The MacBook, for a long time, has been known for its affinity with professional photographers for its editor-friendly softwares, as well as its powerful processors. Recently, Macbook got a major facelift with Apple’s integration of the famous Retina Display into its famous Pro series. The notebook features what Apple is calling, the new Retina technology, which provides a resolution of 2880 x 1800, nearly four times of that of a normal screen.

It’s especially handy when it comes to processing photographs, as the resolution is at par with what the camera churns out when shooting in RAW. Special upgrades have been made to RAW image processing softwares like Adobe Photoshop and Apple Aperture (in Mountain Lion), to accommodate the higher resolution, as this is the first time someone has introduced so much resolution in a computer.

Apple also claims that they have reduced the glare on the display by 75 per cent. How accurate that is remains to be seen. Apple has also had to customize a lot of its own applications to keep up with the Retina Display, like iTunes, iPhoto, Facetime, etc.  A lot of third party applications and games, like Diablo III, are also introducing fixes to accommodate Retina. You might have to wait for a little while before all your necessary third party applications are customized.

One problem with the Retina Display is its battery consumption. As the Retina Display takes up considerably more amount of power than the previous model, Apple scrapped off the big hard drive and replaced it with flash memory, to make way for a bigger 95 watt hour battery, compared to the previous, 77.5 watt hour battery. Apple claims that the battery life will not be much different from the previous model, which again, will be seen once it is launched. All in all, even though MacBooks have never really needed much recommendation or advertising, the enthusiastic, tech-savvy Indian consumer will still have to wait for a while to get a hold of that shiny, slim Pro in their hands, as there hasn’t been any official announcement on the date on the launch yet. 

Other Specs

Other than that, the new 15-inch MacBook is also lighter than the previous version. The machine’s aluminum body design weighs about 4.46 pounds, 1.1 pounds lighter than the previous one, and is 0.71 inches thick, which is just about as thick as a MacBook Air. The machine is packed with a heavy, 2.3 GHz quad-core i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics with 1GB of video memory, 8GB of 1600 MHz RAM, and 256GB of flash storage.

With all things beautiful, Leica as a brand has always been known to produce timeless beauties. At a time when all manufacturers are consistently moving towards the space-age, Leica has somehow still managed to grab eyeballs due to its ever popular, retro-look cameras. Mind you though, it is not only the looks that appease the professionals, it’s the combination of performance and style that makes Leica a force to reckon with.

So when the company recently released the M-Monochrom, a fully black and white camera for high dynamic range, low light B&W photography, we were particularly excited. For starters, the ISO range has been increased to 10000, from 2500 of the M9, which can be a picture changing feature when it comes to black and whites, as noise is one of the primary problems black and white photographers face. Leica here, like the M9, has targeted a really niche audience by the virtue of its price, as well as its the almost-redundant manual focus rangefinder design. The camera isn’t designed with any filter array to register color information, which makes sure that the sensor captures all the light which falls on it. Compare it to the black and white mode in a normal camera which closes the part of the sensor which registers colors to capture just blacks and whites, it certainly helps in decreasing the level of noise in your pictures. This is a major factor which allowed Leica to increase the camera’s ISO to 10000. Also, because there is no color information in play here, the noise isn’t spread throughout the image because of demosaicing (the process of reconstructing a full color image from incomplete color pixels captured by the sensor), which again considerably helps in decreasing the level of noise in the pictures. The M-Monochrom only shoots 34.7mb DNG files, and there is no option available for compression.

As the camera lacks live view, the histogram can only be seen after the picture has been taken, so how the picture is going to come out can only be seen after it has been taken. Also, as the histogram is not affected by factors like white balance or colour levels, obtaining correct exposure can prove to be considerably easier. Another high point of the M-Monochrome is the resolution. Because the sensor doesn’t register any colours, it records accurate luminance values for every pixel, which helps it in delivering true black and white photographs, which cannot be achieved by taking a B&W with a normal camera, or taking a color with a normal camera and processing it into a B&W. 

