Casio Europe has today announced the release of an ultra-slim, card-sized digital camera, the Exlim Card EX-S600D.

Easier than Ever to Save Movies Straight to CD-R or DVD-R
Norderstedt, June 19, 2006 — CASIO EUROPE GmbH and its parent company, CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD., have announced the release of the EXILIM CARD EX-S600D, an ultra-slim, card-sized, high-resolution digital camera. This latest 6.0 megapixel addition to the stylish EXILIM digital camera series can also take high-quality movies in DivX® format, a video compression technology developed by DivX, Inc. of the United States.

Fitting easily into a pocket, EXILIM CARD digital cameras are ready to go wherever their users go, so no one has to miss a once-in-a-lifetime photographic moment again. CASIO has previously released the EX-S600, which shoots 6.0 megapixel photos and takes high-quality movies in MPEG-4 format. The EX-S600 has been a hit among people who want a digital camera that makes it a snap to shoot both still pictures and movies.

The new EX-S600D has all the features of the EX-S600, but it can take movies in the DivX® format. The new model will be sold primarily online in Europe.

DivX is a cutting-edge video compression technology which delivers high-quality video in reduced file sizes. It also allows users to save movies on CD-R and DVD-R computer media without the time-consuming hassle of having to convert file formats. And with a DivX-Certified DVD player, users can enjoy DivX movies on their TVs. By building DivX into the new EX-S600D, CASIO has expanded the world of movie-making fun, making it easier than ever before to give the gift of a special moment on DVD to friends and family.

This latest addition to the EXILIM CARD series offers all the popular features of its forerunner, the EX-S600. These include:

* Anti Shake DSP for reducing photo blur due to shaky hands or moving subjects and movie blur due to shaky hands
* Super Life Battery for about 300 still pictures (CIPA standard)
* Revive Shot for refreshing the faded colors of old photographs, using digital technology to bring them back to life
* Past Movie, which starts recording the movie 5 seconds before the Record button is pressed
* The addition of the EX-S600D to the EXILIM CARD digital camera series makes it even more fun to shoot photos and movies, creating whole new possibilities in digital photography.

The thought of Canon printers usually reminds me of when I used one of their Bubblejet things, the ones where the ink would run off the envelope if you took a printed letter out in the rain. Horrible things they were. But times have changed. Canon is now taking on the might of Epson in the printing stakes.

Luminous Landscape has an excellent review of the Canon ImagePROGRAF iPF5000 Printer: ‘This is a 12 ink, pigment-based, 17″ carriage photographic printer capable of printing in 16 bit mode. It is physically large, moderately priced (for what it does), and, as will be seen, surpasses just about every other fine-art inkjet printer yet available, in terms of both image quality and convenience of features. …With the iPF5000 they have taken aim squarely at the Epson 4800, accurately targeting all of that printer’s flaws, and in some ways surpassing its well recognized first-rate image quality.’

If you’re printing fine art, water soluble pigments are definitely persona non grata.

Announced in April, launching in July, the glossies are starting to call it the “must-have” digital camera for the serious photographer. Sony’s Alpha 100, priced at around $1000 (£700), is giving Canon and Nikon a good run for their money.

The Alpha is a powerful 10MP DSLR (Sony’s first) which has been specifically designed to allow amateur photographers to take professional-quality shots. The claim is that it’s as simple to use as a compact, with a SteadyShot anti-shake system that will be a boon to recovering alcoholics in particular.

The Alpha’s USP (unique selling point) seems to be its amazing versatility. More than 20 bespoke lenses will be available at launch. Even better, Sony (an electronics company) has worked with lens specialists Konica Minolta, resulting in lenses that are compatible with the Dynax range produced for Konica’s 35mm SLR cameras.

Sony has obviously excelled itself here and we await the launch with interest.

JPG (pronounced, Jay peg) is a file format used for storing and displaying images. It’s the most common format online, only really challenged by GIF.

JPG is the acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It has the apparent disadvantage that when you save a picture in the format it loses some data. This is caused by JPGs compressing the image, which may seem a major drawback. However, the format does preserve a lot of information even in high compressions which makes it ideal for screen viewing.

Most digital cameras save images by default as JPGs. In most case though, you do have some choice over the degree of compression used.

Even inexpensive point-and-shoots will have a menu giving a choice of picture quality in their armory. Please note, this is not about “resolution” which measures the number of pixels in the image. The image quality you set determines by how much the picture will be compressed, so how much quality is lost.

There is a further trade-off in that the higher the quality, the more space the picture will take on your memory card. Remember, you can always use another memory card, but you can never recover the loss of quality in the image.

The bottom line is the use you intend for the final picture. Web pages and emails are best served by low quality pictures. Making prints from the image requires the highest quality obtainable at source.