Canon News: 7D Launched (a D300s killer?)

Well, after months, if not years, of speculation, Canon have announced the 7D.

I'll update this post with more information and links, as and when they become available.

Specifications

Here are the specifications:

• 18Mp APS-C (1.6 Crop)
  
• 8 frames per second
• A new auto-focus system, including 19 cross-type sensors
  
• ISO 100-6400, expandable to 12800
  
• 100% viewfinder coverage, with horizon assist
• Dual Digic IV processors
• Full HD video, including HDMI output and external mic input
  
• Built-in flash, with wireless sync to other flash units
• A revised 3" LCD 920k screen

On every count, that should beat my Canon 40D nicely, especially for wildlife photography, where low-light and fast action are often on the menu.

Pricing

As for a UK price-point, that's a little bit of a tricky one. It's not clear yet whether there will also be an evolution for the 50D (presumably the 60D?), or whether the 7D is the replacement. It's also serving largely different needs to 5D Mk II which suits landscpaes, weddings and portraiture, with its higher resolution and full-frame capabilities. A quick look at Camera Price Buster this evening (31st August) has the 50D body at £730 and the 5D Mk II at £1868. And the closet rival from Nikon would be the D300s (£1270) so I'm guessing somewhere around the £1600 at launch to grab the early adopters open wallets?

(update: I was close - it seems to be around £1700, albeit a lot are throwing in extras!)

UK Availability

The UK has got availability now:

Amazon*:

• Park Cameras
• Jacobs
  
• Jessops
• Warehouse Express
  

Reviews

• Luminous Landscape
• Digital Photography Review

Sony News: New DSLRS: A850, A550 and A500

Just days before the expected launch from Canon of its much anticipated 7D, Sony have launched three new cameras and a new lens.

A850


You can read more in this press release, but the highlights are:

• Same 24.6Mp full-frame capabilities as the top of the range A900, with slightly reduced fps and viewfinder coverage - and it's cheaper!
  
• Dual Bionz processors
  

Sony have also launched a new zoom lens, with constant f/2.8 aperture: the SAL2875 28-75mm F2.8 SAM lens

A550/A500

More details of the A550 and A500 can be found at this press release. They come with:

• 14.2/12.3Mp sensors respectivity, utilising Sony's new Exmor (TM) sensor technology
• A 3" tilt LCD
• In-built HDR (high dynamic range) processing - I think these are the first cameras to do this?

Microstock Categories - a help or hindrance?

I'm nowhere close to earning a decent income from microstock and doubt I ever will, but it has provided me with some great positives:

• I'm a much better photographer; I'm learning about what makes a 'commercial' shot, improving my understanding of composition and even starting to get my head around Photoshop
• It's a nice feeling that someone is willing to pay for my work
• I can (start to) justify spending money on new gear

What is frustrating though is the hassle (and therefore time) involved in the upload process to the various sites. Specifically, the insistence that alongside keywords, categories have to be specified. They either overlap with keywords, or the list of categories to choose from is so incomplete/patchy, there's never one which seems to fit. And as the category options are all different across sites, there's minimal opportunity to select generic categories.

I'm not a buyer from microstock sites, so would love to know how useful the categories are? My hunch would be though that most buyers know what they're after and they'll simply drop the relevant keywords into a search box. I guess microtock administrators can see from their web stats how often categories and used to search versus keywords, so I'd love to get an insight into this too...

So, I vote to remove categories from the microstock industry! Do you?

Canon News: Six new Powershots Announced

Today Canon announced the introduction of 6 new cameras:

Canon G11	Canon S90	Canon SX20 IS
Canon SX120 IS	Canon SD980	Canon SD940
	?	?

More details here.

My first Enhanced License Microstock sale!

Although still well behind my target of earnning £250 from Microstock this year, I had a welcome boost from Shutterstock*, where I've made my first enhanced download sale. It was for the following image:



That means my Shutterstock earnings have gained a significant lead against the other sites, although iStockphoto has moved into second place... All the stats on the right-hand side of the front page of this blog.

Alamy still profitable - but it's tough going

As the update by Alamy CEO James West says in a blog update, times are tough at Alamy, with a prediction that sales will be 15-20% down this year compared to last. James rightly points out that a significant factor has been the 'recession' and its impact on image buyers (e.g. UK newspaper industry). The other factor which I would have assumed was just as relevant is the evolving marketplace and availability of more competitive offerings from the microstock companies (iStockphoto, Dreamstime, Fotolia, Shutterstock, etc.). As well as probably being cheaper, arguably some of these companies have tigher image quality control in-place at time of submission, which could lead to a more efficient buying experience.

For the record, I'm yet to make any sales from my small Rights-Managed portfolio on Alamy, but finger's crossed one day I will!

Microstock News: Yet another proposition from Getty

As you can read about here, Getty Images have launched a new cheap option for online news and blog sites. Images from their existing creative imagery house collections and archive will start from $5. Apparently, this doesn't conflict with their microstock offerings discussed in one of my recent posts, here. Perhaps no conflict, but for me at least, further confusion!

Nikon news: Compact Camera with in-built projector

Nikon have launched the 12.1MP image-stabilised Coolpix S1000pj - with an in-built projector! More details available here. It will 'throw' an up to 40 inch image onto a wall up to 2 metres away, A great idea - not sure how battery life will be impacted in real-life tests, though.