The body of the M-M has not been changed much from the M9. In fact, there haven’t been any major changes in the structure of Leica cameras for a long time now. The camera has been priced at $7500-$8500, though it is yet to be released in India. This one is, for sure, not targeted towards the masses, but film users who have been looking at moving to digital without comprising on the design might find it to be a deal of a lifetime. 

Epson India recently announced the appointment of Toshiyuki Kasai to the newly created position of President at Epson India. Toshiyuki will be based out of Epson India’s Bangalore headquarters. He is an Industrial Engineer from Waseda University and brings with him extensive experience spanning 30 years spent in various capacities within the Seiko Epson group. 

With India being a priority market, Epson India will no longer be reporting to the regional hub at Epson Singapore but will now be reporting directly to Seiko Epson Japan. This along with Toshiyuki’s appointment is indicative of the increased expectation from Epson India in the years to come.

Toshiyuki has a vast body of experience and has worked in various functions including production control, purchase, information systems, corporate planning, business planning, profit management and various project activities. This is Toshiyuki’s third posting out of Japan. He has spent seven years at Epson Portland (USA) in the late 80’s/early 90’s and subsequently was the Senior Vice President of Business Infrastructure at Epson Europe from 2004 to 2007. Prior to joining Epson India, Toshiyuki was the Head of Business Management for the Imaging & Information Division at Seiko Epson Japan. 

When we spoke to the new President he seemed excited and looking forward to providing the vision and direction to ensure further robust growth for Epson India while ensuring fair returns to all its stakeholders.

For long Jehangir Art gallery has been the IT place to showcase your art. For a longtime it was also hailed as one of the leading galleries to showcase photography work. But somewhere along the way, a new meaning of art sidelined the aesthetic beauty of photography. But all this changed recently when the Jehangir Art gallery reopened its doors to photography.

The Terrace Gallery is now partly owned by Mr. Kakubhai Kothari, having it named in favor of Kakubhai’s family who funded the renovation of the gallery. As part of the inauguration and to celebrate the occasion Kakubhai’s best wildlife images were featured at the venue. He introduced the exhibition with sheer pride to his visitors, giving them small insights to each photograph. 

 “I have been tracking and photographing these wild tigers and lions for fourteen years. I have made sure that I have created a bond with each one of them. Hence making them aware that, I am a person of no threat to them but a person who loves to bond and show the beauty of the wild cats in its habitat”. We punched in a question asking Mr. Kakubhai what would be his advice to young wildlife photographers. He said,”All I have to say is don’t force yourself or the animal to get your shot, be patient and let the animal get used to your presence”.     

The Terrace Gallery is divided into two sections, one section is in broad day light, which is the outdoor gallery offering a vast area space with a splendid city view. Along the sides of the outdoor gallery is the indoor gallery section, which is fully air-conditioned and designed with spot on lighting. The Terrace Gallery is an ideal place for photography and visual art.

We were recently invited to the Samsung Forum 2012 in Thailand where Samsung introduced a plethora of products for the APAC market. From TVs to fridges, Samsung left no stone unturned to entice its consumers the coming year. The event featured the much awaited Samsung Galaxy Beam mobile phone and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 310. Closer to the imaging front, the manufacturer launched some new DSC cameras with interesting features. Bhavya Desai finds out more.

While Samsung has been missing from the imaging radar with product launches few and far between, the manufacturer seems to have hit the nail on its head in terms of IT products. Most noticeable amongst them are its mobile devices including the tablets. B. D. Park, MD and CEO, APAC Region, Samsung informed us at the launch that, “the company touched a staggering global sales figure of $143 billion in the last financial year while retaining the No.1 market share in the South-East Asian region in the categories including flat panel TVs, side-by-side fridges, large format displays and mobile devices among others.”

