Nikon USA released a set of photos taken by Nkon D3 at full resolution under a range of conditions. There are total of 6 photos, 2 of them shot at ISO 6400, 1 at ISO 3200, 1 at ISO 1600, 1 at ISO 400 and the last one at ISO 200.

The image quality and the noise level at ISO 6400 is quite impressive as expected from the previous samples released, thanks to the new full frame CMOS sensor. Sports shooters will especially like what they see here, seems like we are going to see more black lenses, would it be the start of and end of the strong Canon 'L' white domination? Time will tell. ..

Follow the link to find the full resolution samples here:

Canon has released a firmware update v1.1.1 for its popular entry level DSLR: EOS 400D (Digital Rebel Xti).

The following fixes and improvements are incorporated by the update Version 1.1.1:

Follow the link below for the installing instructions and the download link:

Which Canon lenses are weather resistant?

I see this question being asked quite often on the photography forums: And the answers are not accurate most of the time or they come in pieces. I also have received the similar questions after publishing my article about the Canon Lens Abbreviations here.

‘Weather resistant’ term is somewhat relative because it doesn’t define the amount or nature of water or dust that the lens or body is exposed to. It could be resistant to water under a shower bath (don’t know anybody shooting under shower bath though, poor example) or only resistant to moisture in room conditions. Same applies for dust, a desert storm or downtown New York?

Currently Canon has the largest line-up of weather resistant lenses. According to Canon, there are two levels of weather resistivity in their line-up. One group of weather resistant lenses is qualified to be highly water-and-dust resistant, while the other group is not that reliable (slightly weather resistant?) as we understand from this classification. And one problem here is nobody naturally wants to risk their water resistant lenses (and weather resistant bodies of course) to experiment and see if it really is resistant, or to what degree they stay resistant.

Here is the list of Weather Sealed Canon Lenses:

Canon Lens Abbreviations and Acronyms

Lens manufacturers use abbreviations to specify the features of their lenses, and as the number of abbreviations increase with the newly added features, things become quite confusing especially for photographers who are not familiar with the lens technology.

In order to make things a bit more clear, we will present the lens types and abbreviations with descriptions in alphabetical order for the most popular lens manufacturers, starting with Canon.

AFD – Arc-Form Drive: An older type of in-lens AF motor like USM but slower and noisier.

AL - Aspheric Lens: A special design lens used to minimize aberrations. Aspheric lenses can be designed more compact and lightweight then conventional lenses.

CA – Circular Aperture: Canon lenses with multiple aperture blades shaped to give as circular an iris shape as possible, effects the bokeh.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 Released

Adobe released Photoshop Elements 6 for Windows, and a MAC version wil be available in early 2008. The price is US $99.99 (upgrade: US $79.99). There is another option where Photoshop Elements 6 bundled with Premiere Elements 4 video editing software for $149.99. Photoshop Elements is the no.1 selling consumer photo editing software according to the NPD group.

What is new in Photoshop Elements 6:

Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2/28 for ZF (Nikon F) and ZK (Pentax K) mounts

Zeiss introduced a new manual focus SLR lens for Nikon and Pentax mounts. New 28mm f/2 Distagon wide angle will definitely attract photographers who are looking for the highest optical quality at the expense of losing the auto focus + almost a $1K. Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2/28 will be shipped with a price tag of US$984 in the U.S. at the end of 2007.

Technical Specifications of Distagon T* 2/28:

Free Canon EOS Digital Photo Guidebook

The Content of the EOS guidebook:

• Equipment
• Shooting
• Data Processing 1
• Data Processing 2
• Appendix with Glossary

Follow the link to download the Canon EOS e-book for free:

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software and Camera raw plug-in are updated to support 14 new camera models, including Canon EOS 40D and Sony Alpha A700. Improved noise reduction and some bug fixes are other differences from the previous versions.