Engadget has published a lengthy review on the Pentax Q that confirms what many people have assumed since the camera was announced: that using a tiny sensor just to make an interchangeable camera system small isn’t a good idea:

Pentax really has managed to design the world’s smallest interchangeable lens camera — and yes, it does work. But there’s no magic at play here. The Q is small because all of its components were downsized — Pentax took everything from the lens to the image sensor to the mode dial and shutter release and gave them the shrink ray treatment. [...] The result is an attractive, pocketable ILC that doesn’t quite follow its powerful pedigree.

[...] If money is no object and you’re not keen on capturing incredible images and video footage, then perhaps you’ll still consider picking up a Q. As for the rest of us — we’re perfectly happy with our larger, much more capable ILCs, and wouldn’t dare consider making such a sacrifice just to carry a bit less weight on our shoulder.

There’s a ton of competition in the mirrorless camera market now, and one of the big selling points is having a DSLR-caliber sensor in a compact camera body. Lose the sensor quality, and there isn’t too much of an advantage over all the other options out there.

Pentax Q interchangeable lens camera review [Engadget]

If you’re a longtime Instagram user that recently upgraded to Version 2, you might have noticed that the filters don’t quite feel the same. Don’t worry, it’s not just you: each of the filters was indeed tweaked in the app’s overhaul. Despite the new live view and faster response times, many users aren’t too happy about the changes that were done to their beloved filters. Owen Billcliffe over at My Glass Eye did a side-by-side comparison between old and new filters to show the differences. The filter shown above, “Lord Kelvin”, has a significantly different look in the new version.
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We all knew it wasn’t a question of if, but of when: a major camera review site (Imaging Resource) has published a review of a cell phone (Apple’s iPhone 4) as a digital camera. The review’s conclusion is positive news for camera-makers though:

If you stack them head-to-head, the iPhone 4 is not going to give a good, entry-level point-and-shoot digital camera a run for its money. The 5MP 1/3.2-inch backside-illuminated (BSI) sensor in Apple’s iPhone 4 may be one of the best on the smart phone market right now but it’s simply too small in size to compete with what’s in a dedicated digital camera. Furthermore, while the iPhone’s miniscule 3.85mm lens produced far sharper results than we expected, it’s rudimentary, at best, when compared to most cameras.

Apple is now listed on the site’s camera manufacturers page.

Apple iPhone 4 (via The Online Photographer)

If Fujifilm has been waiting to see whether the retro-tastic FinePix X100 would sell well before working on an interchangeable lens followup, they’d better start calling the engineers into the office. The camera is finally starting to become available in the US, but every time a handful of the cameras appear on Amazon, photography blogs alert their readers and the inventory is sold out within minutes. Reviewers are also heaping their praises on the camera — here’s what Steve Huff has to say about it:

The Fujifilm X100 ROCKS and it ROCKS HARD. No, it is NOT perfect but neither is the Leica X1, or NEX-5, or E-P2, or Ricoh. What the X100 has is a combination of looks, size, performance and technology all wrapped up into one classic and sexy well built design. $1200? It’s priced right folks. To be honest, this could be my only camera and I would be happy. It’s light enough to take anywhere, it’s a joy to use, and once you get used to how it operates and exposes, the results are up there with the best of the APS-C cameras. [#]

Look at the bright side: the price of the $1,200 camera has dropped on eBay from $2,000-$3,000 used to $1,600 new with Buy it Now!

(via Mirrorless Rumors)

Image credit: Fire by Ferdi’s – World

Here’s a humorous Amazon user review of the Nikon F6 35mm SLR, which currently sells for $3,200. With only 5 other user ratings (all perfect scores), this single user was able to knock off half a star off the rating for this camera.

Will not work with Digital Media (via Reddit)

DXOMark.com just published their review of the Pentax K-5 sensor, finding that it was superior to every other APS-C sensor they’ve tested:

No need for suspense: this new 16.3 MP sensor is simply the best APS-C we have tested so far, sometimes able to compete even with very high-end full-frame cameras.

The overall score of the K5 puts it in the lead with 82 points — more than 9 points better than the D90 or the Alpha 55, and 16 points ahead of the Canon 7D or 60D. The K5 is literally the best APS-C performer for each segment, even in low ISO.

(via The Online Photographer)

I’ve been dying to take a look at the Canon lens coffee thermos and mug since I first wrote about it back in the beginning of March, but didn’t want to buy a set just to take a look. Luckily for me, the nice people over at canonmugs.com sent me some samples to check out and play around with. In this post I’ll be sharing some photographs and thoughts about these unique items.
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Famed for his role as Harry Potter’s best pal Ron Weasley, actor Rupert Grint says he’s a bit of a tech geek and jumped at the opportunity to review the Fujifilm W1 3D.

