Coincidence… or not?
The very I day I decided to join Syntagma Media to write about digital photography a sad thing happened. The very last traditional film cartridge was produced in Fuji’s European factory; production was stopped after a loss of 53 million Euros in 2005… After 18 years of production, 250 jobs were lost.

In 2001, 200 million cartridges were manufactured - how many kilometers tape will that be?

But yes, the future is now and not many people want to go back to the old days; certainly I enjoy the benefits of the digital age every day: it’s good to discover a blooper in seconds, not days!

Syntagma Media is looking for a new author for our PR5 Wordpress blog, Digital Camera Latest. The site already has a good number of posts, reviews, previews etc,. but I want to sharpen up its presentation and posting rate, and make it one of the top digicam information websites.

The blogger should have an excellent knowledge of digital cameras and direct experience of their use. Naturally, an ability to write engagingly about the subject is a must.

Please apply, with sample posts and relevant experience to: John(at)SyntagmaMedia(dot)com.

LetsGoDigital has a good review of the Sony A100 Digital SLR camera : ‘Sony has come up with a decent camera in the Alpha 100. A good beginning is half the battle. Consider the price/quality ration in the current market and you will see that the well known DSLR manufacturers have suddenly been confronted with a competitor to be afraid of! Not only is the Sony Alpha 100 a pleasure to work with, it also gives great results. People who now work with a Konica Minolta can go on to Sony without a hitch.’

Check out the latest price.

Dpreview has an interesting semi-review of the New Nikon D80, a camera causing much excitement right now.

“The D80 slots nicely between the entry-level D50 and the semi-professional / professional D200, clearly based on the D70 design but also different enough to be seen as a completely new model. It features a ten megapixel DX format CCD (the same we presume as used by Sony in the DSLR-A100), the metering sensor from the D50 and numerous other items taken or modified from the D200.”

Key features of the Nikon D80
* 10.2 megapixel DX format CCD (1.5x FOV crop)
* Image processing engine (similar to D200 / D2X)
* 3D Color Matrix Metering II, 420 pixel sensor (same as D50)
* 11-area AF system (new version of Multi-CAM 1000, similar to D200)
* Auto ISO (selectable maximum ISO, minimum shutter speed)
* Configurable high ISO and long exposure noise reduction
* Mechanical only shutter (maximum 1/4000 sec, flash sync to 1/200 sec)
* Quoted 80 ms shutter lag (short viewfinder blackout; 160 ms)
* Larger, brighter pentaprism viewfinder (x0.94 magnification)
* Support for SD-HC (SD cards over 2 GB in capacity)
* In-camera retouching
* — D-Lighting (shadow / highlight enhancement)
* — Red-eye reduction
* — Trimming
* — Monochrome and Filter
* — Small picture
* — Image overlay
* Multiple-exposures
* Compact body (smaller, lighter than D70/D70s)
* Improved menu user interface (same as D200)
* Higher capacity EN-EL3e battery (provides detailed information, same as D200)
* Wireless flash integration (same as D200).