A look at Fujifilm’s innovative EXR sensor, the latest iteration of its flagship Super CCD sensor, along with some analysis of images from production cameras. Admittedly this would have been more interesting as a speculative piece a year ago, but better late than never
tl;dr: Fujifilm’s EXR sensor is extraordinary, mostly for its dynamic range. If [...]
Posted in Market Analysis, Skills of the Trade, The Science of It
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Tagged bayer filter, DSLR, EXR, F200EXR, F70EXR, Fuji, Fujifilm, HDR, high dynamic range, high resolution, high sensitivity, highlight, pixel-binning, S200EXR, sensor, Super CCD, SuperCCD, switchable sensor, wide dynamic range
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TL;DR version: A long diatribe on how the latest Canon releases completely underwhelm in the face of competition, especially from Nikon. The 7D is a decent upgrade that’s completely overrated simply due to marketing. The 1D Mark IV sounds nice and has the capability the 1D Mark III probably should’ve had – unfortunately its functionality [...]
When it comes to midrange lenses, there’s a few different approaches. Of course, a lot of people start at the low end with an 18-55mm kit or so, but eventually most people graduate and there are pretty much two ways to go:
A small range, high-quality, high-aperture zoom.
A large range ultrazoom with (usually) lower quality and [...]
In what many see as the next big evolutionary step for digital cameras, Panasonic and Olympus made a bold move with their introduction of the Micro Four-Thirds system, an electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lens (so-called “EVIL”) system that eschewed the mirror assembly found in traditional SLR cameras and offering image preview via a live view feed only.
Aside from [...]
Following up on their K-7, Pentax has now come up with an entry-level K-x. While it doesn’t bring anything groundbreaking that wasn’t already seen on the K-7, it packs in many of the features seen on many competitors’ midrange model, and perhaps pending reviews on image quality and disregarding the overall Pentax system upgrade options, [...]
Posted in Market Analysis, News
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Tagged budget, Canon Rebel T1i, Canon Rebel XS, comarison, custom colors, DSLR, entry-level, K-7, K-x, Nikon D3000, Nikon D5000, Pentax, red, space white
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Apologies to all for dropping the ball for the past three months – it’s been a whirlwind start to the semester here. Big, recent developments:
Nikon SLR Refresh
Nikon introduced a couple of new SLR updates, the updated D300s and D3s. The D300 is a pretty incremental upgrade to the mid-level D300, offering a modest +1fps improvement [...]
Posted in Market Analysis, News
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Tagged 70-200, 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II, D3, D300, D300s, D3s, DSLR, ISO100k, ISO102400, nikon, price
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Possibly the biggest announcement in the compact sector since the Panasonic TZ1 – Fujifilm finally puts together not just a compact ultrazoom but an ultracompact ultrazoom (0.9 in thin), and manages to fit in a half-inch SuperCCD sensor to boot. If ever a camera came along with the potential to dethrone Panasonic’s vaunted TZ/ZS-series, this [...]
In a release that they’ve hyped for weeks now, Olympus finally pulled the covers off their first Micro Four-Thirds format camera, the E-P1.
For those of you not already in the know, Micro Four-Thirds is a new interchangeable lens system developed by Olympus and Panasonic which is the first mirror-less digital camera system to feature interchangeable [...]
Posted in Market Analysis, News
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Tagged 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6, 17mm f/2.8 pancake, Canon G10, digital camera, EVIL, Fujifilm F200EXR, high quality compact, M.Zuiko, Micro Four Thirds, mirror-less SLR, Olympus, Olympus E-620, Olympus E-P1, Panasonic, Panasonic G1, Panasonic LX3, Sigma DP1, Sigma DP2
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I get a lot of questions all the time about which camera to buy, and most of the time I don’t quite have the time to respond to all of them, so I’ve decided I’d start a regular camera guide feature. These aren’t in-depth rationales or anything, just quick summaries that tell you, unequivocally, which [...]
Posted in General
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Tagged bestinclass.com, Canon Rebel XS, Canon SD960, digital camera recommendations, Fujifilm F200, Fujifilm F200EXR, high-performance compact, Nikon D5000, Panasonic FS15, Panasonic FZ28, Panasonic LX3, Panasonic TZ4, Panasonic ZS1, Panasonic ZS3, Pentax K2000, point and shoot, Sigma 18-200mm, Sigma DP1, simple compact, simple ultracompact, ultrazoom, workhorse camera
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So over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on a little project called Demosaic. It’s a little online demo that interpolates image data from (simulated) raw sensor output, similar to what almost every digital camera used today has to do.
http://www.thedailynathan.com/demosaic/
Latest on Sun, 14:59