Also launched are the Coolpix S640, Coolpix S570 and Coolpix S70.

Microstock News: Getty's customer segmentation

Well, as expected, there's ongoing consolidation in the microstock industry and Getty continues to flex its muscles as it looks like it's trying to introduce some customer segmentation into the market. It now looks like it's aiming for three tiers of microstock:

1.) Free - Stock.xchng - with explicit upselling to iStockphoto*
2.) Cheap - iStockphoto*
3.) Premium - Vetta* (for selective exclusive imagery)

There are then partnership models in-place with the likes of Photos.com - yes, it is very confusing!

That leaves one of its other recent Jupiter acquisitions, StockXpert* a little exposed - it's in direct competition to iStockphoto*. If it's retired/merged, it will be a real shame, as its upload interface (especially compared to iStockphoto*) is simple. Commissions at iStockphoto* for photographers are lower though, so there's an inevitability about it all. This may explain why a batch of my latest photos haven't been reviewed at StockXpert*.

Microstock News: SnapVillage closes its doors

As known for a while, Snapvillage is closing its doors - see their blog update for details. From 1st August, visitors will be redirected to http://www.veer.com/products/marketplace/ instead.

New Canon 50D Firmware

Canon have released a new version of its firmware for the 50D DLSR, version 1.07. It fixes a magenta cast under certain shooting conditions and some changes to some of the menus on certain non-English languages.

New Canon Hybrid IS System

Canon and Nikon have long been the advocates on in-lens image stabilisation - and now Canon have upped the stakes by releasing details of their new hybrid IS. Detail are available here.

Rumours are now around which lens will first feature it - some think a new 70-200 f/2.8 IS II ...

Nikon news

Some new goodies announced from Nikon today:

• D3000 10.2Mp DSLR


• D300S DLSR (7fps, HD Stereo, 51-point AF)
• AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
• AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II
  

All well at Crestock?

As with most microstock submitters, although we're all encouraged to submit images exclusively to a particular agency (for marginally higher commissions), I've been submitting images to a variety of them, on a non-exclusive basis.

However, uploading images and keywording can be pretty tedious, so I've decided to limit my uploading to only the sites which were providing useful returns - Shutterstock*, StockXpert*, iStockPhoto*, Dreamstime* and Fotolia*. That meant leaving three other sites - Snapvillage (which is being retired soon anyway), 123RF and finally Crestock.

For both 123RF and Snapvillage, closing my account was not only efficient, it was intuitive and managed politely - credit to both. But at Crestock, my e-mail request to close my account has been ignored so far. Further still, a quick look at their forum and it looks like I'm not alone with my experience...

Microstock News: Fotolia news - a busy May !

• May 1st: Fotolia* now supports video - great for those that can afford the astounding Canon EOS 5D Mark II*.
• May 6th: Fotolia bring in iStockPhoto co-founder (Patrick Lor) to be US CEO/President
• May 21st: Fotolia launches PhotoXpress - a free (!!) image bank to rival Getty owned stock.xchng
• May 23rd: Rumours that TA Associates have invested between $50m to $100m in Fotolia. Christian Grunwald from TA is now on Fotolia's Board.

Is this ultimately leading to a duopoly in stock photography between Getty and Fotolia, or is there news to come from any of the other players... they can't afford to be left behind.

Microstock News: Lookstat gets funding

Lookstat is a website which claims to help take away the burden of tracking sales across multiple microstock sites. As someone that does this tracking manually, I'd certainly appreciate a tool to speed this up, although my sales are so low (in fact, have pretty much dried-up!!), I'm losing faith in microstock altogether.

They've recently received $500k of funding, which is admirable. Hopefully they'll use it to develop support from more than the two current sites - iStockphoto and Dreamstime. Long-term, the future will be interesting, as with increasing consolidation between microstock players, there may be less need for photographers to track sales across many sites. They may also have certain resistance from people who aren't so keen to share their secure logon details with a third-party.

Canon 500D Available from Amazon UK*

Body only, EF-S 18-55mm IS and 18-200mm kits also available:

Canon News: New 270EX Flash - with zoom and bounce

Canon have also announced a new compact flash, the 270EX

Features are:

• High power flash with a maximum guide number 27 m
• Fast, silent recycle times
• Manual flash output (settable via camera menus)
• Speedlite controllable with compatible camera's menu
• Zoom head
• Bounce flash head

New Canon 500D Confirmed

Canon have launched the next model in the xx0D lineup - the 500D (also known as Rebel T1i and Kiss X3 Digital overseas):



The highlights include:

• 15.1 MP CMOS sensor
• Full HD (1080p) movies
• High ISO up to 12800 for low-light conditions
• 3.4fps with up to 170 JPEG burst
• 3.0” Clear View LCD with Live View mode
• 9-point AF system
• DIGIC 4
• EOS Integrated Cleaning System
• EF/EF-S and EX Speedlite compatibility

More details here.

Stealing plenty of features from the recently launched 5D Mark II, it leaves the 50D ripe for an upgrade, although it's getting close to being squeezed out of their lineup altogether!

Body only, EF-S 18-55mm IS and 18-200mm kits now available from Amazon:

iStock Founder leaves Getty

As mentioned in a cnet article, iStock's founder and CEO, Brian Livingstone, has left its parent, Getty.