Hiya, Thanks for a good blog. I'm Mark Jones from Canon USA. The 1Ds IV is coming out in June. It will have 65 megapixels and 233 focus points. It will shoot 14 image per second, and more if you reduce resolution. It will have no noise at 25,000 ISO. It will weigh three pounds more than the mark III.

Octagon, my ass. I've always said a circular sensor is the only one which will fully utilize the lens' image circle! Start with the sensor, *then* we'll work on monitor manufacturers and paper mills.

I know that I definitely have a touch of "Magic Bullet Syndrome". "Ooooh, 22 megapixels! With that I could really make great art!"

"The Canon G9 will be available in October for $499.99. The Canon G9 will be available in the UK from September 2007 priced £429 / €629 inc. VAT." Oh, that is wrong. Almost twice the price in Eu/UK! The pound is now twice the dollar, but you'd never know it looking at prices.

Mike Johnston, I understand what you're saying. I am not entirely sure of the ramifications or consequences. Perhaps somebody should invent a digital camera which has built-in memory, and could only print directly to a printer, not via a computer or any other way of manipulation?

I've read Erwin's article now, and my reaction can be summed up in one word: "What??" Even assuming he has some kind of point, he hasn't expressed it so I can understand it.

Great, thanks, Stephen. Indeed, the bigger the print, the less the pixel density needs to be, because viewing distance increases. I find 300 Pixels Per Inch (not DPI as it's often called) is only useful for small prints. For 8x10 to 15x20, 200 PPI is plenty. And for bigger, less will do.

"Lynx"... o dear. That was too subtle for me. :)

When I was a teen photo-nut in the late seventies, my home town had four camera stores, and the town I live in now has three. I've frequented all of them. And none of those seven stores, to my awareness, had/has owners or staff which seem to either know or care a lot about cameras or photography. I dunno.

We must remember that noise which looks the same at 100% on the screen will be much less noticeable when you see the whole image, at higher resolution. Because each pixel will be printed or viewed much smaller. In other words, if a twelve megapixel camera is a bit noisy, it will matter less than if a six megapixel camera is.

At least at ISO 100 as they are, I think those image samples are really impressive. I love my F10. If performance at ISO 400, and of the IS is good, I might get this one. I don't miss viewfinders. There was never a good one on a compact camera anyway. I like using an LCD. More flexibility of viewpoint, even if it's not tiltable (which is best).

I have just posted this on eolake.blogspot.com: Thanks to Mike Johnston for pointing to this video about Henry Wessel's photography. For some reason I was not aware of Wessel's work, but it's really wonderful. Exemplary "street photography". The video itself is also impressive. It shows the difference between the typical U-toobe video and a professionally produced one. Even in the sheer image quality: you can view it at 200% and it's still sharp and no artefacts. I would debate this, though: Henry Wessel: "In the still photograph you basically have two variables—where you stand and when you press the shutter. That's all you have." Well, you also have: * Choice of B/W or color. * Direction in which you shoot. * Contrast. * View angle of the lens. * Aperture. * Shutter speed. * Focus. * Exposure. * Framing. (Though this is a result of a few of the above.) * Camera format (influences sharpness etc). Notable also that Henry uses the kind of camera that we are still waiting for in digital photography: compact, high quality build and high image quality, light weight, very responsive, fast, simple to use.

Yes, I mean coating, and also angle of incidence. But if they are new designs, surely they've thought of that. And they do seem pretty big, which indicates it.

I couldn't agree more, Mike. On my personal site I don't worry about copyright at all, I post very large pictures, and sometimes I bother to put the domain on them. On my commercial site (the "tasteful nudes" one) I bother only a little. If somebody posts thousands of pictures, I complain to the host. If somebody posts less, I consider it free advertising. And a big portion of my sales comes from this kind of thing. Eolake Stobblehouse

"Personally, I feel that it's worth it to make your work look good and suffer some piracy, rather than be miserly about it." I totally agree. I think that posting tiny images just so they won't get stolen is like a greengrocer pouring gasoline over his fruit to make it unpalatable to thieves.

"(I'm particularly sensitive about the corporatization of art—so sue me)" Join the club. I once saw a TV programme satarizing the fact that some Danish theatres were putting sponsors in their shows somehow. And they interviewed a corporate moron who said that "this wonderful energy you get from a good theatre performance... you might as well *use* it for something." So if art does not sell a product, it's wasted. What an idiot.

Yes, yes, yes!! I've been bitching about this for years. Another one, mostly about newspapers: Have they not heard of verbs? Why do they think that making headlines in incomplete sentences make them more readable?

I have had good experiences with eBay, except one: a guy who sold me a Nikon FM. The pictures were not of the sample I got, and mine was clearly in a poorer condition. Fortunately the pictures showed the serial number to be different, so I got my money back from eBay!

I don't have the rights to them, and I have never found the authors.

These are like ten years old, so I doubt it.