Since the release of the Canon EOS 1D MKII – which is an incredible camera…people have been waiting with baited breath for the announcement of the 1Ds MKIII full frame beast.

And here it it! What a camera, getting into MF (Medium Format) territory with 21 megapixels, Imagine the detail you can get from this beast.

Pictured with the excellent 50mm f/1.2 L lens.

Canon raises the stakes in the professional photography market with the launch of the 21 Megapixel, 5 frame per second EOS-1Ds Mark III. Delivering 14-bit depth resolution from a newly developed 35mm full frame CMOS sensor, Canon’s new flagship digital SLR produces files that convert to over 100MB uncompressed 16-bit TIFF, setting a new benchmark in image resolution and sharpness for 35mm-format digital photography.

As well as producing outstanding colour rendition, Dual DIGIC III processors drive 5 fps continuous shooting for up to 56 Large JPEGs (12 RAW) – unrivalled by any other camera at this resolution. This capacity to shoot such large images uninterrupted is regarded as a big driver in switching studio photographers to the EOS platform.

The EOS-1Ds Mark III inherits the new technology platform introduced earlier this year in the EOS-1D Mark III, including 63-zone exposure metering, 19 cross-type auto focus system, a 3.0” LCD with Live View mode and EOS Integrated Cleaning System. The Highlight Tone Priority function expands dynamic range for more depth and detail in bright areas. The launch is supported with the announcement of Canon’s new ultra wide-angle lens, the Lens 2.

“Taking image quality and versatility to unprecedented levels, the EOS-1Ds Mark III redefines commercial photography conventions”, said Karz Suzuki, Head of Canon Professional Services. “The camera will strengthen Canon’s popularity amongst professional studio photographers. Culminating 20 years of EOS development, the EOS-1Ds Mark III represents a definitive moment in our company’s photographic history.”

Key features

• 21 Megapixel full frame (35mm) CMOS sensor
• 5 fps continuous shooting for up to 56 frames
• Dual “DIGIC III” processors
• Highlight Tone Priority
• Auto focus system with 19 cross type sensors and 26 focus assist points
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System
• ISO 100-1600 (expandable to L:50 H:3200)
• 3.0” 230K pixel LCD with Live View mode
• Redesigned viewfinder now wider and brighter

Now we just need to see what Nikon comes out with, with the new D3x or D3h, or perhaps both! Apparently some big news is going to be released this week – perhaps in 3 days.

So let’s wait and see.

After being ‘accidentally’ leaked last night on Amazon.com, the Canon 40D has now been officially released. If this was the proper date, or if they pushed it forwards due to the leak no one knows.

But here it is, the successor to the popular Canon 30D.

Canon today introduces its latest digital SLR for advanced amateurs and semi-professionals: the EOS 40D. With a 10.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor, 6.5 frames per second burst performance, a newly developed AF system and 3.0” LCD with Live View mode, the EOS 40D makes significant advances in both performance and versatility.

The camera benefits from the new EOS technology platform introduced earlier this year with the professional EOS?1D Mark III. Canon’s DIGIC III processor delivers responsive operation, improved colour rendering and near-instant start-up time. The EOS Integrated Cleaning System combats sensor dust, while a strong magnesium alloy body with weather resistance ensures lasting durability.

“The EOS 40D represents an important step in the development of EOS for the advanced amateur market. It incorporates many of the technologies pioneered in our latest EOS-1 series cameras,” said Mogens Jensen, Head of Canon Consumer Imaging, Europe. “For digital photographers, the benefits of upgrading to the EOS 40D are real and significant. For analogue SLR users, there’s never been a more compelling reason to make the switch.”

Key features

• 10.1 Megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor
• 6.5 fps continuous shooting, max. burst 75 JPEGs
• New AF system with 9 cross-type sensors
• DIGIC III processor
• 3.0” LCD with Live View mode
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System
• Clear and bright viewfinder
• Customisable Picture Style processing parameters

It looks like it can compete a bit better with the legendary D200 now, but still the D200s or D300 should be coming out shortly.

They also announced the 1Ds MKIII and some news lenses (18-55mm IS and 55-250mm IS).

Clearly a rival of the recently released Olympus SP-550 UZ “Ultra Zoom” camera, which also features an 18x optical zoom.

