Sigma UK to increase prices
This very personal press statement has been received today from Sigma UK, a week or so after their MD expressed the same thoughts in conversation:
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Month: January 2009
Japan issues forecast for next 3 years' sales
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).
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ACR 5.3 and Lightroom 2.3 pre-release
Support for the Nikon D3X is finally added in release-candidate (better than beta) versions of the two main Adobe raw file conversion utilities. There may also be improvements in A900 and other Sony raw file handling – it is worth acquiring the pre-release version to check this out. The downloads will be available on the Adobe Labs site from 20.00hrs GMT on Friday, January 23rd, 2009.
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Adobe Lightroom 2.3 and ACR 5.3
Support for the Nikon D3X is finally added in release-candidate (better than beta) versions of the two main Adobe raw file conversion utilities. The downloads will be available on the Adobe Labs site from 20.00hrs GMT on Friday, January 23rd, 2009.
Colour Confidence expands into Europe
Birmingham, UK, 22nd January 2009 – Colour Confidence, Europe’s leading independent colour management specialist, has today announced the successful completion of a deal to purchase grafipress GmbH – a leading supplier to the graphics market and key Pantone distributor in Germany.
UK prices – a steep climb ahead
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.
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Sekonic's camera calibration
The Sekonic Digitalmaster L-758D meter offers the solution to variable ISO/EI ratings, and apparent sensitivity and contrast curves variations found in DSLRs. With a USB interface to link it up to a PC/Mac calibration program, the L-758D can remember three different cameras, two types of lighting (ambient or flash) and two measuring methods (incident or reflected) plus a range of ISO values for each of the cameras. There are twelve basic ‘profiles’ that can be stored, and within each profile a range from ISO 3 to ISO 8000.
One Vision takes over Leach photo lab
One Vision Imaging, the Midlands leading professional photographic laboratory, has just announced its latest acquisition, the Photography division of the highly acclaimed Leach Colour Laboratory.
Tilt-shift with full frame DSLRs
After just a short while working with full frame, high resolution DSLRs the need for tilt lenses has really come home to me. Most lenses deliver their best results at fairly wide apertures like f8, it’s easy for detail to begin to look soft and lacking impact if you are forced to stop down to f22 to get everything sharp. Tilt adaptors and tilt lenses solve the problem. This article is repeated here after originally appearing on dPhotoexpert (and similar instrument images, in my first D3X test report for the British Journal).
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Canon EOS 5D MkII, Nikon D3X, and Sony Alpha 900 compared
This set of full size shots was taken with the still life left set up, because the Nikon and Canon cameras were not here at the same time. The report originally appeared in December 2008 on photoclubalpha. It compares the A900, 5DMkII and D3X using the converters supplied by the makers – Image Data Converter SR2, Digital Photo Professional, and Capture NX2. Each small image in the article can be clicked to open a Level 10 quality full size JPEG – beware, the largest is over 13MB of data.