Photography

Lensmaker Tamron announced a new 24-70mm F2.8 zoom lens today, beating Nikon and Canon with a model that brings image stabilization to this premium lens category.

The SP 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC USD lens includes Tamron's vibration compensation technology, which can counteract camera shake to stabilize photos. It's a feature that Canon and Nikon haven't added to their 24-70mm F2.8 lenses.

Such lenses don't have a huge zoom range, but they're popular among photo pros and enthusiasts, in particular because their wide aperture is good for low-light shooting with smoothly blurred … Read more

It looks like Nikon's highly anticipated D800, a large-sensor SLR that supplants the three-year-old D700, will cater to photographers who want to leave behind that mixed blessing of digital photography, the antialiasing filter.

The job of that filter is to remove moire artifacts--wavy lines and other visual distractions that can occur when an image sensor's grid of pixels captures an image with repeating elements such as fabric patterns. The antialiasing filter works by slightly blurring the image, which is convenient when moire is a problem but which degrades sharpness in the many situations where it's not. … Read more

Dropbox, the popular cloud storage utility for synchronizing files among many devices, ordinarily limits free accounts to 2GB, but those who test a new feature to automatically upload photos can get as much as 4.5GB.

To take advantage of the offer, you have to run a beta version of the company's software, and you have to try a feature that automatically uploads photos and videos to the service, according to a forum post yesterday.

"During this beta period, we are also offering additional free space to test automatic uploading of photos and videos. For every 500MB of … Read more

Adobe Systems has released a second advance look at Photoshop CS6 that shows new work to give a hardware boost to the image-editing software.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) speeds the Liquify tool, which lets people smear images in a finger-painting way, according to a Zorana Gee, a Photoshop product manager. She demonstrated the change in a YouTube video, the second in what looks to be a series of previews of the software. An earlier Photoshop CS6 preview showed new raw image editing tools adopted from the Lightroom 4 beta, a darker user interface, and improvements to brush size selection. … Read more

I hate to admit it, but my iPhone is always the first thing I reach for when I spot a photo-worthy scene.

Sure, I own a digital camera, but my iPhone is always with me, packs an excellent camera, plus I have the option to edit and share photos instantly. That (combined with the fact that my Canon G12 usually weighs down my purse) is a good enough reason to use my iPhone as my primary shutter.

If you're like me, or want to start exploring iPhotography, these four hidden tricks will help you take your iPhone camera skills … Read more

Unimpressed by Adobe Systems' Creative Cloud, its forthcoming $50-per-month subscription plan? Adobe wants to change your mind.

The company offered some new details today to show people that the Creative Cloud plan gets people access to more than just the full Creative Suite (CS) Master Collection and tablet-oriented Touch programs. Specifically, according to Scott Morris, senior director of product marketing on Adobe's digital media team, there are these elements:

• The Creative Cloud will include Adobe's Muse and Edge software for creating Web pages. Muse won't be part of the Creative Suite, and Adobe hasn't decided whether … Read more

Pentax fans will be delighted to know they won't have to make do with the ill-starred Pentax Q when it comes to higher-end compact cameras.

Thanks to a gun-jumping announcement by camera retail powerhouse B&H Photo Video, details on the rumored Pentax's K-01 have now emerged. The camera uses the relatively large APS-C-sized sensor and corresponding K mount lenses from Pentax's SLR line, but omits the bulk-inducing flip-up reflex mirror used for SLRs' optical viewfinders.

Update 5:10 p.m. PT: Pentax has officially announced the camera, and B&H's specs were spot … Read more

If there's any doubt about the accelerating shift from traditional SLRs to more compact interchangeable-lens cameras, let the newly released Mac OS X 10.7.3 update put them to rest.

Of the eleven cameras whose raw image formats Lion now supports, six of them are compact mirrorless models. They are the Nikon 1 J1 and V1, the Olympus Pen E-PL1s, E-PM1, and E-PM1; and the Sony Alpha NEX-5N. All these models forsake SLR's flip-up mirror and optical viewfinder, enabling a more compact design.

Raw photo formats, available on SLRs and high-end compact cameras, leave the processing to … Read more

Adobe Systems has published a glimpse of the forthcoming Photoshop CS6, an update that brings the dark workspace and raw-image editing tools from the new beta of its sister program, Lightroom 4.

Bryan O'Neil Hughes, an Adobe senior product manager, showed off a bit of the new software in a YouTube video published yesterday. Photoshop CS6 is set to debut along with the sixth version of Adobe's Creative Suite in the first half of 2012.

Darker photo backgrounds are all the rage for photo software since they make photos stand out nicely; the darker interface used in Lightroom … Read more