As Nick suggested back here, and as I’ve been mentioning on Facebook and Twitter, we’re working on a new site design. We’re sure you’ve noticed the new blog design (and isn’t it pretty?), and if you subscribe to any of our newsletters you should have noticed yesterday that they now match the blog. Soon, the website proper will match as well, giving us a complete unified web identity for basically the first time ever. So, while I’ve been bad at doing continuous rolling upgrades, which makes it hard to keep snapshots of all the web versions, here’s a quick overview of the website since I’ve hired in to keep you distracted while I go back to working on the code for the new site.
› archive for July 21st, 2010
Panasonic FX700 with 24mm f/2.2 Leica optic announced
The wide-angle, bright aperture 14.1MP beauty from Panasonic.
If the DMC-LX5 will stretch your budget or your patience, fear not: Panasonic has the DMC-FX700 to bridge the gap between the LX5 and all other cameras running engines not named for Attic love deities.
The FX700 will run the Venus engine FHD,
separating chromatic noise from luminance noise and applying the optimal noise reduction to each
which probably means it’s better at calculus than I ever will be. Or want to be. It also means that it should process image areas dynamically based on the detection of faces and the background. Wowie. In addition to that they’ve put a Leica DC-Vario Summicron 4.3mm-21.5mm f/2.2 lens in it. Sounds a little short until you consider it’s equivalent in 35mm format – 24-120mm. Sounds better and better.
It’ll support SDXC format, so kudos for Panasonic looking to the future there. It’s also sporting a 3.0″ TFT touch screen LCD with 230,000 dots. Holy 14.1MP, Batman, the FX700 is gonna be cool.
Panasonic Comes Clean with DMC-LX5 Finally
So, you remember the LX3? Popular camera, broke a lot of ideas as to what a high end compact digicam should be? Was stuck on our allocation list for like years? Well, it’s finally getting its long due update, the LX5.
Of special note is the fact that despite identical numbers, the sensor is all new, and talking up a wider dynamic range than the already well-received LX3. Combined with the newest incarnation of the Venus engine, which features 3 processing cores and can analyze chroma and luminance noise both separately as well as in relation to each other, the LX5 is promising a leap forward in image processing ability.
The LCD is now backlit with High Color Range Index LEDs. The movie mode is better now, too, adding AVHCD Lite to the codec options as well as manual exposure, color modes, and optical zoom during recording.
And it supports SDXC now, natch. It should go without saying there are a lot of expectations riding on this model, since the LX3 broke down so many walls and outperformed in so many ways. We’ll wait and see if this camera does too. It’ll be available in the pictured white, or black (so stop worrying, Jody), and it’s available for pre-order allocation right now over on our site.
| SPEC | LX5 | LX3 |
| Sensor | 10.1MP, 1.63″ | 10.1MP, 1.63″ |
| Processor | Venus Engine FHD | Venus IV |
| Optical Zoom | 3.8x | 2.5x |
| Equiv. Focal Length | 24-90mm | 24-60mm |
| Aperture | f2.0 – 3.3 | f2.0 – 2.8 |
| Lens Type | Leica DC VARIO-SUMMICRON | Leica DC VARIO-SUMMICRON |
| Image Stabilization | Optical, Power OIS | Optical, Mega OIS |
| ISO Range (Expanded) | 100-12,800 | 100-3,200 |
| LCD | 3.0″ TFT, 460,000 Dot, High CRI LED Backlit | 3.0″ TFT, 460,000 Dot |
| AVHCD Lite Video Recording | Yes | No |
| Manual Exposure in Movie Mode | Yes | No |
| Optical Zoom in Movie Mode | Yes | No |
| Available Electronic Viewfinder | Yes | No |
| Records To | SD/SDHC/SDXC, Internal Memory | SD/SDHC, Internal Memory |
Panasonic announces Lumix Ts10, Nick wants to drop it onto frozen things
Here for your all-weather-pleasure
I dig waterproof cameras that can survive falling five feet onto ice. It is, forgive me, cool. Lucky then, that along with announcing the LX5 (omg squee? anyone?) Panasonic announced the TS10 -offering the weather proofing of the TS2 with fewer video options, slightly more telephoto lens (35-140eqiv instead of the TS2′s 28-128equiv) and a much lower price tag.
The Online Lighting Diagram Creator Solves Problem Of Diagramming Lights Online
If you’ve spent any time in either the studio or the field fussing with lighting, you know how problematic finding good lighting set-ups can be. And how much harder remembering good solutions or explaining set-ups to assistants or even models can be. But, these days, thanks to a free online service, you can quickly and easily diagram out your lighting solutions. And soon, you’ll be able to create an account to save and share your set-ups, attach images of the results, add notes, and more.
As mentioned, it’s free for most circumstances. Per their site:
The Online Lighting Diagram Creator is free of charge for non-commercial projects and for professional photographer websites, photography blogs, photography forums as long as the OLDC services and products are accessible by all visitors at no charge. All free of charge use must include the footer with the credits.
For books and DVD illustration, a donation of at least USD 10 is required.
If you are giving [sic] paid for tuitions, then a donation of USD 50 should cover for a year.
So, if you need to diagram out some lighting set-ups, this is a handy and easy tool. It took me maybe a minute to make the diagram above (which I used once while, I kid you not, shooting zombie pin-ups). And, did we mention free?