I just read Syl Arena ’s Canon Speedlite Wishlist. It’s a very interesting and detailed list of things that could be improved in Canon’s Speedlite flash system.

I agree with many points there. One thing I would add is to build a makro flash like the Twin Lite MT-24EX without the annoying cables. The flash is a wonderful tool but the cables often get in the way. The Nikon system does work without cables.
As so often in the last years it took Nikon a few years longer to offer something similar as Canon but when they finally made it, they got it 100% right and in that case better than Canon.

The best book on sharpening will soon be published in a new edition covering all the latest aditions to Photoshop, Camera Raw and Lightroom. Lightroom coverage is very important for me as I use this program as much as possible before moving to Photoshop.

According to the publisher’s website for the book the publication date is August, 14th. I hope to get a copy soon after that and then I will publish a review on this website.

Preorder the book from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk or amazon.de:

The Sony Alpha A900 has genereated a lot of interested since it’s introduction. A large full frame sensor and a competitive price make this an interesting camera.
In this post, I’ve collected a bunch of interesting and detailed reviews of the Sony A900. If you are not sure if you should by the camera, read those reviews and then you can make an informed decision.

Sony A900 review at imaging-resource.com

Sony A900 review at dpreview.com.
dpreview.com always has very good and detailed reviews. Definitely worth reading.

Sony A900 review at ephotozine.com

Studio comparision of Sony A900, Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Nikon D3X

Noise comparision of Sony A900, Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Nikon D3X by Michael Reichmann

Sony A900 review by Michael Reichmann

Comparision of Sony A900, Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Nikon D700

My personal conclusion: The A900 seems to be a great camera. If you are a Sony user and want a full frame camera, the A900 offers great image quality (up to ISO 800) at a reasonable price.
If you are a Canon user, I wouldn’t switch. The 5D Mark II is another great camera at an even better price and Canon offers much more lenses and other tools than Sony does at the moment.

Nikon users who want more than 20 MP have to pay (at the time of this writing) a lot more than Canon and Sony users. The D3X is a better camera in many ways (but lacking video and sensor cleaning) but the much higher prices makes it unattractive for many photographers. Maybe Nikon will introduce a lower priced 24 MP DSLR in 2009.

Michael Reichmann has published a very detailed review of the new Sony A900.
If you are considering buying this camera or just want to now what Sony’s first full frame DSLR has to offer, this very good and detailed report makes a very interesting read.

More information:
Sony A900 Field Review by Michael Reichmann

Now it’s really official. Nikon announced the 24.5 MP D3X.

Read this report by Rob Galbraith for a detailed overview of all it’s features:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-9318-9761.

So far it looks quite impressive. Unfortunately the price is also pretty impressive
The lack of a sensor cleaning systen as in the D300 and D700 is a disappointment. Beside that, for the landscape and studio photographer who shoot Nikon and want a lot of pixels, the D3X may be the perfect camera – if they want to spend 8.000 US $.

It seems that the new Nikon D3X is official now. It was announced in the Nikon Pro magazine.
The important specs so far seem to be:

- body like Nikon D3. AF and metering like D3
- 24.5 megapixel full frame sensor
- also with DX crope mode (10 megapixels and can shoot at 7 fps).
- ISO 100-1600, extendable down to 50 and up to 6400

See here for more information:
http://sebrogers.typepad.com/seb_rogers_blog/2008/11/official-nikon-d3x-specs-its-here-folks.html

So far this is mostly what was expected anyway. No surprises here. Nikon now also has a camera (after Canon and Sony) with more than 20 megapixels.
Tests will tell if the image quality is as good or better than in the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III or Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

The new D3X will be of most interest to studio and landscape photographers. For wildlife and birds, in my opinion, the 12 MP of the D300, D700 and D3 are enough for most photographers.

Now, that Nikon has a complete camera linu-up, I think some more lenses would be great. Personally I would like to see something like the following:

4/16-35 and 4/50-200 VR: That would make a great and light pair for travel and landscape photography.
4/300 VR: (the current 4/300 does not offer VR).
4/200-500 VR: This has been on the wishlist of many nature and sport photographers. If Nikon would come up with such a lens before Canon, I am sure they could win over many professional photographers.

Let’s hope that Nikon will soon release some new lenses and maybe one or two from my wishlist above will be among them. A 4/200-500 VR could really make me think about switching to Nikon!

The latest review of the Canon EOS 50D has caused a lot of discussion in many forums, especially the result that the high ISO performance seems to be worse than in the EOS 40D – and not better as Canon claimed.
Another problem seems to be the reduced per-pixel detail compared to cameras like the EOS 40D.

Maybe Canon really put too many megapixels in the camera and many of the current lenses are not good enough to deliver excellent results with the new EOS 50D.

Obviously, megapixels still sell best. From a photographers point of view, I think it would have been much better to use “only” 12 MP or maybe even stay with 10 MP and make high ISO values better than in the EOS 40D (which is not bad up to ISO 1.600, but improvements are definitely possible).

My dream camera would have been a 12 MP version which is really one stop better than the EOS 40D. A 12 MP camera might also have been able to shoot at 8 frames per second. If Canon would have allowed that camera to use AF up to f8, then this camera would have been a wildlife photographers dream.
But now, it seems that the new EOS 50D is a good camera but not a great camera.

So far I’ve not bought a 50D and I probably won’t buy one. Currently a EOS 40D is about 500 Euros cheaper. And the 40D is a wonderful camera.
If you don’t need the 15 MP of the 50D, I suggest to buy the 40D. For the current price, it’s the best prosumer camera Canon ever built.

I just came across a very interesting article by Michael Reichmann in which he writes about his experience with the new Canon G10 and the comparison with this medium format Hasselblad H2. The results are very interesting and the Canon G10 does very well.
He comes to the conclusion that the Canon G10 is a very good camera and delivers excellent image quality (at low ISO). Of course it’s not a replacement for medium format. As Michael says: “Each system has its place”.

Check out the whole article for more information:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml

If you are interested in Nikon’s new D90, you can now read two detailed reviews. If you want to read only one, I suggest to read dpreview’s review of the D90. At dpreview they always have some of the most detailed and best reviews of DSLR cameras.
Another interesting one is the review at photographyblog.

Overall, both reviews are very positive about the D90. But nothing else was expected from Nikon after all the great reviews their other cameras like the D3, D300 and D700 got.

The version 2.6 of the free image editing software Gimp has been released.

Gimp is a powerful and free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. It does not support all of Photoshop’s features but is still capable of many advanced image manipulation tricks.
The biggest disadvantage is that Gimp does not yet support full 16bit editing, but the new Version already has a library (partly) integrated that supports 16bit editing, so future versions of Gimp will provide full 16bit support.

Unlike Photoshop it also runs on Linux. Versions for other operating systems (incl. Windows) are also avaialble.

More information:
Gimp homepage