Bhautik Joshi Guides us through a simple but very fun DIY project:
 
"Built using a fisheye peephole as the main lens element and a decapitated soda can as the lens body (!), this attaches directly to my SLR camera. For well under US$20, I ended up with a lens that has nearly a 180-degree field-of-view, adjustable focus, a canon EOS mount, and due to it's stylish

Oh noes, poor Google, not again:
 
Press Release:
Philadelphia, PA… The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), joined by the Graphic Artists Guild, the Picture Archive Council of America

Canon Press Release:
 
Canon has announced the launch of its enhanced Canon Professional Services (CPS) programme - developed following consultation with the CPS community - that now offers an even more extensive after-sales support system for professional photographers and videographers.

Well, probably not, those new Polaroids seem just as bulky as the old ones. In any case, it's good to have old good old Polaroid back in the newsroom:
 
LAS VEGAS - 2010 International CES - January 5, 2010 - PLR IP Holdings, LLC, owners of the Polaroid™ brand, today announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Lady Gaga, who will serve as creative director for a specialty line of Polaroid Imaging products.  The partnership brings together one of the

The Google translation says "most historical", and we can't quite make out some of the orther stuff, but the camera models selected speak for themselves. One interesting tidbit is the medium format film camera among the 10, and also the complete lack of any Canon models. As an added bonus they list the most historical cameras of the past 10 years too:

Yup, now you can transfer those RAW files too, but the "one size fits all" 4 Gb capacity is probably too little these days of 12+ MPixels and 720p videos.

Press-release:

"EYE-FI INTRODUCES A WIRELESS MEMORY CARD FOR PHOTO ENTHUSIASTS The Eye-Fi Pro Offers Ad Hoc Connectivity and RAW Support; Now Users Can Choose What Uploads MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 10, 2009 — Eye-Fi Inc. today unveiled the

I guess there won't be any good news coming from Kodak anymore:

DURHAM (Reuters) -- Eastman Kodak Company has announced that it will discontinue wholesale photofinishing. 

Kodak's three remaining labs in the US and Canada and their headquarters in Durham are shutting down. 
The closings were announced Tuesday to employees. The three labs employ a total of 300 employees, less than 100 are staffed

This is what our marketing-speak to plain english translator says. Quote from Kodak's press-release:

" These actions, which the company has already begun, include more tightly focusing its portfolio of investments, intensifying its emphasis on generating cash, and further streamlining its cost structure. Additionally, today the company announced that where permissible by law its executives would not receive a salary increase in 2009 and that it would temporarily suspend for 2009 the company’s U.S. 401(k) match. Based upon the current outlook, company management also does not expect a payout

Oh noes! Is Canon pulling an Adobe on us? This thing does not compute:  You delay the construction of a new critical plant only when you a) is acutely out of cash, or b) have indications that the sales will stay low for the next few decades (The lifetime of a plant). So, witch one is it Canon?

TOKYO (Reuters) - Canon Inc said it would delay the construction and start-up of a $196-million digital camera plant in Japan due to slow demand, becoming the latest company to modify investment plans amid the global downturn.

Free and usefull, topics in this issue include:

Night photography techniques - Part II - Painting with Light and Holiday Lights
Best Shooting Gear for the Holidays
Better Portrait Posing Techniques
Mastering Photoshop Brushes
Pro Retouching Techniques
and more!

Get your (free!) copy here

Seeing the words "affordable" or "unexpensive" missing from the press-release, maybe its better to stick with IKEA batteries for now:

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ritz Camera, the nation's largest retail camera and photo chain, today announced the introduction of Quantaray Super Z, a Nickel-Zinc (NiZn) AA rechargeable battery and charger set. Ritz’s Super Z batteries provide greater power for today’s high drain consumer electronics, enabling superior camera performance compared to existing rechargeable batteries. San Diego-based PowerGenix, developer and manufacturer of nontoxic, high performance NiZn rechargeable technology, will supply the batteries to Ritz.

Oh, the corporate world. Only 10 days Adobe announced the elimination of 600 jobs on the grounds of "weaker than excpected Q4 earings". And now this:

"Company Achieves 13 Percent Annual Growth
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Dec. 16, 2008 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today reported financial results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Nov. 28, 2008.

