Saturday, September 21, 1996


Digital Developments

There is a lot of activity in the digital area, including new inkjet printers from both Kodak and Fuji, an upgrade of Kodak's thermal dye transfer desk top printer, and the appearance of Kodak's Digital Science conversion system for "any customer who scans large numbers of photographic images, digitizing up to 100 negatives per hour in the Photo CD disc Image Pac format or RGB TIFF formats." Flat work and slides are also subjects for the fast operating Conversion System. The CPU is a Macintosh 8500 Power PC with a 1 GB hard drive.

It seems that all of the majors are releasing low end digital cameras, many coming in well under $1000, such as Kodak's DC25. At an even lower price point is Agfa's ePhoto 307 at just under $400. What these cameras lack in high image quality they are making up for in ease of operation and imagination. A good example is the new Dimage V "from the mind of Minolta." In addition to having a smaller monitor instead of a viewfinder, the camera itself actually detaches from the recording body and can be positioned away from the control/recording body by a wire tether.

There was also some activity at the very top of the digital capture chain. According to Sinar's CEO, Hans Carl Koch, they estimate that right now about 10% of all high end studio work which is linked directly to pre-press outlets is being done digitally by about 2% of all such studios. But by the turn of the millennium, they expect to see this number increase to 80% of all images as digital capture by about 40% of the studios. In Koch's view, the key to the continued success of Sinar's digital cameras and other hardware will be in alliances between camera and digital equipment companies.

To that end, Sinar introduced the Sinarcam, a "sophisticated studio camera in itself, as well as an unrestricted digital adapter for Sinar view cameras. It uses a Leaf DCB-LV digital back as the digital heart of the camera." This 14 million pixel, 14 bit color depth, 3 shot RGB array type recording back yields excellent results in terms of color fidelity and sharpness. As an integrated part of the Sinarcam, the recording back is provided with easy monitor, live picture focusing. The Sinarcam can be used with lens boards that take Sinaron Digital lenses, of which there are three new high-resolving, large image circle models: the 45mm f/4.5, the 55mm f/4.5, or the 180mm f/4.8. There are also adapter boards for using Nikon, Olympus, Hasselblad and Mamiya optics, some of which have shift capabilities. To move up to complete perspective and focus control, the Sinarcam can then be inserted into a Sinar p2 camera, converting that camera over to a complete digital system.

New Leica Product Roll Out

We already mentioned Leica's unique telephoto module system of mix and match front and rear elements in our first report. There is also a new Vario-Elmar-R 105-288 f/4.2 zoom for Leica's SLRs, as well as a Elmarit-M 24mm f/2.8 lens for the M6 rangefinder.

But the product that is causing the most buzz here is the new R8 SLR camera. It looks and feels different from any other Leica, with its 62mm thick bulbous body which has the extremely bright high point viewfinder completely buried in the body. There are also lots of electronics to support the new metering capabilities, including: selective measurement via a 7mm area; centerweighted averaging; and "an innovative multiple field measurement that allows for even more accurate exposure measurement even in extremely difficult light conditions." Exposure modes include manual, aperture priority, variable automatic, and shutter priority along with a test flash metering mode that allows you to check the flash exposure before shooting. Shutter speeds range from 32 seconds to 1/8000 second with a 1/250 second flash sync. There is an easy film load feature and a choice of 2 fps add-on winder or a 4 fps motor drive.

If you'd like to reach me while I'm here, or have a question I can try to answer, drop an email to me and I'll do my best.

Text by Joseph Meehan for Photo District News

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