This is a trickier decision. With the switch to digital, we have seen an increasing need for shorter focal length lenses, because of the switch to smaller sensors (apart from in some higher price Canon models.) This has meant an increasing range of short focal length zooms, both from independents and the camera manufacturers.

Some more of those very personal ‘Best of 2005′ Awards, this time for software. Perhaps 2005 hasn’t been a great year for new software, and that’s certainly something to be welcomed. There have been upgrades to existing products, some welcome but often relatively minor and perhaps aimed more at keeping up the revenue stream than […]

2005 was another year marked by the passing of a number of well-known photographers and people associated with photography from around the world, including several I greived personally.

Simpletech decided to enter the microdrives market and give the flash thumb drives some competition with its Simpledrive Mini, which at around $119 greenbacks at time of this writing is still $40 cheaper than a comparable compactflash-format Microdrive (like this one from Hitachi), and $157 greenbacks cheaper than a $276, 4 GB compactflash card from […]

They lurk in bushes, camp out in cars and hover in helicopters. Some are brazen enough to openly brandish their cameras, like old Western gunslingers.
[Editorial Note: Does anyone remember where the word “paparazzi” made its appearance? Or, what the plural of the word is?]

Here’s a collection of some of the best of the year from LA Times’ photographers.

You know the feeling: you’ve just snapped that once-in-a-lifetime moment, and you’re already thinking about how big you want to print it. It looks great on the camera’s LCD, and everyone in the room wants a copy of it. When you get home, you eagerly load it up on your PC, only to discover it’s […]

May everyone have a long and healthy life as we cross from 2005 into the year of 2006. We look forward to the tremendous potential that the new year offers.

The law of invasion of privacy is a little bit like a new computer system introduced into a workplace–some people love it, some people fear it, and few people really understand it. The public, on the whole, loves the idea that legal remedies are available for invasions of personal privacy. Working journalists often fear the […]

Your Rights When You Are Stopped or Confronted for Photography

Here’s a good place to start if you don’t understand photographic boundaries. Sections include: A primer on invasion of privacy; State-by-state guide; and Nine keys to avoiding invasion of privacy suits.

With all these cameras snapping around us, I started to wonder about the laws regarding using them. Where can you shoot? What can you shoot?
A blogger I know shot a picture in an office building. One of the tenants had boxes of medical records sitting around in an unlocked office, visible from the hall. He […]

Here’s another stab: it’s a personal Web site (www.glidedigital.com) to which you can upload your favorite photos, MP3 files, video clips and even Word, PowerPoint or PDF documents. (A separate companion program speeds the uploading process by letting you drag and drop big batches of files at once.) Once everything’s posted on the Web site, […]

We got our grubby little paws on a Juice charger that included batteries. The charger can charge both Juice brand alkaline and Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries—and quite quickly. After we drained a AAA battery completely, we charged it back up again in less than three hours. You can charge four batteries at a time.

I suppose I should have been duly warned based on PC World’s Camera Confidential expose written a few years back about unscrupulous camera operators operating out of New York, but I have never been so utterly offended by a retailer in my life. I guess in some ways this is my own fault, or as […]

Today, the company plans to release a major new version of its phone-calling software, Skype 2.0, with added features — including video calling — and a cleaner interface. It is taking steps to make computer microphones cheap and easy to obtain. More importantly, it is moving its service off the computer to a new breed […]

November 30, 2005 Poway, CA— Delkin Devices, Inc., maker of premium quality eFilm® memory cards and other innovative digital photography products, is now shipping the Universal version of their popular Pop-Up Shades. All Pop-Up Shades allow you to see your camera’s LCD screen in the sun and protect it from damage. The sturdy, lightweight […]

Digital imaging has taken great strides since development of the first prototype digital camera 30 years ago – a 10,000-pixel device, powered by 16 AA batteries, which stored data on a cassette tape. Today, while digital image capture has become widespread, a new technology shift may be approaching for the core component used in these […]

Nov. 30, 2005–ImageWare Systems Inc. (AMEX:IW), a world leading developer and provider of identity management solutions announced today that it has received final certification from the State of California Department of Justice (Cal DOJ) for their IWS(TM) Law Enforcement solution. This certification by Cal DOJ is in addition to FBI certifications received in April providing […]

The Eastman Kodak Company is proud to announce its success in the coveted Trade Image Press Association (TIPA) Awards 2005. Kodak has won three awards, highlighting the company’s ongoing leadership in the photo and imaging industry.

Apple Computer Inc. could introduce its first laptop computers based on Intel Corp. chips as early as January, which, together with robust sales of video iPods, should drive earnings higher, Citigroup said on Wednesday.

The SLR-like Fujifilm FinePix S5200 is a 5.1 megapixel (effective) 10x ultra zoom camera with the typical priorities of a long zoom Fuji: it lacks optical image stabilization, but attempts to compensate with extended ISO settings up to 1600 and a pretty wide maximum aperture to allow fast shutter speeds, minimizing the need for image […]

Olympus USA announced on Monday its new H-Series of xD-Picture cards with the new H512 MB xD card, which can store 512 MB of information and offer write speeds 2-3 times faster than the Standard or Type M xD cards (exact write speeds vary depending on camera model). The H512 MB Type H-Series xD-Picture Card […]

Sony officials have indicated that they never thought flat-panel televisions would become as popular as fast as they have, and this inaccurate estimation—and their inability to manufacture them themselves—has cost them. According to equity analyst John Yang with Tokyo’s Standard & Poor’s, if Sony doesn’t get a toehold soon, their financial trouble will only continue.