“Steve Litchfield compares three slide-sliders (two of them Symbian) and reckons that a) on the whole, you get what you pay for! and b) that Nokia’s 5730 XpressMusic contains a number of (at first) mystifying hardware design flaws.There’s definitely been something in the air over the last year or so, with slide-sliding qwerty phones popping out of the woodwork from all directions. It seems that qwerty is back in vogue, but that users would rather it was tucked away most of the time to keep their ‘classic’ phone looks. Here I wanted to directly compare the Nokia 5730 XpressMusic and Nokia E75, obviously from exactly the same design department (much of the main board layout, mechanical frame/slide and specification is identical), adding in the mass market LG KS360 by way of showing how far down qwerty now goes down the food chain.” Read more here:
We’ve just posted the second part of our blog post about ISO and Sensitivity. Last week we looked at what the ISO standard is supposed to tell us (the key thing being that it’s based on JPEG middle gray and therefore is dependant on the manufacturer’s chosen tone curve). This week we have a little look at what’s going on behind the scenes when many modern cameras try to boost their ability to capture highlights.
Phase One has released the 645DF medium format camera developed with Mamiya Digital Imaging. The camera, which will be available under both brand names, offers flash sync speeds of up to 1/1600 of a second as well as faster AF and capture rates than its predecessors. It is the only 645 series camera offering both focal plane and leaf shutters and it is compatible with most digital backs designed for the Phase One and Mamiya AFD mount, including those from Phase One, Leaf and Mamiya. The two companies have also announced a partnership with lens specialist Schneider Kreuznach. The first results are 55mm, 80mm and 110mm F/2.8 leaf shutter lenses designed for the 645DF. The new camera and lenses are expected to start shipping by the end of this year. The 645DF is priced at $5990/€4290 and the lenses start at $2490/€1790.
Tamron has announced the availability of the its 60mm F/2 Di macro lens in Sony mount, to join the Canon and Nikon versions which are already shipping. The lens features a built-in AF motor, and provides 1:1 magnification with an unusually fast maximum aperture for a macro lens. It’s designed excusively for APS-C sensors, and will vignette when used on full-frame camera such as the Alpha 850 and 900. The lens will start shipping from October 2009.