Archive for August, 2008

Project Origin is the name of the sequel to F.E.A.R. (a frightening FPS game from Monolith). However, because of licensing issues, it will not be named FEAR 2 or anything like it. Nevertheless, this filiation should attract a lot of attention (the story will start just 30 seconds before the explosive end of the previous opus).

But knowing that F.E.A.R. has had the dubious fame of being a major PC power hog, it is well worth checking what we will need to run such an FPS game. And it is definitely difficult to get some reliable information of that kind for Project Origin, while we are waiting for a realease at the end of the year 2008.

Minimum requirements

• Processor: Athlon 64 3000+ or Intel 2.8GHz
• Memory: 1 GB of SDRAM
• Graphics: DirectX 9.x on GeForce 66xx or Radeon X16xx

Recommended requirements

• Processor: Dual core CPU
• Memory: 2 GB of SDRAM
• Graphics: DirectX 9.x on GeForce 7800 GT or Radeon X1800 series (Shader model 3)

Trailer

And here is a trailer for the game:

Project Origin trailer (click to play the video)

From the same Japanese test web site for Canon, here are the high-resolution photos of the Canon EOS 50D (click on the thumbnails to enlarge them).

Canon EOS 50D - front

Canon EOS 50D - front

Canon EOS 50D - back

The Canon Japanese web site did it again. Now we get a neary full description of the new Canon EOS 50D. With all nice photos of the replacement for the Canon EOS 40D.

Canon EOS 50D

Seeing that this also presents a 15MP camera, I start to wonder whether Canon has really a replacement ready for the EOS 5D Full Frame SLR camera. Several of the features attributed (by the rumour) to the EOS 5D MkII seem to be appearing on the Canon EOS 50D. It could mean that the leaks were actually coming from the EOS 50D and not the EOS 7D (or whatever name it will have).

Of course, we will have to wait a little more to know if Canon is really ready to announce two major cameras at the Photokina fair (one Canon EOS 50D in mid-range and one Canon EOS 7D at the high-end). But it looks more and more like Nikon and Sony will have an empty field to compete with the aging Canon EOS 5D.

A few templates for documents you would want to use with OpenOffice 3.0 or MS-Office.

Microsoft Office 2007 Templates

Free legal download.

Indirect confirmation of what we told previously here about the future replacement for the Nikon D80.

This new photo camera was “seen” (more or less) on the Target.com web site where a single page is describing it as:

• Nikon D90 12.3MP Digital SLR w/ 18-105mm

No photo, no detailed technical features, but the title confirms the size of the sensor and the zoom that will be offered in the standard lens kit.

OK! I don’t really know what it will be but one of the web sites I regularly check (Photoshop Insider) announced a bizarre event: WorldWide PhotoWalk. The idea is just to have photographers going to a place to walk together in a town they know in order to shoot a few pictures and… share.

This afternoon, I decided to go to the Photowalk in Paris tomorrow morning (if I wake up early enough to be there by 10am).

I known this is a last-minute decision, but if you’re in Paris, why not join? It’s free.

Sony Alpha 900 at Photo Image exhibition in Brazil [1].

Even knowing that those are machines created to kill people, you will not be able to keep yourself from laughing or smiling at some of absurdly extreme designs generated by the brains of some military engineers.

Source: Dark Roasted Blend.

The Canon web site in China just made a big error probably very revealing since it has been leaking the detailled cahracteristics of the a new Digital SLR camera named Canon EOS 50D (so, this is the long-awaited successor to the beautiful Canon EOS 40D).

The level of details is extraordinary (for leaked data), which certainly means that the camera is fully ready and will be announced at the next Photokina fair (in less than a month) or on August 26th, 2008 (as I was told previously).

• 15.1 megapixel CMOS sensor
• DIGIC 4
• 1.6x crop
• Dust Reduction
• Automatic correction of brightness/vignetting
• 95% viewfinder, 0.97 magnification
• 9 point AF(All Cross Type)
• 35 meter area equipped with high-precision sensors
• AF Fine Tuning
• ISO 100-12800
• 6.3 fps (high speed) 3fps (low speed)
• Buffer: 16 RAW - 60 JPG - 10 RAW+JPG
• 920,000 points VGA 3.0-inch LCD monitor
• 100,000 cycle shutter
• Rugged magnesium alloy body

Full Specification for Canon EOS 50D (in English partly translated from Chinese)

(more…)

The next camera from Nikon is upon us. Nobody has officially seen it, but prices start to appear here and there. Nikon D90 with an 18-105mm VR lens will be at $1299.99.

Official announcement forecasted for August 27th, 2008.

According to German photo magazine, Foto Magazin, the future Nikon D3x pro SLR camera will be fitted with the Sony image sensor that was presented a few months ago and that is expected to appear on the Sony Alpha 900 camera (high-end D-SLR from Sony). If this is confirmed, it would mean that the Nikon D3 will have a successor under the name of Nikon D3X (or D4) and that the Sony sensor is really of the utmost quality.

We knew that it was coming with 25 million pixels, but it could have been short on quality compared to the D3 (or D700) sensor because of its small (but many) pixels. For Nikon to accept to use this Sony sensor (and not a better one) at this level of products, they must be sure to have the best possible silicon piece: Pros want wonderful images, not only big figures (a big bunch of pixels).

I was thinking differently, but this could tilt the scale toward a very high price for the Sony Alpha 900 camera (I had hoped to see less than 2500€ or even less than 2000€, but -now- I would not be surprised if the label looked like 3000€).

However, it would leave some space left in the Sony camera range for an Alpha 800, with an intermediate price. This could be quite neat if it allowed to have a super-featured Full Frame camera around 3000€ (the Sony Alpha 900) and another Full Frame under 2500€ (the hypothetical Sony Alpha 800).

With such arguments, nobody would be surprised in seeing a brother to the recent Nikon D700: The ruored Nikon D800?

Let’s see at Koln Photokina opening next month.