In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, Adobe achieved record revenue of $915.3 million, compared to $911.2 million reported for the

Let the pre-CES begin:

"Energizer(R) will introduce Zinc Air Prismatic as an exciting power solution for smaller and thinner electronics

ST. LOUIS, Dec. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Energizer will be unveiling a new battery to power future devices. The Energizer Zinc Air Prismatic battery will offer OEMs greater design flexibility, while providing greater run times and enabling smaller devices.

With the former imaging giant's main bulk of products competing in the sub $100 segment with a myriad of Asian made crap stuff, it's time for some break(up)dance. TIMES ONLINE has the story:

"Wall Street is forecasting that Kodak, one of the most famous names in photography, will be forced to break up as the industrial icon fails to cope with the collapse in demand for its digital cameras and printers.
Kodak gave warning on Wednesday that revenues and profits for 2008 would fall well below

Well, for me the best digicam ever is the Panasonic Lumix LX3, but there are other options too:

"The first thing to realize is that there may well be no single "perfect choice" and if you try to find it, you may drive yourself crazy and end up buying nothing at all. Even if there was a "perfect" choice, the odds are that within 12 months or less, there would be something "better" available. There may be many equally good choices, none of which are quite "perfect".

Nice article by Siegfried Seierlein. Excerpt:

"I decided to write this article with respect to PSE7. Version 6 use the same RAW converter as PSE7 and what we discuss here will therefore apply to PSE6. Elements 5 does not have access to the most recent RAW converter but what we discuss will also apply to version 5.

"When you in the RAW converter then you will see the Slider controls like in the picture to the right. These sliders determine your typical RAW work flow. One will typically work from top to bottom. This is important and you should practice to develop your workflow from top to bottom. For example, do not first adjust the Brightness slider and then the Exposure slider.

TOKYO (AP) — Sony is slashing 8,000 jobs, or 5 percent of its global electronics work force, aiming to cut costs by $1.1 billion a year as a global downturn batters profits.
Sony Corp. said Tuesday it will cut the jobs from its electronics operations, which employ about 160,000 workers, by the end of March, 2010. It did not give a country breakdown for the layoffs.
Sony has already cut production and lowered inventories, but tough times demand more drastic efforts, the company said in a statement.
The electronics industry has been hurt by plunging prices, currency fluctuations, intense competition and a global slowdown in consumer spending.

Story from AFP:

TOKYO (AFP) - More than 1,100 contract workers are losing their jobs at two subsidiaries of Japan's Canon Inc. due to production cutbacks, officials said Friday.

Canon, often hailed as a success story in Japan's recovery from a recession a decade ago, is joining other major Japanese manufacturers that are cutting output and jobs to cope with the global economic downturn.
Canon, which produces cameras and office equipment, said it had slashed orders to Oita Canon Inc., resulting in a reduction in the number of workers hired through contractors.

From Bangkok Post: 

 Japanese camera-manufacturing giant Nikon yesterday laid off 1,500 of its subcontracting staff in Ayutthaya province after a slump in orders due to the global financial crisis. 
Nikon (Thailand) Co, whose manufacturing facilities are located in Rojana Industrial Estate in Ayutthaya, yesterday decided to terminate the employment of the workers because it has received far fewer orders from the United States, Japan and Canada. 
All the dismissed workers are under subcontracts and have worked with the company for less than a year, said Pongthai Musikapong, of the Labour Protection and Welfare Office in Ayutthaya.

No more funding could be secured, so DigitalRailroad.net is as of now the first major site to become a victim of the coming recession. One wonders what will happen to the "secure backup" of images they were offering. Most likely the disks that hosted those images will be wiped very soon. Worst case scenario for all photographers that trusted their images to Digitalrailroad: Their images will become someone elses property. Those servers will soon be confiscated/repossesed/sold and there is no DRR staff around to wipe the content of the disks before that happens. Lesson learned is of course that one should trust no one with the backup of precious data (images in this case). You must do it yourself, and always backup-a-plenty because Murphy is out there. 

