What Photo Gear

And some interesting news from Olympus today - they have just announced what they claim is the world’s smallest DSLR - the Olympus E-420. And just how small is it? It measures 5.1 × 3.6 × 2.1 inches, and that is tiny indeed. The E-420 also tips the scales at 13.4 ounces, and Olympus claims that it is 20-40% lighter than most competing DSLRs. It looks like the promise of the 4/3?rds sensor of producing smaller and lighter camera’s is slowly (finally!) starting to come around.

You of course get Live View on it’s 2.7 inch screen, no surprises there since it was Olympus who pioneered Live View on DSLRs. What is more interesting though is the use of contrast detection to enable Auto-Focus during Live View, what this essentially means is that this DSLR will work just like your point and shoot - so all you have to do is half-press the shutter while using Live View, and Auto-Focus will be engaged.

The Olympus E-420:

• The world’s smallest DSLR (and one of the lightest as well)
• 2.7 inch LCD with Live View and on-screen Auto-Focus
• 10 megapixels
• Shadow adjustment - tries to open up shadow detail and will try to capture detail in (too) bright areas as well.
• Face detection technology - looks for up to 8 faces in the frame and tries to lock on focus
• Available in May with a body only price of $499.

Full Press Release after the jump.

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Manfrotto has just released a trio of tripods, an update to their 190 series - the Manfrotto 190CXPRO3, 190CXPRO4 and the 190CX3.

To replace the 190MF3, MF4 and the 190XProB respectively. One big change seems to be the use of 100% carbon fiber in the leg tubes from the usual Mag-Fiber of the Manfrotto line and the quick vertical to horizontal switching system of the original 190x seems to have been carried over to the 190CXPro3 and the 190CXPro4.

Specs wise, the 100% Carbon Fiber tubes seem to shave off about .3kg -.5kg off. (Which could be great especially if you hike around with your tripod all day) There are some slight changes in height and the minimum ground level reach of the tripods, but nothing really major. I’m a bit disappointed that the CXPro4 still comes in at a closed height of over 19 inches. I was kind of hoping Manfrotto would lower it to about 17inches at most. (The 4 in the name means it’s a 4 leg section - so it’s their “travel” tripod of the trio)

You can learn more about Manfrotto’s newest offerings at: http://x.manfrotto.com/

Just a quick round-up of various Digital Camera’s reviewed around the web recently:

First up is a review of Sony’s current entry level DSLR - the Sony Alpha a200 courtesy of Photoreview. But that’s not all these Aussies have cooked up, they also have a review of Sony’s very competitively priced mid-range DSLR, the Sony Alpha a350.

ThinkCamera has a review of the Ricoh GR Digital II. While conceding it is not a camera for everyone, with it’s fixed 28mm lens - it does still manage to impress. “Once you get into the ‘old’ style way of working, the conversion lenses and the like, it’s an inspiring way of working that delivers great results.”

Jeff Keller over at DCResource has also been busy - he’s got a review of the Nikon Coolpix S51, a 0.8 inch thin point and shoot with a huge 3 inch LCD.

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We’re all guilty of it - we lust after all those shiny new gear at the camera store just like a 6 year old inside a candy store. Problem is, photography can be quite an expensive hobby. But at the same time, it is this lust for new gear that has also created a huge thriving used gear market for photographic gear.

One of the best places to look for gear is still of course the world’s biggest mall - eBay. Not only has it been around for years, with a proven system - it’s probably the place with the best selection of gear and one of the best places to start.

KEH.com is another popular marketplace for photographers. Unlike eBay and most other marketplaces, KEH is your seller here. You’re not buying directly from another individual selling his gear - you’re buying from KEH. The prices are competitive with current used market prices and they have their own grading system in determining the condition of equipment.

Local buy and sell websites are also great places to get great deals on used and not-so-used gear. Check if your city has a hub on sites like Craigslist ; Kijiji or Buysell.com. Some cities have very active ‘boards’ where dozens of items are posted by sellers every hour. The key to these sites though, are that they are local. The idea is, you’re supposed to drive out to the sellers place, or arrange a place to meet. Inspect the goods and pay in cash.

