The Photokina will start at Tuesday 26 september 2006. A digital imaging show with the latest innovations, product announcements and expert’s view from top key players from the digital imaging industry. Insiders say Apple will probably announce Aperture 1.5 on Monday 25 september (Start Photokina a little early this year).
SanDisk this week introduced its SanDisk Extreme IV line of CompactFlash digital media cards - which it calls the “world’s fastest” - as well as debuted new high-capacity 4GB SD digital media. The Extreme IV cards, designed for professional photographers who require high-performance for medium format and high-end digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras, are available in capacities of up to 8GB; they deliver minimum read and write speeds of 40MB/sec, which the company claims are the fastest flash memory cards in the world. SanDisk also introduced its new SanDisk Extreme FireWire reader that can transfer images from the SanDisk Extreme IV cards to a computer at up to 40MB/sec. The cards are available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities for $160, $320, and $640.
Surprised there are so many? There are about 100 different RAW formats/variations/flavors. I hope in the future camera and software developers will collaborate and create an unified RAW format. Adobe has tried to address the lack of an open standard for RAW files, but instead created an other RAW flavor called DNG. The problem lies in the fact that camera developers don’t natively support DNG. Microsoft wouldn’t be Microsoft, if they wouldn’t created their own proprietary format. They recently released the file specifications of Windows Media Photo (WMP) but hey, who cares? Nikon even encrypts their white balance information contained in NEF files and isn’t readable to third party RAW converters.It would be nice to see a MPEG like group which defines the (Open)RAW lossless format. Camera and software developers use this to create their hardware and software. Like I said in my post about DRM/Next-Gen DVD’s, there’s a format war going on! The one who controls the format, controls the industry.
Adobe today released a new application called Adobe Lightroom. It will compete with Apple’s Aperture on many fronts, though it’s still in beta stage it looks like a lean, mean and clean application. It’s available now for testing!
Aperture, a relative new application was added recently to the pro line-up. I have already developed a love-hate relationship with this new Apple pro application! I should concider it just a 1.0 release and hope that this potentially great application will evolve gradually in time. Hopefully Apple will support my Canon EOS 350D soon! In the mean time I’ll have to do with the Raw.plist hack or just shoot in JPEG.
Okay I had to buy a new camera, a new SLR (Single Lens Reflex) digital. I had a ‘happy snapper’ but i missed my good old Canon EOS 500. So after a little research between Nikon D70 and the Canon EOS 350D, I decided to go for the Silver Canon EOS 350D with USM (Ultrasone Motor) lens. In the the future i’ll buy a IS (Image Stabiliser) USM lens. O, boy what a camera! Soon I will post some pictures made with it…
