Adobe posted a FAQ’s regarding the purchase of Pixmantec. Included in the FAQ is the statement that RawShooter | Premium product has been discontinued and current registered users will receive a free upgrade to Adobe Lightroom version 1.0 when it ships.

Q: What are the plans for the RawShooter line of products?A: The RawShooter | Premium product has been discontinued and is no longer available for sale. The free RawShooter | Essentials product will remain available as a download from the Adobe Web site until shortly after Lightroom 1.0 is released as a shipping product. The RawShooter | Color Engine will be taken off the market as soon as existing obligations to partners are fulfilled.

Q: Will there be special pricing for those who have invested in RawShooter | Premium?

A: We have listened closely to the opinions shared by customers on the Pixmantec forums and although Lightroom will provide a much broader range of functionality than RawShooter | Premium and will be offered at a higher price point, we will be offering a free downloadable version of Lightroom 1.0 to all customers who have purchased RawShooter | Premium.

Q: Why does Adobe plan to discontinue the RawShooter products?

A: Pixmantec has strong technology which has significant value for making Adobe’s own raw processing solutions better. Adobe already offers multiple workflows for processing raw images. Adobe Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw—both included with Adobe Photoshop® CS2—allow for efficient processing of images within an environment that supports a wide range of graphics file formats. The new Lightroom software—currently in public beta for Mac and soon available for Windows—provides a photography-centric environment that will handle the full workflow from import, sorting, developing, and storage, through to presentation and output. In addition, some level of raw support is also available in Adobe Photoshop Elements and in the free Photoshop Album Starter Edition. The Raw Shooter products do not offer any significant functionality that is not already, or will not be shortly, offered in these other products, so continuing this product line would only cause confusion for our customers.

Website : Adobe FAQ about Pixmantec acquisition (in PDF)

Website : Adobe acquired Raw Shooter from Pixmantec

Canon are to host a series of free shows aimed at photography enthusiasts focusing on using their EOS camera system. The shows will take place at London’s Business Design Centre in Islington. There are three sessions planned -

• Thursday 3 August at 6.00–8.00pm or
• Saturday 5 August at 9.00am–12.00pm or
• Saturday 5 August at 2.00–5.00pm

Presented by various experts including celebrity and music photographer Andy Earl (www.andyearl.com) they will demonstrating how professional photographers use EOS in their work. Nature, fashion, sports and reportage photography are all to be covered and will supply tips and techniques to help amateurs extend their photographic skills. Post-shoot possibilities will be demonstrated with iPhoto and Aperture image processing applications from Apple.

Website : Canon EOS Discovery Shows for Photography Enthusiasts

“I’ve won many championships,” coach Marcello Lippi said, “but a joy so big I have never felt.”

With a 25-game unbeaten streak dating back nearly two years, the Italians added this title to their championships in 1934, 1938 and ‘82 — when another match-fixing investigation plagued Serie A.

The hero then in Spain was striker Paolo Rossi, fresh off a two-year suspension for his role in match-fixing. This time, there were a dozen stars and a coach who seemed to make all the right moves.

Italy won its first-round group over the higher-ranked United States and Czech Republic, and Ghana. Then it beat Australia on a controversial penalty in the second-half extra time that Francesco Totti converted.

It routed Ukraine 3-0 before depressing the host nation with two stunning goals in the final minutes of extra time for a semifinal win over Germany.

Website : Italy wins shootout with France for fourth Cup title

Back in January this year, Canon Inc. announced the achievement of a new lens-production milestone as production of the company’s EF lenses passed the 30-million mark. To celebrate for this achievement, Canon made this mini model of the Canon EF 600mm F4 with EOS-1Ds Mark II camera. Canon also made available four very nicely made lens wallpaper for this achievement.

Website : Canon EF 600mm F4 with EOS-1Ds Mark II camera model

Website : Canon produces 30 millionth EF lens, 10 million lenses in 5 years

Pentax announced the new PENTAX K100D ($699 estimated retail, with 18–55mm f/3.5–5.6 Pentax DA lens) in May which is compatible with any PENTAX lens ever produced and featuring Shake Reduction. It is an easy-handling 6-megapixel digital SLR that achieves image stabilization by using a moving CCD sensor. PopPhoto has a hands on review of the camera and here’s the conclusion:

“In appearance, the K100D is very nearly a clone of the Pentax *ist DS2; aside from the image stabilization on/off switch on the back of the camera, only slight differences in body contours and button shapes set the new camera apart from the DS/DL series. The body weighs less than an ounce more than the *ist DS2.

Functionally, the K100D borrows from both the *ist DS2 and the *ist DL2 (not marketed in the U.S. as a Pentax, but available as the Samsung GX-1L). From the DS2, the new camera gets the 11-zone autofocus array. From the DL2, the K100D inherits a cost-cutting penta- mirror rather than a glass pentaprism, as well as a feature called Digital Preview.

While the K100D uses a 6MP CCD like the *ist DSLRs, Pentax says that the processing engine and firmware are new, and that the camera will ship with improved software.

Still, we were more than a little surprised that Pentax didn’t opt to move up to 8MP or 10MP capture with the new camera; 6MP DSLRs are getting very old at this point. The company was clearly determined to hew hard to a low price point with the K100D, and it certainly succeeded. For the even more frugal, a K110D—the same camera but without Shake Reduction—will be available for $599 with the kit lens.”

