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Rangefinder Magazine
Archives
April 2000
Digital Photography/April
‘00
PMA, D1 and Sony Vaio Notebook Computer
by John Rettie
For those of you who keep up with the latest developments in digital cameras
the various announce-ments made at the annual PMA exhibition in Las Vegas
are history by now. For the rest of you a brief recap of the news at the
photo-graphic world’s premiere annual trade show is in order.
As forecast in last month’s col-umn there were a slew of new digital
cameras with 3-megapixel CCDs unveiled. Among them was Nikon with its
Coolpix 990, which is an upgraded version of the 950 with a 3.34 megapixel
chip and several other improvements. Olympus un-veiled the C-3030Z that
also has a 3.34 megapixel CCD and is an up-grade of the well-regarded
C-2020Z camera.
However, the camera that seemed to create the most buzz at the show was
the Fuji FinePix S1 Pro that has a new type of imaging chip, called a
Super CCD. Fuji says the chip produces a 6-megapixel file, al-though in
reality it is a 3-megapixel chip and the information captured is interpolated
up to produce a file with a size equivalent to one pro-duced by a real
6-megapixel chip. This caused quite a controversy at the show as the usage
of interpo-lated resolution figures is generally frowned on, as it is
misleading. It was common practice in the early days of scanners as manufacturers
tried to gain a lead over their com-petitors in the resolution race.
The jury is out on how good the Fuji camera will be for professional use
as it is built on a Nikon N60 body, which is not as sophisticated or rugged
as a pro would want. I managed to take a couple of shots on a prototype
camera but it was difficult to judge whether they were any better than
ones I shot at the same time on the Nikon D1 camera. As an aside, it was
certainly conve-nient to be able to take the IBM mi-crodrive straight
out of the D1 I had on loan and stick it in the Fuji and also take the
lens off the D1 and put it directly on the camera. No formatting of the
drive was needed for it to work in both cameras. Fuji hopes to introduce
the camera in the early summer at a price of under $4000, which is $1500
less than Nikon’s D1.
Canon fans had hoped the com-pany would unveil a new profes-sional digital
camera. Instead it launched the EOS-1v film camera, which is a significantly
upgraded version of the venerable EOS-1n. The vee (not five) has so much
elec-tronic wizardry built into the body that it probably needs nothing
much more than a CCD chip and a storage card to turn it into a digital
camera. For example, it has a so-phisticated data gathering system that
records all the information about an individual shot to create a data
base for use on a computer. It only lacks a digital copy of the im-age,
so it would not surprise me if this camera is in fact the basis for a
new high-end digital camera body. It does not seem to make a lot of sense
for Canon to spend millions of dollars developing such a sophis-ticated
camera body while a large number of professional users of Canon cameras
are patiently wait-ing for a replacement for the some-what dated two-year
old D2000 digi-tal camera. They are not pleading for a new 35mm film camera,
but I guess we will just have to continue to wait.
Right up until the day before the PMA show opened, Canon officials were
tight-lipped as to whether any new digital cameras, other than the already
announced small point-and-shoot S20, would be shown. Then, apparently
at the very last minute, the decision was made to display a prototype
of a future digital camera body. The new digital EOS was kept under a
glass case in the center of Canon’s stand with nothing more than
a small sign describing it as fu-ture product, ironically just as Nikon
did the year before with the D1. The camera looked like a modi-fied EOS
A2 body with a built-in flash. Canon offered scant details that reveal
it has a CCD with more than 3-megapixels and it is not a replacement for
the professional D2000 (a.k.a. the Kodak DCS 520) camera. Instead, Canon
indicated it is aimed at high-end non-profes-sional users and that it
will cost substantially less than similar cam-eras from other manufacturers
when it goes on sale in the fall.
Numerous other companies, such as Toshiba, Sony, Epson, Panasonic and
JVC unveiled a slew of digital cameras aimed at entry level to pro-sumer
users. Also, at last there’s a Pentax digital camera. It was devel-oped
in a joint venture with Hewlett Packard and will be available under the
HP label as well as Pentax.
On the printer front, Epson showed off the new Stylus Photo 1270 which
replaces the 1200 inkjet printer that has been on sale for a year. The
1270 is supposed to pro-duce still smaller ink droplets for even better
photo quality prints. It can also utilize a newly formulated ink and accompanying
special paper that Epson claims will last for ten years without fading.