Introducing the Panasonic Lumix FZ-18.

The Olympus got reasonable reviews, it’s not very fast, not very sharp and the pictures are ok – but it has 18x zoom! The ultimate travelling partner perhaps.

Now Panasonic counters with this, a massive 18x zoom to match and wider at the wide angle end with 28mm rather than the normal 35/36mm and of course the quality of the Leica lens helps. Plus the great Panasonic stabiliser. They just really need to sort out the image quality and noise problems with the Venus processor.

Looks to be a well specced camera.

• 8.1 effective Megapixel CCD
• F2.8-4.2, 18X optical zoom lens, equivalent to 28 – 504 mm
• Optical image stabilization
• 2.5″ LCD display with 207,000 pixels + electronic viewfinder with 188,000 pixels
• Full manual controls
• Intelligent Auto mode features auto scene selection, face detection (for up to 15 faces), and continuous AF
• High sensitivity mode can boost ISO to 6400 (oh, good)
• RAW image format support
• Records widescreen movies at 848 x 480, with sound
• 27MB onboard memory + SD/SDHC/MMC card slot
• Support for conversion lenses and filters
• Uses proprietary li-ion battery; 400 shots per charge
• Comes in silver and black
• Ships this September for $400

But please – ISO6400? On a Panasonic, they must be kidding!

And why can’t people make f/2.0 lenses like the old Canon G2!

You can read more here:

First look: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 preview

GREYCstoration is an image regularization algorithm which is able to process a color image by locally removing small variations of pixel intensities while preserving significant global image features, such as edges and corners. The most direct application of image regularization is image denoising. By extension, it can also be used to inpaint or resize images.

GREYCstoration is based on state-of-the-art image processing methods using nonlinear multi-valued diffusion PDE’s (Partial Differential Equations). This kind of method generally outperforms basic image filtering techniques (such as convolution, median filtering, etc.), classically encountered in image painting programs. Other comparable image denoising techniques are available (for instance, Noise Ninja, Neat Image ) but are not open-source, and the corresponding algorithms are kept secret.

On the contrary, the source code of GREYCstoration is freely available and distributed under the CeCILL License (compatible with the well-known GPL). It gives similar results (not to say better) to existing closed-source denoising filters, and is absolutely free to use. Compared to other PDE-based regularization methods, our approach has several advantages : It performs very fast and is able to preserve thin image details since it works at a sub-pixel accuracy.

The tool is still a little bit hard to use (command-line based), but I hope the simple C++ API will ease the integration of the algorithm in more user-friendly interfaces. Previous versions of GREYCstoration are already available in Digikam and Krita.

There is a GIMP plug-in version available now which makes it a lot easier, I hope to see a Photoshop version soon.

There are a couple of GUI version here and here too.

You can download it here:

GREYCstoration-2.5.2.1.zip

Important note : You will need to install the ImageMagick’s package in order to be able to read compressed image formats (JPG,PNG,etc…). On Unix systems, this package is often installed by default, on Windows, you can get it here. Please download one of the static package only.

You can read more here.

Definitely looks interesting, just remember if you get one to turn the noise reduction down and set sharpening -2, then you will be rocking!

Default image quality is good, if not as crisp as the competition. However, if you play with the settings for a while, or more specifically turn Noise Filter off and set Sharpness to -2 (to compensate for the default high sharpening used to overcome the softening effect of the Noise Filter) you’ll see that the camera is capturing just as much detail (if not more) than other ten megapixel digital SLRs, and that the lens is more than up to the job too.

So what’s the final word? At the end of the day I found myself quite liking the E-410, it’s a grower that offers great value for money in a small compact package, has some real stand-out features and hasn’t been crippled to ‘fit into the range’ like similar models from other manufacturers. Just make sure you turn off the Noise Filter!

They seem to have fixed the overexposure issue too, looks like a nice camera. I’ll be looking forwards to see how the new Olympus E-510 EVOLT turns out.

I guess the downside is the lack of dynamic range, I would think this is due to their smaller than standard sensor size (remember Olympus has a 2x crop factor not 1.5x or 1.6x like Nikon or Canon).

Olympus E-410 EVOLT Review at DPReview