Hasta La Gadget!

Olympus has announced its new DSLR, the E-620, which sits somewhere in the middle of the compay’s lineup. It’s certainly not aimed at the pro, but it has a rather odd mix of features that could appeal to the more advanced amateur.

First, and best, is the flip-out LCD, which finally makes live-view a useful DSLR feature. At 2.7", it’s a little smaller than what we’re used to finding on better cameras, but the flip is oustanding — from sneaky shots of people in the street to floor level pictures without having to lay belly-down, this could be enough to sell the E-620 to many people.

The novelty continues with the in-camera Art-Filters, a bunch of cheesy effects which can be applied to your photographs while they are still inside the box. I’ve honestly never seen the point of this even in cheap cameras, but in a mid-range DSLR it seems frivolous. A DSLR user is serious about taking photos, and so any tweaks are likely to be done back at the computer. Here’s a sampling: Pop Art, Grainy Black and White, and Pin Hole. Classy stuff.

Better is the in-body image stabilization, which will steady the shakes of any lens you put on there, a sensor cleaning function and wireless flash control. Everything else is pretty standard, from face recognition to "Shadow Adjustment Technology" which compresses contrast to keep details in the shadows and highlights.

All in, it’s a solid if rather dull new camera. Available May for an estimated $700.

Press release [DP Review]

Poor Sigma. The company keeps banging away with its cameras, but there is either always something wrong with them, or they’re just plain late. Not late to ship (although that happens too), but just plain late. The cameras often feel like they are using technology already two years out of date.

The DP1, for example, was a great, stylish and stripped down camera — a fixed lens and a big, high quality Fovean sensor. It was marred by terrible controls, a labyrinthine menu system and a ridiculously slow ƒ4 maximum aperture. It was also delayed, over an over.

The DP2 offers promise, and was spotted in the UK at the Focus on Imaging exhibition by Richard Kilpatrick. He gave it the once over and declared it "20% snappier". The menu system is improved, there is a new quick access button for changing oft-used settings and the body has seen some physical tweaks (a slightly larger thumb grip for one) and a maximum aperture of ƒ2.8.

Most exciting, though, is that the camera has a top ISO of 3200. This, coupled with that roomy sensor should mean great low light shots. It’s just a shame that the DP1 won’t be around until later in the year. Late again — the Panasonic LX-3 already has a great maximum aperture, good low-light performance and the lens, while being faster, wider and a zoom, still doesn’t need to drive its way out, motor grinding, into the world every time you switch it on. It’s also available today.

Sigma UK at Focus On Imaging – and DP2 news [Sigma User via BBG]
Photo [Richard Kilpatrick/Sigma User]

See Also:

• Sigma Tries Again with the DP2
• Sigma DP1 Reviewed. Result: Not That Good

Nikon Control is a small simple application that does one thing, and does it well. Actually, it does two things.

The application is a result of necessity and curiosity. The author, Stefan Hafeneger, wanted to try out the Nikon SDK (software development kit) which lets programmers control Nikon’s cameras. Unfortunately, the sample project for the Mac was rather crappy so he did just what any decent hacker would do — he rolled his own program.

A few nights later and the result is Nikon Control. It works with most Nikon DSLRs and, when you connect the camera it will detect it and open a window. From here you can press a button and shoot, and the picture is saved on your computer and displayed in the app.

The second trick is bracketing, a pain at the best of times when done in-camera. To bracket you just choose the minimum and maximum shutter speeds you want, press the button and the app grabs all the shots you want and squirrels them away to your hard drive.

It’s smart, it’s simple and it’s free. And if you don’t like the name, suggest a new one. Stefan is looking for something a little more catchy. He’s also planning to add an auto function for making high dynamic range pictures — perfect for all you surreal HDR junkies out there.

Product page [Stefan Hafeneger via Nikon Rumors]

See Also:

• Video Recording with the Nikon D700

A new Leica lens is always something to get excited about. The German company might be having some trouble taking its rangefinder cameras into the digital age, but when it comes to glass, Leica is pretty much at the top of the game.

The latest lens is an 18mm ƒ3.8 ASPH made for the M series rangefinder cameras, both digital and film. On a film body like the M6, you’ll have an ultra-wide view. Probably too wide for most, and the maximum aperture of ƒ3.8 is pretty slow. That combo of angle and hole means you’ll not be getting much of that famous Leica bokeh, the sweet way the Leica lenses render out of focus highlights.

On the M8 digicam, however, things look up. You’re still stuck with a slow lens, but the lens becomes a 24mm equivalent. The depth of field is huge whatever you do, and will stretch from 3.93 feet all the way to infinity even when the lens is wide open.