Nikon D1
At last year’s PMA Nikon shook up the digital camera world with the
sneak peak at the D1. Production units did not reach users until the end
of last year and only now are they becoming readily available. I was lucky
enough to have one on loan for two weeks at the same time as this year’s
PMA show. You can read my review elsewhere in this is-sue of Rangefinder.
I admit that I liked it a lot more than expected. It operates just like
a regular Nikon F100 camera and it is lighter and more compact than any
of Kodak’s professional digital cameras, which are the only ones
that come close to the D1’s performance. Although I only got to use
the D1 on two actual photo shoots, I found its quality was better than
the Kodak DCS 330 and it beats the DCS 520 for speed. I believe it really
does set a new stan-dard for professional 35mm SLR type digital cameras.
I did not get the opportunity to try any of the Nikon software or tether
it to a computer. Until recently, the images produced by the Kodak cam-eras
had to be processed by Kodak’s own software after they were down-loaded
to the computer. This added an extra step in the process al-though in
theory it helped maintain more control over the quality of the final image.
In practice I found that the standard JPEG compressed im-ages on the Nikon
were more than adequate for producing really good 8x10 prints. One can
save files in an uncompressed format on the D1 and then have them processed
by Nikon’s imaging software, but it’s not normally necessary.
The D1 includes a Type II Compact Flash slot that allows the use of regular
CF storage cards and the new 340MB IBM microdrive. I used the microdrive,
which is cur-rently marketed by Microtech, and found it to be a very convenient
storage system. I transferred files di-rectly from the drive to my Mac
via the Microtech USB CameraMate card reader. The microdrive is a miniature
hard drive in a case only slightly thicker than a regular Compact Flash
card. Currently the drive has a capacity of 340MB, which can prove very
convenient on a big photo shoot by avoiding the need to change cards as
often. What’s more it costs only $400, which is less than half the
cost per MB of a solid state CF card. My only caution is whether it is
wise to store such a large number of images on one card at a time. If
one misplaces the card or it gets damaged one could lose hundreds of images.
It may be better to not keep all one’s eggs in one basket. Of course
one can always offload the images dur-ing a shoot onto a portable com-puter
for safe backup. This is just what I have been doing recently with a Sony
Vaio SuperSlim notebook computer.
Sony 505 Notebook Computer
During the past couple of months I have been on two assignments that took
me to Paris and Egypt. On each occasion I had to e-mail several digital
images for immediate use on a web site. I could have used my trusty Psion
Series 5mx palmtop computer, which has a CF slot, by just e-mailing the
original files straight from the CF card. However you cannot view the
images on the Psion, so I would have had to care-fully note which files
contained the images by scrolling through them on the camera before transferring.
Instead I used a Sony Vaio N505VX notebook computer pow-ered by a 233
MHz Pentium II with a 6.4 GB hard drive and 64MB of RAM. This is a fully
functional Windows computer in a magnesium case that is about the size
of a mag-azine and less than one inch thick. It only weighs 3.1 lbs. so
it can eas-ily be slipped into a camera bag. About all it lacks is an
optional CD-ROM drive to load software.
The 10-inch screen has sufficient resolution and clarity to allow image
editing on location. Transferring images from a camera is easy. Just take
the CF card out of the camera, slide it in a PC card adapter and slot
that into the PC card slot on the computer. It only takes a few min-utes
to transfer all the images. They can be viewed on the computer with the
Sony image viewing software or edited with Adobe Photo Deluxe. Both are
included with the notebook along with a ton of bundled busi-ness software.
While it is relatively easy to take a quick look at digital images on
the LCD on the back of a digital camera there is something much more sat-isfying
viewing a bigger image on a notebook computer; and of course, it is not
possible to crop or edit pic-tures in the camera. It also adds peace of
mind as the images are backed up onto a hard drive. The Sony has a built
in 56K modem so it was easy to e-mail the images via the Internet, though
it took a couple of hours to get a good connection in Egypt, but that’s
another story. Once back in my office I was able to transfer the images
from the note-book to my Mac by plugging the Sony into my local network
using a 3Com Megahertz 10/100 Ethernet LAN CardBus PC card along with
Miramar’s PC MacLan software on the Sony.
