Sigma has said that its 18-250mm F3.6-6.3 DC OS HSM superzoom lens is now available in mounts for Sony and Pentax SLRs. This lens incorporates a Hybrid Optical Stabilisation system, which can be used on bodies which have built-in anti-shake (the camera’s stabiliser must however be switched off). It also has a hypersonic motor for fast and quiet autofocus, and a minimum focus distance of 45cm for close-up photography. The MSRP is $800 in the USA, and £559.99 in the UK.
Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM for Sony and Pentax
Akvis ArtSuite 5.0 with hand painted photo frames
Akvis announces update version 5.0 of ArtSuite, is a collection of versatile effects for decoration of photos. The Standalone version offers new Hand Painted Photo Frames. These frames have been designed by artists especially for ArtSuite. Also new to version 5.0 is a new interface design; improved compatibility of the plugin with Photoshop CS3, CS4 on Macintosh computers; improved texture generation options in the Texture effect; new interface language added – Italian. Upgrade for registered users is free…
PocketWizard introduces ZoneController
PocketWizard has announced the development of ZoneContoller, a multiple light controller. It adds to the company’s radio transmitters to offer independent control over three lighting zones. Each zone can be adjusted to ±3EV in 1/3EV steps and switched to manual, TTL auto or turned off. The ZoneContoller will be made available in late summer.
Sharp Memory in Pixel LCD increases battery life
Sharp announces a new type of LCD with built-in memory in each pixel, thus reducing the energy consumption by a factor 130 compared to normal LCDs of the same size. In these LCDs each pixel is equipped with memory circuitry to save the image information uploaded to the display. Therefore the image information has to be rewritten only in the pixels where content has changed in comparison to the previous picture frame. The Sharp 934SH camera phone, introduced in Japan last month seems to be equipped with a memory LCD…
Kodak’s new frame is Battery-powered
Today must be Kodak day, because I just covered the whole death of Kodachrome film. It must also be digital picture frame week, because I just covered one from Viewsonic yesterday.
I’m sure the Kodak Easyshare S730 is not the first digital picture frame that runs on batteries, but battery power should be a standard feature for most electric frames. As it is, most digital picture frames are a slave to their own cord, which makes it really inconvenient when hanging them on the wall. Of course, the rechargeable battery on the S730 is only good one hour away from the outlet.
(more…)
