process and design used to make their CMOS chips.

The backside illuminated chip is called the IMX-061, http://www.chipworks.com/uploadedFiles/Aliased_Pages/CMOS_ImageSensors_Spotlight/Chipworks%20-%20Sony%20IMX061%20EXR-0902-813.pdf
6MP and 1.75 micron pixels in ClearVID (45 degree) layout with a 1:6:1 RGB Bayer filter array, sacrificing colour resolution for spatial resolution.

The Nikon D90 chip is called the IMX-038 (not the IMX-021 as for the A700), so this suggests it has significant revisions compared to the IMX-021 (possibly linked to LiveView and HD Video?).

– Dr Daniel K. L. Oi

United Kingdom / Republic of Ireland, 02 February, 2009: Canon today announces the launch of the EOS Professional Network (EPN) across the UK & Ireland. The Network will consist of EOS Professional Centres and EOS Professional Stockists. This may sound similar to Sony’s ACE dealer concept – but read the small print! It includes hire stock. Canon is fighting back seriously.

The Japanese camera and photo product manufacturing association CIPA has issued a press release PDF, containing a table of predicted figures, relating to 2009-2011 projections. Here we reproduce the text and the table (as a JPEG).

This is a very short post. I’ve been talking to a few directors of importing companies in the UK over the last few days, as people return from holidays which many in the photo industry take in early January. The word is this: while prices right now, and at Focus on Imaging 2009 Feb 22-25 show, may remain low and even be cut to liquidate existing stock, the rises which will hit us in mid-2009 will knock the wind out of you.