Someday your Prints may come, if you ordered online and wanted images larger than 8×10 you may have a long wait. You might get yor prints in a tube that need to be flattened before you can use them, or worse they might damaged in transit.
Okay, enough of the doom and gloom scenario’s, you don’t have to stay up nights pacing the floors hoping the custom lab you sent your images off to doesn’t mess up the colors and the crop and then send them back in tissue paper package that begs to be bent, folded, spindled and mutlitated.
Why, don’t you? Because Epson is rebating several of its most popular larger format consumer photo paper printers right now. Even better your Roberts Imaging team has them, and so can you.
The Epson Stylus Photo 1400 Wide Format Printer can print high quality photo paper from 4″x6″ all the way up to 13″x19″ size, and there is an instant rebate of $50 on this printer, no need to mail-in and wait. At 249.97 carry it home pricing you can recoup your large print budget with just a few high quality photographic treasures.
› archive for February, 2009
Roberts More Stock Initiative: Week 1
From the diary of a Roberts internet stock staff employee:
Seven days now in the fray. Stumble in, pour coffee. Shuffle days papers. 100 more new items to go on website. Lastolite, today. Photo studio equipment. Reflect on the casualties of the week: Westcott, Elinchrom. Photo lighting equipment: softboxes, flash tubes, bounce reflectors, Spiderlites. And Kata, those most crucial of all digital camera accessories: bags. The smell of high dernier nylon hangs heavy in the air.
In the other unit my comrade reports they’re facing down that mighty flash maker, Metz. Nikon flashes, Canon flashes, Olympus flashes, they keep throwing them all into the fray.
I fear that casualties in this war will be high, but we’re told that in the end Roberts won’t just reign over online camera sales, but in fact over online photography sales.
I have to go now, the battle awaits anew.
That thing got HD in it?
So we all remember the “That Got a Hemi” Commercials right? Well this years “Hemi” in digital cameras is High Definition output. The higher end DSLR’s have HDMI slots on them along with standard video outputs so you (and hopefully your high paying clients) can view the images you shoot at their pristine best. Now, some DSLR cameras; notably the “Hot New” Canon Digital SLR camera the 5D MkII, and the advanced amature Nikon Digital SLR camera, the D90 actually record High Definition Video: both firsts for interchangeable lens still cameras. I’m not the only one to notice this inevitable trend here is a link to a recent USA today article.
For the past couple of years Sony Cybershot Cameras have enjoyed HD output with an accessory HDMI cable. But that’s to be expected from the worlds largest electronics company, it’s in their DNA.
Now, more point and shoot cameras are adding HD output and even better HD video recording. Panasonic and Leica have it in the LX3 and D-Lux 4 respectively, and Canon’s SX 1 has it as well. Expect to see more High Definition video and output on the next generation of DSLR and lens shutter point ad shoot cameras.
It’s the future, it’s electric.
2009 Fashions
So, those shiny new Nikon Coolpix digital cameras and Canon PowerShot digital cameras aren’t the only things getting face lifts for the new year, we recently got a bunch of stock on the newly redesigned Crumpler Million Dollar Home series bags.
Crumpler, famous for its off-the-wall attitudes (at their New York store they’ve had annual “buy bags for beer” events before, and you can get collector’s toilet paper from them. No, seriously.), are also known for making bright, stylish bags that don’t skimp on the quality, either.
The Million Dollar Homes are their photographic messenger-style shoulder bags, and range from just big enough for the EOS Rebel with its kit lens to big enough to house my entire personal camera kit, including battery charger.
More on the E-620
I tell ya, you spend half a week catching up the website’s FJ Westcott catalog (we now have around 240 Westcott products, all related to professional studio lighting, on our website. Booyah) and you find that your sales manager beats you to the punch on the exciting new Olympus digital camera.
So it goes, but I’m not about to let that stop me from throwing out a few of the interesting highlights of this product from a standing Oly user:
1. Form factor. Phil stated that it’s similar to a 520, which is true enough, but it’s also a bit smaller yet than that, kinda like a chunky 420, making it one of the smallest DSLRs going still, and the smallest going with in-body image stabilization
2. Addressing user complaints: Olympus has a long reputation of including small bits of pioneering, but the E-620 is also a solid show of addressing standard complaints with the intro E system bodies. It’s got a better viewfinder, bigger, with the info at the bottom and not on the right any more. Plus, they upgraded the old 3 point AF to a 7 point system (5 of which are full-time cross style)
3. Oly innovation. Like that swing swivel LCD that made its appearence on digital cams with the E-3. And, here’s my favorite gimmick I’ve seen on a DSLR since Nikon busted out the virtual level on its D3:
That’s right, backlit buttons. Does it add anything to final image quality? Not a lick. Did everyone in the office go “oh yeah, I’m surprised no one’s done that yet?” You betcha.