Another great feature of the Sony is the inclusion of a FireWire (Sony
calls it iLink) connection. I plugged a cable into my Canon Optura DV
camcorder and was immediately able to transfer video to the Sony. I was
impressed that there were no problems hooking up a two-year-old camera
produced by a competing company. It’s good to know that there are
standards out there.
For a photographer on location, the Sony is an ideal computer as it is
physically small yet powerful enough for still and video image editing.
Even as a Mac user I was impressed at the sleek feel of this computer.
Recently Apple an-nounced an upgraded Mac laptop with built in FireWire
capabilities but it is still a big heavy laptop. It’s really a shame
Apple cannot intro-duce a small notebook like this Sony Vaio SuperSlim,
as I feel it is much more practical for use on location. The battery on
the Sony is located along the hinge and it lasts for three hours between
charges. All in all the notebook is a good deal at $1800. Sony also makes
an even smaller notebook with a built-in video cam-era as well as a slightly
larger model. The bigger Vaio weighs a little more but comes with a larger
12-inch screen and it includes a built-in Ethernet port as well as a slot
for the memory stick modules that are used on the latest Sony digital
cam-eras. All the SuperSlim models in-clude a replicator port that allows
one to simply plug one cable into the computer to hook it up to a larger
monitor and desktop periph-erals back at the office. I can easily see
the Sony laptop becoming my second computer, as it is more pow-erful than
my current desktop PC!
John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in
Santa Barbara, CA. He has been using a camera as a professional for 30
years, a computer for 20 years, and has combined his knowledge of both
for the past eight years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com
or by snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.Further Information…
Nikon D1
Nikon Inc.
1300 Walt Whitman Road
Melville, NY 11747
(800) 526 4566
(http://www.nikonusa.com)
CameraMate and microdrive
Microtech International
242 Branford Road
North Branford, CT 06471.
(800) 626 4276
(http://www.microtechint.com)
Sony Vaio
Sony Electronics
3300 Zanker Road
San Jose, CA 95134
(888) 315 7669
(http://www.sony.com/pc)
Psion 5mx
Psion Inc.
150 Baker Avenue Ext.
Concord, MA 01742
(978) 287 9620
(http://www.psioninc.com)
Megahertz 10/100 LAN CardBus
3Com Corporation
5400 Bayfront Plaza
Santa Clara, CA 95052
(800) 638 3266
(http://www.3com.com)
PC MacLan
Miramar Systems
121 Gray Avenue, Suite 200B
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(805) 966 2432
(http://www.miramarsys.com)Captions:
[DP (04/00) Fig. 1]
Canon discreetly displayed its upcoming digital camera under a glass cabinet
at PMA. It will go on sale in the fall, Canon promises.
DP (04/00) Fig. 2
Sony’s SuperSlim Vaio notebook is less than one inch thick.
DP (04/00) Fig. 3
A FireWire (iLink) connector allows one to download digital video directly
into the Sony N505VX notebook computer.
DP (04/00) Fig. 4
The IBM microdrive storage disc slots into a PC card adapter, which is
then inserted in the computer for transferring digital images from the
Nikon D1.
FOR BILL HURTER:
Richard LoPinto
Nikon Inc.
1300 Walt Whitman Road
Melville, NY 11747.
&
Elizabeth McDonnell, VP
Earle Palmer Brown
One Stamford Landing
Stamford, CT 06902
Al Conte...
Director of Imaging Products
Microtech International
242 Branford Road
North Branford, CT 06471.
Marie Domingo
PR Strategist
Corporate Communications
Sony Electronics
3300 Zanker Road
San Jose, CA 95134.
&
Deborah Szajngarten
PR Strategist
Corporate Communications
Sony Electronics
1 Sony Drive, MD: 2F8, Park Ridge, NJ 07656.
Patricia Miller
Media Communications Manager
Psion Inc.
150 Baker Avenue Ext.
Concord, MA 01742
Molly Mulloy
PR Dept.
3Com Corporation
5400 Bayfront Plaza
Santa Clara, CA 95052
PR Manager
Miramar Systems
121 Gray Avenue, Suite 200B
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
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