Now, sometimes on these local sites - you might run into deals that sound really good. So you contact the seller, then he tells you, oh, he just moved out to the UK and could you please send him payment by Western Union or something and he’ll be glad to ship you the item. Don’t! This is most likely a scam. Sites like Craigslist and Kijiji were designed only for local transactions, there are no feedback systems, no buyer protection systems unlike places like eBay. So the key is, if buying from sites like craigslist and kijiji, buy local only!

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You’ve probably heard of the term ‘grey market’ before. Whether they be grey market camera’s, grey market lenses or other accessories. So what exactly are grey market items?Well first, we have to understand the way the likes of Canon and Nikon and all the other manufacturers distribute their products all over the world. See, you’ve got the mother company, Canon, Inc or Nikon Corp in Japan somewhere, then they manufacture and assemble their camera’s and lenses in factories out in Thailand or the Philippines but then you also have your official distributors for these different products in different regions.

So these distributors would be your Nikon USA or Canon Canada, or Fuji Hong Kong or it may be some other company, for example, Gentec Intl is the official distributor for Sigma Lenses and products in Canada. Grey Market products on the other hand - are the products that are imported to your country by someone other than the official distributor.

So for example, it’s entirely possible that a US retailer may choose to purchase units of the Canon 450D XSi DSLR from the Canon distributor in Hong Kong. The reason for this is, the retailer may get them cheaper from a distributor in another region compared to the official distributor in the US.

Now, it is important to note that not only is this legal in most countries, but these products - camera’s, lenses, flash guns etc.. are the exact same units you would get had they been purchased from the official country/region distributor. In fact, they most likely came off of the same production line.

But, the important difference though is that since these are not officially imported units by the official distributor, they would not qualify for the official warranty being offered by these distributors. So if you purchased a grey market digital camera that was imported from Hong Kong, then you won’t be able to send it to Canon USA or Nikon USA if you need warranty work done! You have to send it all the way back to Hong Kong.

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Is it a photograph, or is it digital art?

With the magic of Photoshop, we are able to manipulate our images in ways that are limited only by our imagination.

We can get rid of those skin blemishes in our portraits. We can totally erase that person who happened to walk into the frame just as we hit the shutter. We can transform a dull cloudy landscape to a stunning sunset image. The possibilities are almost endless.

But that also leads to a lot of questions from viewers. Was that full moon really there when you took that picture? Was the sky really that blue that day?

Some people dislike Photoshopped work, the argument is that this detracts from the “truth of photography”. There are purists who would even submit that any form of Photoshopped work is automatically digital art. I strongly disagree though. Photographers have been ‘manipulating’ photographs for years in an attempt to get the most out of their film. Photoshop is simply the darkroom of the digital age. Where before you spent hours tweaking everything in a darkroom until you come out with the perfect print – now photographers spend hours in from of their computers trying out different tecniques.

But I believe that Photoshop – just like all our other gear - is just a tool to help us improve our images. Yes, you should try to get the best possible photograph when you press that shutter, instead of settling for a mediocre exposure with the thought of improving it in Photoshop later. But I also believe that image manipulation software is an important, but not entirely essential, part of the photographic process. While it is certainly possible to produce stunning work without the help of Photoshop, it can also go a long way in making already impressive photographs even better. Even if it means just sharpening it up a bit, or just color correcting a bit.

Whether you use software to extensively change your photographs or just for simple tweaks, I don’t really care. All I’m after is the end product and your honesty. To me it is no different from my tripod, or my lenses, or my camera itself – it is simply a tool that helps us in saying what we want to say with our photographs. But, and this is the big BUT - do not ever use Photoshop to mislead others about your images. Do not lead others into thinking that the sunset was really that color, or that the full moon was really there that night if it wasn’t. If you changed the colors, erased something or cloned some pixels, then say so.

To me photography is always about invoking emotion. If an image manages to grab me and make me want to take everything in, then that’s really all that matters. But if I am led to believe that a photograph was taken as is and I later find out that it was in fact Photoshopped or staged – then that is another thing altogether.