Website : Pentax announced K100D and K110D in May

Website : Pentax K100D Hands On Reviewed by PopPhoto

PCPhoto Magazine has posted an interview with Chuck Westfall, Canon’s Director of Media & Customer Relationship, Camera Marketing Group, about the future in DSLR photography. Here’re some of the interesting discussions from the article :

PCPhoto: What do you perceive as the important qualities and features that photographers are primarily concerned with? Is higher and higher resolution still key?

Westfall: What we’ve determined over the last year or two is that people have moved beyond megapixels and into the other aspects of image quality. They’re especially starting to notice the level of noise that happens at the higher ISOs, because that’s such an important part of how an SLR photographer likes to shoot. They want to be able to shoot under low-light conditions and they want the flexibility to decide whether or not to use flash, rather than be forced to.

PCPhoto: Is the decreasing impact of noise happening as a result of the sensors, software, or both?

Westfall: The sensors themselves are certainly making progress in terms of combating noise. That’s why the CMOS sensors are so highly regarded because they exceed what can be done with the CCD in terms of conventional digital SLRs. Overall, they offer better noise performance at high ISO speeds, larger sensors for the money and lower power consumption. We’re increasingly seeing improvement in the manufacturing of sensors. Right now, we’re looking at a native ISO sensitivity of 100 to 200, but that could move up to 6400 and higher very quickly. When that happens, it will make a big difference in a photographer’s ability to create images under low light.

PCPhoto: Canon has been one of the few companies to release a fullframe SLR. While this has allowed photographers to take advantage of their lenses’ native focal length, it has also revealed that some lenses don’t deliver even illumination throughout the frame or corner-to-corner sharpness.

Westfall: We’re working to optimize quality with full-frame sensors. In the past with film SLRs, things weren’t as critical, but as we’re clearly seeing with cameras such as the EOS 5D and 1DS Mark II, they’re putting some high demands on the performance of any given lens. So we’re certainly looking at ways of improving evenness of illumination and corner sharpness.

PCPhoto: This wireless technology affords the ability to quickly download not only to one’s computer, but to virtually any server connected to the Web. This potentially holds the promise of freeing photographers of the limitations of the size or speed of their memory cards. How do you see this impacting photographers?

Westfall: This will definitely offer increased storage for users. If it becomes easier to save images to Web servers directly from digital cameras via wireless communication, I believe that this technology will add an element of reliability that’s missing from today’s cameras. Also, more sophisticated metadata stored with each image could potentially make it easier to archive images and search for individual files. Why should photographers be limited to the capacity of a memory card in their cameras, when they have the ability to be virtually anywhere and upload images on the fly?

Website : Canon’s Chuck Westfall Q&A about the future DSLR development

Website : PCPhoto Magazine June 2006 articles

Nikon Corporation announced on 21st February that Capture NX and Nikon View Pro software would be released in spring and in May respectively. However, announced in April that the release schedule for these products has been changed due to a slight delay in their development schedule. Finally, today, Nikon has unveiled a trial version of Capture NX – the new software that is said to be designed specifically for photographers, providing a unique and easy to understand interface with tools that photographers need, but without the level of complexity and clutter of other image editing applications.

Capture NX can be used with JPEG and TIFF format images from any source, and its patented new U Point technology offers photographers a dramatically simplified way to edit their pictures by enabling them to enhance specific areas of a picture selectively, without the use of masks, selections, or layers.  Capture NX also works with Nikon’s RAW (NEF) format images, and inherits Nikon’s robust RAW processing capabilities for the highest quality results from NEF files.

The software is designed to appeal to a broad range of consumers. Users with compact digital cameras such as Nikon’s Coolpix series will enjoy the simplicity of using U Point technology to quickly enhance their JPEG pictures, eliminate any red-eye using the Automatic Red-Eye Correction tool and even resurrect underexposed images with the software’s D-Lighting feature.  Pro and advanced shooters will appreciate the time they can save using U Point technology to make edits to their images, as well as fully utilize over 25 new tools in the software, including powerful batch processing capabilities, advanced color management features, Distortion Correction enhancement and the ability to make every edit non-destructively (when a JPEG, TIFF or NEF image is saved in NEF format).

Website : Capture NX and Nikon View Pro software release dates changed

Website : Nikon Capture NX original news release

Download : Capture NX catalog in PDF format

The new Everglades, Grand Canyon, and Glacier Bay bags by M-Rock, Aventura, Fla., USA, are specifically designed for DSLRs. With inside measurements of 8-by-10-by-7.25 inches, 7-by-10.5-by-5 inches and 6.75-by-8-by-4.25 inches, respectively. Each comes equipped with a u-shaped lens cradle.

The photographer inserts a DSLR into the bags with the lens pointed downward, to where the front of the attached lens rests securely in the cradle, providing extra protection should the bag receive any sort of impact from below. The new bags also feature an exterior made using tough water-resistant fabric, and thick closed-cell foam padding on the inside. Plastic panels can be added for further rigidity and protection, while the inside lining is soft and non-abrasive. All are equipped with a tight-hugging rain flap, a zipper and front buckle and a separate protective jacket with a drawstring closure for sever weather conditions.

Two shoulder straps are supplied, enabling users to create a chest-pack as well as the traditional backpack. The bags also have a neoprene handle for carrying by hand. The Glacier Bay can hold one DSLR with up to two lenses, the Grand Canyon can carry one body with up to three lenses, and the Everglades accepts up to two camera bodies and five or six lenses.

Website : M-Rock introduces DSLR bags with lens cradle support