Photography

Adobe Systems released Lightroom 2.7 on Tuesday night for Windows and Mac, adding support for raw images from an expected range of newer cameras: Canon's Rebel T2i, Sony's Alpha A450, Panasonic's Lumix DMC-G2 and G10, Olympus' E-PL1, and some medium-format models from Leaf and Mamiya.

The company's standard procedure has been to issue minor updates to let the photo-editing and cataloging software handle the proprietary raw image formats from higher-end cameras. Lightroom 2.7 and the corresponding version 5.7 plug-in for Photoshop CS4 users are available at Adobe's download site, and the DNG … Read more

Three months after Eastman Kodak sued Apple for patent infringement, Apple has filed a countersuit that accuses the film and imaging company of violating two of its own digital photography patents.

Apple accused Kodak of infringing patent 6,031,964, a "system and method for using a unified memory architecture to implement a digital camera device," and patent RE38,911, a "modular digital image processing via an image processing chain with modifiable parameter controls," according to details from the suit posted at Patently Apple.

Apple filed its suit in the federal court for the northern district of California … Read more

Those eyeing Canon's newest SLR, the Rebel T2i, or Olympus's new high-end compact camera, the E-P1, now can get support for those cameras' raw images in Adobe Systems' Lightroom and Photoshop--though only as a release candidate for now.

Adobe releases occasional updates so its software can decode the proprietary raw image formats from many higher-end cameras. Raw images offer greater flexibility and quality as compared with JPEG images, but they require manual processing to convert them into a useful form.

And software companies such as Adobe and Apple must stay on top of a constant stream of new … Read more

The medium-format market is mostly an obscure niche of the digital-camera industry. Prices are high, customers must have lavish budgets, and optics and sensor technology is different from the SLR realm.

Heck, most people hadn't heard of the brand names involved. Until now: This time it's Pentax that announced its entry into the market with a product called the 645D.

It's not going to rewrite the rules of photography. It'll be available only in Japan, at least for starters when it ships in May, it needs its own lenses, and it costs 850,000 yen--about $9,200. But there are enough interesting developments here that it's worth noting.

Medium-format cameras have been niche items for years, distinguished from SLRs chiefly by their larger of a film frame. Now that digital sensors are in and film is out, though, the comparative costs of medium-format cameras have surged, because making a large sensor is a lot more expensive than making a smaller one. Pentax's model uses a 40-megapixel Kodak sensor measuring 44x33mm, larger than a "full-frame" SLR that uses the 36x24mm frame size of 35mm film and a lot larger than the sensors in mainstream digital SLRs.

To go a bit beyond the press release, I recommend reading Luminous Landscape's interview with Pentax's Yasuyuki Maekawa about the 645D. It triggered a number of thoughts about medium format and Pentax's effort. … Read more

LONDON--Every researcher from Isaac Newton on knows well the advantages of seeing farther by standing on the shoulders of giants. Some Swedish researchers, though, are seeing better by standing on the shoulders of tropical bees.

A Swedish start-up called NocturnalVision wants to help cameras see in the dark better. To do so, it took inspiration from Megalopta genalis, the bee, and other insects active at night, Henrik Malm, a professor at Sweden-based Lund University and co-founder of the start-up, said in a talk at the Image Sensors Europe conference here.

The researchers are working to address a common problem with … Read more

LONDON--Let's say you're trying to decide whether to buy a new mobile phone and you like taking photos. The Google Nexus One's 5-megapixel camera has 56 percent more pixels than the iPhone 3GS's 3.2 megapixels, but it's clear the camera isn't 56 percent better.

Now let's say it's 2012 and you're trying to decide whether to buy an Apple iPhone 4GS or a Google Nexus Three. You might be able to make a better choice this time.

That's because the International Imaging Industry Association, a consortium involving more than … Read more

As expected, Adobe Systems did indeed release a new Lightroom beta on Monday, but there are a few extra tibits beyond what we suspected earlier.

First and most important, there's now a Lightroom 3 beta 2 download site so you can actually try it. Second, there's a helpful video guide to new features, forum discussion on the new beta, and release notes (PDF).

Also worth a look are a blog post by Lightroom product manager Tom Hogarty and a detailed, annotated list of changes from "Lightroom Queen" Victoria Bampton.

Regarding features, we knew about a few … Read more

It looks like Adobe Systems' Photoshop Lightroom 3 will begin to nibble at one of the new areas of digital photography: video.

Point-and-shoot digital cameras have been able to shoot video for years, but SLR cameras that photography enthusiasts enjoy now are getting the ability as well, including some advanced capabilities compact cameras lack. A second beta of Lightroom 3 due Monday will get the ability to import and manage videos, according to what looks like a legitimate if prematurely posted Adobe news release at Digital Photography Now.

Adobe didn't respond to requests for comment. But according to the … Read more

People are flocking to a new generation of smartphones with rich applications, high-powered Web browsers, and large touch screens. What those products lack, though, is a camera that's equally transformative.

A start-up called InVisage expects to change that for consumers next year with a new approach to digital camera image sensors. Its technology, called QuantumFilm, is four times more efficient at capturing light than traditional silicon-based image sensor chips, meaning the company's sensors will offer either higher sensitivity in low light or more megapixels in resolution.

"With a tiny smartphone 3-megapixel sensor, we could make that a … Read more