Centered on the concepts of ‘SMART’ and ‘Pushing Boundaries, Park introduced a host of products under consumer electronics and imaging category. Infact no less than five Wifi enabled cameras and camcorders and a printer targeted towards the contemporary user were launched at the forum. These include the innovative WB850F; the WB150F’s 18x optical super zoom and 14.2MP sensor; the new 2View offering in the name of DV300F, and the slim ST200F. All of these are based on WiFi capability and easy sharing concept. 

Samsung also launched the SCX-3406FW printer for wireless mobile printing; enabling printing from any mobile to the SCX-3406 with a simple installation of Samsung’s MobilePrint application. Besides, a one-touch WPS button instantly and effortlessly connects to the network and a high-speed processor delivers the power needed for superb print performance in a compact design.

We spoke to Raj Kumar Rishi, Vice President and Business Head for Samsung’s Audio Visual (AV) business, about the company’s plans for the coming year in the imaging industry. He was aware that the manufacturer received a lukewarm response for its cameras in the past. But he was optimistic about all that changing soon with the company setting some aggressive targets for the year ahead, in terms of market share. Although he wouldn’t share what those targets are but it is expected to be more than single-digits than the current financial year. 

Rishi plans to achieve these aggressive targets set out on the basis the new features that the latest cameras have to offer alongwith the entire eco-system of imaging that Samsung has to offer. One of the many interesting features is the WiFi Sharing option which allows you to connect with other devices seamlessly. “Our focus in the camera segment will be on mid to high-end camera segment since this has shown promising growth in the recent past. We will have to grow atleast 2-3 times the market growth in order for us to come up to a significant level,” said Rishi.

Talking about the perception of the consumers of not instantly connecting with or recognising Samsung as a photo-imaging company, Rishi chooses to see the positive side and so believes that with its strong brand name the company has become a leader in many segments in these past few years, not just the photo-imaging segment. “Although we haven’t enjoyed the same success in the camera segment, but there are many markets around the globe where we enjoy a significant market share in the camera category,” he said. “Every organisation would go through this phase where we start somewhere and we would like to be somewhere else, and this segment is no exception.” He believes that it is the brand strength; support infrastructure and the set channel, which will allow Samsung to achieve the objectives that it has set out to attain.

Whether all of this will be possible or not, only time will tell. We will be getting our hands onto the newly launched Samsung products soon, so make sure to catch the review of the same in our upcoming issues.

On 2^nd March Canon announced the launch of the 5D Mark III, almost 4 years after the launch of the 5D Mark II. While the speculations regarding the camera have been doing the rounds since few years, professionals will finally get their hands on one when it is out by the end of March 2012. So we got an exclusive preview look at the camera even before it was announced and here are some interesting facts about the same.

The Canon EOS 5D Mark III will be priced in India at Rs. 2,05,095 (body only) and Rs. 2,50,095 (24-105 lens kit).

The 22.3 megapixel camera is built around a full frame sensor, is capable of shooting 6 frames per second, an improvement from the 3.9 frames over the Mark II. Boasting of an improved viewfinder with approximately 100 percent coverage, a newly developed CMOS sensor capable of shooting pictures with little or no digital noise even at ISO 6400, and significant other new features, the 5D Mark III packs quite a punch! 

Enhancements

Some of the big changes when compared to the 5D Mark II are the sensor, the image processor, and the viewfinder that covers almost 100 per cent coverage. In terms of pixel count, the 5D Mark III’s 22.3 megapixel sensor is only a slight bump compared to the 5D Mark II’s 21.1 megapixel sensor. With the new sensor, Canon has aimed at increasing the sensitivity and reducing the noise. Canon says their aim was to achieve at ISO 25600 the same noise levels exhibited by the 5D Mark II at ISO 6400, realizing superior image quality in night scenes when compared to the 5D Mark II. Along with a drastic decrease in noise levels across the normal ISO range, noise reduction performance beyond ISO 25600 has also been improved. The standard ISO range is expandable to 50-102,400. The new sensor, coupled with Canon’s latest DIGIC 5+ processor enables continuous shooting at 6 fps. 