To make proper use of this new lens, you’ll also need to buy a new viewfinder which will clip onto the top of the camera. You can use the built-in finder, but the lack of bright lines for the 18mm focal length means you’ll have no idea of what you are framing.

Prices are not yet disclosed, but you can be sure they’ll be high. Available in March.

Press release [DP Review]

Between all the new digital cameras pooped out before the upcoming PMA show and the crazy cameras buried inside cellphones at MWC, it’s a good time to go over why more megapixels isn’t necessarily better.

So, the nutshell explanation of how a digital camera works is that light lands on a sensor, which converts the light into electrical charges. Depending on the kind of camera you’re using, how the light reaches the sensor may seem different—honkin’ digital SLRs house a complicated pentaprism and mirror system that swings out of the way, while the inside of a compact point-and-shoot is mechanically far simpler. At the heart, though, the sensor fundamentals stay the same.

The sensor is where most of the megapixel machismo comes from. When you squeeze the shutter button, the sensor (like film in old-school cameras) is exposed to light for however long you have the exposure time set for. The most common metaphor to talk about how a sensor works is that it’s like an array of buckets (the pixels) that collect light, and the amount collected is turned into an electrical charge, which is converted into data. We talked a bit about the differences between the two major types of sensors, CCD and APS (CMOS) earlier.

Generally, the more pixels packed onto a sensor, the higher the resolution of the images it can produce. (Image resolution is somewhat confusingly also measured in pixels, but the term pixels doesn’t always refer to the exact same thing.) A megapixel is 1 million pixels, so a 12-megapixel photo has a resolution of about 12 million pixels. Sounds like a lot, till you consider gigapixel photos, which have over a billion pixels in them. By comparison, a 30-inch monitor with a 2560×1600 display resolution amounts to a measly four megapixels, and even the best high-definition video currently is around two megapixels, no matter how large the TV.

The most recent crop of $250ish point-and-shoot digital cameras from Canon and Nikon seem to establish 10-12 megapixels as the new norm for everyday pocket cams, and hell, Sony Ericsson crammed a 12-megapixel into their tiny Idou cellphone—the same as Canon’s entry-level XSi DSLR and Nikon’s $3000 D700 pro DSLR. Uh, what the hell?

Obviously, there’s a world of difference between the image quality you’re going to get out each of those. Most of it comes down to the size of the sensor and the pixels. You can fit a much bigger sensor inside of a DSLR than you can inside of a cellphone, which not only means you can fit more pixels on the sensor, you can fit much bigger ones—imagine bigger buckets to catch the light. Sure enough, the sensors inside of DSLRs are huge compared to the ones in compacts as DPReview’s detailed size chart shows. They also explain how to the read the sizes—which actually refer to the size of the tube around the sensor, not the sensor itself. Sensor sizes are referenced against 35mm film as a standard—cameras with sensors equivalent in size to 35mm film are called full-frame, though right now that’s limited to pricey semi-pro level DSLRs.

To get really high-resolution smaller cameras and phones, manufacturers pack as many teeny pixels as tightly as they can onto tiny sensors. The pixels in standard point-and-shoots aren’t the same kind of high-quality pixels found on DSLRs—and generally speaking, bargain bin cameras will offer lower quality pixels than higher-end shooters of the same class—which results crappier color accuracy and usually lower dynamic range too.

The other problem is noise. When you pack in pixels like delicious cows headed for slaughter, you create a lot of heat, which is one of the ways noise is generated—the rainbow colored random grain you see sometimes on digital photos. Noise gets worse as you crank the ISO, amplifying the sensor’s sensitivity to light. In newer point and shoots, it’s really noticeable around a sensitivity of ISO 800, though the D700 and 5D Mark II DSLRs can be jacked up to 3200 ISO and produce acceptable images (we’ve used some on Giz).

So, on a given sensor size, a lower megapixel count with bigger pixels will produce cleaner images—hence the D3 only rocking 12 megapixels. Most cameras mitigate noise with fancy noise reduction algorithms that are getting better all the time—Canon’s 5D Mark II manages to balance delivering 21 megapixels with images about as clean as the D700’s at higher ISOs—but for the most part, we’re happier to see bigger sensors and fewer pixels. One disadvantage of the bigger “buckets” in DSLRs is that you do need more light to fill them up, meaning you might need longer exposure times.

And when it comes to print quality—that old argument for extra megapixels—for most of the shooting the average person does, 6 megapixels is just fine, as David Pogue shows (and Ken Rockwell has more on), since you can make ginormous prints from it, and a clear, noise-free 8×10 looks better than a crappy one when its framed and hung on the wall. As Douglas Sterling told us via email, pros crave the extra detail of ginormous megapixel images, but when it comes down to buying cameras for regular people, just keep in mind that more megapixels isn’t necessarily more better. It’s how good those pixels are that matters.

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