Wednesday News and Notes

Hi Everyone,

WOW! Great News - When I hit the keyboard this morning, to check my email - there it was. The Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce just named David A. Ziser Photography/Photographic Resources, Inc. one of the "Emerging 30" businesses in the area. It was a very nice surprise. A lot of the credit goes to my great team - Susan, Sharon, Gayle, and Nicholas, and my wonderful wife, LaDawn.

On with the News.

Canon One More Time:
I spent half the morning on line checking out the specs of the new Canon 40D. Man, that's looking like my next camera. Here are a few of the important features that "speak" to me.

1. Full Viewfinder "Blinkies" finally! Now I can really see which highlights are "blowing out" and fix it before I take the shot. I always hated the fact that the "blinkies" only showed up on that teeny little 1/4 screen thumbnail in "Play Mode". Nikon has had "full screen highlight warning" all the time - glad to see Canon now on board too.
2. Highlight Tone Priority - Read "... JPEG shooters Rejoice!!!" This is a wonderful custom feature that I reported in my Digital Newsletter #12. I have reprinted it in the post that follows this one, so give it a read.
3. A Kelvin setting that now goes down to 2500K. The 20D and 30D only went down to 2800K. 2800K was good for "ceremony"shots in the church, but for "available light" images at the reception, it just was not quite enough - glad to see the new lower Kelvin number.

Those are the main "ticklers" for me - there is lots to like about the new camera. Canon D40 info right here.

Really Unusual Camera:
It's a "Scanner Camera" made out of and inexpensive desktop scanner and a view camera. The inventor is Mike Golembewski. You have got to see it to believe it. He is producing 115Meg files with his current camera. He has a whole site dedicated to the design of the camera, his current camera, and lots of images - very fascinating. Check it out here.

Hot! Geek News - Google Earth Heads for Space:
Now I might be one of about 3 people in the world that think this is really "cool" but, I couldn't resist telling you about it today. When I was a kid - like in the 2nd grade - my hobby was astronomy. I wrote to the major observatories around the country and asked for any free stuff they could send - my allowance wouldn't allow me to purchase much material. I even did a special astronomy report to my class. I bet my buddy I would beat him to the moon - that bet is still on by the way.

Anyway, here is the hot news - Google Earth is now going to be Google Space too. Here is an excerpt, "... The new feature in Google Earth called Sky promises to bring the world of astronomy to viewers without the need of a telescope. Launched today, the new tool is claimed to enable users to view and navigate through 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies using high resolution imaging and overlays." Check it out here.

Now Maybe News From Nikon!
I just saw this minutes ago. We just finish hearing all the hot new announcements from Canon, and now there may be a slew of announcements by Nikon coming real soon. Nikon may be announcing their new D3 - full frame camera and D300 - both with 6400 ISO's too. Here is the link.

That's about it for today. I've got to tell the staff the good news. Have a great one! --David