Grint says he was fairly impressed with the camera:

…[S]witching over to the 3D mode opens up a whole new world. Shooting 3D video was the most impressive aspect of it; this really showed off what the camera is capable of. You are free to move with the camera and try more ambitious shots. I experimented, trying to capture objects moving towards you, and seemingly coming at you out of the screen when played back. I was impressed; it worked surprisingly well.

However, Grint concludes that the 3D camera is not without “a few other downsides”.

You can read the rest of Grint’s review at the UK’s Daily Mail site.

On December 3rd, Epson announced the PictureMate Show, the “Ultimate Two-in-One Digital Frame and Compact Photo Printer”.

I’m not sure how the print quality stacks up against competitors, but Epson really needs to dream up a better design if the PictureMate Show wants to compete in the printer/frame hybrid game.

What’s the problem? It’s way too obvious that the PictureMate show is a printer, making it much less useful as a picture frame. To see what we mean, check out a couple of PictureMate’s competitors:

On the left is the iMo Foto Frame Printer, and on the right is the Sony DPP-F700, which will be released in 2010. As you can see, both these products do a much better job at hiding the fact that the picture frame is also a printer, making it much more useful as a picture frame. Again, we’re not talking about print quality or pricing at all. If you’re very concerned about print quality, then these hybrids aren’t the product for you anyway, and the prices are roughly in the same range ($200-$300).

Now lets take a quick look at why the PictureMate Show doesn’t work very well as a frame. Here are two official product photographs from Epson promoting the PictureMate Show:

Hey printer, I see you!

I’m not sure about you, but I wouldn’t choose to display photographs in my kitchen or living room for the price of having a printer in the same location.

I really like the concept that concept that Epson is striving towards in its PictureMate show. It just needs to be designed in a more visually appealing way. After all, framing photographs is for the purpose of nice presentation.

What are your thoughts on the PictureMate Show?

Image credits: PictureMate Show photographs by Epson, iMo Foto Frame Printer by Mimo Monitors, DPP-F700 by Sony.

Recently I’ve been working with Fotomoto co-founder Ahmad Kiarostami towards getting their service integrated into Photoblog. They’re a relatively new company offering a pretty interesting service, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on what I’ve seen so far with you.

Fotomoto is a service that helps you sell prints (and cards) of your photographs through your website or photoblog. I don’t have any personal experience with anything past getting the service set up, but the functionality and print quality probably isn’t very shabby, since some pretty notable photobloggers have begun selling their prints exclusively through Fotomoto (i.e. David Nightingale of Chromasia and Sam Javanrouh of daily dose of imagery).

When Ahmad first told me that the service required adding only two lines of code, I figured he meant two lines for each image you intend to sell. Turns out, you literally add two lines of javascript to the footer of your page, and the service “magically” figures out which images you’re trying to sell based on image dimensions.

Here’s what the code you add looks like:

<script type=’text/javascript’ src=’http://widget.fotomoto.com/stores/script/63ca5507bcee031e7976a1c4ca03be349b491033.js’></script>
<noscript>If Javascript is disabled browser, to place orders please visit the page where I <a href=’http://www.fotomoto.com/store/63ca5507bcee031e7976a1c4ca03be349b491033′ target=’_blank’>sell my photos</a>, powered by <a href=’http://www.fotomoto.com’ target=’_blank’>Fotomoto</a>.</noscript>

Basically it’s just a single line of javascript. The second line shows a message to people who don’t have javascript enabled. The long, random string of letters and numbers is my personal Site Key. It’s of no use to you, since you’re also required to enter the URL of each site the Fotomoto code will appear on to activate those URLs.

Does this installation process remind you of anything?

If you’ve ever installed Google Analytics on a website, then you’ll find the Fotomoto installation process to be nearly identical. Once you have it installed, it automatically adds a text toolbar under your photographs. Here’s what it looks like on Sam’s photoblog:

What it looks like on David’s (a little more customized):

Clicking the link to buy a print brings up a Fotomoto widget that steps the buyer through the purchasing process.

You don’t need high-resolution images available to Fotomoto at the time of the sale. Once you make a print sale, you’ll be asked to upload a high-resolution image with which the print will be made.

There’s a good amount of flexibility in the system, allowing you to set your own prices, manage which photos are for sale, etc… The service is free to sign up for and use, and you pay Fotomoto only when you sell prints (the cost to produce the print + 15% of the sale price). You get paid when your balance grows past $200.

Overall, I’ve been pretty impressed with what I’ve seen. I think it’s a service that many photographers will find useful, since it takes the pain and hassle out of selling prints, allowing you to focus on your photography. They’re in open beta now, so you can sign up without an invite code. Check it out!

I just asked David Nightingale about his experience with Fotomoto, since I don’t have any first-hand experience with their quality:

Before I started using Fotomoto I sent them one of my most difficult images to print: a deeply saturated shot, with a wide tonal range, that I couldn’t print myself – at least not well. Suffice to say that Fotomoto did a great job of it and I’ve been using them ever since.