What Olympus’ plans for their 4xx and 5xx series cam is I’m not sure yet, and I doubt anyone will know until they finally present their Micro 4/3 offerings, but I gotta say, there were a lot of Oly users waiting for exactly this E-620. Good show.
Olympus announces E-620
Just before the big PMA show in Las Vegas next week, Olympus announced the new E-620 Olympus digital camera.
As you can tell from the above photo that I borrowed from dpreview.com, the 620 is about the size of the 520, but shares body styles with the E-30. The E-620 also shares the swivel LCD monitor, the 12.3MP sensor, Art Filters, Mulitiple Exposure mode, and 4 different aspect ratios, from the E-30.
Olympus will offer an underwater housing for it and a vertical grip as well.
The Olympus E-620 digital SLR will be available in May of 2009.
Sony Innovation
So if you are new to higher end Cameras, or have old incompatible manual SLR camera equipment you might be ready to step up to your first DSLR system. If you are ready but confused by all the choices, you might just buy what your neighbor bought, most likely a Nikon or Canon Digital SLR Camera. They are great cameras that’s why they trade the #1 and #2 spot all the time. Still I might suggest that you look at Olympus and Sony Digital Cameras before you “Just keep up with the Jones’”. Olympus and Sony are doing some amazing innovative stuff to get your attention, maybe you should look their way. I’m going to focus (no pun intended) on Sony for now.
Sony HDR-CX100, pocket sized AVCHD under $500
Sony has released a very compact Sony camcorder that is at a price point people have been waiting for. The new Sony HDR-CX100 is available in three different colors. It has 8GB of internal flash memory which can offer up to 3hrs of recording time. With a 4MP still capture mode and a 10x zoom, this should be a great pocket sized HD camcorder for someone not wanting to haul around a lot of gear.
It’s in the Cards
Take it from me, a guy who plays a “little ” poker but doesn’t really like to gamble, there is nothing like having a sure thing. It is reassuring know you are sitting pretty with the right cards. When you have an almost unbeatable hand you can play without taking as many risks. It’s the same way when you are sure you have the right cards in your DSLR too.
Here at Roberts Imaging we carry a few different brands of Compact Flash Memory cards. Sony had their own line, so does Hoodman, then there’s
Kingston and Lexar Cards, add Sandisk and you have five players at the table. Let’s Play cards!
The straight flush in this deck is our close-out on Sandisk Extreme Ducati Edition Compact Flash 4 GB cards. These cards are UDMA enabled, come with a life-time warranty and a zippered card case, but the thing I like as much as any of that is the “full size” Rescue Pro CD that is included. As a lap-top computer user that only has a slot loading DVD/CD I could never use the mini-CD versions of Sandisk’s Rescue Pro software at home or on the road. Having that software on the laptop also adds peace of mind -like having 4 aces at the gaming table. At only $39.97 while supplies last, I say no need to check, Ante up and double down!
The Next Wave
As you know if you read the Roberts Imaging Blogs with any frequency, new point and shoot cameras are starting to arrive. I mentioned the new Olympus Tough series cameras recently, myself. The new Nikon Coolpix Cameras are starting to show up too. There are 8 new models coming, and our sales rep Jeff Penn has brought some of them in to see. They have new cool convenience features and some new models gain a better ergonomic feel. Ergo, the new Nikon Coolpix camera line is sure to be as big a hit as the last one. We have the “New Coolpix 560′s” in a few different colors already, so here is my assessment.
The detail on the right shows the navigation controls (the terminology is more complicated than the cameras, trust me), the asterisk button * opens the quick settings menu (shown below). The screen size on the Coolpix 560 moves up to 2.7 inch from the 2.5 of it’s predecessor the Coolpix 550, likewise the ISO is bumped up from 2000 to 3200, while the zoom and the megapixels remain the same. All the new Nikon Coolpix Cameras still use SD memory cards, and come with batteries, video and USB download cables so you don’t need to buy a USB card reader (but I like the convenience of a stand alone USB card reader myself). Models with a Lithium Ion “high performance” battery will still come with a worldwide charger as the Nikon Coolpix cameras have in the past.
Rest assured we will keep you in the loop as more cameras arrive.
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