Olympus has introduced the E-620, a 12 megapixel DSLR with sensor based stabilization, custom 7-point Twin autofocus system, 2.7 inch free-angle LCD screen, Live View, 4fps continuous shooting and Supersonic Wave Filter dust protection. The E-620 also offers the same Art Filters, Multi Exposure mode and five different aspect ratios as the more expensive E-30 model. A range of optional accessories will also be available, including a vertical grip and an underwater housing.The Olympus E-620 will be available at the end of April 2009 for $699.99 body-only and $799.99 body and ED 14-42mm f3.5/5.6 Zuiko Lens kit.

Olympus E-620 Press Release:

Corel has announced Painter 11, a new version of its painting and illustration software aimed at artists, photographers and illustrators. Corel states that Painter 11 has been optimized for professional users, contrary to Paint Shop Pro which is primarily aimed at enthusiasts. Painter 11 incorporates more than 40 new and enhanced features including an expandable Color Palette, new Selection Tools, enhanced Brushes Palette and improved Colour Management. The brushes palette also includes new pressure-sensitive brushes and promises to work 30% faster than the previous versions. The English version of Corel Painter 11 is available now as an electronic download, priced at $399 for the full version and $199 for the upgrade.

Corel Press Release:

Nikon has announced the AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G lens, designed for use exclusively with the Nikon DX-format (1.5x crop factor). Equivalent to 52mm on a 35mm frame, the new 35mm becomes a normal lens on APS-C Nikon cameras. Thanks to its built-in focus motor, D40/D40x and D60 users can autofocus with this lens. This introduction is also important for the future of the Nikon DX line of DSLR, being an indication of dedication to this format. The AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8 lens should be available in March 2009 for $199.95, a cheaper alternative to Nikon 50mm f1.4, Sigma 50mm f1.4 and Sigma 35mm f1.4.

Sigma has announced the 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM with optical stabilization. The new lens will be available for Canon, Nikon, Sigma, Sony and Pentax mounts. Combination of a 13.9x zoom with Optical Stabilization and Hypersonic Motor will surely attract lot of users. Well Tamron 18-270mm VC is still the Zoom king of the DSLR superzooms but Sigma is getting closer with this attempt.

One thing I wonder is that if the Optical Stabilization will be offered with the Sony and Pentax mount versions, because as you know these bodies already have their own in-body stabilization system and the 3rd party lens manufacturers did remove this feature on the previous models in the past due to this reason. The next question would be what happens if in-lens stabilization and in-body stabilization can work together? Lets wait and see...

Sigma 18-250mm DC OS HSM Specifications and Press Release:

The new Olympus SP-590UZ ultra-mega-super-hyper zoom digital camera offers a whopping 26x wide-angle optical zoom lens that covers an 26-676mm focal length (35mm equivalent). AdWith the use optical system reach up to a focal length of 1149mm. The SP-590UZ also offers a 12 MP image sensor, 2.7 inch LCD screen, Dual Image Stabilisation, P/A/S/M exposure modes, built-in flash and wireless flash control. The Olympus SP-590UZ will be available in early March 2009 for $449.99 / £360.

Olympus SP-590UZ Press Release:

Canon has finally updated the firmware for the EOS 5D Mark II in order to address the famous black dot and vertical banding problems. See the notes from Canon below regarding Firmware Version 1.0.7

Firmware Changes:

I came across this Photoshop action by Noel Carboni which is claiming to remove the famous Black Dot problem of Canon 5D Mark II that occurs in certain conditions. Actually there are two actions: One that removes black dots to the right of the lights and one that removes them from above. I haven't tested the actions myself but samples and discussions on the forums shows that it does work. Great Job Noel!

As you know, Canon already accepted the problem along with the banding issue, and I hope they come up with a final solution for this problem very soon, something that will not require an action or any kind of post processing of course.

I have to confess that I had been ignoring Adobe Lightroom for a long time, without a real reason. What a shame! I still like Photoshop, no other software in my opinion offers the advanced tools and flexibility that it does. But do I really need all these tools for my daily photo processing? I don't think so. When you have to manage and process hundreds or thousands of photos, speed and simplicity gets more crucial. Lightroom covers 90% of my editing requirements, and for the rest I use Photoshop. (If you haven't tried yet, you can download a 30-day trial version of Lightroom 2 here)

Presets even makes things better for Lightroom. I know advanced users will prefer to use their own settings but still there will be times when you want apply a specified set of settings with a single click. This is where the presets come in to play.

Yesterday I have found this post on Digital Freak, with a download link to a collection of 600+ free Lightroom Presets. I didn't have time to play with all of them yet but wanted to share with you first. Some of the presets are very useful, some of them not, but it is always possible to fine tune the presets and provide more desirable effects, or totally delete the ones you don't like and keep the rest.

If you have difficulty installing and managing the presets, I recommend you to read this very helpful tutorial on Prophotoshow.com

As the Full Frame DSLRs get more and more affordable (excluding NikonD3x!), we started to see more detailed and comprehensive comparisons of these models on the web:

Fotografie.fr compared Nikon D3 with D3x for resolution, detail rendering and noise at different iso settings. The results are quite interesting as the high ISO noise levels of the 24 MP D3x is very close to 12 MP D3 which is known as the high ISO king! Moreover, D3x manages to provide more detail compared to D3, no matter how high ISO it is at. This is an incredible achievement by the Nikon engineering team without a doubt.

But don't get too excited, Canon 5D Mark II offers similar resolution at 21 MP and comparable High ISO performance to D3x, and costs $2.700 body only: $5.300 less than the D3x! Not to mention the Sony A900 at $3.000, with the same level of details (although can't keep up with the other two over ISO 1600), class-leading dynamic range, in-body image stabilization and an almost perfect viewfinder. See this "Pixel Peeping Extravaganza" for yourself on Luminous Landscapes.

Photography Bay published an in-depth ISO comparison of Canon 5D Mark II vs. Nikon D700. Original Full-resolution files are also available to download, good news for the pixel-peepers! I wish they had chosen a better sample photo (doesn't give much idea about the effects of high ISO on colors).

You may have noticed that we have been running a poll "What DSLR do you have!" on Photolectic for couple of months. The results of our user poll are quite similar to the BCM Ranking -Top 20 Best Selling DSLRs in japan for the Year 2008 - results that we mentioned in the previous post. Except this time Canon is leading with 41.2% and Nikon follows by 38.6%. Sony has the third place by 8.0%, followed by Pentax and Olympus with 4.9% and 4.6% in order. Thanks everyone who has participated in our Poll. Here are the results of the first Photolectic reader poll:

What DSLR do you have?