Cameras

The Samsung NX300 compact system camera appears to be a very promising entry in the mirrorless market. In fact, with this model, Samsung is serving notice to the old-school camera makers that they're in the market to stay, and a force to be reckoned with. The extensive testing, vetting and double-checking that we do for our reviews often results in a rather exhaustive review process, sometimes making it a long time between our receipt of a camera and the posting of the final review. Moving forward, we'd like to take you along... (read more)

From AdoramaPix: After 13 years of photographing weddings, Libby of Studio 32 Photography is finally retiring. She's seen it all from ecstatic couples to stiff couples, from rainy days to bright days. In all of her weddings, there were 5 key strategy points which alleviated a lot of the stress and confusion between the bridal couple and the photographer. Join her as she shares with you the 5 steps to better communication and pictures. Date: Wednesday, June 26Time: 9:00pm EST Register here.

From Adobe: Creative Cloud Subscriptions Hit 700 Thousand; Adobe Marketing Cloud Bookings Grow Over 25 Percent SAN JOSE, Calif. — June 18, 2013 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today reported financial results for its second quarter of fiscal year 2013 ended May 31, 2013. Second Quarter Financial HighlightsAdobe® achieved revenue of $1.011 billion, within its targeted range of $975 million to $1.025 billion.Diluted earnings per share were $0.15 on a GAAP-basis, and $0.36 on a non-GAAP basis.Operating income was $111.3 million and net income was $76.5 million on a GAAP basis. Operating income was $247.3 million and net income was $182.9 million on a non-GAAP basis.Adobe ended Q2 with 700 thousand paid Creative Cloud™ subscriptions, an increase of 221 thousand when compared to the number of subscriptions as of the end of Q1 fiscal year 2013.Adobe Marketing Cloud quarterly revenue was $229.6 million, with bookings growth of greater than 25 percent.A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP results is provided at the end of this press release. Executive Quotes“Our Q2 results reflect our leadership position in Digital Media and Digital Marketing,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe. “Creative Cloud is revolutionizing the creative process, and Adobe Marketing Cloud is quickly becoming the platform of choice for the world's leading brands, advertising agencies and media companies.” “Adoption of Creative Cloud continued to accelerate and we drove strong Adobe Marketing Cloud bookings growth in Q2,” said Mark Garrett, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Adobe. Adobe to Webcast Earnings Conference CallAdobe will webcast its second quarter fiscal year 2013 earnings conference call today at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time from its investor relations website: www.adobe.com/ADBE. A copy of Adobe management’s prepared remarks, including financial targets and conference call slides, has been posted to Adobe’s investor relations website in advance of the conference call for reference. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial targets is also provided on the website. Forward-Looking Statements DisclosureThis press release contains forward-looking statements, including those related to the transition of our business as we migrate to a subscription model, adoption of Creative Cloud and growth in revenue and bookings for Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions in our Digital Marketing business, which involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: failure to develop, market and distribute products and services that meet customer requirements, introduction of new products and business models by competitors, failure to successfully manage transitions to new business models and markets, including our increased emphasis on a cloud and subscription strategy, fluctuations in subscription renewal or upgrade rates, continued uncertainty in economic conditions and the financial markets, difficulty in predicting revenue from new businesses and the potential impact on our financial results from changes in our business models, and failure to realize the anticipated benefits of past or future acquisitions. For a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, please refer to Adobe’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal year 2012, and Adobe’s Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q issued in fiscal year 2013. The financial information set forth in this press release reflects estimates based on information available at this time. These amounts could differ from actual reported amounts stated in Adobe’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for our quarter ended May 31, 2013, which Adobe expects to file in June 2013. Adobe assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update these forward-looking statements. Financial DocumentsCondensed Consolidated Statements of Income (PD

The Wi-Fi Alliance is finally kicking off a certification program for routers, adapters, and other wireless networking gear based on the IEEE 802.11ac draft standard. The organization has a strong track record when it comes to ensuring that networking products will be interoperable even when the standards they’re based on have yet to be finalized, so this is a positive development. As it did with the 802.11n wireless networking standard, the IEEE is taking its sweet time to ratify the 802.11ac standard. In fact, the responsible working group isn’t expected to finish its work until November, and final ratification isn’t expected until February 2014. That lengthy timeline hasn’t stopped manufacturers from shipping 802.11ac gear, of course; products based on the draft standard have been on store shelves since August 2012. But buyers haven’t had any assurances that those products will work together. The 802.11ac-based Asus RT-AC66U is one of the fastest routers we've ever tested. So why is the certification program launching now? “We want to ensure that the standard is substantially mature,” said Wi-Fi Alliance senior marketing manager Kevin Robinson in an embargoed interview last week. “There is work that we have to go through to ensure interoperability, and [we’re] fielding a test bed to certify that.” The Wi-Fi Alliance launched a similar certification program back in 2007 for networking equipment based on the draft 802.11n standard. Unlike that effort, however, the 802.11ac certification program will not acknowledge the standard’s draft status and is being described as simply “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ ac.” To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Show of hands, who knew that the cameras we use every day are named after a room? The latin word for room is camera, which makes sense when you realize the first objects for recording light were cameras obscura. And in this case instead of the room being the camera, the camera is in fact the light modifier. Read more »

Find out which five members have won prizes, courtsey of Manfrotto, this week on ePHOTOzine.

Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics will now ensure that their PCs in China are installed with licensed Windows and Office software as part of new agreements signed with Microsoft meant to fight piracy.Microsoft announced the agreements Wednesday as the company brought its latest anti-piracy campaign to the Chinese city of Nanjing. Since December, Microsoft's "Keep it Real" campaign has been educating the Chinese public on security risks of using unlicensed Windows software. In addition, the U.S. software giant has been warning dozens of PC resellers in China to stop dealing in pirated copies of its software products.Wednesday's agreements call for the two companies to also require their direct channel partners to promote genuine Microsoft software.In March, Microsoft signed a similar agreement with Lenovo, China's largest PC maker. At the time, Microsoft said the deal would help limit and prevent PCs, moving "downstream" through China's channels, from being installed with pirated versions of Windows.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

You adore your laptop. It lets you get down to business wherever you happen to be—airport lounge, coffee shop, your home office. It’s the key to your competitive edge. That is, until its battery croaks. Just as you’re putting the final details on your PowerPoint presentation. At the airport. Two hours before takeoff. And with no power outlet in sight. At that instant, you begin to wonder why you ever bought the ever-lovin’ boat anchor in the first place. But love will bloom anew as soon as you recharge. Avoid the heartache, however temporary: Follow these five tips for maximizing your laptop’s run time. Never miss an opportunity to plug your laptop into an AC outlet to top off its battery. 1. Plug in whenever possible One surefire way to ensure that your laptop is always ready for action is to plug it into an AC outlet whenever possible. Keeping the machine fully charged makes it far more likely that you will always have the juice you need to complete your work. Purchase at least one extra AC adapter, so you’ll always have one in your office and one in your laptop bag for travel. If you work at home frequently, consider buying a third adapter to leave there. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intelligent Imaging Solutions has released piccure, billed as “the first fully automated software tool to correct camera shake.” Read more and comment »

Canon's current range of DSLRs is split into three distinct categories, aimed at beginners, enthusiasts and professionals.The range stretches as far back as September 2009, with the advent of the ground-breaking Canon EOS 7D. This camera still reigns supreme in the upper echelons of cameras based on APS-C (Advanced Photo System - Classic) format image sensors. Meanwhile, the fiercely contested beginners sector sees the introduction of Canon's two newest models, the Canon EOS 100D and Canon EOS 700D. Even so, old stalwarts in this category are still in production, namely the Canon EOS 1100D and Canon EOS 600D.Competing with the Canon EOS 7D in the enthusiast sector, the Canon EOS 60D continues to tempt advanced photographers who want to stick with the APS-C format; there's something to be said for doing this, especially if you have a large collection of Canon EF-S or independently manufactured 'short focus' lenses from the likes of Sigma and Tamron, which can't be used with Canon full-frame DSLRs.Older cameras, such as the Canon 1100D and Canon 600D, can offer significant savings over their newly launched counterparts - the new entry-level Canon 100D is currently almost as expensive as the nearly three-year-old enthusiast Canon 60D, for example - so it's interesting to see just how much better the latest models really are, and what they offer in extra features. However the prices of new cameras generally drop quite a bit after they've been on sale for a few months, making them more attractive.One of the biggest decisions is whether to upgrade to a full-frame camera. With their physically larger sensors, equal in size to a frame of 35mm film, you can get a tighter depth of field for blurring the background, and you can use Canon's superior L-series (luxury) lenses as they were intended, without having to take the crop factor (or focal length multiplier) of APS-C based cameras into account. The Canon EOS 5D Mk III is the class leader here, with the newer Canon EOS 6D being a more budget-conscious full-frame body. For this feature we haven't stretched to the massively expensive Canon EOS 1DX and Canon EOS 1D C, as their enormous price tags put them into a completely different league. The most expensive camera here currently sells for around £2,335/US$3,300/AU$3,300, which is less than half the price of the 1DX and less than a third of the 1D C's price. All the market prices quoted here are for a body only, and are correct at the time of publishing.Read on to choose the perfect Canon SLR for you.Canon EOS 1100D/Rebel T3 - £270/US$340/AU$370Launched in early 2011 as a successor to the 1000D, the 1100D raised the game for entry-level Canon DSLRs, ushering in video shooting, a higher resolution image sensor, a later generation Digic 4 image processor capable of producing 14-bit colour depth raw files, and a larger LCD. The 1100D even boasts iFCL (intelligent Focus Colour Luminance) metering, first introduced on the 7D.However, the camera has been on sale for a long time, and the features and specifications that made the 1100D look so impressive for a beginner's DSLR back then now seem rather pedestrian. Sure, you get video shooting, but it's only 720p, whereas all other current Canon DSLRs deliver Full HD 1080p video. Similarly, with all the other EOS DSLRs offering at least 18MP image sensors, its 12.2MP sensor is lacking in resolution. And while the LCD is bigger than that on the 1000D, it's only a 2.7-inch screen with a low resolution.Another improvement over the 1000D is that, as on the 100D and 600D, there's a nine-point autofocus system, with one cross-type point at the centre - this resolves detail in both the horizontal and vertical planes, enabling greater accuracy, especially with targets that are tricky to lock on to. However, the centre AF points on the 100D and 600D enable greater sensitivity when used with lenses that have an aperture of f/2.8 or wider, whereas the 1100D is limited to f/5.6; in practical terms, it strugg