The Tamron "Make Your Mark: Landmarks--Natural or Manmade"
2007 Photo Contest was open to U.S. residents submitting any original photograph
prominently including a natural or manmade landmark that was taken with a Tamron
lens. The Grand Prize: A Tamron AF18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 Aspherical LD Di II (IF)
Macro zoom lens in the DSLR mount of the winner's choice, plus having
the winning picture showcased in the Tamron Viewfinder newsletter, and in the
Gallery section of the popular Tamron website. In addition, twenty photographers
whose images were selected as Favorites would have their names and winning images
published on the website for all to admire.
The time-honored Shutterbug Weird Stuff category is for all the products that don't fit in anywhere else: the sort of thing where a friend who was at the show tells you, "You wouldn't believe what I saw..." As well as the glorious examples in the subhead, we can add online caricatures, limpet-mine camera supports, Internet telephones, dental...
"My mother loved children--she would have given anything if I had been one."--Groucho Marx
As hard as it may be for some of the young people in my neighborhood to believe, I was once a child myself. I have three grandchildren and a daughter and once upon a time wrote a story about her for ComputerUSER magazine. The story was optioned by an independent...
When Shutterbug reporters are covering photokina, we understandably concentrate on what's new, and we each have our own assigned ranges of subjects. As a result, even after allowing for my "Weird Stuff" category, a number of really useful items and trends can either fall into the gaps between our coverage--"I thought you would be covering...
It was a heady affair covering camera supports at photokina, with dozens of new tripod tops from a variety of manufacturers. The trend is toward greater precision and quality: increased control, with spring counterweights to balance heavy lenses, calibrated friction control as pioneered by Novoflex, panoramic calibrations, and quick-release plates. Some manufacturers...
These days traveling means taking smaller and smaller devices to fit in with carryon luggage standards. Anything that cuts down on the number and size of those devices is welcome. A number of so-called portable storage devices were seen at the show, many addressing the need for greater storage capacity and raw file reading capability.
Walking through some of the halls at photokina, you could be forgiven for thinking digital photography has taken over. But look again and you can find plenty of silver halide waiting to be discovered: new films, chemicals and papers, updated enlargers, a new cold light source, and a new archival washer. Old friends, companies like Paterson Photographic, Condor, Tetenal, and...
This would appear to be a new golden age for rangefinder users. There are now three major systems (Leica, Voigtländer, and Zeiss) and two minor (Epson and Rollei). All use the same cross-compatible lens mount, for which an extensive and excellent range of lenses is available, and all compete with one another, albeit at different price points. Who could have imagined this...
"How do you get a handle on telling the story of life on earth in images? It took tons of research to master the material."
For his most recent book, Life: A Journey Through Time, Frans Lanting traveled, researched, and photographed for over six years, but when you consider that his goal was to document the story of life on earth, it seems a reasonable amount...
While HP did show a number of consumer-oriented printers, perhaps the most interest was generated by their new HP Designjet Z2100 and Z3100 models. Both use HP Vivera pigment ink technology (introduced with the HP Photosmart Pro B9180) and have built-in color management with an embedded spectrophotometer. According to HP, the use of the Vivera pigmented inks yields 200+ years...