Looks like the leaked photos of the Sony A290 we published last month were of the real thing. Sony has just announced the A290 and A390, two entry level DSLR cameras that replace the A230 and A380. The new cameras are nearly identical, with both boasting 14.2 megapixel sensors, but the A390 offers an extra “Quick AF Live View” and tilt-LCD for more flexible shooting. Aside from increasing the megapixel count from 10 to 14, redesigning the grip and button layout, and adding the “Quick AF Live View” to the A390, there does not seem to be too much of a difference between these cameras and their predecessors.

The cameras will be priced at $500 and $600 respectively (which includes a 18-55mm kit lens), and will be available starting in July.

Here’s a fun story that might convince you to snap all the photos you can of your kids: Alex and Donna Voutsinas were gathering photos in preparation of their wedding when Alex suddenly noticed something in one of Donna’s childhood photographs. The photo, taken 20 years earlier when Donna was 5, showed Alex’s father in the background pushing Alex in a stroller!

After visiting his mother’s house, Alex found photographs from the same day in which he and his father were wearing the same clothes, confirming that they were indeed the people in Donna’s photo.

What’s even crazier is that at the time the photo was taken, Alex and Donna lived in different countries, with Alex living in Montreal and Donna living in Florida. They eventually met each other at work, fell in love, and became another of Cupid’s success stories.

(via Boing Boing)

Image credit: Photograph by Alex and Donna Voutsinas and from WXII

Olympus Japan released a notice to customers yesterday warning that 1,709 of their Stylus Tough 6010 point-and-shoot cameras were accidentally shipped preloaded with a worm. While the camera is not at risk, Windows users may be infected when the camera is connected to their computer via USB.
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News agency Reuters is being accused of biased reporting after it was discovered that photographs released by the agency had critical elements such as daggers, blood, and injured soldiers cropped out. The story originally broke on Little Green Footballs over the weekend.

Here’s a photograph released by Reuters showing activists attempting to take an Israeli soldier hostage:

Inspection of the original photograph reveals that three important elements were cropped out of the photograph. The first is the second injured soldier in the upper right hand corner, the second is the knife being held by an activist, and third is the large pool of blood on the wooden railing.

Here’s another photograph released by Reuters:

From looking at the original photograph, we see that a knife was cropped out of this one as well:

Reuters is no stranger to controversy, as there have been quite a few cases where photographs were retracted, with the subjects ranging from Middle East conflicts to the recent volcano eruption in Iceland.

Reuters has responded to this latest controversy on their blog, saying:

A number of readers contacted us about this. At the top and bottom you can see our initial cropped versions on the left, and the full frame versions on the right.

The images in question were made available in Istanbul, and following normal editorial practice were prepared for dissemination which included cropping at the edges. When we realized that a dagger was inadvertently cropped from the images, Reuters immediately moved the original set, as well.

Reuters has also published a series of non-cropped photographs of the raid in a slideshow.

What are your thoughts on this controversy? Do you think the daggers were “inadvertently” cropped from the images, or is this a case of biased reporting?

(via Amateur Photographer)

There seems to be a growing trend of professional photographers teaming up with developers to create the “ultimate” photography application for the iPhone. In September 2009, photographer Chase Jarvis teamed up with Ubermind to create The Best Camera, an ecosystem that revolves around the Best Camera iPhone application.

Now, Lisa Bettany of MostlyLisa.com has partnered with Taptaptap to create Camera+, an “ultimate” photo app that aims to upgrade your iPhone photography. Development of the application took over a year. Here’s a sample photograph posted on the website:

The app, priced at $2.99 like Best Camera, includes features such as a stabilizer and dozens of 1-touch effects to enhance your photos. Here’s a short video in which Bettany introduces the application:

If you decide to try out the app, let us know how you like it!

Camera+ …the ultimate photo app (via MostlyLisa)

For all you pixel peepers out there, Apple has posted a collection of unretouched photographs taken with the 5 megapixel iPhone 4 that was announced yesterday at WWDC 2010. Click the above photographs to view them at full resolution.

What do you think of the quality of the camera and how it compares to existing phones?

Google has a new feature that photographers may enjoy: you can now customize the Google homepage with your own photography. Visit the Google homepage, and you should see a “Change background image” link on the bottom left hand corner of the page. If you don’t see this link, try logging out of Google and then visiting the page.

You can use images from a preset collection, a public gallery, your Picasa account, or your computer via upload. If you can’t see this feature for some reason, it should be rolled out to you shortly.

Engadget and MacRumors were covering Steve Jobs’ keynote address at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2010 this morning, where Jobs announced the next-generation iPhone that everyone has already seen through the multiple, highly-publicized leaks in the past couple months.

The leaks suggested that the iPhone 4 would have a new front-facing camera as well as an LED flash in the back, and both these things were confirmed at the keynote today. In addition, the phone will feature a 5 megapixel camera, and high-definition recording at 720p and 30 fps.
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I came across an interesting post over at The Guardian a while back that discussed whether Google’s ranking algorithms are good at gauging art, and whether the top result for an artist accurately reflects the artist’s “best work”.

I decided to do the same experiment with famous historical photographers. The following images are the top results when typing the photographers’ names into Google’s image search:

Berenice Abbott

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Brenda Priddy is one of the world’s preeminent automotive “spy” photographers, whose work has appeared in many of the top automative publications and websites. Visit her company website and Facebook page.

PetaPixel: Could you tell us a little about yourself and your background?

Brenda Priddy: 18 years ago this month I was a part-time photographer (weddings / small commercial), bookkeeper at a jewelry store and mommy to 2 young toddlers. Then, in July of 1992, I spotted an early (1994) Mustang prototype and the rest is history. I originally took the photo just to show my husband, but it soon it ended up on the cover of Automobile Magazine (November 1992)!
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