PRESS RELEASE

Valhalla, NY January 16, 2006 - Fuji Photo Film U.S.A., Inc., is now offering a hardware upgrade for the FinePix S3 Pro professional DSLR camera that will improve its continuous shooting capabilities, as well as other performance enhancements.

The FinePix S3 Pro has found a home in the camera bags of thousands of wedding and portrait photographers thanks to its world-renowned Fujifilm color reproduction and industry-leading dynamic range. The 12 MegaPixel FinePix S3 Pro has six MegaPixels dedicated solely to the capture of dynamic range with another set of six MegaPixels dedicated to resolution. Together, these MegaPixel sets create high-resolution files with tremendous dynamic range. At its widest setting the FinePix S3 Pro’s dynamic range is 400% percent greater than that of other cameras of similar sensor design.

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Bjørn Rørslett has recently posted impressive review on the new Nikon D200, a 10.2 MP DSLR with 2.5″ LCD screen, and wrote:

“My conclusion is that you will get image quality from D200 to satisfy even the most critical needs, for any application to which 35 mm systems can be used. While the D2X might just yield a trifle higher image quality, we are truly nit-picking in order to place one of these cameras before the other.”

He also commented about the banding issues on Nikon D200:

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Olympus has announced the release of the latest firmware for certain Olympus E-series lenses.
Firmware updates are resolve problems with the following lenses:

ZUIKO DIGITAL 40mm-150mm F3.5-4.5, Tele Converter EC-14 and Extension Tube EX-25

- Lens data has been corrected to fix problems occurring under certain circumstances when used with the E-300.
- Lenses with the EC-14 are sometimes not recognized when attached to the camera. This has been corrected.
- Lenses with the EX-25 are sometimes not recognized when attached to the camera. This has been corrected.

ZUIKO DIGITAL 50mm-200mm F2.8-3.5 and 14mm-54mm F2.8-3.5

- Improves exposure precision comparable to a full-open aperture setting.

ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 35-100mm F2.0 and 35mm F3.5 Macro

- The aperture operation is steadier.

Download Firmware update for OLYMPUS E-Systems

We’ve been receiving some e-mails lately complaining about the Sensor Brush, a CCD/CMOS cleaning product by Visible Dust. It’s reported that the brush is too large for the sensor and therefore the brush smeared the sensor with grease from the mirror box.

Here’s one of emails from our readers sent to us about a week ago:

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CameraLabs’ Gordon Laing has just posted his review on Fujifilm FinePix S9500 Zoom/FinePix S9000 Zoom, a 9 Megapixels with a long 10.7 optical zoom and 1.8″ LCD screen

“Starting with resolution, the S9500’s sensor and lens combination certainly out-resolved the current crop of budget 6 and 8 megapixel digital SLRs in our studio tests, although in real life you’d be hard pushed to spot much difference between it and the Canon 350D / Digital Rebel XT or Panasonic’s DMC-FZ30. That’s still a good result though.
As far as the lens is concerned, there’s softness in the corners at wide angle, but no more than you’d get with most 3x lenses bundled with digital SLRs. In terms of geometry and vignetting the S9500’s lens, like the Panasonic FZ30 and Sony R1, out-performs most digital SLR bundles.”

>> Fujifilm Finepix S9000/9500 Review Roundup and Sample Pictures
>> Fujifilm Finepix S9000/9500 Latest Price

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Steve’s Digicams has just posted a review on Kodak EasyShare P880, a 8.3 megapixel digital camera with 5.8x optical zoom (24 - 140mm, 35mm equivalent) and 2.5″ large LCD, and writes:

“With 8-megapixels of resolution and an excellent lens with a versatile zoom range, the EasyShare P880 promises a lot to the advanced user. While its image quality largely fulfills that promise, the shooting performance does not. A camera advertised as a member of Kodak’s “Performance Series” should be capable of capturing more than 1.25 images per second, and should clear 7 images from its buffer in much less than 26 seconds; the P880’s shooting performance is disappointing.

But if you rarely capture action shots, the P880’s high resolution, image quality, low light performance and wide angle zoom lens may be just what you need for shooting family portraits, vacation landscapes and short movie clips. While its advanced features will appeal mainly to the experienced photographer, novices will produce terrific images using the automatic and scene modes and grow their skills by experimenting with its versatile features. At an MSRP of just under $600, the P880 is not inexpensive. I rate it an average value because of its lackluster shooting performance; it would become a good value if Kodak improves its responsiveness.”

Shawn Barnett & Dave Etchells had their hands on the new Kodak Easyshare V570, a world’s first dual-lens digital camera with two ccd’s.

“Image quality-wise, we felt that images from the V570 showed excellent color, but were softer than we’d normally expect from a 5-megapixel digital camera. - We think that its practical resolution (that is, what you actually see in prints) is closer to that of a three or four megapixel model than a five megapixel one. Its noise-suppression algorithms are also prone to obscuring fine detail, particularly when the contrast levels of that detail are low. All digital cameras do this to some degree, but we felt that we noticed it more in the V570’s shots than we’re accustomed to.”

>> Kodak EasyShare V570 Review Roundup and Sample Images
>> Kodak EasyShare V570 Latest Price

Mike Pasini and Dave Etchells have posted a review on Olympus Stylus 600, a digital camera with a 6.0 MP CCD sensor, 3x optical zoom, 2.5″ LCD and all-weather body design.

Here’s the conclusion: “As the latest in that company’s “Stylus” line of compact digital cameras, the 6-Mp, 3x-zoom Olympus Stylus 600 Digital is to my mind one of the best Stylus Digital models to date. Its body design is trim and compact, with a button-based interface simpler than that found on earlier models. It offers the same water resistance that makes the rest of the Stylus line so practical for go-anywhere photography, and sports a big, beautiful 2.5-inch LCD monitor to view your photos on. While the LCD on the Stylus 600 does much better than average in bright sunlight, and offers a wider than average viewing angle, I do wish that Olympus had kept an optical viewfinder for low light shooting. That quibble aside, the Olympus Stylus 600 is a very capable, highly portable point & shoot camera, with good image quality, a better than average lens, and a unique help system that won’t leave you stranded. Its point & shoot simplicity and 24 preset Scene modes make it easy for even novice users to bring home great-looking photos. “

Dcviews has recently posted an interesting article with some samples comparing Kodak Digital Science DC50, a 0.38MP digital camera produced ten years ago which was the first sub$1000 digital zoom camera with the latest Kodak Easyshare V550, a 5.4MP digital camera which is now selling for around $300.

In conclusion they write: “It’s clear that digital camera technology has evolved at an incredible pace over the last decennium, but it does not give us a clue as to how digital photography will evolve in the next decennium. We may just hope that the development of digital photography will be driven by the user requirements and not by the technology. But then again, foreseeing the future has always been difficult… “

Bill Caulfeild-Browne has written a good article comparing the new Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM with the legendary Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L with Canon 1Ds Mark II @ Luminous Landscape. This is what he says about:

Distortion: Both lenses show significant barrel distortion at 24mm, and pincushion distortion by 50mm. However, Canon 24-70mm shows less distortion than Canon 24-105mm.

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