"October 28, 2008

To our valued Members and Partners:

We deeply regret to inform you that Digital Railroad (DRR) has shut down.

Although a bit late to the party since other manufacturers has already released both faster and bigger cards. 

Lexar press release:

These CFs are highly competitive to Sandisk's extreme IV line of cards. Very similar features at a lower price.

Trancend Press Release :

...and (almost) everyone is pleased, again.

Best DSLR entry level  - Sony α200
Best DSLR Advanced - Canon EOS 450D
Best DSLR Expert - Nikon D300
Best DSLR Pro - Nikon D3
Best Medium Format System - Sinar Hy6 series
Ultra Compact Digital Camera - Samsung NV24HD
Compact Digital Camera - Panasonic LUMIX FX-500
Superzoom Digital Camera - Fuji S100 FS
Entry-level Lens - Canon EF-S 55-250mm F4-5.6 IS
Expert Lens - Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 12-60mm F2.8-4 SWD
Professional Lens - Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm F2.8G ED

Link  

 First announced roughly one month ago, on the eve of it's 60th birthday, Polaroid made good  on the promise to discontinue all things instant film.  The company will now focus on imaging products that appeal to a wider segment of the market.  Users of Polaroid instant film will be left completely in the dark, since no stocking up of film has been made by Polaroid and the expiration date of what's left is at best 18 months.

Nearly 2 years have passed since it was first announced, but the DP1 managed to move beyond the (alleged) vaporware status, and into the hands of the photographers. Here's a review from the land down under:

"The stand-out feature of the DP-1 is its ability to record a much wider dynamic range that any digicam we've reviewed - and also than many DSLRs. Although both JPEG and X3F.RAW files looked rather flat when viewed on both the camera's LCD and our computer screen, it was possible to obtain very good results from the test camera - but only when we worked with raw files.

The apparent 'flatness' of the DP-1's image files also showed up in Imatest testing, where both JPEGs and converted raw files showed significantly lower saturation levels than we've seen in the past. This isn't a problem for photographers who shoot raw files with this camera. It's usually better to have converted TIFF files with low contrast and saturation as a basis for subsequent editing. You can easily boost both parameters without reducing image quality.

Catchy title maybe, but it really is close to the truth.

Sandisk Press-release:

MILPITAS, CALIFORNIA, October 24, 2007 – SanDisk® Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) today announced the filing of three patent infringement actions against 25 companies that manufacture, sell and import USB flash drives, CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards, MP3/media players and/or other removable flash storage products. The actions, filed in the United States District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin and in the United States International Trade Commission (“ITC”), allege that the defendants have infringed various SanDisk system-level patents, and seek damages and a permanent injunction in the federal court actions, as well as a permanent exclusion order from the ITC banning importation of the products into the United States.

Too bad these things expire so soon, otherwise some hoarding would be a nice move for the film-lovers left among us.  Not only is the smaller production driving up prices, but, as  we know the basic raw material that film is made of is mineral oil, and with the price of oil currently staying at an all time high the price of film will soon have to follow suit.  And to add insult to the injury, the price of silver, a raw material basic to the post-processing of film is also hitting peak. The consumers first contact with this new reality was the confirmation from Fujifilm UK regarding a 5-10% increase of film-prices.

After a long row of financial losses, Pentax camera division is finally posting a (marginal) net profit: "As a result, the net sales of Imaging System Business as a whole amounted to 37,144 million yen (an increase of 10.8% over the same period a year earlier).  The operating income significantly improved and amounted to 229 million yen (the operating loss for the same period a year earlier was 1,569 million yen) as a result of our energies put into the reduction of costs such as selling, general and administrative expenses, etc."

When two leading companies in their respective field merge, the outcome is always of great interest. In this case most people is very familiar with Sandisk, the manufacturer of the venerable "Ultra" and "Extreme" ranges of flash memory, but few have any knowledge of M-Systems,

After some hard work with the code (check out our in-house Gallery!), we're now ready to enter a final beta testing period.  Please send a mail to news@estiasis.com
if you discover a fault, a bug, or a missing feature :)