Panasonic, not Olympus, debuts Micro Four Thirds camera

Last month, Panasonic and Olympus announced the Micro Four Thirds Standard and promised users smaller dSLR-like cameras. Two weeks ago, Samsung mentioned that it is looking to develop an interchangeable lens camera system that utilizes APS-C-sized sensor, and this is set to rival the former two companies' format. However, that won't happen till 2010, so Panasonic's (and the world's) first Micro Four Thirds camera, the Lumix DMC-G1 can rest easy.

Shooters using Micro Four Thirds Standard have three advantages:

1) Approximately 50 percent shorter distance between lens mount to sensor.
This makes the G1 smaller than the petite Olympus E-420, which is currently touted as the world's smallest dSLR.

2) Lens mount diameter to shrink by 6mm.
Bulky lenses will be a thing of the past, even for optics that cover a long focal length such as 300mm.

3) Increase of electrical contact from 9 to 11 points.
More functions such as optical image stabilizer can be built into the lenses as we can see from the two new optics announced with the G1.


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Oh look, Sony Ericsson's got a photo frame, too

With photo frames retailing on every corner, keep a lookout for one from Sony Ericsson some time in Q4. It's its first, though we wonder why it's taken that long for a phone company to produce a photo frame among its arsenal of camera-phone accessories. Though for its debut outing, the Sony Ericsson IDP-100 Digital Photo Frame doesn't do any fancy tricks beyond just being a vanilla photo frame. You get your typical 7-inch WVGA screen able to display up to 500 images, a world clock, touch controls, and a gamut of connectivity options that include USB, Bluetooth and card slot support for M2, microSD, SD and MS Duo.

Via Fareastgizmos

RED announces plan for dSLR, wages war on big boys

RED, the manufacturer of high-def video cameras has announced that it wants a piece of the dSLR market, and it might be banking on its expertise in imaging to do just that.

Jim Jannard, founder of RED Digital Cinema Camera Company, said in his forum that the company is developing a replacement for dSLRs and the unit would probably be unveiled late 2009. While the final name for the system has not been confirmed, it is now known as Digital Still and Motion Camera. With Motion in mind, we guess the shooters will come packed with video capture function as well, as what Nikon D90 now has.

According to Jannard, we can also expect higher resolution, increased dynamic range, more compact camera bodies and enhanced system flexibility. Some of his points bring to mind the Micro Four Thirds System that Olympus and Panasonic have announced last month, and Samsung's APS-C offering.
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Lexar ups Professional UDMA 300x CompactFlash Card to 16GB

Photo enthusiasts take note. This morning Lexar announced that its Professional UDMA 300x CompactFlash Card will be available in late September in a 16GB version. No word on price but B&H in the US has the 8GB card for US$154.95 with an US$80 mail-in rebate, so I'd say you're looking at around US$200 to US$250 for this guy.

Here's what Lexar's marketing team has to say in its press release: Designed for professional photographers and photo enthusiasts, this lightning-fast card is UDMA-enabled (Ultra Direct Memory Access), resulting in exceedingly fast performance. Speed-rated at 300x, which represents a minimum sustained write speed of 45MB per second, the new Lexar Professional UDMA 300x 16GB CF card dramatically reduces post-production time thanks to an improved card-to-computer transfer rate when working in conjunction with a UDMA-enabled device. In addition, the very high capacity of the card allows photographers to store more images and shoot for longer periods without interruption.
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Photrade lets photographers control their pictures, get paid for them

These days, I hear about new photo sharing sites just about everyday.
That's especially true when you go to a conference like DemoFall or its winter version, Demo, where over the years, I've seen more photo sharing sites than I could ever care to count.

At the same time, the stock photography business has been turned on its ear by the emergence of Web 2.0 and phenomenons like crowdsourcing.

On Monday here, a startup called Photrade took the stage to show off their new service, which combines both photo sharing and stock photography in a bid to give people a way to earn some money with the digital cameras that are ubiquitous these days.

In effect, the service is about connecting photographers, publishers and advertisers in a single marketplace, Photrade CEO Andew Paradise told me in an interview recently, that lets the photographers get paid when publishers use their pictures.
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