Canon EOS 7D, is it really the new Full Frame camera?

From CanonRumours. But it seems to be an elegant fake from Xitek.com.

What can be forecasted of the most important (in my eyes ) announces expected before the Photokina fair in Koln.

Beware: We said announces, not releases.

Already done:

Beware: This will be updated as often as needed. This may lead to repeated publications in the RSS feeds and some publication date changes.

You never can hide anything from the keen eyes of the Internet photo lovers. The Sony Alpha 900 has been seen used with the Carl Zeiss 16-35mm f/2.8 lens.

Notice the small trapezoidal LCD screen on top of the camera body, the nice position of the drive and exposure buttons on top of the grip, nearly under the finger:

Source: DP via PB.

We were waiting for it, we were speaking about it, we were murmuring. Here it comes. Sony just let some information leak about their new super-tele-lens to complete an already rather rich list of good quality lenses:

The Sony 70-400mm f/4-5.6 G SSM is described in the PDF documentation of the Sony 70-300mm f/4-5.6 G SSM. Obviously, they were designed together. It is a twist-zoom. This will differentiate quite notably from the push-pull type of others like the Canon 100-400mm and it should protect it efficiently against dust entry (and we know that this is the bane of push-pulls.

The technical features can be read from this table. I can imediately notice that the diaphragm is staying between f/4 and f/5.6 (the golden standard of this type of zoom), that the weight is rather high (heavier than the Nikon and the Canon, nearly as much as the Sigma equivalnet) and that the minimum focus distance is very competitive.

Let’s wait for images and tests (and the price), but this could be the ideal lens to go and shoot in a wild-life safari.

Source: DPreview forums. See also my previous article about high-end tele-zooms.

I migrated this web site to the latest version of WordPress (version 2.6). Since this is a significant jump from the old v2.3.3 that I was still using (because it was stable and without known bugs), I feel that it could be interesting to summarize the observations I made during this migration.

Good

• Somehow, the performance is the same, but the administration panel has been improved with a logic more task-oriented (important and common things are more immediately accessible).

Bad

• Unfortunately, in the administration panel, I lost most of the direct visibility onto the posts scheduled in the future (I prepare a lot of articles in advance to free myself from the tyrany of web site updates).
• The “Write Post” page is organised differently, but I lack the flexibility of re-organisation that was in version 2.3 (dragging the elements where I wanted them to be). But, maybe it’s because I still don’t know how to do it… Apparently, people think it was a regression in v2.5.x, but what the heck? It was working fine before.

Conclusion

I have no difficulty working with WordPress 2.6 now. Even if a few things keep annoying me and I feel that it was not all change-for-the-best, I would easily recommend it (even the newest v2.6.1).

Canon EOS evolution

As seen on Canon EOS evolution (US web site).

The Canon France web site started to prepare the arrival of a new Canon EOS camera with an animated teaser. Visibly, it will be at the top of the range (who said Canon EOS 7D?).

Canon teasing

Thanks to Image et Nature magazine who says so on its next cover page.

Image et Nature

So, no Canon EOS 5D Mark II or similar. It will be Canon EOS 7D.

I told you that the press was currently held by the Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). Here is one which failed to cover it completely…

Google Chrome

How could we ignore the launch of Chrome, the new browser from Google? Every is babbling about it, everybody tried it (it can be downloaded here).

But after one test run, I believe that I should explain something. Yes, this is a marvellous browser because it takes most of the good things from FireFox, Opera or Safari (all IE competition). I immediately noticed:

• No space is lost in useless graphical waste, everything is concentrating on user display,
• The good tab management,
• The impressive performance,
• The name-completion in the address bar.

Some will also have noticed the more technical features like:

• The separation of applications running in different tabs,
• The very small footprint (including for the Javascript).

But, all this is hiding a very critical reality: Google did not even try to make a mere browser (it even lacks a simple RSS feed manager). They are more interested in doing more than Internet Explorer competiton. Much more.

Chrome (tasks)

The impressive advantage of this browser is elsewhere: it will fight against Microsoft applications allowing to work online in the best possible conditions. Chrome is nearly an Operating System competing with Windows. Yes, because where Windows offered a vehicle to sell Microsoft Office, Chrome will allow Google to develop a wider range of online tools in the path opened by the Desktop applications and GMail.

It will hurt Microsoft real bad. Chrome is obviously the best browser to support this approach. Rock solide, fast (very), reliable and able to support application crashes.

A Danish photography magazine just leaked the official name of the new flagship camera from Sony.

Sony Alpha 900 - magazine ad

As everybody expected, it will be named Sony Alpha 900. Also,this tends to contradict the possibility of additional similar cameras (possibly with a different/smaller sensor).

Features

• 24.6 Mega Pixel Full Frame Exmor CMOS Sensor
• Dual BIONZ Image Processing Engine
• Intelligent Preview
• 100% Viewfinder (with 0.74x Magnification)
• 3.0â€�, 921K-pixel Hybrid LCD
• 9-point double-cross AF (with f2.8 wide-area sensor & 10-point secondary sensors)
• 5 fps continuous shooting
• SteadyShot on the sensor

Update: Yet another ad has been found.

Sony Alpha 900 - Magazine ad

Preliminary disclosure: Usually, I refrain from commenting about issues relating to my own employer. But today, Johnson Controls issued a press release unusually significant that I assumed would be worth an exception.

The American economy is in pain, the automotive industry is in pain: General Motors should see a slowdown of 30% or more, Ford forecasts 22% less activty from one year to the next and Toyota would be good at only loosing 7,5%. With this, nobody should be surprised when automotive part manufacturers are preparing to quickly reduce the costs like is done by most car manufacturers (GM is announcing regularly plant closings).

It is in this context that Johnson Controls announces an important restructuration. We will know details only later, but it is clear that $450 to $500 millions of  restructuing charges will lead to major job layoffs. JCI only gives the general orientation and says that they want to cut down automotive plants/footprint in the USA, follow the move toward Low-Cost Countries including in Europe. Which is normal since interior vehicle parts (like large plastic parts) are very difficult to transport and car manufacturers are also moving toward Eastern Europe.

If you add to it the difficulties of real estate in the US, a market where JCI is very present with its Building Efficiency division, it is easily understood that adaptation will touch this branch too, since experts do not forecast any quick improvement in this part of the American economy.

These intense perturbations in the immediate environment of Johnson Controls may have enough power to bring some auto parts manufacturers down to their knees. The most fragile ones may have to take really drastic measures (or more drastic than massive layoffs, if you follow my reasoning). But Johnson Controls could well be among those who will survive best (or relatively best); According to Investopedia.com, Johnson Controls and Autoliv are those most apt to protect themselves.

or how to ensure the best possible battery autonomy of an iPhone: 36 hours of operation.

As a matter of fact, the iPhone battery seems to be its weak point as it seems. But Guy Kawasaki explains us that -for the best part- it comes from some options that eat a lot of power (WiFi, BlueTooth and geo-localisation ) and they should not stay in full/permanent operating mode.

Simple, obvious, but useful to repeat.