Archive for the 'Panasonic' category

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.

Panasonic had previosuly said that they wanted to seriously join the croud of camera manufacturers with a medium- to high-end Digital SLR. But up to now they did not disclose much.

But now, there is more to taste it: a preview of the Panasonic DMC-L10 at DPreview, an analysis at PopPhoto.com and a Panasonic Press Release at Photography Blog.

To my eyes, the most interesting or notable features are:

• Orientable 2.5″ LiveView rear LCD display (the most flexible of D-SLR rear displays)
• 10.1-Megapixel Live MOS Sensor in Four-Thirds (4/3) form factor (compatible with the wealth of 4/3 lenses)
• Supersonic Wave dust-cleaning for the sensor (this technology is expected to provide the best-in-class dust removal as proven by Olympus)
• Image stabilisation (Mega O.I.S.) included in the lenses (as for the standard LEICA D VARIO-ELMAR 14-50mm/F3.8-5.6)

You can bet that this camera will be helping a lot of point-and-shoot compact camera users to move to D-SLR level because of the right blend of ease-of-use and high-end performance.

Others articles about the DMC-L10 found on the web:

• ThinkCamera
• DigitLife
• DigitLife (opinion)

Panasonic is about to bring a new Digital SLR to the market to fight with the Canon EOS 40D, the Nikon D300 and other Sony Alpha 200 or Alpha 300. We don’t know much about it, and it is still difficult to be sure that they will deliver, but an Italian magazine, Fotocomputer, provided some rough data and a few photos:

• 10 MP sensor, with LiveView capacity
• 11 AF points
• Double AF system (with and witout LiveView)
• Articulated LCD rear display
• Dust cleaning system, vibrating along the lens axis
• Face detection

Reviewed cameras

Canon 30D, 5D, Digital Rebel XT (350D), Digital Rebel XTi (400D), 1D Mark III , 1Ds Mark II

Nikon D200, D2Hs, D2Xs, D40, D40x, D80

Fuji FinePix S5 Pro

Olympus Evolt E-510, E-500, E-410, E-330

Pentax *ist D, K100D, K110D, K10D

Samsung GX-1L, GX-1S, GX-10

Sigma SD-14

Sony Alpha DSLR-A100

This is not everyday that a web site makes the effort to compare 26 Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras in one single article/review. Nevertheless, this is what GearDigest (affiliated to the excellent Tom’s Hardware of good fame among PC enthusiasts) does today. This is an orgy of cameras between $600 and $7000 (around 600-7000€)! Are missing though: Panasonic and Leica for being late and the Fuji S3 pro that is -surprisingly- considered a specialty camera for infrared.

The guide contains several pages of explanations and of theory on the advantages of the specificities of the SLR and DSLR cameras (the journalist visibly does not expect its readers to know much about that photo technology and compensates with the clarity of his writing).

unfortunately (but this is understandable for a general public audience – rather than photo enthusiasts), the comparison is done essentially at the limited level of technical characteristics. Nonetheless, this is a very wide review of the photo DSLR landscape of available products and it will ease the initial sorting between the many offers.

Link.