The Digital Photography Show #81: Canons and Fujis and Sonys, Oh My!
The Digital Photography Show #81: Canons and Fujis and Sonys, Oh My! (36Mb, 52 mins)
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January 28, 2008: Welcome to the eighty first episode of The Digital Photography Show!
Today it’s just me and Michael talking about all the new cameras and other cool stuff we’re hoping to see at this year’s huge photo convention PMA 08.
According to their webpage “PMA 08 hosts photo retailers, professional photographers, mass merchandisers, professional labs, custom picture framers, scrapbook retailers and event videographers from around the world.” Doncha wish your convention was hot like that?
Of course, Michael and I are so excited about our upcoming trip (we leave in one day for Vegas, baby!) that we don’t make a lot of sense on today’s show, but we somehow manage to give you the skinny on some of PMA 08′s most exciting new hardware, including:
Canon Digital Rebel 450: The entry level’s getting pretty sophisiticated.
Canon’s massive new lenses: You can get the pair for a mere $18,000!
New Pentax and Samsung Cameras: What they lack in market-share, they make up in heart. Or something like that.
Fuji’s latest point and shoot: I’ve really liked using previous iterations of the Fujifilm F100fd, a camera that would be great if they could only work one more “F” into its title.
Sony’s Smile Shutter: Quick – which do you think can recognize a human expression faster – you or your camera? If you answer the latter, this could be the shooter for you! Here’s a USA Today review of this technology, written by Edward Baig.
Blurb.com: A popular place to make your photo books.
JOBO’s third-party batteries: Spend less on batteries, more on cameras. With a name like Premio, they’ve got to be good.
If you’ve gotten a new digital camera for the holidays, or if you’ve received a new software program that you want to know how to use, check out xTrain, a great web-based learning resource. They have a ton of online videos that will teach you how to do pretty much everything with your camera – and your computer – that you might ever want to do. And exclusively for our listeners, they offer a 15% off discount on any xTrain course or membership plan by using the code DPS on the page you’ll find here.
Our latest photo contest, “Spotlight on Giving,†got fewer entries than any of our previous competitions. But are they any good? For now, you be the judge over at www.dps.phanfare.com. In a few weeks, it will be our turn. The winner will recieve a wonderful Wacom tablet. Thanks, Wacom!
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We also appreciate the sponsorship of Wacom (www.wacom.com) and Lensbabies (www.lensbabies.com), two great products for when you want to get creative with your photography.
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Thanks for joining us. We hope enjoy this week’s show. Wish us luck in Vegas!
Scott
January 31st, 2008 at 3:12 am
Thanks for posting you show #81, I was going through withdrawal.
On the smile detection feature, I think one of the uses for it would be for people with poor eyyesight. As the baby boomers age and eye sight fades, it will make it easier for them to take photos of the grand kids and the great grand kids. For my self, I can’t hardly see a persons body through a view finder much less a smile, so it would work for me.
I can hardly wait for your PMA show, I know it will be great.
January 31st, 2008 at 11:52 am
Great Show this week. I can’t wait to hear the interviews from the show. I have made several photo books. I have used http://www.shutterfly.com and was happy with them. But I love My Publisher http://www.mypublisher.com because they offer the huge coffee table sized photo books. The software is free and offers tons of template options. The photos printed very nice. I have used them 4 times!
Cheers,
Laurel
January 31st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Scott, selling dSLR’s at a loss just to get customers to buy into your system would be a very bad idea. And you just can’t compare the dSLR market with the console market. I know a lot of people with dSLR and a single kit lens. I do not know ANY avid console gamers with only one game. Selling a camera at a lost and assuming that the buyer would buy more lenses and accessories to cover the lost would be unwise I think.
Michael made a good point when he said that the reasons most pros are shooting with Canon and Nikon is because the two companies have pro/semi-pro quality camera. But they are not the only ones anymore: Pentax and Olympus now have the K20 and E-3 respectively.
Good show, enjoy your time in Vegas!
February 1st, 2008 at 12:42 am
I was just having a look at the photobook websites and unfortunately they all appear to be based in the US which makes shipping to Canada too expensive. MyPublisher.com looked interesting, but they want $12 US to ship one book to Canada and $4 for each additional book. That’s as much as the book itself costs! Very unpalatable.
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:36 am
I feel sorry for the US Canon users. I think that Canon has figured that like cars you guys perfer names rather than numbers. IE US: Phoenix, Viper, Phalic Symbol, Euro: Mercedes 180, BMW 325 or a Audi A4.
Here is the decipher for entry level Canon
Rest Vs US
300D Rebel
350D Rebel XT
400D Rebel XTi
450D Rebel XSi
Hope that makes sense.
February 3rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I chat with Rudy Winston today from Canon and I asked him that exact question about why they have multiple model names for cameras rather than just one name/number. The short answer is that when you see the model number on the camera/box, one can clearly know whether the product is grey market. So, if I wanted to buy a US Canon xsi and I see 450D on the box, I know I should watch out and take note that this is an imported unit. More importantly, it tells Canon how they should honor the warranty.
–Michael