The camera gains the 7D’s Live View switch which makes switching from shooting stills to video recording a breeze. A built-in headphone socket for audio monitoring has also been introduced. Changing exposure settings while recording video without having to rotate any dials and other disruptions is another issue that has been addressed and it is now possible to do so with the newly introduced touch sensitive rear control dial. Among the most important features found in the 5D Mark III for videographers is the ability to shoot video longer — as much as 29 minutes and 59 seconds long, a significant improvement from the 5D Mark II which would automatically stop filming after about 12 minutes.

Its 61-point focus system borrowed from the flagship EOS-1D X comes with a completely new tab in the menu for managing its complex AF system based on a range of usage-scenario presets. AF configuration is simplified with a choice of 6 presets defined by subject behaviour. 

Some of the entirely new features include in-camera Higher Dynamic Range shooting and multiple exposure capability. The ability to define a specific minimum shutter speed when using Auto ISO makes it less likely for photographers to get shaky pictures while shooting in low light conditions. The viewfinder features a dual axis electric level allowing you to level your frame exactly as you’d like before shooting. A dual card slot makes the use of both CF and SD cards possible. In playback, it is now possible to compare images side by side. You can now compare composition and focus of two versions of the same shot, histograms, or check sharpness of different areas of the same image. 

Our first impressions about the camera are extremely positive, but we’ve not really had our hands on the camera long enough to fully explore its capabilities, and I must say, we can barely wait to do a detailed review of the camera. Other products announced along with the 5D Mark III are an EF 24mm 1:2.8 IS USM lens, a 28mm 1:2.8 IS USM lens, and the 600EX-RT Speedlite. 

Specifications

• 22.3 Megapixel full frame sensor
• 61 point autofocus
• Up to 6 fps continuous shooting
• Native ISO 100-25600; expandable to 50-102400 
• Full HD video with manual control 
• 14 bit DIGIC 5+ processor 
• Enhanced weather sealing 
• 8.11 cm (3.2 inch) 1,040,000 dot screen 
• HDR mode with presets

Epson recently launched its newest mini photo printer – the Epson PictureMate PM245. It is a portable compact 4 x 6-inch format photo printer that allows users to enjoy cost savings and good print quality at the same time. 

In addition to 4 x 6-inch photos, the mobile photo printer also allows users to customise special prints like their ID or passport photos with a click of a button. It also delivers prints with excellent speed – it takes 37 seconds to produce a 4 x 6-inch photo. 

Mr. S M Ram Prasad, Deputy General Manager – Consumer Products, Epson India commented, “It is designed to suit home users or print-for-pay users who require portability and high performance at the same time.” 

The Epson PictureMate PM245’s print head employs Epson’s proprietary Micro Piezo inkjet printing technology which features Variable-Sized Droplet Technology (VSDT) that achieves a maximum print resolution of 5760 x 1440 dpi, and a 1.5 picolitre minimum ink droplet size for smooth image gradations.

PM245’s Custom-ID function allows users to easily customise various ID and passport or visa photo sizes without using a PC. It allows users to duplicate multiple copies of the same image onto a   4 x 6-inch photo paper and print according to the sizes required. 

The Epson picture pack (four colour ink set) costs Rs. 1,400 per pack, and prints up to 150 pages of 4 x 6-inch photograph; resulting in a cost of Rs. 8-9 for each 4R size photograph. Epson Claria Photographic inks are smudge, water and fade-resistant, allowing photographs to be preserved up to 200 years. 

Users can print directly from their memory card through the built-in slots or connect their digital camera directly using the printer’s PictBridge USB port, while viewing them from the 2.5-inch LCD screen on the PictureMate.

With its compact size, carrying handle and the optional rechargeable battery pack, the Epson PictureMate PM245 makes it possible for users to use the printer anywhere, and at anytime without needing to plug it to a power source.